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Motive for slayings eludes authorities
By MARY SPICUZZA NEW PORT RICHEY -- By this morning, it will have been three days since Pasco sheriff's deputies found the first victims of the triple murder and suicide. What they still haven't found is any motive for the killings. And sheriff's spokesman Kevin Doll said on Wednesday he doesn't know if they ever will. "Those closest to him are the ones who would be able to answer those questions," Doll said. "And they're dead." Doll wouldn't say whether drugs were found in the home of Neil David Powers, the 31-year-old man who, deputies say, fatally shot his mother and stepfather. Deputies say he also shot and killed Kim Bubenik, the man house-sitting next door to his family's Parison Drive home. The medical examiner is doing tests to determine whether Powers was on drugs when he killed three people before turning the gun on himself. Doll said it could take six weeks for results. Family members said in recent years Powers became addicted to painkillers and heroin. But they thought his drug abuse problems were behind him. "He wanted to go down to Florida and get his head straight," his stepmother, Arlene Powers, of Connecticut said. "We thought he was doing so well." Last month she had talked to Powers' mother and stepfather, Susan and William Betties, who said he was a "joy to have around." Neighbors who knew Powers agreed. But they said he had a mysterious night life that might have involved drug abuse. "He used to go out at night all the time," said 77-year-old Emma Thornton, the Bettieses' close friend and next door neighbor. "He would come home in the early morning. Nobody knew where he went." The Thortons said they knew Powers smoked marijuana and had money problems since he moved from Connecticut in October. But they didn't know if he was using harder drugs. University of South Florida professor Donna Cohen has spent 10 years studying murder-suicides. She said about a quarter of the nation's murder-suicides happen in Florida. Cohen said it's common that the perpetrator kills those closest to him, and about 20 percent of murder-suicides are familial. She said they often are committed at a time when something is happening to change that relationship. If neighbors are right, and Susan Betties had been supporting Powers but told him she could no longer afford to do so, he might have felt rejected and humiliated, Cohen said. "The person who does it is very strongly attached but perceives that something is threatening his ability to hold on," Cohen said. She said it's also common that drugs and depression are involved. What's unusual is that he also killed the man staying next door. "The rare part of this is that there was a nonfamily member involved," Cohen said. The man who found Kim Bubenik's body, Alan Daniel, said neighbors knew Bubenik was house-sitting for a gun collector, Thomas Lanfair of 7143 Parison Drive. He said Bubenik, his friend of 15 years, merely got in the way of Powers getting the 9mm pistol he used to kill his family. Daniel said he didn't know why else Powers would want his friend dead. His only other explanation was drug abuse. "I don't really know people on drugs," Daniel said. "But I do know what a few beers can do to somebody." -- Mary Spicuzza can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6232 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6232. Her e-mail address is spicuzza@sptimes.com.
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From today's Pasco Times Editorial Letters |
