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Woman, now 48, pleads guilty to 1983 shooting

By COLLEEN JENKINS
Published March 20, 2007

TAMPA - She fired a gun that killed a teenager, then ran free for nearly 23 years before getting nabbed by a police cold case squad.

After 298 days in jail on a second-degree murder charge, Rosemary Davis on Monday pleaded guilty to the crime.

She will be sentenced May 10. Prosecutors agreed to cap her prison time at 30 years.

Hillsborough public defender's spokesman John Skye said the office hopes that her "very, very substantial health problems" will convince a judge she deserves less time behind bars. Skye would not elaborate.

After police arrested Davis in May, her sister said Davis had been wracked by guilt since killing a stranger in 1983.

The shooting occurred outside the Rabbit's Foot Bar on Lake Avenue and 29th Street, nicknamed the "Buckets of Blood Bar" because violence was so common there. The bar closed in the early 1980s.

Police said Davis was fighting with another woman over clothes. Davis said she felt threatened by a group of women and fired into the air to scare them away.

Lisa Davis, 15 and unrelated to the shooter, was hit in the cheek. She left behind an 8-month-old daughter.

Rosemary Davis' arrest marked the first last year by a newly formed Tampa police cold case squad.

Davis, 48, had gone to her older sister's house to talk about turning herself in when an informer alerted police to her whereabouts.

[Last modified March 20, 2007, 02:31:30]