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Deputies investigate Palm Harbor death

Neighbors find the body of the Patty Ann Acres man after a call from his vacationing mother. Detectives hint it may be suicide.

PALM HARBOR - Vacationing in New Hampshire, Ingeborg Smith grew concerned when she couldn't reach the adult son who lives with her.

She asked neighbors to check on him. When no one answered the door a day or two ago, she said it was okay for them to go back and break in. Friday afternoon, a neighbor jimmied open a rear sliding glass door and found Rhae Smith's body inside the house at 225 Laughing Gull Lane.

Pinellas County sheriff's detectives initially called the death suspicious and fanned out through the Patty Ann Acres neighborhood. Several hours later, they weren't saying how Smith, 47, had died but were leaning away from saying that someone else killed him.

Investigators will wait for an autopsy, sheriff's Lt. Steve Shipman said Friday night.

"We don't believe it's a homicide," Shipman said.

Smith had trauma to his upper body and there was blood at the scene.

"There was an item found that is a potential weapon," Shipman said. Later, he said, "the trauma that we found is unusual for a suicide, but it can be."

The cream stucco home had no signs of a burglary or break-in. Nothing was missing from the house, and both cars were in the garage.

Neighbors described Rhae Smith as friendly, though a bit odd. He jogged often and routinely walked more than a mile and a half to the grocery store. He usually wore a T-shirt, cutoff dungarees and a cap, talked about having a junk mail collection and shared theories about UFOs and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"He'd come down here and have a beer and we'd chit-chat," said Tom Robbins, 55, who lives two doors away.

"This is such a real quiet and good neighborhood that it stuns you when something like this happens," said Normand LeBlanc, 60.

Ironically, however, the same house on Laughing Gull Lane was the scene of a similar investigation 15 years ago.

In 1988, the body of a previous resident, 47-year-old June L. Mobley, was found on the garage floor by her son. She had suffered trauma to the upper body, and detectives classified her death as a homicide.

That case remains unsolved, Shipman said.

-- Researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report.