Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Suspect held in gruesome deaths

A federal affidavit contains the suspect's account of how he and Steven Lorenzo went to a Tampa gay bar and made men "vanish."

By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER
Published May 21, 2005

	Steven Lorenzo, 46, killed two men.
	Scott Schweickert, 39, watched and then helped.
	Jason Galehouse, 26, vanished on Dec. 20, 2003, from a Tampa bar. Schweickert says he died in Lorenzo's home.
	Michael Wachholtz, 26, met a similar fate the evening after Galehouse's death, Schweickert's affidavit said.

TAMPA - For weeks, the two men chatted online about their violent sexual fantasies.

Bondage. Drugging "submissive" men, then torturing them when they were at their most vulnerable. Kidnapping "boys" and making them "vanish."

On Dec. 19, 2003, they went to a West Tampa gay bar to make those fantasies come true, according to a federal affidavit released Friday.

They found a victim in Jason Galehouse, 26. A frequent patron of the bar 2606, he felt comfortable there. Friends said he did not worry about his safety.

But by the end of that night, Galehouse ended up dead inside Steven Lorenzo's Seminole Heights bungalow - choked, dismembered and stuffed into garbage bags that were later dumped in trash bins around the city, according to the affidavit.

The following evening, 2606 patron Michael Wachholtz, 26, met a similarly horrific fate inside the bungalow at 213 W Powhatan Ave., according to Scott Schweickert, the Illinois man accused of being an accessory in the case.

Federal prosecutors have charged Schweickert, 39, as an accessory after the fact related to a drug-facilitated crime of violence. On Friday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth A. Jenkins ordered he be held without bail in the county jail.

"The facts in this case are particularly heinous and disturbing," prosecutor Anthony Porcelli told the judge. "The defendant represents a danger to the community. And as you can glean from the affidavit, there are other charges that may come."

Lorenzo, 46, has not been charged in the two cases, but he has been jailed without bail since November on charges he drugged, kidnapped and sexually assaulted six men between 2000 and 2003. His attorney, Donald Harrison, was in court Friday and could not be reached. Lorenzo has told investigators he recognized Wachholtz and Galehouse only from media coverage.

Forensic investigators are checking blood and other evidence found in searches of Lorenzo's home for DNA matches to Wachholtz and Galehouse.

In his interviews with investigators, Schweickert portrays Lorenzo as the one who initiated violence against Galehouse, Wachholtz and others. But in some of his chats with Lorenzo and with an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agent, he comes off as the initiator.

A DEA agent posed as a chat room participant interested in drugging young males and began communicating with Schweickert in June 2004.

The affidavit quotes Schweickert in August 2004, writing: "Just don't want a lot of people seeingus with him before he disappears, boy." (The misspellings are in the original text.) In an October 2003 chat, Lorenzo and Schweickert discussed how "easy" it is to make "boys submit" with drugs, according to the affidavit.

"Tell them we are going to a party and invite them along," Schweickert, under the America Online name MstrScott, wrote to Lorenzo. "Tell them we need to stop off at one of our places, drug them there and then that is it for them."

Lorenzo, under the name DOMDUDEFORSUB, replied, "Easy to make them vanish and with no link to us in the least!"

Schweickert's affidavit portrays the fate of Galehouse and Wachholtz in vivid, gruesome detail.

Galehouse vanished Dec. 20, 2003.

According to Schweickert, he died inside Lorenzo's home, a pretty beige bungalow in Seminole Heights, north of downtown Tampa. Schweickert said he had come to Tampa the day before to stay with Lorenzo for the weekend.

That night, they went to the 2606 bar, a windowless, white block building on Armenia Avenue just south of Columbus Avenue. Its interior is dominated by a large square bar surrounded by metal stools with black seats. That's where they met Galehouse, according to the affidavit.

The trio went back to Lorenzo's house, where they took part in consensual sex in Lorenzo's bedroom, Schweickert told investigators. He said he went into the bathroom and when he came out a few minutes later, he saw Lorenzo holding Galehouse in a "choke type hold."

Schweickert watched as Galehouse grabbed at Lorenzo's arms, pleading with him to stop.

Then he helped hold down Galehouse while Lorenzo choked him, according to the affidavit.

After a few minutes, Galehouse went limp, Schweickert said.

He said he agreed to help Lorenzo "get rid of the body," because he was afraid of Lorenzo and feared being implicated in the death.

He told authorities that he and Lorenzo cut the body up and put the parts into several bags, spilling blood onto Lorenzo's garage floor. Later, they drove around the city, scattering the bags in random trash bins - including one behind the West Hillsborough Baptist Church, near the corner of Hillsborough and Habana avenues.

The night of Dec. 20, Lorenzo and Schweickert returned to 2606. They agreed they just wanted a beer, that they were not there to pick anyone up, according to Schweickert. But after a few hours, Lorenzo introduced Schweickert to Wachholtz.

The three went back to Lorenzo's house, where Schweickert said Lorenzo and Wachholtz snorted some type of drug, according to the affidavit. He said he believes Lorenzo also spiked Wachholtz's drink.

Schweickert said he emerged from Lorenzo's bathroom in the early hours of Dec. 21 to find Lorenzo struggling with Wachholtz.

Schweickert said he held down Wachholtz while Lorenzo put a rag soaked in ether up to Wachholtz's face, eventually killing him. Schweickert helped Lorenzo transport Wachholtz's 1992 Jeep Cherokee and his body to the parking lot of the Camden Bay Pointe apartment complex in Town 'N Country, according to the affidavit.

The body was found Jan. 6.

Loved ones of Wachholtz and Galehouse have pressed authorities to find those responsible.

When investigators initially dismissed the possibility that the two cases were related, or possibly the work of a serial killer, the men's friends pressed on.

Tyler Hall, 29, posted fliers of Galehouse around the area. He and Eric Bunch, 32, gave investigators the names of several other men they believe went missing from area gay bars.

According to the affidavit, a man identified as Witness A told investigators that Lorenzo and Schweickert attacked him inside Lorenzo's home less than two weeks before Galehouse and Wachholtz were last seen alive.

The man said he met the two online and agreed to meet outside a Tampa grocery. The three went to Lorenzo's house. Lorenzo and Schweickert blindfolded the man, hit him as he begged them to stop, and warned that they could make him "disappear," according to the affidavit. The man told investigators they pulled down his pants, tortured him with a rod, and eventually let him go.

When authorities searched Lorenzo's home, they found a number of items that point to "an underground, sadomasochistic sex and drug use culture," according to the affidavit. They found rope, tape, plastic gloves and other "torture-type" items - along with printed pages about serial killers.

They found an envelope containing newspaper articles about Galehouse, Wachholtz and "other missing or dead individuals."

They found pictures on Lorenzo's computer of a "lifeless" young man, blood on his face and on the floor beneath him, ligature marks on his wrists and ankles.

Tampa police and Hillsborough sheriff's detectives examined the pictures. So did two medical examiners and a DEA agent. They all agreed: The man was dead when the pictures were taken, in what appears to be Lorenzo's living room and bathroom.

Later, two longtime friends of Wachholtz looked at the images.

Yes, they told investigators.

That's Michael.

Times staff writer Saundra Amrhein contributed to this report. Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler can be reached at 813 226-3373 or svansickler@sptimes.com

[Last modified May 21, 2005, 01:04:09]