Vandals steal, damage 5 campus carts

By Times staff writers

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 22, 2000

TAMPA -- Hundreds of gas- and electric-powered carts zip through the sprawling University of South Florida campus every day as workers complete their errands. Lately, police say, the carts have become targets for vandals who take them for joyrides on campus and then return them heavily damaged.

Five carts have been stolen and recovered since Friday.

"It looks like somebody has been playing bumper cars with them," said University Police Maj. Pat Johnson. He said witnesses saw several boys who looked as young as 13 driving the carts.

The carts were taken from several areas of the campus. Two were taken Friday, one Monday and two Tuesday.

"They were dinged up, bumped up," Johnson said. "None were totaled."

Comatose Tarpon Springs woman dies

Tarpon Springs resident Tracy Lynn Hoban, who was discovered in a coma in a Tampa hospital last week after mysteriously disappearing two weeks earlier, died Wednesday morning.

Hoban, 35, who was hit by a car June 3 at a Pasco County intersection, died around 5:30 a.m. at St. Joseph's Hospital, hospital spokeswoman Joelle Wiley said. Hoban reportedly got out of her boyfriend's truck during an argument shortly before the accident.

The Florida Highway Patrol is still investigating the accident, said Cpl. R.J. Kraus, the chief investigator on the case. Kraus said the Hillsborough County medical examiner will determine the exact cause of death. Authorities said last week that they suspected that Hoban, a mother of two, might have suffered some of her injuries before that accident.

Michelle Proctor, Hoban's niece, said Hoban had suffered severe head injuries and never regained consciousness. "Other than her head, you wouldn't even have known (she was injured)," Proctor said.

Proctor said Hoban was hooked up to a respirator until this week.

"She was breathing good on her own, so they took her off," she said.

Hoban lay unidentified in the hospital until June 15, when a Pasco County sheriff's deputy connected her description with a missing-persons report. Until then, Tarpon Springs police had suspected Hoban may have been murdered.

The same day that she was identified, authorities searched the house of 42-year-old Ed Bunch, Hoban's live-in boyfriend, at 133 Hope St. The search took place two days after a bail bondsman found blood stains on a sheet in the house and on a comforter in the garage and told police.

According to Bunch, Hoban was unharmed when she stepped out of his truck on U.S. 41 on June 3 and never came back. He reported her missing June 5.

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