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Questions, but few answers

Had a Clearwater man on a flight to New York been shot?

By Jonathan Abel, Times Staff Writer
Published October 23, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [WCNC-TV] William Notaro was taken from the Charlotte, N.C., airport for treatment. But for what?

CLEARWATER - There's nothing like an outlandish story - man gets shot, catches plane - to get a buzz going on the Web.

Such was the case of William J. Notaro, 37, of Clearwater. On Saturday, his Tampa-to-Albany trip was interrupted with an extra-long layover in Charlotte, N.C., so he could be treated for what authorities described as apparent gunshot wounds. By Sunday, his story circled the globe at fiber-optic speed.

There's just one problem: He may not have been shot in the first place.

Notaro's strange story turned even stranger Monday as the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office questioned the basic facts of the case.

"We continue to investigate what this person's injuries are," sheriff's Sgt. Jim Bordner said. "Was he even shot? And if he was, with what?"

An investigation is now under way to determine if any crime was committed, Bordner said.

Notaro could not be reached on Monday.

On Sunday, authorities reported Notaro's version of events: He fell into an argument with a woman at the Windemere apartments in Dunedin. She shot him three times with a small-caliber handgun about 3 a.m. Saturday. He dressed the wound with the help of a friend and boarded a flight to Albany, where his extended family lives, by way of Charlotte.

The story had a number of contradictions, the Sheriff's Office warned over the weekend, and on Monday those started to emerge.

The manager of the Windemere apartments, who wouldn't give her name, said there had been no shooting at the complex.

Bordner said he couldn't reveal where Notaro was when he may or may not have been shot.

If Notaro was not shot, that might help explain how he passed through airport security unhindered.

Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Sari Koshetz said screeners didn't notice anything suspicious about Notaro. And even if he still had the slugs in his body, they might not have set off alarms.

"Our goal," said Koshetz, "is to make sure the person doesn't have any threat objects on them or in their luggage."

A bullet lodged inside a person's body is no longer a threat to others, and whatever symptoms the man was showing from his injury must not have been severe, she said.

"Obviously, if someone came through our checkpoint in obvious distress, we are very well-trained to deal with that behavior," she said.

Amid the uncertainty, a few facts remain solid.

Notaro took US Airways Flight 1246 from Tampa to Charlotte. It left Tampa at 7:05 p.m. Saturday and landed in Charlotte at 8:11 p.m.

His flight from Charlotte to Albany, N.Y., was due to depart at 9:59 in the evening. But four minutes before the scheduled takeoff, airport police were told that there was a medical emergency. He came to the attention of a flight attendant, authorities said Sunday, after asking for Band-Aids.

Notaro was treated at a local hospital for wounds to his torso and arm, authorities said, and then sent on his way to Albany. When initially contacted by Pinellas investigators, he said he might not want to prosecute, officials said.

A woman who answered the phone at Notaro's mother's house in Albany on Monday said she had no comment and hung up the phone.

Jonathan Abel can be reached at jabel@sptimes.com or 727 445-4157.

[Last modified October 23, 2007, 06:21:51]