Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Digest

Briefly

By TIMES WIRES
Published August 31, 2006

Jailers take makeshift knife from suspect

Marion County jail guards confiscated a makeshift knife that Leo Boatman, a double murder suspect from Largo, reportedly said he would use to kill deputies or guards if he were sentenced to death.

Boatman had previously used a razor blade in a suicide attempt.

Boatman was arrested in January in the murders of college students John Parker and Amber Peck, both 26, who were camping in Ocala National Forest. He allegedly shot them with a rifle.

Capt. James Pogue, Marion County sheriff's spokesman, said guards were tipped off about Boatman's knife by another inmate.

Lester Williams, 27, who is serving time for sexual battery and whose cell is next to Boatman's, told an officer he saw Boatman with the 6- to-8-inch knife, fashioned from a metal rod, on Aug. 18.

The officer asked Williams to try to get the knife from Boatman, and a few days later he did, after asking Boatman if he could borrow it to hurt himself, officials said. Williams handed the knife over to a guard.

Boatman obtained the metal rod during a half-hour period when he was allowed to leave his cell for recreation in an open room, taking it from an officer's desk when he wasn't looking, officials said.

Pogue said new security measures have been put in place.

Crash seriously injures Clearwater woman

A Clearwater woman is in serious condition at Bayfront Medical Center after a collision Wednesday morning in St. Petersburg.

Authorities said Kristen N. Munsell, 21, was driving south on 37th Street around 4:30 a.m. when she ran a flashing red light at Fifth Avenue S. A vehicle being driven west on Fifth by Willie B. Lynn, 39, of St. Petersburg, hit hers on the driver's side.

Lynn received minor injuries.

[Last modified August 31, 2006, 01:25:19]