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During an interrogation, the man accused of murder gives three different accounts.
By CHASE SQUIRES, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 16, 2003
DADE CITY -- At first, Jonathan Dye "Cowboy" Jones told investigators he didn't know what they were talking about. Then he knew all about it.
Either way, he said, he didn't do it.
As they questioned Jones in January 2001, investigators flat out called him a liar. They arrested him and charged him with first-degree murder in the Jan. 6, 2001, shooting death of Florentino Cano, 47.
On Tuesday, prosecutors rested their case against Jones in Circuit Court. As their last piece of evidence, they showed jurors a 90-minute videotaped interview Jones sat for with Pasco County Sheriff's Office detectives.
As the jury watched, Jones, 36, changed his story twice.
The tape started with Jones alone in a room, apparently unaware he was being recorded. He whistled a little while waiting for the detectives.
"My head hurts," he told detective James Medley when he walked into the room. "I'd like to know what the charge is. Do I need my attorney present? I want to find out what's going on."
When Medley told him he was accused of Cano's killing, Jones reacted.
"I had nothing to do with it," he said.
Jones suggested Medley question Heather Price, one of two admitted crack-addicted prostitutes who ended up the star witnesses against Jones.
Price, Jones said, was going around town trying to sell a gun, and she had a lot of cash to buy crack with.
The only thing he knew, Jones said, was that maybe he had dropped off Price and fellow prostitute Toya Hicks at Cano's Dade City mobile home a couple of weeks earlier.
Medley challenged the story.
Jones changed his mind.
Jones said he did actually drop the women off at Cano's home on Jan. 6, but he never went inside.
"I never got out of the truck, Heather's trying to sell a derringer, you put it together," Jones told Medley.
A few minutes later, after Medley insisted Price and Hicks and others told a different story, Jones changed his mind again.
What really happened, Jones said, was the women were screaming inside the mobile home, and he burst in to rescue them. Cano, he said, had tied Price up and was sexually assaulting her.
Jones said he kicked Cano off Price, then narrowly dodged a knife Cano swung at him before punching the orange grove supervisor in the face.
But that was all that happened, Jones said.
He told Medley that Price told him everything was okay, and he went outside to wait for her. While he was waiting, he might have heard a noise, he said. Maybe Price shot Cano with the derringer, he said.
"I have no choice but to arrest you, you understand that?" Medley asked as the tape concluded.
"No, I don't," Jones said.
During three days of testimony that began Saturday, witnesses -- including Price and Hicks -- testified Jones went with the two women to Cano's house to pull a scam. While Jones waited outside, the women were going to occupy Cano with sex and steal his wallet.
But when Cano fought for the wallet, Jones came in and shot Cano four times with a .22-caliber pistol, killing him on the spot, according to witnesses.
Jones faces life in prison if convicted.
Appointed defense attorneys Sam Williams and John Swisher fought to keep the interview tape out of the trial, but they offered no defense case after the state rested.
Attorneys for both sides are expected to offer closing arguments today before turning the case over to the jury of eight women and four men.