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Gunman kills guard at hotel

Police search for the masked robber after he enters Fairfield Inn & Suites in Clearwater and kills the security guard, then flees with money.

By SHEELA RAMAN
Published September 23, 2006

CLEARWATER - A masked gunman killed an unarmed hotel security guard in a robbery early Friday morning, police said.

William T. Williams, 64, of New Port Richey, died in the lobby of Fairfield Inn & Suites on Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard, Clearwater police spokesman Wayne Shelor said.

Williams was a security guard for Janus Security Services of Tampa and was working at the inn at the time of the robbery.

Police were called to the hotel, just west of McMullen-Booth Road, at 5:35 a.m. Friday.

The robber entered the hotel brandishing a gun and was robbing the front desk when Williams walked into the lobby and was shot, Shelor said.

The robber then ran out of the building and remained at large Friday. Police described the killer as a white man, 30 to 35 years old, 6 feet tall, 200 pounds and with a large build.

He wore dark pants, a dark long-sleeved T-shirt and a light-colored mask similar to a hockey mask or the mask worn by the villain Jason in the Friday the 13th movies, Shelor said.

Two female hotel employees witnessed the shooting, he said, although police were still investigating how the gunman left the hotel.

He fled with some stolen money, Shelor said. All guests in the hotel appeared to have been in their rooms when the shooting occurred, he said.

Williams' family was notified and began arriving at the hotel about 8:30 a.m. At one point, a young man started running past the security tape toward the lobby, sobbing. He had to be held back by several police officers.

Later Friday, Williams' family declined to comment.

Surveillance cameras recorded the crime, but "so far, we don't have any decent, usable images," Shelor said.

"It's like with bank robberies," he said. "Banks get robbed every day, and half the time the video is useless."

Police were still working on extracting useful images from the videotape, Shelor said.

Hotel guest Ken Gaub of Yakima, Wash., said he woke up at 5 a.m. in his fifth-floor room but did not hear the shooting. He went back to sleep and was roused by detectives knocking on his door, he said.

"I hate this; I really do," he said, surveying the crime scene tape and the police vans around the hotel. Gaub was in Clearwater to teach a class at Countryside Christian Center, he said.

Because police closed off the lobby, hotel employees had to check guests out manually at side entrances. By noon, the parking lot had almost completely emptied out.

To his knowledge, Shelor said, the hotel had not been robbed in the past.

Fairfield Inn & Suites is a Marriott brand franchise owned by Buffalo Lodging Associates, a Buffalo, N.Y., company that owns hotels in nine states, primarily in the Northeast.

The hotel is about 5 years old, said Gilles Arditi, vice president of operations for Buffalo's Southeast division. He arrived at the crime scene about 12:30 p.m., he said.

Arditi said it is standard practice for Buffalo to subcontract security workers at their hotels.

"We do that everywhere," he said.

Late Friday afternoon, police still had not let Arditi or other hotel staffers back into the closed-off area.

"Right now, we are just grieving for the family," Arditi said.

Times researcher Angie Drobnic Holan and staff writer Camille Spencer contributed to this report.

[Last modified September 23, 2006, 06:35:38]