Woman fatally shot in carjacking

Many see the victim struggle with the gunman who demands her car at a McDonald's.

[Times photo: Cherie Diez] Police and bystanders look at the spot where a gunman shot a woman who fought him as he seized her car Thursday at a McDonald's restaurant in Gulfport. Her shoes can be seen in the bottom right of the photo.

By BRYAN GILMER

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 11, 2001

GULFPORT -- The woman was leaving the McDonald's restaurant Thursday afternoon, climbing into her small car, when a slight young man walked up and suddenly tried to force his way inside.

"Let go or I'll shoot you!" he screamed as the woman tried to fend him off about 5:50 p.m.

A bystander tried to intervene, but backed away when the young assailant pointed a black handgun at him.

The woman kept fighting until, moments later, the attacker fired three shots.

As the woman slumped onto the asphalt, the gunman squealed out of the parking lot in her silver compact car.

"He just sped off and tore down 54th Street (S) here, blood all over the side of the car," said Gladys Porter, a St. Petersburg woman who had walked out of the restaurant just steps behind the victim.

Described by witnesses as in her 30s, the victim died more than an hour later at Bayfront Medical Center. Her identity was not confirmed late Thursday.

Witnesses last saw the two-door car with a Florida tag heading north on 49th Street at 20th Avenue S, Gulfport police Sgt. Paul Martin said. A car similar to the stolen vehicle was found late Thursday in Clearwater, though authorities did not confirm that it was the stolen car.

The gunman remained at large late Thursday. Witnesses described him as white, in his 20s and wearing a floppy hat. His height was variously estimated between 5 feet 7 and 5 feet 11, and his hair color was described as blond or reddish-blond.

At the McDonald's, Fred Birchenough, 64, sat on the curb in the parking lot after the attack, his head resting on his hand. A few feet away lay the victim's black sandals, sunglasses and two keys.

"I ran to her assistance," he said.

Birchenough said he had no choice but to back off when the carjacker leveled the gun at him. He fell back and skinned his right elbow, yelling to the woman, "Give him the car! Give it up!"

Then he heard three shots.

Gladys and Jerry Porter had just finished a hamburger dinner together and left the restaurant only steps behind the victim.

"She had held the door for me," Mrs. Porter said. "I remember looking at her dress and thinking, "What a pretty pattern.' "

The shooting occurred a few parking spaces from the couple's Cadillac.

"I was just in a state of shock," Mrs. Porter said.

She fumbled with her mobile phone after someone yelled to call 911, but couldn't get it to work. Someone else called, and paramedics arrived moments later, Jerry Porter said.

"When they pulled her blouse back, there was a lot of blood," he said.

Many others witnessed the shooting in broad daylight on a busy stretch of Gulfport Boulevard.

A boy at the Gulfport Bike Shop across from the McDonald's saw the woman and her attacker wrestling in the front seat of the car.

"I heard the gunshots . . . and the smoke . . . blood," said Nicholas Amick, 14.

His friend, Bryan Denski, also 14, was riding his bicycle near the restaurant when he saw it happen. "I started riding to the bike shop to tell (Nicholas) to call the cops," he said.

Seven-year-old Haley Faria was watching TV in her house across the street when she heard something, looked out the door and saw a woman being pushed out the door of a car, her mother, Kathy Faria said.

The girl told her mother, who believed at first that the child was describing a TV show.

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