Pasco detectives working with North Carolina authorities tracked down the man, who was with the girl before she died.
By STEVE THOMPSON
Published October 29, 2003
Joshan Ashbrook was found dead in the brush next to Shady Hills Road on Aug. 1, 2002. Fifteen months and one lawsuit later, the Pasco County Sheriff's Office says it has hunted down the man who broke the 16-year-old's neck, slashed her throat and dumped her body.
Phillup Alan Partin, 38, who was indicted Sept. 17 on a first-degree murder charge in the case, was arrested Tuesday in North Carolina.
Monday night, two Pasco sheriff's detectives had driven there, hoping the leads they had been passing to North Carolina authorities for months had finally panned out. Homicide detectives in Fayetteville, N.C., had told them they were getting close.
At about 1 p.m. Tuesday, detectives spotted the blue Jeep Cherokee they were looking for. Alone inside they found Partin and arrested him without incident, according to Major Sam Pennica of the Cumberland County (N.C.) Sheriff's Office.
Sgt. John Corbin, who oversees the Pasco Sheriff's detectives on the case, said Tuesday that he was relieved Partin is finally off the streets.
"The bottom line is it was just old fashioned police work," Corbin said of how they tracked Partin down. "Checking addresses and phone numbers and locations of the type of work he does. We just got lucky."
Partin had been working for an air conditioning company in the area.
During the summer of 2002, Partin left his home in North Carolina and moved to Florida, where he stayed with a friend in Port Richey, court records show. Partin brought along his 7-year-old daughter, and they stayed in a guest bedroom at the friend's house.
On July 31, 2002, Partin picked up Joshan, who was hitchhiking, and took her back to the guest bedroom of his friend's home on Buchanan Drive, the records say. Partin's daughter told detectives that the three of them spent the day in the house and played video games that night. The 7-year-old girl said she later fell asleep.
Detectives investigating Joshan's death said they found her blood on the walls and carpet of that guest bedroom. But Partin, who had been released from prison in 1995 for a previous murder conviction, could not be found.
Joshan's mother, Tara Ramsdell, has blamed the Sheriff's Office for her daughter's death and had become increasingly frustrated that the Sheriff's Office had not found her killer. The 16-year-old had struggled with drugs and on July 29, 2002, Ramsdell sought the court's help. At Ramsdell's urging, a judge had ordered Joshan be taken into custody for her own good under the Marchman Act.
But deputies from the Pasco County Sheriff's Office never picked her up. She ran away from her mother's New Port Richey home in the early morning hours of July 31, 2002. Joshan's body was found the following day.
A 2002 internal investigation found that the Sheriff's Office had not followed its policy on responding to Marchman Act orders for at least five years.
Earlier this month, Ramsdell filed a wrongful-death suit against the Sheriff's Office, contending that had deputies followed a court order and taken Joshan into custody, she would not have been slain.
The Times could not reach Ramsdell on Tuesday for comment on Partin's arrest.
During a news conference by North Carolina authorities about his arrest, Partin tried to cover his face as he was lead past cameras on his way to jail.
He kicked at one television camera man as he walked by, Pennica said. "He was not in a good mood."
At a hearing scheduled for today, authorities will ask a judge to return Partin to Pasco County for trial.
- Steve Thompson covers crime in Pasco County. He can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6245, or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6245. His e-mail address is sthompson@sptimes.com
