Slaying suspect may face old case

Prosecutors ask Alabama to pursue a stabbing case against the man charged with killing five in Tampa.

By KATHRYN WEXLER

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 5, 2000

TAMPA -- Silvio Izquierdo-Leyva was accused in May 1997 of slashing his friend's legs, arm and lip with a kitchen knife in Mobile, Ala.

By the time Izquierdo was arrested six months later, the victim and witness had disappeared. The case fell apart.

But late Tuesday, Tampa prosecutors asked that Alabama officials renew efforts to prosecute Izquierdo in the stabbing case.

Izquierdo, a 36-year-old Cuban refugee accused of fatally shooting five people last Thursday in Tampa, remained in jail Tuesday without bail.

"They have asked us to proceed with the case up here, and so I expect to present this to the grand jury here in January, and with any kind of luck we'll be able to go to trial in the spring," Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson said. "The crime that occurred up here occurred before the crime down there and may make it relevant (to any future murder trial), not only on the decision to convict but as to what sentence should be imposed."

Izquierdo was never charged with the knife attack. The grand jury declined to indict, something required for all felony charges in Alabama, when officials could not produce the victim or witness, Tyson said.

The penalty in Alabama for first-degree assault is 2 to 20 years in prison, possibly followed by parole or probation. Tyson on Thursday defended prosecutors, saying even if the case had gone smoothly, there is no guarantee Izquierdo would have been behind bars last week.

"Boy, it would be very convenient to say if Alabama had nailed him this wouldn't have happened, but I'm not sure that's true," Tyson said. "I sure would have liked to stay in touch with the victim and witness, but it's not a certainty this would not have occurred."

The victim and witness wanted to press charges, their attorney, Jeff Deen, said Tuesday. But a series of missteps led to a breakdown in communication between the district attorney's office and the couple, now married.

"It falls into the cracks and it's really sad that happened," Deen said.

Gordillo and Holly Winn were at home May 4, 1997, when friends stopped by about 6:30 a.m. and asked if they wanted to go fishing, Deen said. The couple declined and went back to sleep, leaving the door unlocked.

They were awakened soon after by Izquierdo, standing in the doorway, Deen said. He was holding a six-pack of beer. Winn got up to make coffee.

From the kitchen, she heard Izquierdo ask Gordillo if he wanted a beer. The answer was no. Then she heard screaming, Deen said.

"The next thing, he's got a butcher knife and he's hacking away," Deen said.

Winn called 911. The injuries were not life-threatening, Tyson said.

But Deen said the incident was traumatic enough that the couple moved several times and were leery of giving a forwarding address because they didn't want Izquierdo to find them. Deen said the couple never had a falling out with Izquierdo and didn't know what set him off that morning.

Winn later confronted Izquierdo, Deen said, but his explanation didn't make much sense.

"Supposedly she met with Silvio about three to four weeks after the attack and asked why he did it," Deen said, "and he said it was alcohol and drugs. It was totally weird."

After the incident, the couple moved to another location in Mobile and then to Tampa. Only recently did they move back to the Mobile area, Deen said.

"I've been scrambling today to find out what happened," said Tyson, who met with Gordillo and Winn on Tuesday. "They moved no less than six times since the crime. In all the moves we lost them."

Relatives in Tampa say they saw no signs of hostility before Izquierdo went on what police describe as a shooting rampage last week that started inside the Radisson Bay Harbor Hotel on the Courtney Campbell Parkway and ended in the streets of West Tampa.

Meanwhile, at the Hillsborough jail at Orient Road, Izquierdo is under what's known as "psychiatric observation," Col. David Parrish said. That means a detention deputy walks by his solitary cell every 15 minutes to ensure his well-being.

Inmates who appear to health professionals to be mentally unstable are watched closely, Parrish said. Prisoners deemed suicidal are watched 24 hours a day.

Authorities separated Izquierdo because of the notoriety of the charges he may face, Parrish said.

"He's been in single cell confinement since he came in," he said. "When it's very high profile, splashed all over the media, the other inmates are aware of it."

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