A jury didn't believe Kenneth Wayne Gregory's assertion that his girlfriend's death was an accident.
By COLLEEN JENKINS
Published October 14, 2004
NEW PORT RICHEY - Kenneth Wayne Gregory said he didn't mean to kill his girlfriend during a drunken fight last year.
Twelve Pasco County jurors didn't buy his story.
On Wednesday, a jury found the 37-year-old Hudson man guilty of first-degree murder. Moments later, Senior Judge Robert Beach sentenced Gregory to life in prison without possibility of parole.
It was a speedy resolution for a murder that authorities didn't even hear about until two months after it occurred. The body of Dawn Robinson, a 36-year-old mother of five, was discovered in a wooded area near Old Dixie Highway in Hudson after several of Gregory's friends told detectives the man had admitted to killing his girlfriend and dumping her there.
But the linchpin in the state's case was a video that showed Gregory meticulously demonstrating for detectives how he strangled Robinson and then taking them to where he buried her body.
"Doesn't he have pretty good recall for a guy who was drunk?" Assistant State Attorney Mike Halkitis said during his closing argument.
Few facts in the case were disputed by the prosecution or defense. Both sides acknowledged the couple were heavily intoxicated when they returned from a party to Gregory's mobile home on Redfish Street in the early morning hours of Feb. 7, 2003.
Both said Robinson yelled, "Kill me! Kill me!" as Gregory threw his microwave and punched out windows after she told him about her sexual exploits with other men.
But defense attorney Sam Williams argued that Robinson so taunted and goaded her boyfriend that she provoked him into choking her in the heat of passion. That, he said, meant the most his client could be found guilty of was manslaughter.
"Where's the premeditation when you have two people out of control?" he asked jurors.
Halkitis countered that Gregory had plenty of time to consider his actions. At least three to five minutes to be exact, he said - the time a medical examiner testified it takes the average person to die of strangulation.
The prosecutor placed a clock on the lawyers' podium to show jurors just how long three minutes took.
"Is that enough time for reflection?" he said. "Three minutes is more than enough time."
Prosecutors initially sought the death penalty in the case against Gregory. But they withdrew that intent, Halkitis said, after deciding there were insufficient grounds for the toughest punishment.
Thus, the jury's guilty verdict left only one sentencing option: life in prison.
Robinson's family members, including her 16-year-old daughter Jasmine Myers, chose not to comment to reporters after the verdict was announced.
Gregory also had nothing to say - to the judge or the media.
No words could justify this case, Judge Beach said, noting that he felt alcohol had played an important part in the tragedy.
"Alcohol is a devastating chemical," he said. "It ruins a lot of lives."
Colleen Jenkins covers courts in west Pasco County. She can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6236 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6236. Her e-mail address is cjenkins@sptimes.com
