Victim on respirator, bail set for stepbrother

By TAMARA LUSH

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 20, 2000

Bonnie Streeter had plans to go to the State Fair with her boyfriend, Jacob Leab, this weekend.

Thursday night, while they watched wrestling on TV at her house, they talked about going. Leab left at 9 p.m., and the next morning, Streeter's hopes for a fun weekend were gone.

Leab, said Pasco sheriff's deputies, was brutally attacked by his stepbrother in his bedroom in the family's Zephyrhills home early Friday morning.

Saturday morning, the 18-year-old Leab was connected to a respirator at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa and couldn't talk, said Streeter, who added that he is conscious and aware of what's going on around him. She said that he squeezed her hand when she asked him to.

"He's going to come out of it," said Streeter, who is 14 and lives in Crystal Springs. "He's doing a lot better."

His stepbrother, Joey Dennis Morton, 18, was charged with attempted murder. On Saturday, a judge set $150,000 bail for Morton, who is at the county jail in Land O'Lakes.

Pasco County sheriff's deputies aren't talking about a motive.

According to an affidavit by Deputy Brett Landsberg, Morton punched Leab in the face and head at about 12:30 a.m. Friday, then stabbed him in the throat with a kitchen knife, police said.

Morton carried his stepbrother outside the Faux Pas Road home and left him in the street, deputies said. Morton then went into the house to clean up the bloody evidence, and walked back outside, slit Leab's throat with a pocketknife and watched his relative bleed, the affidavit said.

Deputies said Morton stuffed the knives, the clothes and other evidence in a plastic trash bag, then hid the bag in a ditch down the street.

The teens' parents were sleeping when the assault happened, authorities said.

Morton woke his parents and dialed 911 at 3 a.m., hours after the attack, deputies said.

Leab is in critical condition in the hospital's intensive care unit, according to hospital officials. On Friday, Leab had surgery to repair his throat.

Morton initially told police that burglars stabbed his stepbrother, according to deputies. But deputies didn't think Morton's story added up, once they saw the blood in the house.

Streeter, who was visiting Leab at the hospital on Saturday, didn't know why Morton would attack his stepbrother.

Morton, a senior at Zephyrhills High School, is a troublemaker, said Streeter, a freshman at the same school. Leab graduated from Pasco High in 1998, she said.

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