Words give way to shots

A man enters a convenience store berating his girlfriend. Then he pulls out a gun and fires, wounding her and killing himself.

By AMY HERDY

© St. Petersburg Times,
published September 25, 2001

TAMPA -- They were a noticeable pair inside the Citgo convenience store: The woman quietly shopping while the man screamed obscenities at her.

As she bent to pick snack cakes off a low shelf, the man exploded in anger.

"He was cussing, and saying, "Now you're going to put your a-- in my face?"' clerk Christopher Anderson recalled of the man, who then threatened to kill the woman, everyone in the store and himself.

"I heard a click. I turned around, and he shot her."

Anderson dove to the floor, and heard a second shot. Reaching for the phone, he dialed 911 and said, "We got two dead people here!"

"I'm not dead," the woman replied from a pool of blood.

Monday's shooting shortly after 6 a.m. at the Citgo gas station and store at 4702 W Gandy left Valerie Conner, 36, wounded in the shoulder and in critical condition at Tampa General Hospital, police said. Her boyfriend, Ali Clanton, used the same silver revolver to shoot himself in the head. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The incident rattled Anderson, 26, who was filling in for a manager at that store.

"I felt the bullet whiz by. I smelled it. I heard it. My ears are still ringing," he said. "I'm going to go home, take a nap, work another store and try to get this out of my mind."

Others could not make sense of what happened. As he stood outside the yellow crime scene tape, Joe Welch, 32, said he had known Clanton for years but could not imagine him capable of such violence.

But his friend had been drinking a lot lately, he said, and appeared depressed. "He was always talking to himself, but he was a good dude," said Welch, a construction worker.

Clanton, 30, used to work construction before he became disabled, Welch said. Clanton and Conner had been together about two years, he said.

Police said Conner and her two older sons had been living at the Bay View Motel at 4620 W Gandy, a few doors down from the Citgo store. Clanton had no Tampa address.

Records show he had an extensive criminal history that included convictions for possession of cocaine, battery and trespassing.

Anderson, the clerk, said the shooting appeared to be a spur-of-the-moment decision.

"He had money in his hand," he said of Clanton. "I didn't see it coming."

Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Amy Herdy can be reached at (813) 226-3386 or herdy@sptimes.com.

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