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Murder for love? A jury will decide

A trial that starts on Valentine's Day already is drawing national attention. A wife's words could send her husband to death row for an ex-lover's slaying.

By CHRIS TISCH
Published February 14, 2006

LARGO - This morning, as the first batches of Valentine's Day roses arrive at local homes and offices, a trial will begin in Courtroom No. 1 of the Pinellas County criminal courthouse.

It will feature a woman who says she killed for love.

Sometime later in the week, Ashley Humphrey will take the witness stand to testify against her husband, Timothy Humphrey, who is charged with first-degree murder. Ashley is expected to tell jurors that, just a day after they married, she killed for him.

Ashley, 23, is expected to say that Timothy manipulated her into shooting his ex-lover, Sandee Rozzo, outside her Pinellas Park home.

Ashley's words may help send her husband to death row, for that is what the state is seeking.

Two national television shows, 48 Hours and 20/20 , may attend the trial, Pinellas courts spokesman Ron Stuart said. The news shows Inside Edition and A Current Affair also have contacted lawyers in the case.

The lead defense attorney, who has tried more than 50 death penalty cases in a 45-year career, and the prosecutor, who has tried dozens of murders in a 20-year career, both say they have not been involved in a case that has gotten such far-reaching attention.

Said defense attorney Joseph McDermott: "There's just so many twists to the case."

Prosecutor Fred Schaub said testimony will last at least a week, probably longer. Lawyers hope to have a jury seated by the end of Tuesday.

McDermott wouldn't say whether Timothy Humphrey, 39, plans to take the stand. In a letter to the St. Petersburg Times in August, Timothy Humphrey said his wife became obsessed with him, acted alone and is now blaming him.

"I am innocent. This is like some horrifying nightmare I can't wake up from," he wrote. "I've got a past; but Ashley's no angel. Don't be the fool I was and let Ash use that innocent poor little girl act on you. Those sad green eyes are windows into a cold calculating abyss."

But prosecutors will present evidence that indicates otherwise.

For one, Rozzo had accused Timothy Humphrey of assaulting her in Hillsborough County.

Prosecutors were taking him to trial where, if convicted, he faced a decade of prison time.

Just a month before trial, Rozzo, 37, was shot eight times in her garage. Friends suspected Timothy Humphrey. Without her testimony, Hillsborough prosecutors had to drop the assault charge against him.

Pinellas Park police then learned Timothy and Ashley Humphrey had married the day before the murder. The pair had met in 2002 when Ashley, then 19, began working out at a Brandon gym where Timothy, then 36, was a personal trainer. They began dating, then she moved in with him. They got tattoos of each other's names on their backs.

Ashley later told police that Timothy worried about going to prison based on Rozzo's accusations. They talked of a suicide pact, but began to focus on plans to get rid of Rozzo, Ashley has said.

Timothy taught Ashley how to load and shoot a gun. He told her to ambush Rozzo, then steal her book bag so it looked like a random robbery, court records state.

They married July 4, 2003.

The next day, Ashley donned black makeup and a beard, then waited outside the Green Iguana bar on the Courtney Campbell Parkway, where Rozzo was working. Ashley waited more than seven hours, calling her husband 14 times, records show.

When Rozzo left the bar, Ashley followed. She later told police she called Timothy and said: "It will be over in a few minutes. I'll call you when I'm done."

Rozzo pulled her white BMW convertible into her Pinellas Park garage.

Before she could get out, Ashley shot her eight times, court records state.

As she drove away, Ashley told police, she called Timothy and told him it was over. She asked him to order a pizza, double cheese with chicken.

Timothy's call to the pizza restaurant placed him at his Brandon apartment, an alibi eliminating any possibility he was the shooter.

But all those cell phone calls placed by Ashley had left a trail. Cell tower records showed Ashley was sitting on the Courtney Campbell when she called her new husband 14 times. They also showed her traveling into Pinellas County right before the murder and leaving Pinellas Park right after.

Five months later, Ashley was charged with murder.

A grand jury indicted Timothy four months after that.

After his arrest, he put the community in fear by escaping from a transport van at the jail. He was on the run for several hours before deputies found him hiding in underbrush about a mile away.

About that time, Ashley told her lawyers she wanted to make a deal. She agreed to testify against her husband in exchange for a 25-year sentence.

The deal is off if she doesn't testify truthfully this week. If she does as expected, she will be out of prison at age 46. Rozzo's family approves of the deal, saying Timothy Humphrey made a killer out of his young bride through manipulation.

"I had been brainwashed and taken advantage of by this man and I wanted to let the truth be known and do whatever it took to - let it be known that he was the mastermind behind it," Ashley said in a deposition.

Prosecutors cannot use some evidence against Timothy because of a privilege that protects spouses from testimony from their husbands or wives.

However, allegations that Timothy planned the murder can be presented because many of those conversations occurred before the couple married.

Evidence of the phone conversations on the day of the murder is also admissible, a judge ruled.

[Last modified February 14, 2006, 02:45:31]