Week in Review

© St. Petersburg Times,
published November 4, 2001

LUTZ LOSES REALTOR: Juanita Dennis, who owned one of the largest real estate companies in north Hillsborough and central Pasco counties, has died at age 61. Mrs. Dennis, owner of ERA Dennis Realty & Investment Corp., suffered a stroke while visiting her sister in Tennessee and died early Oct. 28, said Vince Arcuri, the company's top agent.

A real estate agent for 38 years, Mrs. Dennis had established her company in 1973 in Lutz. It grew to more than 80 agents, with branch offices in Northdale and Temple Terrace. In the 1990s, she moved both her business and her home from Lutz into Pasco County. But in June, she ran for "guv'na" in Lutz's annual community fundraising campaign, and said, "My heart is in Lutz."

Her husband, Robert, becomes the broker of record for the company. He owns a finance company operating in the Dennis Realty building. Their son, Brian, works in the finance company. Their daughter, Annette Love, is the mother of two boys in Land O'Lakes.

Arcuri said Mrs. Dennis was a nurturing boss who kept agents loyal for the long term. Arcuri said he left the agency years ago, then returned after "cutthroat" experiences elsewhere. "It was like running home to mother," he said.

HOME INVASION IN CARROLLWOOD: Shortly after noon Tuesday, Hanh Van Nguyen watched two men leave a house on Shaw Road. Then he knocked on the front door. He greeted the woman who answered with a loaded, stolen handgun, authorities say, and quickly subdued her and another woman.

But as the Tampa man rummaged through the house, he had no idea a third person in hiding was calling 911, Hillsborough sheriff's spokesman Lt. Rod Reder said. Deputies surprised Nguyen within minutes and tackled him as he tried to flee through the front door with a duffel bag full of stolen goods.

The Carrollwood victims, two women ages 76 and 22, received minor wrist injuries from being tied up.

Charges against Nguyen, 40, include: home invasion and armed robbery, armed kidnapping, grand theft firearm, aggravated battery on an elderly person, aggravated assault and carrying a concealed firearm, Reder said. He also was charged with resisting arrest without violence, a misdemeanor, for trying to flee police. He also faces charges in connection with two home invasions in St. Petersburg.

DOG LOST IN PEBBLE CREEK: An area-wide search for a New Tampa dog named Dizzie ended last week. Eddie Scheid of Lutz said he saw the little dog on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard on Oct. 15, a few hours after she was discovered missing from a Pebble Creek kennel. She had been hit by a car.

Scheid had read in the St. Petersburg Times that Dizzie's owner, Isabel Ramirez, had spent hundreds of hours looking for her beloved pet.

Mrs. Ramirez dropped Dizzie off at the Pebble Creek Animal Hospital on Oct. 13 and attended a baptism in Orlando. When she returned to pick her dog up on Oct. 15, Dizzie was gone. The staff said she had gotten out between 9:30 and 10 a.m. and they couldn't find her.

Dr. Paul Langston, the owner of the animal hospital, said he did everything he could to find Dizzie and felt terrible about what happened.

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