The suspect is caught on videotape at a carwash and other places using the victim's credit card.
By SAUNDRA AMRHEIN, Times Staff Writer
Published October 28, 2005
TAMPA - A suspect captured on surveillance video in a fatal shooting at a South Tampa carwash also appears in security videos at two other sites using the victim's credit card, police said.
Authorities hope the videos, released to area news television stations on Thursday, will lead to the suspect's capture.
The crime rampage began just before 2 a.m. Aug. 30 when Ronald Preston, 44, was washing a 2002 Chevy S-10 pickup at the carwash at 2101 S Dale Mabry Highway near Plant High School, Tampa police said.
The carwash's surveillance tape shows a light-colored four-door late 1990s Ford Taurus pulled into the bay next to him, police said. A passenger jumped out of the Taurus, confronted Preston and shot him in the upper body, police said.
Preston ran but collapsed out of view of the surveillance camera. The gunman jumped into Preston's pickup and appeared to be stealing things from it.
The driver of the Taurus sped away, and the gunman followed on foot, police said.
A few hours later, about 4:30 a.m., the same Taurus was captured in surveillance video at a Circle K gas station in Bartow in Polk County, said police spokesman Joe Durkin.
A man matching the appearance of the suspect in the shooting was pumping gas and using the victim's credit card, he said.
The suspect came into the store to buy a tobacco product with cash. About 5 a.m., the suspect appeared in surveillance video in a nearby Wal-Mart in Polk County trying to buy expensive electronic products with the victim's credit card, Durkin said. The credit card was declined.
The suspect was described as a dark-skinned black man in his mid 20s, about 5-foot-7, Durkin said.
At one point the man police say was driving the Taurus appeared in one of the videos with the suspect, Durkin said. He described him as a heavy-set black man with a pronounced potbelly, wearing a white T-shirt.
