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CHRIS TISCHClarence "Whitey" Leerdam is found guilty of the attempted murder of his former girlfriend and a man he found in bed with her.
LARGO - The way Clarence "Whitey" Leerdam tells it, his plan was to sneak into his ex-girlfriend's house, climb into her bed as she slept and put the .38-caliber Smith and Wesson revolver to his head.
One problem: On the night he tried to sneak into her house, there was another man in her bed.
Leerdam unloaded several shots at the couple, missing his ex but hitting her new boyfriend in the hand.
Deputies arrested Leerdam on two counts of first-degree attempted murder and other charges. On Thursday, a jury took about 90 minutes to convict Leerdam of the charges.
Under Florida's 10-20-life law, Judge Brandt Downey must sentence Leerdam to at least 25 years in prison. Sentencing is set for July 31.
For Leerdam, who turns 70 next month and has health problems, it will essentially be a death sentence, said his attorney, Denis de Vlaming.
"I feel badly for Whitey that the sentence he's going to receive is 25 years to life," de Vlaming said. "To end his life in such a manner is sad."
But some of the strongest evidence against Leerdam didn't draw sympathy from jurors.
Deputies reported that, while in the back of a squad car after his arrest, Leerdam said something to the effect of: "Six shots. I missed her. I can't believe I didn't kill her."
He told a cab driver earlier that night that he wanted to kill his girlfriend.
In addition, a videotape taken during a jail visit recorded him saying: "I wish I would have finished it off now. . . . At least I would have been accused of something where I got some results."
Prosecutor Thane Covert found that statement compelling.
"I think that was probably a pretty convincing piece of evidence because it was certainly after he had time to relect on what he had done," Covert said.Leerdam once was the namesake of one of Indian Rocks Beach's most ill-reputed bars: Whitey's Beach Place at 2405 Gulf Blvd. An undercover drug sweep at the bar last year resulted in 18 arrests. In 2001, a man died after a fight in the bar parking lot. Leerdam sold the bar after his arrest.
Both his ex-girlfriend, Doreen Delguidice, 42, and the man he shot, Chris Bililis, 46, have sued him for negligence.
According to de Vlaming, Leerdam had been seeing Delguidice. He bought her an expensive diamond ring and proposed marriage, but the relationship dissolved.
"He hated the idea of losing her," de Vlaming said. "He was absolutely enamored by her."
Delguidice said Leerdam stalked her, spray-painted her house and broke in. She got a restraining order.
At the time, de Vlaming said, Leerdam was drinking a half-gallon of vodka per day.
"He started in the morning and ended in the morning," he said.
In the early morning hours of Oct. 3, he took a cab to Delguidice's house, in the Largo area. Delguidice and Bililis heard the car running and looked out a window.
They heard the front door open, then footsteps thumping up the stairs to the bedroom. Leerdam barged into the room, pistol in hand.
"Who's that?" Bililis yelled.
"It's Whitey!" Delguidice said.
"You're (expletive) right!" Leerdam yelled. He started firing.
Bililis threw Delguidice in the bathroom and grabbed an ironing board. Delguidice was shaken, but unhurt. Bililis was hit in the hand.
Deputies found Leerdam hiding in some bushes near the house and arrested him.
De Vlaming tried to convince jurors that Leerdam's actions were not premeditated.
During his testimony, Leerdam explained that he meant to shoot himself that night in front of Delguidice, but that plans changed when he found a man in the bedroom.
De Vlaming said he tried to offer a five-year prison sentence as a plea deal to prosecutors. But because of the serious nature of the crime, Covert said, negotiations never got close.
- Chris Tisch can be reached at 445-4156 or tisch@sptimes.com