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Man gets 40 years for two murders

Prosecutors say the defendant knew of a plot to kill a Hernando pair on a Friday the 13th. Two others have also received prison terms.

By MICHAEL KRUSE
Published November 4, 2005

BROOKSVILLE - Mark Andrew Meyer was sentenced Thursday in Circuit Court to 40 years in state prison for his role in the Ridge Manor West double murder of August 2004.

The sentencing brings to an end the legal aftermath of one of the more grisly crimes in recent Hernando County history.

William Gentry Mater was 19 at the time. He got life in prison on Oct. 6. Kimmian Marie Hines, who was 17, got 10 years on Sept. 7.

Meyer, who was 20 then, is 21 now.

The three of them, from Alachua County, all played a part in the killings of Robert Q. Ford IV, 28, of Holiday and Shannon Marie Garvin, 26, of the Pasco County section of Spring Hill in the early-morning hours of a Friday the 13th on an isolated stretch of Remington Road on the county's sparsely populated east side.

Meyer, Mater and Hines came to Hernando to buy marijuana and cocaine from Ford and Garvin. On the way down, though, they decided to kill them.

Mater fired a small-caliber handgun through the driver's side window of Ford's forest-green Ford Ranger, authorities said. Both Ford and Garvin were shot more than once.

Ford was killed instantly. His body ended up with the head on the wet ground and feet in the cab of the truck. Garvin was hit in the back of the skull and died the next day at Orlando Regional Medical Center.

Mater's first statement to authorities was that Meyer did the shooting.

His second statement was that they had both done some shooting.

His third statement was an admission: It was only he.

The investigation eventually determined that it was Mater's idea and that he was the sole triggerman. But the Ford F-150 used to make the trip, the cell phone that was used to set the meeting and the gun that was used to kill Ford and Garvin - all of those things belonged to Meyer. And he knew the plan.

On Thursday in Circuit Judge Jack Springstead's courtroom, defense attorney Stephen N. Bernstein said Meyer was cooperative with authorities during the investigation - unlike Mater.

Meyer could have gotten life.

Bernstein asked for 20 years.

Prosecutor Pete Magrino asked for 40, and he was okay with that, he told Springstead, only because the victims' families were okay with it.

Meyer had pleaded guilty on May 24 to second-degree murder - instead of first - and armed burglary and armed robbery. For his sentencing, the tall 21-year-old with short, brown hair wore wire-rimmed glasses and his khaki-colored jumpsuit from the Hernando County Jail. He stood still next to Bernstein.

Bernstein told the court that Meyer had and still has "potential" and that he "lost his vision" because of drugs.

"Mr. Meyer," the attorney said, "never intended for anyone to die as a consequence of what he was doing."

But two people did.

"Robbie" Ford was born in Tampa and grew up in St. Pete Beach and graduated from St. Petersburg's Lakewood High in 1994. He went to community college. He was a member of Pass-a-Grille Beach Community Church.

Shannon Garvin had been a bartender. Her obituary said she was Protestant. She was survived by her mother, her father, a brother, three sisters and a grandmother.

Springstead gave Meyer the full 40.

"This sentence," he told him, "will allow you at some point to regain your freedom and rejoin society. That's a luxury the two victims in this case won't get.

"Because they're dead."

Springstead asked Meyer if he understood the sentence.

Meyer said he did.

He was fingerprinted and taken away.

Michael Kruse can be reached at mkruse@sptimes.com or 352 848-1434.

[Last modified November 4, 2005, 01:41:19]