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2 victims live to testify against shooter
By DAVID KARP © St. Petersburg Times, published March 21, 2001 TAMPA -- Kenneth Allen Stewart walked into an east Tampa convenience store early one morning in 1985 and pulled a gun. Without uttering a word, Stewart aimed between the manager's eyes and squeezed the trigger. As blood poured over his face, the manager, James Havill, reached for the telephone. He remembered thinking, "God, please don't let me go this way." Incredibly, he didn't. Havill, who has bullet fragments in his head, walked into court Tuesday as a witness for prosecutors trying to send Stewart, 37, to death row for a 1984 murder case. A jury convicted Stewart and sentenced him to death in 1986 for killing a 21-year-old man. But Stewart's sentence was overturned after he argued that his lawyer had not been effective. Tuesday, a trial was held to re-sentence Stewart. Jurors were told about that 1984 murder, a 1985 murder that also resulted in a death sentence and the robbery of James Havill. As many as five bailiffs stood guard over Stewart, who had escaped from the Morgan Street Jail in 1990. Stewart first killed in December 1984 when he met Ruben Diaz, 21, at a bar and coaxed him into giving him a ride. Once inside Diaz's car, Stewart pulled out a gun and ordered Diaz to drive to some woods. There, he ordered Diaz to lie on the ground and place his hands on his head. Then he shot him twice, execution-style. Later, he took Diaz's car, a Thunderbird, to the Floriland Mall on N Florida Avenue and burned it. About five months later in April 1985, Stewart did the same thing. He burned a 1978 Monte Carlo at the same spot at the Floriland Mall after stealing it from two teenagers who had picked up Stewart. The teenagers were driving home from the beach when they saw Stewart hitchhiking on Nebraska Avenue near Busch Boulevard. "He looked like he needed some help," the driver, Michelle Acosta, testified Tuesday. Once inside, Stewart shot Acosta and her friend, Mark Harris, and left them for dead. Harris died at the hospital. Acosta, now 39, said she doesn't understand why courts continue to overturn Stewart's death sentence and postpone his punishment. Stewart was sentenced to death for Harris' murder, but the case remains on appeal. Acosta has gone through three similar penalty trials for Stewart. Even if the jury spares Stewart from death row for the 1984 killing, he will remain on death row for the 1985 killing.
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