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Barber's phone leads to suspect

The arrested man's number was the last entered into the victim's cell phone before he died, police say.

By ASHLEE CLARK
Published June 23, 2006

CLEARWATER - At first, it was a mystery.

A well-known barber was found in December slumped across the passenger seat of his car, a single, fatal gunshot wound to his chest. The mangled bullet offered no clues about the gun used.

Six months later, within a block of where the shooting happened, Clearwater police arrested the man they think is responsible for the death of Tommy Gregory, owner of A Cut Above the Rest barbershop on Gulf to Bay Boulevard.

Billy L. Jackson, 20, of Clearwater, was arrested Wednesday on a second-degree murder charge. He is held in the Pinellas County Jail with bail set at $1-million.

The key to the case turned out to be a cell phone found in Gregory's car.

The last number keyed into the phone was the number of Jackson's prepaid cell phone, which was activated at 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 30, an hour before Gregory was found shot, according to a warrant for Jackson's arrest.

Police believe Gregory was parked, with someone standing next to the driver's door when he was shot. A witness reported hearing an argument and a man saying, "Don't do it; it don't have to be like this." The witness then heard three shots and saw the white car drive erratically from the scene, according to Jackson's arrest warrant.

Gregory was found two blocks away, his white Honda Civic smashed into a tree at N Pennsylvania Avenue and Lee Street. He died later that night at Mease Dunedin Hospital.

When police tracked down the owner of the number in Gregory's phone, Jackson told police he bought the phone and went to Orlando in the early afternoon that day and couldn't explain why his number was in Gregory's phone, according to the warrant.

"He had to change his story a few times, and it still didn't ducktail with provable facts," said Wayne Shelor, a Clearwater police spokesman.

During the investigation, officers interviewed Soyoura Herring, Jackson's then girlfriend, who said Jackson sounded "shaky" when he called her at 8 p.m. - a half hour after the shooting - to ask her to join him in Orlando, the warrant states. Herring said Jackson admitted to the shooting when he returned from Orlando.

The warrant also states that Jackson confessed to a third party in January that he shot the barber.

Shelor said he didn't know how Jackson knew Gregory and declined to discuss a motive for the shooting.

In the midst of the investigation, police were briefly diverted by a false confession, Shelor said.

Leo L. Boatman, a suspect in the murders of two campers at Ocala National Forest, confessed to Gregory's murder.

Shelor said police were suspicious of his confession from the start and that Boatman later recanted, saying he had hoped it would get him transferred to another jail.

Shelor said he doesn't anticipate other arrests being made in the Gregory case.

However, police did arrest two men while surveilling a house Wednesday on Greenwood Avenue where they thought Jackson was located.

Police followed a car that left the house to Palm Bluff Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, Shelor said.

When they tried to stop the car, the driver rammed into the police car after the officers got out, drove through a fence and into an empty lot, and then drove through another fence before getting stuck, Shelor said.

The driver was identified as Justin L. Nistico, 32, and the passenger as Jackson's brother Jauntriell S. Jackson, 30.

Nistico was arrested on charges of resisting arrest without violence, aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, driving with a suspended license and fleeing and eluding. Jauntriell Jackson was arrested for two outstanding warrants, Shelor said.

Ashlee Clark can be reach at 445-4158 or aclark@sptimes.com.

[Last modified June 23, 2006, 07:39:48]