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Breach of security?
By LOGAN D. MABE © St. Petersburg Times, published November 3, 2000 NORTHDALE -- Before they found out he was a twice-convicted rapist and a murderer, many women at The Landings apartment complex already knew this about Ray Johnston: He gave them a serious case of the creeps. "He was a creepy fellow," one of Johnston's neighbors, Georgette Washington, said in a deposition that is part of a lawsuit filed by the parents of LeAnne Coryell, the woman Johnston was convicted of murdering in 1997. "He would come to the pool and just sit and just glare at women. I mean, like really creepy like, you know, just stare," Washington said. "And he did it constantly." They knew he was creepy, and a poor credit risk. But should the management at The Landings of Cypress Meadows have kept Johnston off the premises? Could they have, even if they had wanted to? Survivors of Coryell -- the 30-year-old dental assistant who was found beaten, strangled and raped not far from the complex where she lived -- are pursuing a lawsuit that contends The Landings could have saved her life by keeping Johnston away. They also suggest complex employees doctored leasing documents after the murder in an attempt to lessen their liability. The Landings argues that management was in the process of legally evicting Johnston at the time of the murder. They were trying to get rid of him, not because of his three-state record of convictions involving attacks on women, but because he had lousy credit and no job. "In many ways, this is a classic negligent security case, with the Plaintiffs alleging that The Landings provided inadequate exterior lighting and inadequate security patrols to deter or prevent this crime," wrote Landings attorney Howard Stone in a court pleading. The case is pending in Hillsborough Circuit Court. But, Stone argued, management was following regular landlord/tenant procedures in the situation, and could not foresee that Johnston was a threat to anyone. "Mr. Johnston exhibited boorish behavior while he resided at The Landings (mostly involving staring at women)," Stone wrote. "But he committed no crimes while he resided here." A killer moves inAt his trial last year, Johnston said something came over him when he sexually assaulted women. Something he couldn't control. "You just can't stop," he testified at his 1999 trial for the murder of LeAnne Coryell. "It doesn't matter how hard you try." Witnesses in the two-year-old lawsuit agree there was something not quite right about Johnston. Another Hillsborough jury convicted Johnston of first-degree murder last month, for the February 1997 killing of Janice Marie Nugent. He faces a death penalty for Coryell's murder, and is awaiting sentencing in the Nugent case. In a sworn statement, Jacquelyn Roberson, a leasing agent at The Landings, said Johnston made her nervous when he said that he knew where she lived and the route she drove home each day. Once, he went to the leasing office and took off his suit and shirt to show female employees a scar on his chest. And routinely Johnston visited the complex's fitness center and stared at staffers through a glass window. "This is definitely the definition of Mr. Weird," Kenneth Harms, a former Miami police chief hired by Coryell's family as an expert witness on security, said in a deposition. Coryell's parents, Thomas and Sandra Morris of Valrico, filed the lawsuit in 1998. It has generated enough motions and depositions to fill nine volumes in the case file. Stacked on top of each other, they're nearly as tall as a first-grader, the age of Coryell's daughter when LeAnne was killed on Aug. 19, 1997. The case is scheduled for trial in late February. The Morrises' attorney, George Nader, is preparing to argue that, his demeanor aside, Johnston should never have had the chance to meet Coryell, let alone kill her. According to court records, Johnston first came to The Landings community in 1997 when he sublet a room in a three-bedroom apartment there. The apartment was originally leased to a man named Douglas Zweber in the fall of 1996. Zweber later brought in two unauthorized roommates, Margaret Vasquez and Gary Senchak. When Zweber moved to Miami in 1997, Senchak sublet the vacant bedroom to Johnston. "Due to the constant, conspicuous and ominous presence of Johnston at the premises, The Landings became aware of his presence at The Landings sometime in late June or early to mid-July of 1997," Nader wrote in one motion. The Landings responded by posting a notice on his apartment door saying Johnston was an unauthorized tenant. Several days later, Johnston filled out an application to be an "add-on roommate." The application and the lease are key documents in the case. Nader alleges that The Landings doctored the papers after Coryell was killed. Two versions of each document have been entered as possible evidence in the case. Nader contends the "add-on" application that was given to police investigating the murder had no notations on it. But he noted the same document The Landings provided during discovery bore the note, "DISAPPROVED." Similarly, Johnston's name had been added to the apartment lease along with Zweber's, but appeared to be crossed out at some point, trial exhibits show. "The Landings' property manager (Becky Ingles) first altered an application for tenancy filled out by Ray Johnston by placing the words "Disapproved B. Ingles' on the application after the murder of LeAnne Coryell, inexorably to make it appear as if The Landings had disapproved his application prior to the murder," Nader wrote in a motion. "The Landings also altered a second document, again while the police investigation was ongoing ..." the motion reads, "when Becky Ingles took the Zweber lease for the apartment where Johnston had been staying and drew a line through his name after the murder ... again to make it appear is if The Landings had never approved him living there." Immediate disapproval?But Stone, the Landings' attorney, said Ingles had determined that Johnston did not qualify almost as soon as he submitted the application, based in large part on his poor credit rating and the fact that the Social Security number he gave turned up invalid. Ingles said in a deposition that she added the "DISAPPROVED" note only when she forwarded the document to The Landings general partner Warren Kinsler after Coryell's murder. At the same time, Ingles said, she drew a line through Johnston's name on the lease because it had been added erroneously by another staffer. In fact, The Landings management was already in the process of evicting Johnston at the time of the murder, she said. Behind on the rent, Johnston received a three-day notice to pay or give up possession on Aug. 18, the day before Coryell was murdered, according to documents filed by The Landings. Each side has lined up apartment security experts to testify. The Landings will argue that management did everything within reason to provide a safe living environment, including the use of off duty Sheriff's deputies as "courtesy officers." The courtesy officers received discounted rent in exchange for being on call when off duty, court records said. They routinely handled noisy neighbor complaints and made occasional sweeps through the complex in their patrol cars. But Harms, the security expert hired by the Morrises, said The Landings management should have been more vigilant with Johnston. "I think Warren Kinsler stated it very appropriately in his deposition," Harms said in his deposition. "We have a security officer to keep the riffraff out. Riffraff, by definition, encompasses everything that Ray Johnston is. ... (He) is a career criminal. He happens to be a sexual predator as well. This is not a guy who is likely to turn over a new leaf because he comes to live on your property." - Logan D. Mabe can be reached at 226-3464 or by e-mail at mabe@sptimes.com.
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