Doster killing suspect named
As mourners gather for Kwane Doster's wake, police ask for help in finding the man they suspect fatally shot him.
By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER, SHERRI DAY and SAUNDRA AMRHEIN
Published December 31, 2004
TAMPA - On the day friends and family mourned the death of Kwane Doster, police gave the young football player's loved ones something they have asked for all week: the name of a suspect in his murder.
Rodney Roman, 28, was being sought late Thursday on charges of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder, said Tampa police spokesman Joe Durkin.
Roman's last known address was 6206 N 44th St. in Tampa, Durkin said. He's also known to spend time in the area of 39th Street and Powhatan Avenue as well as 34th Street and Hillsborough Avenue, Durkin said.
Police believe Roman knows officials are looking for him. They are warning the public that he's armed and dangerous.
Roman, who has a lengthy arrest record, drives a dark blue Toyota Corolla or a brown Mazda, police said. He's described as 6 feet and 150 pounds.
"We are urging the public, if they have any information, to call the Tampa police so we can get him off the street before anyone else gets hurt," Durkin said. To contact Tampa police, call (813) 231-6130.
Doster, a former Robinson High School football star who was attending Vanderbilt University, was shot early Sunday in the parking lot of Salems Gyro Shop near Ybor City. He was in the back seat of a friend's Oldsmobile Cutlass at the time, and detectives say the shooting was the violent finale to a "trash talking" confrontation with people in an Orange Infiniti J30.
Based on witness accounts, police say Roman was the driver, though not the owner, of the Infiniti.
The Infiniti's three occupants were arguing with Doster and his two friends about whose car was better when Roman got out and started firing at the Cutlass with a large-caliber gun. He fired at least five times, police said.
Doster was the only one hit. He died from a single bullet wound to the chest.
Durkin would not identify the other occupants of the cars and would not say what, if any, information they provided. He also wouldn't say if he expected more arrests.
Roman has had other run-ins with the law, serving two years of a five-year sentence on cocaine charges between 1997 and 1999. Before that, he was on probation for drug offenses dating back to 1992. More recently, he was arrested on marijuana charges.
All week, Doster's loved ones have said they hoped to have his killer in custody by the time they buried him.
So even as they mourned Doster during a wake Thursday at St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church in Port Tampa, the warrant gave his loved ones reason to hope for justice.
Late Thursday night, Kelly Doster, the running back's mother, said she had heard no news about the investigation. She was surprised to learn that police had identified a primary suspect.
"I have never heard of that name," she said, asking a reporter to repeat it. "I have never, ever heard of him."
For more than three hours, friends, family members, coaches and Robinson High students filed into the church to pay their respects.
The ceremony began as six fresh-faced pallbearers lifted Doster's black and gold casket from a hearse and rolled it into the church. The pallbearers wore black T-shirts imprinted with the number 2 - Doster's Robinson High School jersey number - along with his birth date and the date of his death.
Then they stood sentinel over a seemingly endless line of mourners that stretched into the street. Inside, hundreds of people crammed into the church's pews. Debra Langhorne, a family friend, told mourners that Doster's life should serve as a wake-up call to young people enamored with fancy cars and the trappings of wealth.
"When someone can shoot down a young man in the prime of his life, what are we thinking about," she said to the crowd.
Bobby Johnson, the head football coach at Vanderbilt, thanked the Doster family and the Port Tampa community for sending a football player and a gentleman to the university.
"Kwane was a true student-athlete," Johnson said.
Tonya Wideman told the crowd that just last week she had asked Doster, who was home from college on a holiday break, to speak with her children about staying out of trouble and succeeding in life.
"Kwane told me to "look at the life that I live,"' she said, wiping tears from her eyes. "In my house, Kwane was called the dream maker. Somebody took the dream maker, but they didn't take the dream."
Doster's funeral is scheduled for today at 1 p.m. at First Baptist Church of Port Tampa. Doster's teammates and some coaches from Vanderbilt plan to fly in this morning to attend.