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This is far from marital bliss

By THOMAS LAKE
Published November 23, 2006

MOON LAKE - Tuesday went badly for Dawn Dempsey. Her husband piled her clothes in the back yard and set them on fire. Hours after his arrest, authorities said, two of his cronies threatened her life with sawed-off shotguns.

On the surface, Dempsey fits the profile of innocent victim and battered wife. But the story goes deeper, and nobody comes out clean.

Go back one week. Sheriff's deputies responded to the house at 13028 Ladd Ave. for a domestic violence complaint. Dawn Dempsey told them her husband, Tony Dempsey, punched her in the face. She had no visible injuries.

"No sir," Tony later told a reporter. "I have not ever beat that girl. I did kick her hard in the butt one time, but, hell, we was playin'."

No one was arrested in that incident. But according to a Pasco County sheriff's incident report, Dawn, 26, told a deputy she had been cheating on her husband.

Tony is 43, a home builder with a history of burglary and theft. He said infidelity was a chronic problem.

"I tried," he said. "I really tried. I took her out of a strip bar, and I tried to make a lady out of her."

She moved out after the incident last week. He says she took most of her possessions. When he called her to come get the rest, he says, she refused.

On Tuesday he told her by phone he was going to burn the rest. By the time she and a friend got there, smoke was rising from the back yard.

The deputies came, took him away, charged him with criminal mischief. Dawn shivered in the back yard, wearing a borrowed coat.

"All my belongings," she said, looking at the charred mound. "My wedding dresses."

When pressed on this point, she said she was a seamstress.

With Tony in jail, a struggle ensued over the home's remaining possessions. Tony had sentries posted to make sure Dawn kept away. She said they were there to steal. He said they were there to make sure she didn't.

In any case they were big men, one with a skull tattooed on his chest, and by all accounts both of them brandished sawed-off shotguns. These are against the law in Florida. Deputies came and took them away: Jeffrey Kensler of 1204 Lucas St., Holiday; and Phillip Reuben Lazzell, of an unknown address, both 35, both charged with aggravated assault, among other things, because Dawn said they threatened to kill her. Both men were held at the Land O'Lakes jail Wednesday in lieu of $45,000 bail.

Neither Dempsey won, really. Tony was released from jail on $150 bail, but he faced the prospect of spending Thanksgiving alone. Turkey was not first in his mind.

"It wouldn't really matter as long as I had loved ones around me, people that care about me," he said. "It wouldn't matter if I was eating meat loaf."

Dawn said she was in New Port Richey to file for divorce and borrow $20 from a friend. Later Wednesday afternoon, a man answered her cell phone. He called himself Mr. X. He said he had good reason to believe there was a price on Dawn's head, and he said they were both on their way out of town.

Times researcher Angie Drobnic Holan contributed to this report. Thomas Lake can be reached at tlake@sptimes.com or 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6245.

[Last modified November 22, 2006, 21:29:55]