PANAMA CITY — The bloodstains were still fresh in Tavish Greene’s car as he recounted for police the events leading to his passenger getting shot in the head.
Panama City detectives took a break from questioning Greene to check his story against the blood splatter in the Navigator, which didn’t catch a bullet itself. Blood coated the passenger and back seats where 19-year-old Jshun Smith, Greene’s cousin, was shot following a heated argument outside KJs Lounge at 908 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. A blood smear was left on the back quarter panel from where Smith tumbled out of the vehicle and onto the street near the intersection with 10th Street as Greene fled.
Greene initially denied seeing the shooter’s face, and investigators asked him why he didn’t turn back to look as he sped from the parking lot.
“That’s how I get safe,” Greene told homicide investigators at the time. “That’s how I’m safe right now. Because I got away, man.”
But he had seen the shooter, and police and his family knew that.
The subsequent disappearance of Greene, and then the discovery of his body in the trunk of a car, was the culmination of the bloodiest summer on the books to most Bay County law enforcement and judicial authorities — the death toll nearly tripling the county’s annual average. Gun-related violence had claimed the lives of 10 people in a wave of shootings throughout Bay County within about three months.
The six deaths concentrated in Panama City had many fearing the worst. Police have arrested only three people on charges of murder.
With Greene, one of the primary witnesses to the nightclub killing, being found in a trunk after allegedly receiving death threats, many wondered if the shootings and deaths that plagued the Glenwood area were connected by more than just geography. Community members also feared there could be something more villainous at play and more disruptive to law enforcement and justice: witness intimidation.
“There was talk around town this was witness retaliation, and that scared me,” said Assistant State Attorney Bob Sombathy, who is prosecuting most of the cases. “That is an attempt, through intimidation, to derail our entire system of justice.”
EZ Petro, May 24
A double-homicide initiated the summer of slayings.
Witnesses near the EZ Petro, 1307 E. Fifth St., said they were awakened at about 2 a.m. May 24 by two or three successive gunshots. The scene that unfolded out their windows was of one man sprawled motionless near the gas pumps. A second man appeared to be trying to flee before he collapsed near Bay Avenue, a block west of Williams Street.
Xavier Buckler, 23, and Marqueze McGhee, 25, both of Panama City, were shot to death at the Millville gas station, and 26-year-old Dalrico Franklin survived a shot to the leg. No one has been charged with the killings.
Only Frederic Jones, 22, of Panama City, and Antonio West Jr., 24, of Callaway, were arrested after being seen on video surveillance and identified by witnesses as being involved in a verbal altercation outside the gas station, according to their arrest records.
Police have charged Jones with aggravated battery with a firearm, which they said occurred when Franklin was shot in the leg, and West was charged with felon in possession of a firearm.
Though video exists of the shooting, no one has been charged with the deaths of Buckler or McGhee because Buckler, the man who fired first fatal shots, was himself killed in the shootout by West, who was acting in defense of McGhee, Panama City Police Chief Scott Ervin said.
Franklin was treated and released from the hospital for a gunshot wound to the leg. No charges were filed against him.
What motivated the shooting is still unclear. Many details have been withheld by investigators and the State Attorney’s Office — a strategy they deemed necessary and which they said later proved fruitful after they arrested the wrong man in the shooting death of 38-year-old Leonard Price.
Carver Road, May 28
Witness tampering cropped up first following the shooting death of Price.
Price, of Panama City, was shot multiple times in the chest and torso at close range in the yard of a Carver Road home early on May 28. Residents of Roosevelt Drive reported hearing gunshots ring out at about 12:30 a.m.
Police arrested 28-year-old Michael Ray Davis and charged him with murder. The charges were dropped in August, and investigators filed second-degree murder charges against Stephen Trusty, Davis’ brother who had been living at the same residence. An unnamed eyewitness who had intimate knowledge of the crime scene identified Trusty as the suspected shooter, police said.
The community’s fear of witness retaliation was validated by a separate charge of tampering with a witness against Trusty. While in custody, Trusty allegedly threatened a family member of the witness. Trusty told the witness he would beat the murder charges — and anyone who cooperated with law enforcement.
Investigators have not released a motive in the shooting but said it was not an act of self-defense or in defense of others.
KJ’s, June 9
A crowd of eyewitnesses leaving KJ’s Lounge at about 3 a.m. on June 9 saw the shooting of 19-year-old Jshun Smith.
Greene drove Smith, who was new to the area from Atlanta, that night to KJ’s. Witnesses said the shooting stemmed from a previous relationship between Smith’s girlfriend and his accused assailant, 24-year-old Khiry Ross. Gunfire erupted in the parking lot as the night came to a violent close, according to investigative records.
“I was like, ‘Baby, just go,’ “ the girlfriend told police. “He was like trying to get mad and stuff … and the next thing I know they start shooting.”
Greene recalled several commotions taking place near the nightclub as he waited in the cranked Navigator and Smith stood on the passenger side running board. He heard screaming between Smith and someone else before hearing one gunshot and then several successive shots. Greene gunned the car, weaving erratically to escape.
“By the time I fishtail, he sat down — he ain’t even in the car yet,” Greene said. “By the time he sat down, blood just go gushing everywhere.”
Greene fled the scene but wouldn’t escape danger in the following days.
According to the arrest report of Ross, he fired shots in the air before ducking behind a car in the parking lot and turning the gun on Smith. However, prosecutors are not expecting a self-defense argument.
“By firing his gun in the air, he instilled fear in all of the bystanders,” Sombathy said. “That is not self-defense on his part.”
Ross and Marcus Mathis, 25, were arrested in connection with the shooting. Mathis was charged as an accessory to murder. Ross was charged with second-degree murder. They are awaiting trial.
MacedoniaGardens, June 19
The youngest life taken in Panama City this summer has yet to result in a murder arrest.
Samuel McGriff Jr., 17, was shot in the stomach at about 4:30 a.m. on June 19 while standing in an outdoor common area of the Macedonia Gardens apartments on 17th Street.
“His life was taken way too soon at the age of 17,” Loyal Chip Henderson, McGriff’s cousin, wrote on a community outreach Facebook page. “Our family was robbed of his presence and now we need your help with bringing the monster(s) who took my cousin to justice.”
Police said McGriff had just left Player’s nightclub.
Henderson created No More Monsters, a Facebook page dedicated to pressuring police, after officers found McGriff shot in the stomach in the kitchen of unit C-102. Police said McGriff refused to cooperate with them the night of the shooting when they tried to get information.
McGriff was transported to a local hospital, where he was listed in stable condition that night. Early the next day, hospital personnel notified PCPD that McGriff had died.
Police released images of a van fleeing Macedonia shortly after the time of the shooting, and Sammie “Trigger Tre” Underwood III, 21, was arrested for several felonies while police announced they suspected he was connected to the slaying of McGriff. Underwood was charged June 30 with several charges of felon in possession of a firearm, ammo and drugs.
Police said DNA testing on a hat left at a crime scene led them to suspect Underwood. However, no one has been arrested for McGriff’s slaying.
Several enclaves of community watch groups began to join with churches and government agencies as a “Stop Violence” movement formed after McGriff’s death. Community members hoped raising social awareness would influence others to not resist with assisting authorities and quell any future violence or retaliation.
“This awareness will bestow courage onto the community, therefore making them feel safe and their identities secure to come forward with any informational leads,” Henderson said of the No More Monsters group. “We cannot allow these monsters to hide in our communities any longer.”
But not long after No More Monsters and Stop the Violence, the disappearance of Greene — who witnessed his cousin’s murder — would rattle an already tense community.
Eighth Court, July 24
Greene had been dead several days before July 24, when police found his body in the trunk of a white 2004 Chevy Malibu behind an abandoned home at 526 E. Eighth Court.
Family members said he had been receiving death threats before he disappeared July 20, but police were reluctant to release a missing persons report. PCPD was alerted to the vehicle at about 11 a.m. the day after BCSO issued a report. Inside the trunk, they found Green shot multiple times.
The discovery increased tension in the community and Ervin came forward in the aftermath, asking residents to stave off unconfirmed reports of trunks containing dead bodies. Police also scrambled to make an arrest in the murder of a key witness they’d interviewed only about two months earlier.
Darryl Mack, 21, Tyricka Shavon Woullard, 20, and Dontavis Terrell Thomas, 22, were arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit armed robbery for an alleged scheme.
Police reports said the three suspects lured Greene to Woullard’s residence at 3710 W. 21st St., where they planned to rob him the morning of July 19. Thomas and Mack allegedly used phone calls and text messages to draw Greene into a trap through Woullard, his ex-girlfriend. The three hid inside, waiting to ambush Greene for money and illegal narcotics, police reported.
Since then, Mack has been charged with second-degree murder and Woullard with principal to second-degree murder. Thomas was charged with the lesser charge of accessory after the fact to homicide.
In a bizarre coincidence, police officers arrested Darrian Aundre Guilford Hamilton, 36, of Oakland, Calif., and charged him with aggravated assault and felon in possession with a firearm after he fired a weapon July 26 at family members of Greene at Andrews Place apartments. No one was injured.
No premeditation
Much like all the other suspects of the summer’s slayings, no one has been accused of premeditation — indicating the lives lost were the result of a split-second decision. Authorities said they do not believe any of the shootings were calculated.
“All of these murders are devastating for the families, but it’s not nearly as villainous as we originally thought,” Sombathy said.
Since the arrests, community groups and officials have made efforts to prevent future shootings, decrease social alienation and usher in an economic engine to decrease the allure of quick money inherent in the drug trade or gang activity.
Stop the Violence has held numerous rallies, speeches and made outreach efforts in schools as the summer ended and school sessions returned. PCPD initiated a Street Crime Unit, immersing itself in the Glenwood community.
Members of the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency approved the purchase of KJ’s Lounge and 707 E. Ninth Court and an adjacent empty lot. Ervin said police received 267 calls to KJ’s since 2008 — due to 20 batteries, 17 physical disturbances, 14 discharged weapons and two homicides.
The CRA purchased the properties as part of the Downtown North Cultural District, a project geared toward establishing a stable economy in the Glenwood community while preserving its history and culture.
But despite those accomplishments, and somewhat in spite of the peoples’ efforts, what lingers at the core of human violence is an indomitable element, one that is unpredictable and unpreventable.
“With all the technology and analysis we have in this day, we still don’t have a device to predict human nature,” Ervin said. “There is no way we can tell what will push a person over that edge.”