TBO.com - Tampa Bay Online
Geoff Fox:
Since 2002, Geoff Fox has written about the offbeat and dynamic personalities that make Pasco County unique. He is now revisiting them, meeting new characters and sharing more stories. Email
Pasco Links:
Latest blog posts:
Most Recent Entries
- Stripped Fasano unbowed by ‘schoolyard bully’
- Limbaugh pokes Weatherford; “desperate,” says Will
- We’d think this was just nutty ...
- Obama rejects Keystone pipeline
- Fasano’s end game: No more NFL in Florida
- The silence of the NLRB
- Former Air Force Colonel Wants to Challenge Castor
- Another lefty talking point bites the dust
- On Rubio, Washington Post earns three Pinnochios
- Steve Jobs’ David Mamet moment (whiffed)
- Dopiness of Occupy Wall Street revealed, er, confirmed
- Curious case of the curious little blue heron
- Democrats: Nugent won’t spend other people’s money (waa!)
- Obama’s unintended argument for an ‘ownership society’
- Who’s next to demand nuptial rights?
More
- Highlands: Ms. Cuisine
- Town 'N Country
- Brandon
- Highlands County
- In The Loop
- Northeast Now
- Northwest
- Pasco Personalities With Geoff Fox
- Plant City
- Carrollwood
- South Shore
- Temple Terrace
- The Jax Files - With Tom Jackson in Pasco
- The Sun
- South Tampa
Monthly Archives
|
| Local News | Photos |
News Cycle Comes Full Circle
Posted Feb 2, 2010 by Geoff Fox
Updated Feb 2, 2010 at 04:18 PM
From the beginning, witnesses talked about the stolen PlayStation.
Eddie Stoddard was so furious that his had been stolen, they said, that he shot Doug Abrams Jr. to death on April 23, 2008, because he was convinced his 26-year-old neighbor had taken the video-game system, as well as a TV and other items.
I remember the day well: the unrelenting sun; the crime-scene tape; neighbors milling outside their Angus Valley homes, heads turned toward 6617 Mangrove Drive, where Abrams took his last breath.
Stoddard fled the scene in Wesley Chapel that day and wasn’t captured for two weeks.
On Jan. 13, Stoddard (that’s him to the left) was found guilty of second-degree murder in Abrams’ death. At trial, Tampa Tribune reporter Todd Leskanic wrote of Stoddard’s “expletive-laden” testimony, how he often punctuated his thoughts with the words “dog” and “man.”
Now 30, Stoddard said at trial that he would not “step to” someone who stole his stuff, because he had “gonads.”
Through a quirk of daily-journalism fate, I found myself at Stoddard’s sentencing hearing last week, when Circuit Court Judge Pat Siracusa leveled his sentence.
I’m not sure why I was surprised by what transpired.
The courtroom was half-full of friends and family of Abrams, each of whom wore a white T-shirt with his image on the front and nickname, “Dougie Fresh,” on the back. There were two people on Stoddard’s side.
So, when the shackled convict entered the courtroom, he likely saw “a good many enemies around, and mighty few friends,” as Wild West outlaw Bill Longley famously said in the moments before he was hanged in 1878.
Stoddard might have felt he had nothing to lose.
And maybe he was itching to lash out after hearing from a stream of Abrams’ friends and relations, who told him he was garbage, who told him he shot the wrong man, who told him that, regardless of who took the PlayStation, they would have bought him a new one had they known he was so angry. (At left is a Tampa Tribune photo by Fred Bellet taken at the crime scene.)
They questioned his manhood.
Still, the back-and-forth in which Stoddard engaged the judge was jarring.
“You shot a man who you admitted was half your size,” Siracusa said, as he gave Stoddard a life sentence without possibility for parole. “You shot him while he was on the ground.”
“I did not shoot him while he was on the ground,” Stoddard shouted from the defense table.
“That does not mean you have gonads,” Siracusa said. “You’re a coward.”
“I am not a coward!” Stoddard yelled, his face red with anger. “I got a good fight game, your honor.”
Siracusa told Stoddard he would have the rest of his life to polish those skills in prison.
The judge raised his eyebrows and shook his head, clearly exasperated.
I drove back to the office with the radio off.
Two grown men.
Two lives lost.
One PlayStation.
Are you kidding me?
Post a comment
Members:(Requires free registration.)
Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.
ADVERTISEMENT
Advertisement
TBO.com - Tampa Bay Online ©2010 Media General Communications Holdings, LLC. A Media General company. Member Agreement | Privacy Statement | Work With Us
Reader Comments
Por (DonPhillips) on February 06, 2010 (Suggest removal)
This is a great story - it’s funny and sad and thought-provoking. Thanks for writing it.
Suggest removal