Missing woman's gardener ousted

Police theorize that jealousy over their relationship led to her death.

By REBECCA CATALANELLO, Times Staff Writer
Published November 2, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT Sandra Hamby Prince was 59 when she was reported missing in early January of 2006.

TAMPA - David Jarrett has been dismissed from his duties gardening for Sandra Prince.

Jarrett, Prince's gardener for years before she disappeared around New Year's Day 2006 at age 59, received a letter Wednesday stating that his services were no longer needed.

Douglas B. Stalley, conservator for Prince's estate, dated and postmarked the letter Oct. 30 - a day before the St. Petersburg Times published the first in-depth interview with Jarrett since Prince vanished.

Jarrett, 47, developed a close friendship with Prince in the three years he worked for the Temple Terrace social worker and co-founder of the Agency for Community Treatment Services drug treatment agency.

In court papers released last week, investigators theorized it was that relationship that may have motivated another man - a man they say dated Prince for five years - to take her life.

Jarrett said police initially suspected him of being involved in her disappearance. But Detective Michael Pridemore said Jarrett has passed a polygraph exam.

Missing from Prince's house when police arrived on Jan. 3, 2006, police said, were journals Prince and Jarrett used to communicate with one another about his work in the garden. The notes expanded over time to include personal issues and politics.

Jarrett is in the background of a $6,000 painting Prince commissioned of herself standing in her garden.

Police wonder if Tampa contractor Earl C. Pippin III, Prince's boyfriend and the man they have named a "person of interest" in Prince's disappearance, felt slighted by Jarrett's role in the painting.

Pippin's attorney, Paul Sisco, said the theory sounds like the plot of a bad novel. "It's speculation and imagination by not very creative law enforcement."

ATM videos show a masked man withdrawing $800 from Prince's accounts over two days around the time of her disappearance. Sisco says investigators have ignored information provided by a witness who said he saw the man at the ATM and gave police a description.

Sisco predicts that their latest effort to locate Prince's body under the foundations of a South Tampa house that Pippin built will turn up nothing.

Investigators are still processing evidence collected in dirt samples there.

Jarrett said he felt an obligation to care for Prince's Moffat Place grounds after she disappeared.

The conservator had been paying him for his work, as Prince did.

Jarrett said he was more puzzled by the lack of a reason Stalley gave for dismissing him than by the fact that his work at the house has come to an end.

Stalley did not return a phone message left at his office seeking comment.

"You shouldn't feel bad for me," Jarrett said Wednesday after receiving the letter. "I was doing it for therapy. It weighs on me now. So, in reality, I'm relieved."

Rebecca Catalanello can be reached at rcatalanello@sptimes.com or 813 226-3383.

[Last modified November 2, 2007, 00:58:12]