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Man held in killings of girlfriend, three others

HARDAWAY - A man admitted shooting and killing his girlfriend and three of her relatives, including a 9-year-old cousin, apparently because he was angry after she broke up with him, officials said Tuesday.

They said Willie Sentille Smith, 21, will likely be charged with four counts of first-degree murder for the Monday night shootings at a mobile home in the western Gadsden County, northwest of Tallahassee near the Florida-Georgia border.

Smith apparently first shot his girlfriend's 35-year-old mother, Deondra Scott, sheriff's Maj. Ed Spooner said. Smith's 19-year-old girlfriend, Kimberly Walker, and her 14-year-old sister, Laterica Jackson, fled into another room and locked the door, but Smith kicked the door down and shot them, Spooner said. He then allegedly shot the young boy, Terrel Brown, who had been playing video games in another room. All the victims had been shot more than once with a .22-caliber rifle.

Smith went to his mother's house in nearby Gretna and turned himself in to a deputy who lived nearby, Spooner said.

"I just lost it. I killed all of them," Spooner quoted Smith as telling the deputy.

MIAMI - Three men concocted a perjury plot to boost the chance of convicting four Miami police officers accused of beating a handcuffed suspect, an indictment unsealed Tuesday alleges.

The government's opening witness, Armando Rodriguez, was still on the stand earlier this year when he admitted lying. The retrial ended in January with dismissal of the charges and public embarrassment for federal prosecutors.

Alexander Anazco claimed he was beaten for throwing a rock at a patrol car. Anazco, his father and family friend Rodriguez now are charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice by concocting the story. If convicted, father and son could face 10 years in federal prison and the friend five.

Prosecutors dropped the police prosecution but never backed away from Anazco's allegations, backed by his bloody clothing.

The same prosecutors have won convictions of nine of 13 Miami officers charged with protecting fellow officers by covering up guns planted after four questionable police shootings from 1995 to 1997. Three officers charged in the 1997 Anazco beating were convicted in the shooting coverups.

BRADENTON - Police on Tuesday arrested a 65-year-old man who allegedly held his 67-year-old wife prisoner in their Bradenton home for two weeks.

Police said Jurl D. Groves, who is retired, thought his wife, Edith Groves, was having an affair. He set up elaborate traps, such as fragile glassware attached to string trip wire, to alert him to any movement by her in their house at 6212 38th Ave. W. He also had disabled all phones, and slept at night on an air mattress in front of their bedroom door, police said, and had threatened to shoot his wife.

On Tuesday morning, police said, Mrs. Groves ran from their house to a neighbor's home when her husband left the garage door open. She called police, who arrived within minutes.

Mrs. Groves denied having any affair.

Jurl Groves was charged with domestic battery and false imprisonment and was being held at the Manatee County jail in lieu of $8,500 bail.

- Bradenton Herald and wire reports