Mourners struggle to cope with victim's sudden death

By SARAH SCHWEITZER

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 6, 2000

TAMPA -- In a sun-drenched grassy expanse, they gathered to say their goodbyes Wednesday afternoon. A bullet had taken their loved one nearly one week earlier, but it seemed too soon to be letting go of a woman just 55 years old.

"It is such a shame that a young person should be plucked from life by someone who was mad," said Lyle Jones, 77, a family friend, after a brief graveside service for Barbara Carter, one of five people killed in last Thursday's shooting rampage.

Police say Silvio Izquierdo-Leyva, a 36-year-old Cuban refugee, fatally shot four co-workers, including Carter, at the Radisson Bay Harbor Hotel and later killed a motorist who refused to give him her car. Police say he also wounded three other hotel workers, two of whom remain in hospitals. Izquierdo is being held at a Hillsborough County jail without bail.

But at Wednesday's service, attended by about 40 people, not a word was uttered about Izquierdo, the shooting or the motive for the carnage.

There was an initial reference to Carter's "abrupt passing." But talk quickly turned to the woman who loved crafting ceramics, collecting model cars and mentoring younger co-workers at the Radisson, where she had worked for nearly 15 years.

In a statement read by the reverend, her brother, Wesley Harris of Sebring, spoke of her triumph over a learning disability that doctors had warned might keep her from reaching adulthood. He spoke of the ceramic lamps and dishware she had made for Christmas and birthday gifts. He spoke of her husband's death from lung cancer in 1995 and of her cheerful demeanor in spite of her pain.

The 2 p.m. service concluded half an hour later when mourners filed back to their cars, many with tear-stained tissues in hand, and drove away from Garden of Memories, a cemetery off Lake Avenue and 42nd Street.

Jones, 77, lingered by his car after the service. Jones, a neighbor of one of Carter's two sisters, said he had yet to make peace with her death. It was so abrupt, so unnecessary, so unexpected, he said, there was an unreality to the whole thing.

Another family friend, Melvin Greer, 71, nodded in agreement. "Barbara was just sweet and she was so kind," he said of the woman he had known since she was a little girl.

"It's just sad," he said. "The whole thing."

Funeral services were held Tuesday for Dolores Perdomo, 56, the woman who police say was killed when she refused to give up her car to Izquierdo.

Jose Rolando Aguilar, 40, a dishwasher at the Radisson, is to be buried in La Union, El Salvador, and George C. Jones, 44, a hotel housekeeper, is to be buried in Alabama.

Funeral plans for Eric Pedroso, 29, a groundskeeper, were not available Wednesday.

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