Father's murderous rage had emerged before
Robert O'Mara chased his then-wife in a rage, she told deputies - seven weeks before he wounded her and killed their two children and himself.
By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER
Published December 14, 2004
TAMPA - Five days before a Hillsborough judge finalized their divorce, Robert O'Mara broke into the Heritage Harbor home he had shared with Patricia Parra-Perez and chased her through the house in a drunken rage.
"He ran after me as I ran down the hall," Parra-Perez, 40, told Hillsborough sheriff's deputies after the Oct. 21 incident, detailed in a report released Monday.
"He smelled and acted drunk," Parra-Perez said. "I was afraid he was going to throw me down the stairs."
Friday night - seven weeks after that incident - he shot Parra-Perez in the head with a .38-caliber Taurus revolver.
Then, standing in the driveway of her new home in Lutz, he fatally shot their 12-year-old son Sean and 13-year-old daughter Lauren. Finally, he shot himself in the head, according to sheriff's investigators who found him dead on Le Clare Shores Drive.
He had five more bullets in his pocket, said sheriff's spokesman Lt. Rod Reder.
Monday, as more than 200 of Lauren and Sean's fellow students at Martinez Middle School sought grief counseling, Parra-Perez remained in critical condition at St. Joseph's Hospital. She was shot at close range, Reder said. She is on life support and heavily sedated, though not in a coma, according to her friend Lynn Pishock.
Reder said O'Mara wasn't arrested after the Oct. 21 break-in because he had fled by the time deputies arrived. Prosecutors declined to pursue a misdemeanor domestic battery charge against him because his wife wasn't injured and the break-in appeared to be an isolated incident, said State Attorney's Office spokeswoman Pam Bondi.
Friends had urged Parra-Perez to get a court order barring O'Mara from having any contact with her. Such an injunction would have documented a history of violence by O'Mara, but there's no record Parra-Perez ever sought one, Bondi said. The State Attorney's Office sent her a pamphlet on how to get an injunction and a letter asking her to contact them, but she never called, Bondi said.
"We talked about it, and she just didn't do it," said Pishock, Parra-Perez's friend. "She kept saying, "Oh, he'll calm down."'
But he didn't.
O'Mara went to Parra-Perez's recently purchased duplex on Le Clare Shores Drive Friday night and waited in the dark until she returned to her new home with their children, Reder said.
"We were just shocked at the carnage," Reder said. "When you see a father kill his children, it is just devastating. And it's just such a cowardly act."
Through law enforcement records and interviews with friends, O'Mara emerges as a man with a drinking problem who couldn't stand the prospect of living without his children and wife of 15 years.
Court records show the divorce happened quickly, in less than a month's time. The parents reached a custody agreement that gave O'Mara frequent visits with his children. But in recent months, friends say, O'Mara became more threatening and volatile toward Parra-Perez.
"She was very scared of him, especially when he drank," Pishock said. "He said a few times he was going to kill her, but you never think it will get that far. She just wanted peace, you know? He wouldn't let her have it."
According to Sheriff's Office records, O'Mara kicked in the door leading from Parra-Perez's garage into her home at about 1 a.m. Oct. 21, triggering the alarm. He chased her up the stairs and down the hall to the master bedroom, where Parra-Perez tried to barricade herself inside.
O'Mara kicked the bedroom door in and grabbed Parra-Perez, who told her son and daughter to lock themselves in a room and call 911 for help, according to the report. O'Mara left when he learned that deputies were on the way, Reder said.
The Sheriff's Office asked the State Attorney's Office to consider a misdemeanor domestic violence charge against O'Mara, but prosecutors declined, Reder said.
"Here we had no injuries, they were going through a divorce and it appeared to be isolated," Bondi said. "But this is so heartbreaking. If there's anything we can say about domestic violence, it's get an injunction. Document it. Call law enforcement every time something happens."
Even if the state had pursued the misdemeanor charge, O'Mara likely wouldn't have been summoned to court until sometime next year. Had he been arrested that night, he would likely have posted bail and been released within hours.
O'Mara's criminal history in Florida consists of one conviction for driving under the influence in 1986, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The year before, he was arrested in Indian Rocks Beach on a charge of marijuana possession, but the case was dismissed, state records show.
* * *The law office where Parra-Perez works as a paralegal was closed Monday. John Andrews, head of the Andrews Law Group in Tampa, said everyone was too upset to come in.
"When somebody comes to work at this firm, they are family," Andrews said. "So we are just devastated."
His son Troy Andrews, a lawyer at the firm, helped Parra-Perez move into her duplex last month, the elder Andrews said. And those who worked at the law firm adored Parra-Perez and her children.
"They were such wonderful children," Andrews said. "And you know, she's somebody you'd like to come have dinner with you.
"All we can do for this lady right now is pray. Please, we all have to pray for her."
* * *The first bell at Martinez Middle School rang at 8:30 a.m. Monday. Within 15 minutes, two dozen shaken students went to the media center to talk about Lauren and Sean, said principal Kathleen Flanagan.
"These were two special kids, and we are very much a neighborhood school," she said. "So they touched many, many lives here."
Lauren was on the track team and played in the advanced band, where she held the coveted first seat in the flute section. Among the top 1 percent of students, she took advanced classes to gain high school credits early and planned to take advanced-placement classes in high school next year.
Sean, a sixth-grader, also was on the track team. Flanagan said he was a good student known as "a big talker. He liked to have the last word."
Between 200 and 250 students went to the 10 grief counselors Monday, many of them crying and inconsolable, said school district spokesman Mark Hart. A few were so distraught they went home, he said.
"This is a story about the ultimate betrayal," Hart said. "Fathers are supposed to protect their children, not hurt them."
Sitting with the counselors, students drew pictures of hearts around the siblings' names. They wrote letters to Lauren and Sean. One of Lauren's friends made a poster with a picture of Lauren at a recent pool party, with "We'll Miss You, Lauren" spelled in cut-out letters. Students talked about planting trees on campus in their names.
Grief counselor Chuck Jacsek said the overwhelming emotion was disbelief.
"I heard many kids say, "I just saw them Friday and now they're gone,"' Jacsek said. "That's a tough thing for an adult to take, much less kids who are 13, 14, 15. And I don't know if a kid, or anyone really, can understand a father doing this to his kids."
-- Times staff researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler can be reached at 813 226-3373 or svansickler@sptimes.com