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Witness: Fatal beating was setup

A friend of a 16-year-old girl slain in North Tampa details the conflict that led to the fateful night in 2004.

By CANDACE RONDEAUX
Published January 12, 2006

TAMPA - Emily Clemons sensed it was coming. She told her friends she was worried about what Laisha Landrum was going to do. A few weeks later, Clemons was dead, Landrum was in jail on a murder charge and most of their friends knew why.

"It was a setup," said Clemons' close friend Adhanet Kidane.

Kidane, 21, was one of several who testified at Landrum's murder trial Wednesday. Petite and soft-spoken, Kidane calmly recounted the tense weeks that led up to the vicious beating that killed Clemons 18 months ago. She said the trouble started when Clemons began sneaking around with an ex-boyfriend, Rocky Almestica Jr., behind Landrum's back.

"They didn't like each other," Kidane said of Landrum and Clemons.

Dislike turned to hatred, when Clemons, 16, repeatedly telephoned the apartment Landrum shared with Almestica and the couple's infant son, Kidane said.

"(Landrum) wanted to fight Emily. She was like, she needs to stop calling or she'll kill her," Kidane said.

Outside the courtroom, Kidane said she is haunted by Clemons' murder. She said she believes Almestica called Clemons moments before she arrived at the couple's apartment the night of June 9, 2004. Almestica was the bait, Kidane said, and Landrum was the trap.

But it was far from the perfect setup. Investigators said Landrum and Almestica beat Clemons bloody with kitchen pots, a hammer and a radio, then rolled the girl's body up in a blanket and tossed her in a garbage bin at the Amaretto Apartments on N 22nd Street. People who heard noise coming from the bin called 911.

In November 2004, a jury found Almestica guilty of second-degree murder. A judge sentenced him to life in prison.

Now, Clemons' best friend hopes Landrum, 18, who is charged with murder and tampering with evidence, will share the same fate. "She should go to jail for life. She wanted to kill her," Kidane said.

And, according to a jail inmate who testified Wednesday, the teenager would have done anything to keep her man. Convicted felon Terry Dunlap told jurors that Landrum asked her to pass notes to Almestica while incarcerated at the Hillsborough County Jail. Dunlap, a jail trustee at the time, agreed. Landrum allegedly wrote instructions on where to find the hammer and asked Dunlap to dispose of it.

"I asked her why she wanted that done. She said because it would help Rocky," Dunlap said. "She was concerned about Rocky."

Landrum's attorney, Brian Gonzalez, raised doubts about Dunlap's testimony, however, pointing to a plea deal prosecutors made with her after she told authorities about the incriminating notes.

Testimony continues today.

Candace Rondeaux can be reached at 813 226-3337 or rondeaux@sptimes.com

[Last modified January 12, 2006, 01:21:24]