Deputies hunt for intruder

After walking in on a break-in, a resident shoots at the burglar and might have hit him.

By JOHN FRANK, Times Staff Writer
Published October 18, 2007

A forensics technician with the Sheriff's Office gathers evidence from a pickup they believe was stolen by the man who broke into Mark Hartley's home.
	[Keri Wiginton | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Keri Wiginton | Times] Mark Hartley, left, talks with Hernando County sheriff's deputies and forensic technicians outside his home Wednesday afternoon after the break-in.

ROYAL HIGHLANDS -- Mark Hartley returned to his house Wednesday morning to find an unfamiliar red pickup in the driveway. He grabbed a pistol and walked to the back of his doublewide mobile home and saw the door was ajar.

In his mind, he said, "This isn't good," Hartley told the Hernando Times.

In his hand, Hartley gripped a .22-caliber pistol. He gently opened the screen door, but it creaked as it shut behind him. The intruder heard it.

"I said, 'Freeze,' and he came charging out of my bedroom at me," Hartley said. "He tried to tackle me at the back door; he came shoulder down."

Hartley managed to fire one shot from about a foot away. But the first bullet was "snake shot," or a bullet filled with tiny lead pellets used to kill small varmints.

It didn't slow the intruder, described as a white male in his 20s with a shaved head, last seen wearing baggy blue jeans and a white tank top. The intruder ran out the door of the home at the corner of Sorrell Street and Sunshine Grove Road and headed for the red pickup.

The truck, authorities said, was reported stolen about three days ago in Hernando County. On the front seat was a .38-caliber handgun, also reported stolen in an unrelated incident. But the suspect didn't have time to reach the weapon, Hartley said, because Hartley was close behind him.

As the man fled, Hartley fired another shot -- this time with a real bullet. It's unclear if the slug hit him, but Hartley said he saw the man begin to limp as he ran north along Sunshine Grove Road before crossing a field in this rural neighborhood northwest of Brooksville.

Authorities launched an exhaustive daylong search involving nearly two dozen sheriff's deputies, a helicopter and numerous scent-tracking canine units.

The suspect remained on the loose Wednesday evening.

"We felt comfortable that the perimeter was set pretty quick, but after checking with canine and helicopter" nothing was found, said Lt. Scott Bierwiler, a spokesman for the Hernando County Sheriff's Office.

Authorities now believe the suspect could be anywhere.

Forensics investigators arrived on the scene and worked late into the day to find evidence that would identify the intruder. Bierwiler released few details about the burglary and what is known so far comes from Hartley.

The 44-year-old home repairman said he stopped at his house on his way to Lowe's just before 11 a.m. No one else was in the house at the time.

Hartley is the son of a retired St. Petersburg police officer and brother to Jennie Hartley, a 47-year-old St. Petersburg woman who was stabbed to death by her 17-year-old neighbor in June 2006.

Authorities said they don't believe the incidents are related but they don't know why Hartley's home was targeted for the break-in.

The suspect was carrying a dark-colored jacket when he fled. The extent of his injuries, if any, is unclear, Bierwiler said.

The search consumed the southern portion of the Royal Highlands area for hours after the 911 call came in at 10:52 a.m. Hernando deputies armed with rifles and shotguns diverted traffic north of Hexam Road, and the Sheriff's Office used the reverse 911 system to issue a red alert to residents living within a mile of the crime scene.

Deputies were sent to the campuses of three nearby schools -- Central High, West Hernando Middle and Pine Grove Elementary -- but the schools were not locked down.

Kathy Regan, 44, lives one block away on Eskimo Curlew Road. She stood in the midday heat at the intersection with Hexam Road as a helicopter hovered overhead.

She and her ex-husband, Norm McCormick, 45, said this remote area never sees the kind of crime that attracts three news helicopters flying in circles above them.

"It used to be a nice quiet community but with all the growth the crimes increased," McCormick said.

"Even a year ago, I wasn't locking stuff up," added Regan. "But now you have to bolt it down."

Soon, anxiety set in and Regan leaned against her son's SUV. "This is bad," she said.

McCormick agreed. "This is Tampa. That is what this is."

John Frank can be reached at jfrank@sptimes.com or (352) 754-6114.

[Last modified October 17, 2007, 21:09:22]