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Woman killed, police search for boyfriend
By GRAHAM BRINK, Times Staff Writer TAMPA -- For Carmen Winter and her boyfriend Jesus C. More, the night deteriorated over drinks at the La Rumba nightclub on Columbus Drive. The couple argued, witnesses said, then headed out the door early Monday morning, back to Winter's home on Arch Street, a block east of Howard Avenue. An hour or so later, Winter was dead and More was the chief suspect in the killing. The woman's 12-year-old son found her body in the back of her Mitsubishi Gallant, a bloody concrete block nearby. "We believe the suspect used the concrete block to strike the victim several times in the upper body," said Tampa police spokesman Joe Durkin. "They had had some prior domestic violence incidents." Detectives obtained a first-degree murder warrant for More, who remained at large late Monday. More, 36, who sometimes goes by the nickname "Yellow," is from the Virgin Islands and has no known Tampa address, according to the Tampa Police Department. He had stayed with Winter on-and-off for about a month. A witness near Winter's home heard a disturbance at about 2:30 a.m. but was unsure what was going on and did not report it, according to police reports. Just after 7 a.m., as he was headed to school, the boy found his mother and told a neighbor, who called 911. Brian Gibson, who stayed a few houses away, said he didn't hear anything unusual Sunday night, nor had he heard the couple fight before. "This might not be the best neighborhood in the city," Gibson said. "But this type of crime doesn't happen very often." Winter, 34, worked as a tax preparer and had four children ranging in age from 4 to 14, court records showed. She was also raising her 13-year-old nephew and her 10-year-old niece, Durkin said. The children were at home, except for the 14-year-old, but none witnessed what happened. They are staying with a relative. Winter and the children lived in a rundown one-story wood home, on a street that included a few dilapidated homes next to others with well-kept lawns and new paint jobs. "She seemed to have her hands full," Gibson said. "She had a lot of people to look after." The police urged anyone with information about the incident to call Detective K.B. Morris at (813) 276-3554 or CrimeStoppers at (800) 873-8477. -- Times news researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Graham Brink can be reached at (813) 226-3365 or brink@sptimes.com.
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From the Times |
