The suspect in the case was arrested for violating probation.
By Shannoncolavecchio-Van Sickler
Published September 9, 2005
TAMPA - Michelle Dashia White says she can't remember which pay phone she used to call for help after a man carjacked her early Tuesday in an east Tampa parking lot.
White, 25, has a split lip and a black eye. But she tells detectives she doesn't want to talk about how she got them. She insists the man who attacked her at the Jackson Court Apartments was a stranger, but says she can't remember enough to describe him, according to investigators.
After a three-day search by Tampa police, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office and the U.S. Marshals Service, White tells detectives she knows only one thing for sure: Willie James Pettermon, the ex-boyfriend whom police considered a "person of interest" in the disappearance, isn't the culprit.
White "was adamant that Willie James did not kidnap her and had not been holding her against her will," said Tampa police spokesman Joe Durkin.
Authorities on Thursday afternoon found White and Pettermon, a 36-year-old fugitive known to carry a gun, holed up in the Town 'N Country rental home of Pettermon's friend, Antonio Hugee.
Police arrested Pettermon, wanted since March on charges of violating his probation, and booked him into the county jail. They questioned White and Hugee, 35, late into the night.
But Durkin said detectives walked away from the sit-down with few answers and much frustration, after White skirted their questions or insisted she just could not recall details.
"The answers were frustratingly vague," Durkin said Friday. "Most of her answers were "I don't know' or "I can't remember.' "
White went home Thursday night with her mother and could not be reached Friday. But according to Durkin, White told detectives she called Pettermon for help from a pay phone in Grant Park after the mysterious attacker shot at her companion, 37-year-old Eddie Lee Mungin of Dover, and took off in her car.
Yet when asked why she let three days go by without contacting family or friends, White replied: "I don't know," according to Durkin.
White, a single mother, had "obvious facial injuries from what appeared to be a beating" when officers found her with Pettermon, Durkin said. But she would not talk about how she got them.
White insisted she could have left Pettermon at any time - even though police found a .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol in the Town 'N Country house, and White had not changed her clothes in three days, Durkin said.
Detectives asked White how her car ended up - abandoned, locked, a bullet hole in the back driver's side passenger window, blood inside - right down the street from Pettermon's longtime home at N 58th Street and E 30th Avenue in east Tampa.
She said she didn't know, Durkin said.
They asked her whether she knew there was an all-out hunt to find her.
"She said, "We didn't watch much TV,' " according to Durkin. Hugee, the man renting the Town 'N Country home, also said he didn't know police were looking for White and Pettermon, police said.
"Pettermon was even less helpful," Durkin said. "He said, "I just want to talk to a lawyer.' "
Durkin said investigators are processing the gun found at the Town 'N Country home for evidence, and detectives are still trying to determine who shot at Mungin before taking off in White's Ford Focus.
But more than anything, they are dismayed at having spent so many resources looking for White - only to have her insist she was never really missing.
"This was several detectives spending countless man hours searching for her and Pettermon," Durkin said. "There are other cases they put on hold to devote all their time and effort to locate her."
Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler can be reached at 813 226-3373 or svansickler@sptimes.com[Last modified September 9, 2005, 19:52:31]
