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Versions of slaying set to collide
By CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD, Times Staff Writer
TAMPA -- The bullet that killed Jemale Wells struck in full daylight, on a sunny cul-de-sac crowded with witnesses. But there are sharply conflicting versions of how two men who had never met wound up wrestling over a .357 handgun on suburban pavement, how an afternoon of family and football ended with a 39-year-old father of two dead and a Town 'N Country dentist in handcuffs. On one side: Witnesses who say an unarmed black man was gunned down amid a flurry of racial epithets, for no crime other than being a good Samaritan. On the other: Those who say the victim contributed significantly to his own death, that even fundamental details such as who pulled the trigger remain elusive. Randy Puryear faces trial Monday, accused of second-degree murder in one of Hillsborough County's most controversial cases. It has taken more than two years to bring State vs. Puryear to trial, largely as a result of extensions requested by the defense. Free on bail, Puryear, 42, continues to practice at his Hillsborough Avenue dental office. For some members of Tampa's black community, some who knew Wells and some who didn't, the delays are an outrage, a sign that a wealthy white dentist has so far escaped justice. "If Jemale had murdered the dentist, I sincerely believe that Jemale would be in prison now," said John Daniel, 65, a friend of the Wells family. "Everybody in the community is watching this case, without a doubt." "It has nothing, nothing, nothing to do with race, and it's a shame that was thrust into this case," said Richard Escobar, one of Puryear's defense attorneys, who has fought unsuccessfully to prevent testimony about Puryear's use of racial slurs from entering the trial. "This was not charged as a hate crime." There is universal accord on little of what happened on Sunday, Sept. 10, 2000. The following accounts come from court records, which detail law enforcement interviews and depositions from dozens of witnesses. It all started, everyone agrees, with football. That afternoon, the Bucs were playing the Bears at Raymond James Stadium, and Randy Puryear was cheering from the stands. With him: a fellow dentist and 10-year acquaintance, James Doerner. Back in western Hillsborough's Countryway neighborhood, on the 11600 block of Fox Creek Drive, Jemale Wells and his two daughters, 5 and 9, were at the home of their next-door neighbor, Dennis Wall, watching the Bucs game. With them was another neighbor, David Fish Sr. Outside, local boys were playing their own game of football. One of them was Fish's 11-year-old son, David Fish Jr. It was about 4 p.m. Other local boys, Gus Fernandez, 13, and Robert Toney, 12, arrived on a motor scooter. The younger Fish says Gus almost ran over another boy's toys with the scooter. "I don't want you riding your Go-Ped down here," David Fish Jr. told Gus, as Gus recalls. A scuffle between David and Gus ensued. An adult, Edward Stockton, says he broke up the fight and took Fish Jr. to his father. Witnesses say Fish Sr., who appeared intoxicated, came outside and encouraged his son to keep fighting with the other boy. The tussle picked up again, leaving David Fish Jr. with a bloody nose. That was when Wells, a stocky former U.S. Army intelligence officer known for mediating disputes on the local homeowners board, walked into the events that would culminate in his death. "Oh, you all shouldn't be fighting, man, you all are kids," Wells told the boys, as Gus recalls. "You all should get along." Robert Toney, Gus' 12-year-old friend, was standing nearby. By Robert's account, Wells grabbed him by the arm and lifted him in the air, yelling at him to leave the neighborhood and not to return. Dennis Wall says Wells put his hand on the boy's back and told him to "Get on home," but did not grab him. The boy went home down the block and complained to his mother, Sherri Toney, that Wells pushed him. Sherri Toney, 37, a divorced single mother, worked as a dental assistant at the office of Dr. Randy Puryear. She had been dating Puryear since a 1994 jaunt to the Cayman Islands with him. They were engaged, though Puryear once had her arrested for hiding his car keys. She would later tell investigators that Puryear was "very protective" and had been "very dear for my children," helping pay for her older son Brian's college expenses and his high school graduation party. Long before that Sunday afternoon, tension had simmered between Sherri Toney, who is white, and Wells, who was black. She said Wells had consistently complained about her son Robert skating on the street. During one confrontation, neighbor Dennis Wall remembers, she called Wells a "n-----." Now she came driving down the cul-de-sac in her car to confront Wells about touching her son. David Fish Sr. says she arrived spewing racial epithets and charged out of her car at Wells, who sidestepped her. Sherri Toney, however, claims Wells grabbed her by the neck and pushed her down and that her arm was bleeding. She says she crawled back to her car and tried to call 911, but the call didn't go through. Instead, she called Puryear. The dentist was just leaving Raymond James Stadium when his cell phone rang. Justina Torres, a 12-year-old girl, says she overheard what Toney told Puryear on the phone: "That f------ n----- just threw me down." Dennis Wall recalls what was on Wells' mind: "She called me a n----- again." Puryear arrived at the cul-de-sac in his Chrysler convertible. He brought a Ruger .357. His fiancee said he regularly kept it behind the passenger seat. According to Fish Sr. and Wall, the dentist waved the gun and yelled racial epithets at Wells. Neighbors tried to restrain Wells while he yelled, "Shoot me! Shoot me then!" Wells broke free, charged Puryear, and tackled him. "He went at that gun," Wall says. Defense attorneys say that when the gun went off, Wells and Puryear were in the midst of a melee that also involved Brian Pieniazek, Toney's 18-year-old son, and David Fish Sr. Defense attorneys claim that amid the grappling, it was not even clear who pulled the trigger. The defense's key witness will likely be James Doerner, Puryear's dentist friend, who claims Puryear didn't pull the gun until after Wells knocked him down with a punch. Lawyers say the trial, which will involve dozens of witness, could last up to three weeks. Sherri Toney still works for Puryear and answers the phone at his office, though she says their relationship has ended. The case has long been controversial, starting with the manslaughter charge initially filed against Puryear. Manslaughter involves a death stemming from an act of "culpable negligence," in which the responsible party did not mean to cause death. After public protests that the charge was too soft, the then-state attorney upgraded it to second-degree murder, which is a homicide resulting from "an act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind without regard for human life." Puryear also faces two counts of aggravated assault with a firearm for allegedly waving his gun at Wall and Fish Sr., and one count of carrying a concealed firearm. He faces life in prison if convicted. Prosecutors hope to paint a picture of a hot-tempered, epithet-spewing Puryear, though it is uncertain how much jurors will be allowed to hear about his past. That includes a 1989 battery charge in which Puryear was accused of punching and kicking a man after a traffic accident. The state eventually dropped the case. One name on the state's witness list: Scott Sexton, a Tampa contractor who claims he spent four months remodeling Puryear's office in exchange for dental work Puryear never performed. Puryear once showed Sexton a .357 and said "if he killed a nobody . . . he would get away with it because he was a doctor," according to Sexton's account to investigators. Sexton took it as a threat. Brendan Murphy, a Tampa man, said he arrived for a dental appointment at Puryear's office in January 2000, but his name wasn't on the appointment list. When he remonstrated, Murphy said, Puryear stormed forward and confronted him physically. "He said, "Get the f--- out of my office, or I'll kick your a--,"' said Murphy. "The man demonstrated a very nasty temper. I've never seen anything like it." -- Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Christopher Goffard can be reached at (813) 226-3337 or goffard@sptimes.com
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