Shooting investigation ends with no arrest
Neighbors remain wary, but deputies say they ended the case when the victim became uncooperative.
By EMILY NIPPS
Published January 2, 2006
NEW TAMPA - Other than the faint "pop-pop" sound some neighbors recall hearing on the night of Nov. 11, it seemed like a typical quiet night in their Pebble Creek Drive cul-de-sac.
Then Mike Ritter went to take his trash out about 10:40 p.m., earlier than his usual routine of doing it after the 11 o'clock news, and found his neighbor lying in the driveway, gasping for someone to call 911. Roberto Morales, 41, had been shot in the upper chest and left for dead.
Morales was rushed to the hospital and survived. But almost two months after the shooting, an unsettling feeling still stirs in Pebble Creek, New Tampa's oldest suburban community, which rarely, if ever, sees violent crime.
"Everyone is pretty much like, "What the heck?"' neighbor Charles Smith said. "It's awful strange."
And it may never be fully explained, according to sheriff's detectives. They recently closed their investigation with no arrest.
"The victim has become very uncooperative," said Hillsborough County sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter. "He won't provide any more information to the detectives and some of the details he has given have been very inconsistent. It's gotten to the point where he doesn't want to deal with us anymore. We've tried everything."
Morales and his wife, Carol, did not reply to the St. Petersburg Times ' request for an interview. But neighbors describe Morales as a quiet, pleasant man who spent a lot of time refurbishing the empty $360,000 home for himself, his wife and three children. The home was bought in September, according to property records. Morales also owns a home in the Cross Creek area, purchased in 1997.
Ritter, who lives two houses away from Morales, said he has spoken with Morales' wife, who told him that Morales is still in the hospital and partially paralyzed from the bullet, which grazed or nicked his spinal cord.
Homeowners in the Pebble Creek community wonder: Who fired the gun? And will the shooter come back?
Most of the neighbors say they think the attack was an isolated incident, though the prospect of crime rising in such a fast-growing community seems likely. Hundreds of people are moving to New Tampa every year, and with more people comes more crime. The Tampa Police Department plans to add more patrol officers to the area beginning this month (Pebble Creek is in unincorporated Hillsborough County and is patrolled by sheriff's deputies).
Official records are not kept on the number of guns owned and stored in Florida homes, but the state does keep track of concealed weapon permits, which allow someone to carry a handgun or other easily portable weapon.
In New Tampa's 33647 ZIP code, 443 people have concealed weapons permits. That's roughly one in 10 residents, based on the latest Census numbers.
Smith, who lives near Morales' home, is one of this past year's many New Tampa newcomers, having moved to the area from Massachusetts in March.
"Welcome to Pebble Creek, huh?" he said. "I didn't think this was a neighborhood that got drive-by shootings."
--Times researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report. Emily Nipps can be reached at (813) 269-5313.