PANAMA CITY — A Panama City man accused of murder would rather face a possible life sentence than admit to violating his probation by revealing his alibi.
Panama City police found the lifeless body of Leonard Price, 38, in a grass area separating the residential backyards between Carver and Washington drives. Residents of the neighborhood reported gunshots at about 12:30 a.m. Wednesday and led police to where Price had been shot multiple times at close range.
Two eyewitnesses saw the shooting, according to police records. Both identified Michael Ray Davis’ address, 511 E. 13th St., as being the residence to which the shooter fled, nearly 700 feet from the crime scene. One identified the 28-year-old Davis as the shooter in a photo lineup. Police later arrested Davis and charged him with Price’s murder.
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Davis said he could hear two or three gunshots from his whereabouts. However, he declined to reveal his exact location, fearing the admission would amount to a violation of his probation.
“As far as the murder case, I’m going to beat that hands down,” Davis said during an interview Thursday. “If I wasn’t on a 7-to-7 curfew, I could tell you where to go to get video footage to prove I was on video at the time of the shooting, and I wasn’t on the scene.”
Davis generally places himself in or around his front yard at the time of the shooting, stating his live-in girlfriend could attest to the fact. He said he has not owned a gun since his 2007 conviction for numerous drug charges — nonviolent offenses — and said he tries to adhere to his probation by staying close to home after 7 p.m.
“You do six-and-half years in prison, you want to be outside as much as possible,” Davis said. “When I get home at seven; all I do is stand in my front yard, watch cars go by, look at trees and think.”
Arrest records indicate Price was targeted in the shooting, and the act was not committed in defense of himself or others. However, Davis said he met the victim once about a month before. Price was walking near the MLK Jr. Boulevard and 15th Street intersection with a bandaged head wound. Price told him he received the wound in a botched theft attempt, Davis said. He recognized Price from police descriptions along those lines but had no other ties or relationship to him.
“Only reason I remember who he was is from when the detectives went to talking about him,” Davis said. “Everybody in the neighborhood had been talking about some dude running around, robbing and stealing.”
Most police documents have been withheld from the public with PCPD citing the case as an ongoing investigation. Attempts to contact the case detective went unanswered Friday.