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Shooting, explosives lead to man's arrest

Police accuse a man of attempted murder and keeping bombmaking materials in his home.

By JACOB H. FRIES
Published November 21, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - Edward Eley hadn't spoken more than a few sentences to anyone in seven years, he told his next-door neighbor last week.

That wasn't his only quirk, neighbors said on Sunday, a few hours after Eley was charged with shooting a neighbor and storing a cache of homemade bombs in the apartment he shared with his mother.

Eley, 35, typically slept through the day and wandered around at night, neighbors said. He never seemed to work or socialize, they said.

But Saturday night, he walked half a block down his street, Pinellas Way N, to a house where neighbors were having a small cookout.

Rob Gorman, 42, a mechanic and Eley's neighbor at the apartments, saw him on the sidewalk.

Eley saw Gorman, too, and shouted, "Do you want a piece of me?" Gorman said.

Gorman reacted by jumping over a short fence to confront him.

As he got close, a 3-foot-wide flash erupted from Eley's hand, Gorman and witnesses said. Gorman was knocked to the ground, the flesh over his heart riddled with bird shot.

"I thought, "Man, he's dead. I've lost my friend'," said Doug Sergent, 38, who was at the cookout and saw the events.

As Gorman crawled back toward his friends, Eley walked back to his apartment at 145 Pinellas Way N, St. Petersburg police spokesman Bill Proffitt said. Officers were dispatched to Pinellas Palms Apartments at 10:48 p.m., and took Eley into custody without incident.

Gorman suffered numerous shallow wounds across the left side of his chest. He was treated at Bayfront Medical Center and released after about an hour.

The gun used in the shooting was not found Sunday. Investigators think it may have been homemade, Proffitt said.

As officers arrested Eley, they saw bombmaking materials in the apartment, including black powder and canisters of unknown substances, Proffitt said.

Investigators obtained a search warrant for Eley's apartment and called in the Tampa Bomb Squad, which evacuated his 10-unit apartment building about 7 a.m. Sunday. Inside, they found four explosive devices and two booby traps, Proffitt said.

Eley, charged with attempted murder and manufacturing an explosive device, refused to talk with police, Proffitt said. He was held Sunday night without bail.

Proffitt said investigators think Eley moved into the Tampa Bay area about seven years ago from Virginia. Local records show no previous arrests.

Eley's mother declined to comment Sunday.

The shooting grew out of a week-old neighborhood dispute, with Eley at the center of it, police and neighbors said.

On Nov. 13, Eley volunteered to take neighbor Jim Hogan's two children to the beach for the day, Hogan and police said. They left in a taxi about noon. As evening approached, Hogan said he began to worry and called police.

About 9 p.m., Eley returned to the apartment complex with the children, Molly, 7, and James, 13, Hogan said. The children were fine. They said Eley had even treated them to smoothies and shrimp at the Don CeSar Beach Resort and Spa.

"That raised some suspicions," Proffitt said.

Parents in the close-knit apartment complex were angry with Eley. Some said he should have called Hogan to say they'd be late. Others insisted he stay away children altogether.

"We're all concerned parents," said Gorman, father of an 11-year-old daughter. "He's 35, has no job, no girlfriend, no kids and lives with his mother. ... He's creepy."

Hogan, 45, said Eley later wrote him an apology, saying he was sorry he caused Hogan and others to worry about the children's safety. In that letter, by way of explaining why they had been so long at the beach, Eley noted that he hadn't talked with anyone for more than seven years, Hogan said.

"There was nothing lurid about it," Hogan said Sunday. "I don't want to villainize him any more than he is."

Sunday morning, as residents recounted the evacuation and shared stories about Eley, Hogan's son, James, said he had been in Eley's apartment on a couple of occasions and saw two handguns.

He also said he had once seen Eley with a bomb, but because Eley had dismantled the device, the teen said he decided not to tell anyone.

But in the past three weeks, James Hogan said, he noticed Eley's behavior change. He drank more, the teen said.

Gorman, meanwhile, said he felt lucky to be alive. He said he was glad, too, that Eley was in jail rather than next door.

"I didn't want to get shot, but if that's what it took to get rid of him, so be it," Gorman said.

[Last modified November 21, 2005, 01:21:03]