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Police seek man seen before slaying, fire

Police release a sketch of a man who knocked on a neighbor's door before the house was burned.

By ABHI RAGHUNATHAN
Published April 8, 2006

	This sketch came from a description provided by a neighbor of Lawrence Ricker's.

ST. PETERSBURG - Police released a composite sketch Friday of a man they want to interview in their investigation of a retired psychologist's murder.

Just hours before Lawrence H. Ricker was killed and his house at 4160 14th St. N set on fire March 28, the man knocked on a neighbor's door and claimed he was looking for a lost dachshund, police said. The man said his name was John, had a blue bicycle and left a bogus phone number, the neighbor told investigators.

Police are looking for a white male between the ages of 20 and 30. They say the man is 5-foot-7, weighs 150 pounds and has collar-length curly, black hair. The neighbor says he smelled like cigarettes, police said.

"It seemed a little strange," said Bill Proffitt, a spokesman for the St. Petersburg Police Department. "We want to talk to him."

As the police work the case, Ricker's family continues to mourn. They held funeral services for Ricker on Friday and said they still grieve for the relative they loved and lost.

"We haven't seen the drawing yet," said Tim Connor, Ricker's son-in-law.

After a long career as a prominent psychologist and a professor at the University of South Florida, Ricker spent his first years in retirement caring for his wife, Faye, who had Alzheimer's disease and died in 2002.

But Ricker still had a sound mind. He enjoyed crossword puzzles and dining with his family on the weekends.

Police suspected that whoever killed Ricker then set fire to his house about 11:30 p.m. March 28. The blaze caused the roof to collapse and turned the inside of the home into a smoky, black mess.

The Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner's Office classified Ricker's death as "homicidal violence." The police said Ricker, 83, died from "upper body trauma" but would not give details.

Ricker's neighbors saw him shuffle outside to throw away some lint from his dryer on the afternoon of the day he was killed. That night, they saw his home in flames.

His front door was locked, but the garage remained open and his 1978 Toyota Corolla was untouched. The next day, police called Ricker a missing person after failing to find a body inside.

Investigators found Ricker's body two days after his killing when they saw a piece of his foot poking out from under rubble in his den. When other investigators arrived and began sifting through chunks of the roof and other debris, they found evidence that spurred police to launch a homicide investigation.

Anyone with information can call police at (727) 893-7164.

--Abhi Raghunathan can be reached at araghunathan@sptimes.com or 727 893-8472.

[Last modified April 8, 2006, 06:50:06]