Northpinellas: Pool supply man has past filled with mystery

He's the neighborhood pool guy. About the only items missing from his daily garb of sneakers, shorts and polo shirt are a 12-foot skimmer and a 12-ounce Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Just don't let that outfit fool you. It's a clever disguise for a dangerously inquisitive man living out a second life.

Stamatakis used to carry a gun. That was 20 years ago, and, technically, he wore it on his leg. Always thought it best to keep it there, so as not to frighten away folks when he ducked in the neighborhood convenience store for a cup of coffee.

In those days, he was the one going door to door, he was the man asking questions. And back then, the only time he might peer at your pool was if per chance a dead body was found floating in it.

Stamatakis worked the homicide beat. A detective with the Tampa Police Department, the Tarpon Springs native brought his calming disposition to some of the most brutal murders from 1967 until 1975.

"I think probably, with a broad brush, he was a different personality than one would ordinarily associate with a homicide detective," says Norman S. Cannella Sr., a former prosecutor who worked with Stamatakis in 1975 to find, arrest and convict a former fashion model and her son in the murder of her mogul husband.

"He was more relaxed, almost unconcerned, but far from that. That was sort of an appearance he projected. It was quite helpful, and beneficial, and productive."

So how does a gumshoe go from toting a gun to testing water samples?

"I thought, this was cool," he says. "Walk around in shorts and have fun."

Serendipity or plain dumb luck?

In some ways, Stamatakis' story is a tale of many former police officers who must reinvent themselves once the excitement ends.

Growing up in Tarpon Springs, Stamatakis had no idea of his calling. So he dropped out of high school to join the Air Force, where he served with the Air Police unit. Upon his return in 1963, he began the first of 18 years with the Tampa police.

The move didn't satisfy any childhood fantasy about crime fighting. He simply needed a job. With steady pay and respectable benefits, the police department seemed a good fit.

"When I got out, I had no other training," he says, looking back over his career choice. "I guess I did it out of necessity."

He started out like most officers, working patrol. In his spare time, he enrolled at Hillsborough Community College and later at the University of Tampa, where he earned a bachelor's degree in criminology.

After four years on the force, he received a unique invitation.

Jim Diamond had been Stamatakis' street sergeant. Around 1967, Diamond was promoted to major and assigned command of the homicide detectives. A World War II and Korean War veteran, he had met a lot of tough characters in his time, especially since joining the police department in 1946.

"In my time, when I came up, things were a little different, and we did have the rough ones like you see on TV," said Diamond, now 75. "Most of them today, they depend on tact and their brain power."

Diamond, who would later go on to serve as deputy chief of police, decided the division needed a softer, gregarious addition. He recommended Stamatakis.

"Mark was a smooth and easygoing guy," Diamond says. "I think he was from the school that honey draws more flies than vinegar. If you are nice, you get more results than if you were overly aggressive."

The tame Stamatakis gracefully accepted the offer. "To be honest, I did not particularly want (homicide)," he says. "(But) if you make detective, you don't care where you are working."

On an early January morning in 1975, Stamatakis was called to Davis Islands to investigate the murder of a prominent Tampa businessman. He arrived to find a gruesome scene that indicated a botched robbery gone bad.

He found dresser drawers open, a ransacked home and bloody footprints leading to 52-year-old Albert Haber, dead in a pool of blood.

Investigators ruled Haber had been bludgeoned to death with the blunt end of a rifle, a diagnosis later confirmed by autopsy.

The case might have ended there. But Stamatakis remembers a strange twist that surfaced at the scene: "We found a bullet and could not explain it."

Haber, who owned clothing stores in Tampa and St. Petersburg, had married a former fashion model. Betty Lou Haber was away from the home at the time of the murder.

Stamatakis started knocking on doors.

"You'd walk away a lot of times thinking, they know something, but they are not talking," he remembers. "It's frustrating, but you just seek another avenue."

Finally, rumors led to a possible shooter named James Joseph Brandt.

"He bragged to the wrong person," Stamatakis says, illustrating his point by forming the letter "C' with his hand, then repeatedly closing the gap between his thumb and four fingers, indicating flapping gums. "The snitch came to us."

Accompanied by Cannella, Stamatakis flew to Chicago. They went looking for Brandt's wife in East Chicago, a tough neighborhood in Indiana.

"The local police took us to the area, but did not accompany us into the area," Cannella remembers. "It was that bad."

Within those crude surroundings they found the woman, who had recently split from Brandt. She told them Brandt had come home that evening covered in blood, and that he later dumped the clothes and Haber's cut-up credit cards in the Hillsborough River.

They arrested Brandt and he confessed: Betty Lou Haber and her son, Arnold Jefferson McEver III -- unrelated to Albert Haber -- had hired him to perform the murder.

All three were convicted in the killing.

"They killed him for a $50,000 life insurance policy, and made it look like a burglary while she was away at the beach condo," Stamatakis said.

Not long after the Haber case, Stamatakis left homicide. He moved on to Internal Affairs for four years, followed by short stints in other departments.

The job started to wear on him. While the murders never bothered him too much, he began to struggle with teen suicides and young traffic fatalities.

"He had such stress or issues with the job, he was having dizzy spells," said son Scott Stamatakis, now 30.

So in 1981, he retired from the department, took his pension and acquired a private investigator's license. He had hopes of eventually moving on to the State Attorney's Office and building up a second pension.

The job lasted six months. He learned that being a cop offered advantages that private detectives did not share.

"After going from detective, where they have to cooperate, to PI, where you get the door slammed in your face, I figured it wasn't for me."

During his time as a detective, Stamatakis had developed an unusual practice of buying chlorine in bulk. He kept a small amount for his pool, then sold the extra tablets on the side to fellow officers, hoping to net free chlorine from the deal.

After learning that a Temple Terrace Pinch-A-Penny franchise store was for sale, he contacted the owner. Not long after, he took out a second mortgage on his Carrollwood home and became an entrepreneur in 1981.

"A hundred times over, he could not have made a better move," Scott says. "It was a noticeable difference. The financial level we jumped to, it was incredible. . . . He took a shot, and it really worked out for him."

Eight years later he opened a second franchise off of Bruce B. Downs in Tampa Palms.

Trading his oxfords for flip-flops, Stamatakis reveled in his new career, cutting up with customers and using his persuasive art to earn money. They called him "the doctor" and asked him to make their troubles go away.

Now, after 20 years in the business, he is ready to bow out, again. He sold the Fowler Avenue store last February and is looking for another buyer for the New Tampa store. So, at 59, will Stamatakis finally retire?

"I'm thinking of going to work for the state, EPA, enforcement," he says.

He said a 40-hour work week is tempting after the long hours of running a business. He remembers the security of a steady check and pension.

"I'm not one to sit around and wait to die," he said. "I want to work."

-- Michael Sandler can be reached at (813) 226-3472 or sandler@sptimes.com.

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