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Man to serve life in murder of delivery man
By DAVID KARP
© St. Petersburg Times, TAMPA -- As he waited in the dark for the pizza delivery man to arrive, Earl "E.J." Hinson began to get sick. He knew what would soon happen. Hinson and his buddy, Harold Wolf, were waiting to ambush an unsuspecting Eduardo Natal, the 23-year-old delivery man from Windy City Pizza. With a gun and newly purchased magazine of bullets, they had ordered a pizza to a house where Hinson's family once lived. When Natal drove up, Hinson surprised him from behind, holding a gun about a foot from the back of his head. "I leaned up against this car, and it went off,' Hinson told detectives in a tape-recorded confession played during Hinson's trial. With those damning words, a jury took just 45 minutes to convict Hinson of first-degree murder and robbery. Circuit Judge J. Rogers Padgett then ordered Hinson, 22, to spend the rest of his life in prison, the automatic sentence for first-degree murder. Hinson nodded his head. He didn't look at his mother, who began to cry. Outside the courtroom, Natal's family hugged each other. "We have asked ourselves 100 times why, and we can't figure it out," said Roy "Cal" Kiser, one of Natal's relatives who opened his Tampa house to Natal when he moved here from Brazil. "Eduardo was just a wonderful boy. We miss him." Hinson still faces another trial on charges of trying to kill two people working at the Loop Pizza Grill, a trendy restaurant in Carrollwood Village, the morning after murdering Natal. Wolf, Hinson's friend, goes on trial today for his role in the delivery man's murder. Hinson blamed Wolf, accusing him of masterminding the murder and of forcing him to help. He said Wolf assured him, "Just do what I tell you and everything will be fine." But prosecutors pointed out that Hinson had gone with Wolf earlier in the day to Sonny's Gun Shop to buy bullets. Hinson told detectives that as he waited for Natal, he got out of the car and walked to a football field to throw up. Why, detectives asked, didn't Hinson walk away? Hinson said he felt threatened. Wolf told him that gang member friends of a man named Juxael (pronounced jew-sell) were watching him, Hinson said. Later, however, Hinson admitted that Juxael didn't play a role in the friends' outing that night. Prosecutors also said people described Hinson, then 21, and Wolf, then 27, as best friends. After the killing, Hinson said he went to his suburban home and threw up again. Wolf, who spent the night at Hinson's house, wanted to go for a ride. Hinson wanted to stay home but went with Wolf to Pasco County to see a home where Wolf used to live. The drive, Wolf told Hinson, "brings back good memories and simpler times," he said. - Times staff writer David Karp is at (813) 226-3376 or karp@sptimes.com.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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