Fatal gunshots at busy corner

A man shoots and kills a woman near Sam's Club, then takes off. Hours later, he kills himself.

By CHUIN-WEI YAP
Published July 21, 2007

A white sheet covers Mimi Gayre's body, visible behind the yellow Jeep of her boyfriend, Steve Duhamel, who said she was shot by her estranged husband, who later killed himself.
	[Times photo: Janel Schroeder-Norton]

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Maurice Rivenbark] Deputies approach Tracy Gayre's blue Dodge Caliber in a field off State Road 471 after Gayre shot himself in the face with a 9mm handgun. [Times photo: Janel Schroeder-Norton] After his girlfriend, Mimi Gayre, died in his arms, a distraught Steve Duhamel makes a phone call. "She just wanted to be happy," said Duhamel. "She was a very good person. She always cared about other people. Even the man who shot her - she was always worried about him."

WESLEY CHAPEL - He did everything he could to save her.

But Mimi Gayre died in her boyfriend's arms Friday afternoon, shot dead by a husband she thought she had left behind in Las Vegas.

The life of the 35-year-old woman from Macon, Ga., ended in the parking lot near Sam's Club at State Road 56 and Bruce B. Downs Boulevard.

"She just wanted to be happy," said Steve Duhamel, 41, her boyfriend. "She was a very good person. She always cared about other people. Even the man who shot her - she was always worried about him."

Police had not released the victim's name late Friday, but Duhamel said it was his girlfriend, Mimi Gayre.

Although Gayre died about 3 p.m. Friday, the sad story began about a year ago, when she began dating Duhamel after friends introduced them.

"She had left her husband," Duhamel said, choking back sobs, as he stood in the doorway of his Wesley Chapel home. "We've been friends for a short time. We were dating."

She was living with her family in Georgia, after leaving her husband, Tracy Gayre, in Las Vegas.

A marketing director for a hospital company, Mimi had arranged to visit Duhamel and arrived Thursday in her Jaguar. They were going to hang out with friends and visit Orlando.

Her husband tracked her down. No one knows how.

Thursday night, he stole her Jaguar and told them he had done so, Duhamel said.

"We pleaded with him to give the car back," he said.

Tracy Gayre eventually said he would leave it at the parking lot outside Republic Bank near Sam's Club, and that she could pick it up.

Friday afternoon, Duhamel brought Mimi to the lot in his yellow Jeep. The Jaguar was there.

She got in. Duhamel said goodbye.

"He pulled up, and he had a handgun out," Duhamel said.

Those working in the strip mall say they heard three or four gunshots.

Mimi Gayre died as Duhamel tried to save her.

People in the area raced to lock themselves in and called 911 when they heard talk of a gunfight.

"I just locked the door, brother," said Albert Dufka, who runs the T-Mobile store on the strip. "This is unusual. This kind of thing never happens out here."

After the shooting, Tracy Gayre fled as deputies, responding to 911 calls, closed in.

He led a Pasco deputy on a 40-mile chase, from Wesley Chapel through Hernando County, before he was cornered by deputies from three counties in Tarrytown in Sumter County.

Tracy Gayre sat for hours in his blue Dodge Caliber in a field off State Road 471.

Sumter sheriff's spokesman Lt. Bobby Caruthers said Gayre tried to call his parents, but couldn't reach them.

"We talked to him for several hours," Caruthers said. "He said his wife was the only thing in the world that mattered to him."

About 6:45 p.m., Gayre used a 9mm handgun to shoot himself in the face, Caruthers said. He died a few minutes later.

In Wesley Chapel, Duhamel grieved.

"She didn't want to live that way, always worried that somebody might hurt her," he said. "She just wanted to be happy."

Times staff writer Helen Anne Travis and staff researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Chuin-Wei Yap can be reached at 813 909-4613 or cyap@sptimes.com.

[Last modified July 20, 2007, 22:05:55]