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Brandon teen is fatally shot outside hotel

Sheriff's detectives don't think the shooting was an accident.

By BRADY DENNIS
Published January 26, 2006

TAMPA - Hillsborough County sheriff's detectives late Wednesday were continuing their investigation into the early morning shooting death of a 2004 Brandon High School graduate.

The 911 call came about 3:15 a.m. When deputies arrived at the Crowne Plaza Hotel at 10221 Princess Palm Ave., they found a 19-year-old man collapsed in an empty parking spot and bleeding from a gunshot wound.

He died barely an hour later at Brandon Regional Hospital. His name was Richard Menchion.

Authorities said he and an unidentified 17-year-old boy had come to the scene together. They think Menchion's death was no accident.

"All indicators are that they had gone to the hotel parking lot to meet someone. This was not a random act of violence," sheriff's spokesman J.D. Callaway said. "There was a reason they were there in the hotel parking lot at 3 a.m. That's what we're working on finding out."

Menchion had no criminal history, according to state records.

Callaway said Wednesday that detectives are working numerous leads.

Menchion was found with narcotics in his pocket, but Callaway declined to characterize the shooting as drug-related and said investigators "have no known motive at this time."

Deputies found a handgun at the scene, but "we don't know if that was the murder weapon," Callaway said.

Callaway said detectives interviewed the 17-year-old boy at length but consider him only a witness to the crime.

Hotel guests were not evacuated, but some emerged Wednesday to find their cars encircled by crime scene tape. Callaway said hotel guests were allowed to leave with their cars.

Wednesday's shooting was 3 miles from Menchion's home on Baronwood Place, a cul-de-sac lined with tidy, middle-class homes in Brandon.

No one answered the door at the home on Wednesday afternoon. A morning paper sat in the driveway, not far from a basketball hoop.

Times staff writer Saundra Amrhein and researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report.

[Last modified January 26, 2006, 01:01:17]