Arrest brings Oldsmar peace
David P. Vice, 41, accused of terrorizing neighbors and businesses with threats and fake explosives, is caught near his home.
By JADE JACKSON LLOYD
Published January 23, 2005
OLDSMAR - A man suspected of sending neighbors letters filled with threats and white powder and of putting fake explosives at a post office and hotel was arrested Saturday.
David P. Vice was in his car and near his home in Oldsmar when he was arrested, authorities said. Vice, 41, was charged on one felony count of manufacturing, possessing or delivering a hoax weapon of mass destruction. The husband and father of four was in Pinellas County Jail without bail.
The arrest came near Commerce Boulevard and Forest Lakes Boulevard, said Pinellas sheriff's Sgt. Tim Goodman.
Around the city, people breathed a sigh of relief with the arrest.
Vice's street, Cypress View Drive in Preserve of Cypress Lakes, is normally bustling with activity. Early Saturday, quiet ruled as parents kept their children close.
Friday morning, several of Vice's neighbors had found envelopes filled with powder in their mailboxes. Two hours later, a suspicious package also containing white powder was reported at nearby Enterprise Rent-a-Car.
Then police received a call about a possible explosive device at the Holiday Inn Express and reports that a fake hand grenade was attached to a mailbox at a post office.
Derrick Cain, president of the homeowners' association, was the first to find a powder-filled envelope Friday morning. Cain, 36, also received a letter, which read, "BOOM. Wait until Sunday. You haven't seen anything yet. Death to Israel."
A large man with blond hair, blue eyes and a love of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Cain is used to thinking about his neighbors paying their homeowners' association dues on time and keeping the grass cut. He doesn't normally worry that they're trying to kill him or his family.
"The neighborhood's on edge," he said before the arrest Saturday, at the home he shares with his girlfriend and her 10-year-old daughter. "This isn't something that happens in most people's lives at all and it's happening to us. This is the second day of it."
Cain thinks he was targeted because he wouldn't listen to Vice's "rhetoric," he said.
"He was antigovernment, antimilitary and antiestablishment," Cain said Saturday, at his home. "He preaches this rhetoric to his kids and they spread it to the other kids. The next thing you know, we're going to be drinking purple Kool-Aid and taking really long naps."
Vice lived at 520 Cypress View Drive with his wife, Lisa, and their four boys, ages 8 to 15.
Neighbors said that after Vice lost his job a few years ago, the family moved to Utah to "live off the land." They came back in 2002, but the kids did not return to school, said neighbor Brenda Leone.
Though the Vice family left the home Friday, sheriff's officials were there Saturday with cars parked in the driveway and several officers on site.
Vice has a history of conflict with authorities.
On Sept. 11, 2004, he rammed his car into a gate at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, authorities said. He was charged with fleeing and eluding a police officer and later received probation, according to Hillsborough court records.
"Because his name is David, he felt he was called by God to lead his people to Moab, Utah, to be safe because Armageddon is coming," Cain said.