Both ex-cons' bodies were in the crashed car - but the passenger had died of stab wounds.
By Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler, Times Staff Writer
Published July 15, 2005
TAMPA - Charles Wesley Cummings walked out of the Gulf Correctional Institution two weeks ago, after serving a year for aggravated assault.
Michael S. Martin walked out of the same Florida Panhandle prison Sunday, having served more than two years for auto burglary, grand theft and cocaine possession.
Thursday, Cummings and Martin died side by side in a 1996 Saturn that crashed shortly before 4 a.m. in a North Bon Air neighborhood - less than 2 miles from an apartment where, police say, they beat, robbed and bound a man who brought them home from a W Kennedy Boulevard bar.
The wreck at S Church Avenue and W Lemon Street shook the walls of surrounding homes and startled sleeping neighbors.
It also created a puzzle for Tampa police detectives, who spent the day piecing together evidence from two crime scenes - the crash and robbery - that presented a number of questions.
Among them: Did one of the robbers die from the crash, or from stab wounds? Was he stabbed in front of the victim's apartment, where police found a pool of blood? And who stabbed him?
"This is an unusual case," said Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy.
The riddle began at 3:35 a.m.
A patrol officer saw the dark green Saturn, driven by 26-year-old Martin, run a stop sign at S Church and W Azeele Street.
He tried to pull over the Saturn, but Martin fled, McElroy said. The Saturn sped up, flew over a median and continued down Church Avenue with Cummings, 31, in the passenger seat, McElroy said.
The officer didn't chase the Saturn, registered to 31-year-old Jamie May Opitz of Mulberry, because traffic infractions alone don't meet the Police Department's threshold for pursuits. (Police say they later learned that Opitz met Cummings when she became his prison pen pal, and she lent him her car. She could not be reached.)
Minutes after Martin raced away from the patrol officer, the Saturn crashed through a chain-link fence at S Church and W Lemon. It hit a ditch and crumpled.
"It sounded like a truck hitting a wall," said Maria Melendez, whose bedroom sits next to the crash site. "It was pretty scary."
Roberto Gonzalez ran outside, thinking someone hit the oak tree in his front yard. It was dark, but Gonzalez saw that both men were covered in blood.
They weren't moving.
"The guy in the passenger's side had a TV on top of him," said Gonzalez, 44. "There was definitely stolen merchandise in the car."
Police pulled two televisions and two wallets from the Saturn. The wallets belonged to 40-year-old Edward Herranz of 3001 W Horatio St.
Investigators learned about an hour later that fellow Tampa police detectives were at Herranz's first-floor apartment, where he had just reported being robbed. He said two strangers beat him, tied him up and fled - with two televisions and his wallets.
An upstairs neighbor woke up when she heard Herranz yelling for help, McElroy said. She came downstairs and cut him loose.
He could not be reached Thursday, but McElroy said he was "very shaken" by the attack.
Herranz, afraid his landlord would be displeased to hear he brought two men home from a bar, initially told police he had no idea who the robbers were, McElroy said. He later said he met Cummings and Martin late Wednesday night at the Ki Ki Ki III bar, 1908 W Kennedy Blvd.
They had played pool there for a few hours, and decided about 3 a.m. Thursday to go back to Herranz's apartment, he told police. The three men piled into the Saturn and drove to the Tallyrand Apartments.
"When they got to front door of the apartment, Martin and Cummings attacked him," McElroy said. "They punched him, they kicked him, they tied him up."
Then they crashed. Detectives immediately suspected that Cummings died of wounds other than those sustained in the crash. An autopsy Thursday afternoon determined that Cummings died of a stab wound inflicted before the crash.
McElroy said detectives think Martin stabbed Cummings after the two robbed Herranz, and Cummings died before the Saturn crashed.
That raises another question, one detectives likely won't be able to answer.
Why?
Times staff researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report. Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler can be reached at 813 226-3373 or svansickler@sptimes.com
