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Murder victim's whispered 'Steve' early focus of trial
By CHASE SQUIRES © St. Petersburg Times, published March 28, 2001 DADE CITY -- It all came down to a dying woman's whispers. What did she say? Who heard it? And what did she mean? On Tuesday, the opening day of the murder and rape trial of Michael Peter Fitzpatrick, witnesses recalled finding 28-year-old Laura Lynn Romines -- shivering, naked and afraid -- along a rural stretch of Land O'Lakes roadway. She was bleeding, cut, scratched and bruised. And even with a severed trachea and with her blood forming puddles on the asphalt, she whispered a name: "Steve." She whispered it to Pasco County corrections officer Kyle Hughes when he and his friends -- coming home from a night out in Tampa -- came across her wandering Parkway Boulevard in the wee hours of Aug. 18, 1996. She whispered it to Dwayne Mercer, Hughes' friend, as he held her against his body to comfort her. She whispered it through an oxygen mask to Pasco County paramedic William Arnold. And he repeated it to Deputy Bill Tierney, the first lawman on the scene. But the man arrested six months later and charged with slashing Romines' throat is named Michael. "I don't know if "Steve' did it, but I sure do know the evidence points to him," Fitzpatrick's appointed attorney Bill Eble said in his opening statement Tuesday. "The evidence points in all different directions. The state only talks about Michael, but that's not the whole picture." Romines lived two weeks in a Tampa hospital before she died. But after she was taken to the hospital, she was never again able to speak. In his opening statement, prosecutor Manny Garcia told the jury that Fitzpatrick's DNA was detected in fluids on Romines' body. He said Fitzpatrick denied in two interviews that he even knew Romines, only to admit knowing her in a third discussion with police. Fitzpatrick now admits he had sex with Romines hours before she was found along the road, bleeding. Fitzpatrick, 38, has maintained his innocence since his arrest in February 1997. The state is seeking the death penalty, if he is convicted. As the first 10 of the 56 potential witnesses were called to the stand Tuesday, much of the testimony focused on Romines' dying words. Arnold, Mercer and Hughes testified she seemed to understand their questions. She gave what seemed to be appropriate answers as she dropped in and out of consciousness. She never waivered from the name Steve, and investigators would later learn she had been befriended by a man named Stephen Kirk earlier that summer. She also correctly named Steve's home address. Deputies later seized two knives from Kirk's home. One had hair on the blade. But detectives Peter Weekes and Jeff Bousquet said they felt she tried to signal to them that it was not Steve who cut her neck. They later ruled him out. Weekes said as they questioned Romines in a St. Joseph's Hospital intensive care unit she couldn't speak because of the tubes down her throat. But she could move her head to "answer," and she shook her head no when they mentioned Steve. Bousquet said he went to talk with her with the goal of arresting Kirk, but looked elsewhere when she shook her head. Bousquet also testified, under Eble's cross examination, that as he questioned her the one chance he got, depending on head shakes and nods, Romines was under sedation and faded in and out of consciousness at least four times. Her eyes rolled back into her head, and Bousquet said he had to rouse her. She kept holding up two fingers, Bousquet said. Eble asked if maybe that meant she was attacked by two people. But Bousquet said he took that to mean the car her killer drove was a two-door. Testimony is scheduled to continue today, with Kirk expected to be among the first witnesses called to the stand.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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