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Suspect keeps slipping away

Christopher Cheatham, sought for questioning in last week's double murder, has been wanted on drug charges for years.

By THOMAS LAKE and MALLORY SIMON
Published July 19, 2006

	[Times photo: Brendan Fitterer]
	A secluded clearing on Dolphin Drive in Hudson is only steps away from where two men were killed in a shooting last week. Neighbors said the area is known for drug activity and that the clearing is often used to make drug deals.

HUDSON - In October 2004, sheriff's deputies came looking for Christopher Cheatham. He was wanted on an Ohio drug-trafficking warrant. But he slipped away, apparently tipped off by his roommate.

If they had gotten him then, Cheatham might still be locked away in Ohio.

Instead, he was wanted for questioning in connection with a shooting last week that left two men dead in the street.

He has been implicated in at least two other violent incidents in Pasco County since that 2004 escape.

And on Sunday night, after deputies tracked him to a Travelodge on U.S. 19 in Port Richey, after they lurked outside for more than four hours, after the SWAT team fired tear gas and stormed in, they realized that they may have been surrounding an empty room.

Cheatham, 33, had escaped again.

Twenty-one months ago, Cheatham was living at 7300 Terrace Drive in Hudson and working as a plumber's helper when Deputy James Campbell knocked on the door.

A man named Allen Westervelt answered. He said he was Cheatham's roommate, according to the deputy's report, and he said Cheatham wasn't home.

Campbell told Westervelt not to tell anyone that he had come by. When he returned the next morning with reinforcements, Cheatham wasn't there.

"No," Westervelt said, according to Campbell's report. "He didn't come home last night."

Campbell tracked down Cheatham's boss at the plumbing company, who told him the roommate had delivered Cheatham this warning:

"You don't want to go home. The cops are looking for you."

Deputies took Westervelt into investigative custody and tracked Cheatham to a motel on U.S. 19 near the Cotee River.

A woman there said he had fled for Chicago.

"I then transported Mr. Westervelt back to his residence," Campbell wrote, "and thanked him for his cooperation."

Cheatham, also known as Black, would resurface here less than two weeks later. He was looking for his dog.

On Oct. 29, 2004, according to a sheriff's report, Cheatham tucked a handgun into his belt, cut the telephone lines at his old apartment on Terrace Drive and forced his way through the front door.

"If you don't give me my dog back," he told the man inside, according to the report, "I'll shoot you."

But the man had given the dog away because he thought it was abandoned. He grabbed a baseball bat, forced Cheatham out and chased him down the street.

In January 2005, Cheatham turned up at a mobile home park on Maryland Avenue. The acting manager there, who identified himself as Charles but refused to provide his last name, recognized Cheatham's photo when a Times reporter showed it to him. Rent receipts show he lived there until October.

Neighbors said the area is notorious for drugs. "If you can't get drugs on Maryland Avenue, it's because you don't have any money or there's no drugs in Florida," Charles said.

The park is a block and a half from a secluded area along Dolphin Drive where a gap in a dense grove of trees provides cover for what neighbors said are frequent drug deals.

It is the place where George Martin Jr. and Theodore Skarupski were gunned down last week. Martin, 25, and Skarupski, 35, were found lying next to a black Ford Bronco riddled with bullets.

The engine was still running.

Sometime after leaving Maryland Avenue in October, Cheatham appeared on Williams Lane in Hudson, in a house that neighbors said was guarded by surveillance cameras and a big dog.

"You'd have to be stupid not to realize what he was doing," neighbor Tina Lindgren said. "People were always walking up and down the street, and cars were always there."

Cheatham lived in the concrete block house with his Great Dane-Labrador retriever mix named Max, Lindgren said. One night about two months ago, she said, he disappeared, leaving the dog behind with no food or water.

So Lindgren took Max in.

On June 6, a man at a BP gas station on U.S. 19 said several people were chasing him and trying to kill him. He said someone struck him in the head with a Glock .40-caliber handgun.

Sheriff's spokesman Kevin Doll said Cheatham is a suspect in that case. Deputies found an assault rifle in the Travelodge room where they thought they had him cornered.

He may be traveling with his girlfriend, Sarah Schneider, 28, whose car was impounded at the motel. She was also wanted for questioning in connection with the double homicide.

The Sheriff's Office said the couple may be in a burgundy Chevrolet pickup with the tag Q714LL, or possibly a white Cadillac. They should be considered armed and dangerous.

Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Thomas Lake can be reached at tlake@sptimes.com or (727) 869-6245.

[Last modified July 18, 2006, 22:46:04]