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Letter to the editor

Police seek ex-boyfriend in woman's fatal shooting

By Times Staff
Published May 2, 2005

TAMPA - A Tampa woman was shot to death in her home early Sunday morning, Tampa police said.

Elizabeth Cochran's teenage daughter awoke at 4:22 a.m. to the sound of arguing, Lt. Craig Sawicki said. She heard a single gunshot and called police. Before police arrived, the gunman fled.

Sunday night, police were searching for Kervin Alexander, 30, Cochran's ex-boyfriend and the primary suspect in the case, police said. Sawicki said police do not know Alexander's address.

He and Cochran had a violent relationship and she had filed for an order of protection against him, Sawicki said.

Cochran, 34, of at 228 E Stratford Ave., was taken to St. Joseph's Hospital, where she died about 5 a.m., Sawicki said. She had been shot once in the lower right side of her back.

TAMPA - A man died Sunday afternoon after he leapt from the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies said.

The man, whose identity has not been released, jumped from the bridge's center span at 3:53 p.m., deputies said.

Twelve minutes later, in what appears to be an unrelated incident, a woman attempted to jump from the southbound lane near the top of the Skyway, Florida Highway Patrol officers said. That attempt was thwarted by a trooper.

The woman, whose identity was not released, was taken into custody under the state Baker Act.

ZEPHYRHILLS - Authorities on Sunday released the names of three people killed in a traffic accident Saturday on U.S. 98.

Lemmie and Melenor Dozier, both 76, of Lakeland, were eastbound in a Mercury on the rural, two-lane road about 4:15 p.m. Saturday when they followed a semitrailer truck in attempting to pass another eastbound car, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

The truck cleared the car. But as the Mercury tried to pass both the car and truck, it came into the path of a Chevrolet Tahoe.

The Tahoe's driver, Richard Wolf, 40, of Wesley Chapel, steered onto the shoulder but then overcorrected back onto the road. The Mercury and Tahoe collided. The truck slammed into the wrecked Mercury.

Wolf was transported to Tampa General Hospital and later released.

His wife, Tanya Darlene Wolf, 34, died at the scene after being thrown from the SUV.

The Doziers died at the scene.

INVERNESS - An Inverness man was arrested Saturday after breaking into his neighbors' house and threatening them, shocking himself by sticking his fingers into a lamp socket, running naked through his yard and chewing through a cable in a patrol car, authorities said.

Authorities arrested Shyne Harris Phelps, 39, of 2510 Jupiter St., at 1:45 a.m. on charges of kidnapping, burglary of a dwelling, aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer with intent to commit a felony, resisting an officer with violence, battery and criminal mischief, an arrest report said.

Deputies went to a home on East Dawson Drive at 1:35 a.m. after getting a call of a burglary.

Deputy Lynn Tabb saw a man holding a metal rod and wearing only a sheet wrapped around his waist, a report said. He was yelling that he was "ready to go to jail."

Tabb ordered the man to drop the rod. He did, but quickly picked it up again. Tabb pulled his gun. The suspect scaled a chain-link fence, losing his sheet in the process and sprinted, naked, into his home, the report said.

He soon came out of the house and was arrested.

He was held without bail.

[Last modified May 2, 2005, 01:35:17]