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Boyfriend gets life in slaying

By LORRI HELFAND
Published January 23, 2007

LARGO - Amber Bartalino spent the last minutes of her life groaning on the bedroom floor of her mobile home, police said, watching her boyfriend reload the shotgun.

Alexander Lee Clayton was unemployed and had spent much of the day drinking and playing video games.

But just 45 minutes after Bartalino, a grocery store cashier, called her mother and said she was moving in with friends, Clayton snapped and shot her.

The first shot hit Bartalino, 20, in the left arm and chest. She remained conscious for three to five minutes after that, authorities said, able to watch as Clayton tried to figure out what to do next.

What he did, police said, was reload the gun, hold the muzzle a foot from away from her chest and, he said later, "put her out of her misery."

On Friday, a Pinellas-Pasco circuit judge sentenced Clayton, 31, to life in prison without parole. Clayton had wanted to plead to second-degree murder.

But Carolyn Bartalino wanted - and got - a guilty plea to first-degree murder in her daughter's death.

"She deserves justice," said Bartalino, 44, of Largo. "She's an innocent, little girl who can't speak now. So I have to speak for her."

Amber Bartalino's death Sept. 27, 2005, ended a life that alternated between shattering violence and determined hope.

During a custody battle over her and her sister, Amber Bartalino's father, Glen W. Gibbens, fired four shots into her family's St. Petersburg home in 1989, killing her grandmother. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

But despite her rocky childhood, the tall, fair-skinned redhead grew into an outgoing young woman with dreams of getting married, buying a home and starting a family.

She attended Osceola High School, went to prom and earned her diploma by passing the GED test.

For several months, she worked at Wal-Mart, where she met Clayton. But shortly before her death, she got a job at Albertsons.

Her Wal-Mart colleagues said she was so upbeat that she literally skipped through the store and refused to take breaks.

Her mother said she had no idea that Clayton, who was dating her daughter for about seven months, was capable of such violence.

"He was quiet. He seemed pretty darned nice, until the last month or so," Carolyn Bartalino said.

After the shooting, Clayton fled and was picked up by the Florida Highway Patrol at a rest stop in Pasco County.

His mother, Mary, said her son's drinking led to his violent behavior.

She said Clayton, who served as a corporal in the Army, pleaded guilty to spare others further pain.

"He decided he didn't want to put us and the other family through any more," she said.

But according to a letter he wrote in October to his public defender, Mary Obermeyer, Clayton was also concerned about his welfare.

"Thank you for your efforts to effect a outcome to this case that is hopefully the least disastrous to my health," he wrote.

Kendall Davidson, County Court division director with the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office, said up until the week of Clayton's plea, the death penalty was on the table because of the amount of time that Clayton waited between shots while Amber Bartalino was conscious.

"We were going to argue it was heinous, atrocious and cruel," Davidson said.

Prosecutors eventually concluded that there were not enough aggravating factors for the death sentence.

Carolyn Bartalino said she is glad she stayed tough for her daughter.

"I feel Amber is smiling down at me," she said.

But the knowledge doesn't ease the pain of her loss.

"I miss her with all my heart and soul," she said.

Times researcher Angie Drobnic Holan contributed to this report. Lorri Helfand can be reached at 727 445-4155 or lorri@sptimes.com.

[Last modified January 22, 2007, 20:34:06]