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Neo-Nazi victim escapes carjacker

By JAMAL THALJI and CAMILLE C. SPENCER
Published December 15, 2006

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Janel Schroeder-Norton] Patricia Wells was driving home when a man entered her car.

PORT RICHEY - Patricia Wells is a survivor. But then what choice did she have?

First it was the neo-Nazis next door who tried to storm her house March 7. Then 16 days later a masked, knife-wielding man broke in, tried to kill Wells and killed Kristofer King, 17.

Now there's the carjacker who choked her during a Wednesday night robbery, authorities say.

"What is it this year with me?" Wells said Thursday. "I'm moving out of Pasco County."

And if there's one thing Wells learned this year, it's how to get away.

She ran from the neo-Nazis charging her home. She ran from the man in the gas mask who slashed her with a knife.

This time, according to a Pasco sheriff's report, Wells, 44, was driving home from a girlfriend's house about 8 p.m. She was at the corner of Zimmerman and Ranch roads in Port Richey when a man opened her passenger side door and jumped in.

She said he grabbed her throat with both hands and told her to drive. He demanded money, threatened to shoot her and kept squeezing tighter and tighter.

Wells kept her wits. She told him she couldn't get the money out of her pocket sitting down.

They stopped. He let her out. She handed over three $20 bills - then pretended to drop them.

He reached down to get the cash - and Wells ran. Again.

"I heard the cocking of a gun," she said. But she got away. Wells figured her trick "would give me that split-second of extra time" to run away as he bent over.

She asked residents to call for help. No arrest has been made.

The Sheriff's Office does not believe this latest incident is linked to the Teak Street stabbing, nor the neo-Nazis who have troubled her in the past. Wells could not identify her attacker Wednesday.

But in court, she identified the neo-Nazi leader, Brian "Zero" Buckley, who is scheduled to be sentenced today for the March 7 storming of Wells' house. She hopes to be there.

Another neo-Nazi, John Allen Ditullio Jr., was charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder for the March 23 stabbing.

"This year I don't know what's going on with this county," Wells said, "and I don't know what's going on with me."

[Last modified December 14, 2006, 23:05:20]