Police say neighbors reported screaming, loud banging and gunshots. The victim was found inside an apartment.
By BABITA PERSAUD and BRADY DENNIS
Published May 22, 2003
TAMPA - Tampa police charged an Army sergeant from MacDill Air Force Base with murder Wednesday after finding his girlfriend bleeding to death on the floor of the West Shore apartment they shared.
Sgt. Richard Williams Jr., 23, was taken into custody Wednesday morning after an 11-hour search near Camden Bayside apartments.
Police were summoned to the apartment complex late Tuesday with reports of an argument and gunshots. Officers found Williams' girlfriend, Constance Shanieka Culbreth, 20, in a pool of blood inside the couple's apartment at 6301 S West Shore Blvd.
Williams and Culbreth shared the lease on Apt. 712 at Camden Bayside. Tuesday night, they had come home a little before 10:30 p.m., driving in separate cars, a security guard at the complex told police.
Neighbors heard screaming, loud banging and then finally gunshots, said police spokeswoman Katie Hughes.
When officers arrived, the front door was open.
Williams was gone. Culbreth was lying on her side on the living room floor.
Officers swarmed the apartment, leaving a trail of yellow crime scene tape from the parking lot to the third-floor apartment.
A tip from customers near a Walgreens led to Williams' arrest. At 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, 11 hours after the shooting, Williams was found standing under a tree behind the Walgreens at the corner of West Shore and Gandy boulevards, about a mile and a half from the scene, Hughes said.
He was taken into custody without incident. A handgun, believed to have been used in the murder, was on him, she said.
Williams is being held at the Orient Road jail without bail on a first-degree murder charge. It is the second violent death in recent months involving U.S. Central Command personnel.
In December, Marine Sgt. James Coleman, 24, was charged with choking his 19-year-old girlfriend, Jessica Hine, to death. He also was accused of keeping the body of Hine's dead infant son in the freezer.
Like Coleman, Williams had lived at a Camden apartment complex off West Shore Boulevard, although not the same complex. Coleman lived at Camden at 4800 West Shore Drive. Williams at Camden Bayside, 6301 West Shore.
And like Coleman, Williams had a previous arrest for assaulting a pregnant woman.
Three months before being arrested for murder, Coleman was charged with misdemeanor battery on Hine, who was 8 months pregnant.
Last July, Williams was charged with aggravated battery on a pregnant woman, but the charges were later dropped. Hughes said the woman Williams was charged with assaulting was not Culbreth.
U.S. Central Command public relations released few details on Williams, saying only that he was in the Army and assigned to headquarters at CentCom.
Records show he once lived in New York and Pensacola. Culbreth is from North Carolina.
Last summer, Fort Bragg, N.C., the home of the Army Special Forces, was the site of five killings involving Army couples.
Since then, the Army has expanded family services programs at its bases. MacDill AFB already has a family counseling program.
The Army is also searching for answers. None of the Fort Bragg men knew one another. Three were special operations soldiers who recently returned from Afghanistan. Another connection reported was the use of Lariam, a popular antimalarial drug that has been cited in lawsuits as contributing to psychological problems, including suicide.
It was unknown Wednesday if Williams or Coleman took Lariam.
