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The man also was convicted of attempted robbery at a Temple Terrace drug treatment center. He faces life in prison.
By DAVID KARP
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 25, 2001
TAMPA -- She saw the gun. Then she saw him.
She looked at his eyes for only a few seconds, but it was long enough to describe his face and later tell a jury whom she saw.
It was enough for a jury to decide Monday that Phillip Walker, 41, tried to rob a Temple Terrace drug treatment center, and, when that failed, he shot and killed one of the center's employees.
A jury convicted Walker on Monday of attempted robbery and first-degree murder for killing Sergio Guedes, a 46-year-old substance abuse counselor who had gone in on his day off.
Circuit Judge J. Rogers Padgett will sentence Walker this morning; the conviction carries a mandatory life sentence.
The case against Walker rested largely on the testimony of Shasta Lucey, an employee of the Tampa Metro Treatment Center on Busch Boulevard, who looked at Walker during the holdup. According to court testimony, Walker walked into the drug center on a Sunday morning in March wearing a fedora and carrying a firearm. He pointed the gun at the back of Guedes, a substance abuse counselor.
"It's all about the money. Just give up the money," Walker told Guedes, according to testimony.
Holding a gun on Guedes, Walker took him over to a sealed door. Behind the door was a room where the center kept its money and its drugs.
"If you don't open the door, I'll kill him," Walker shouted, according to testimony.
Lucey, another employee working inside, opened the door. She saw the gun and Walker's face and slammed the door shut. Walker fired at Guedes' back as Guedes bolted for the exit, prosecutors said.
Prosecutor Jay Pruner told jurors that Walker's face had been etched into Lucey's mind. Lucey recalled the face as vividly as people remember where they were when they heard about World Trade Center attack, he said.
"Images can be stamped on your mind," Pruner said.
Another witness also testified that she saw Walker outside of the center.
But the two eyewitnesses wavered in their identification, argued Walker's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Deborah Goins.
Lucey kept wavering between two different men in a photo lineup. The second witness never saw another employee at the center who looked like Walker, Goins said.
She also pointed out that police found no fingerprints, no hair fibers, no fedora and no firearm connected to Walker.
"With a reward out for $5,000, you think they would get something if it was there," Goins said. "It's not there."
-- Times staff writer David Karp is at (813) 226-3376 or karp@sptimes.com.