TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Hernando Today

Affidavit spells out new details in murder

ADVERTISEMENT

By KYLE MARTIN

Hernando Today

Published: April 23, 2009

BROOKSVILLE - An arrest affidavit spells out new details in last year's murder of Isiah Collins, including an alibi and possible motive.

Investigators connected Franklyn Spears, 26, to the Memorial Day shooting last July, but Spears was in a federal prison in Kentucky at the time.

Spears was reportedly indicted on a second-degree murder charge on March 28 and booked into the county jail on April 14, records show.

But up until now, details have been sketchy about the events leading up to the discovery of Collins' bloody body shortly after midnight May 26, 2008.

The events seem to begin with a $200 debt Spears owed to Collins. The affidavit doesn't give specifics, but police and those who knew Collins say he had a reputation as a drug dealer.

On the night of May 25, "everyone" in South Brooksville was on hand for a Memorial Day celebration on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Witnesses placed Spears behind the wheel of a red Nissan 350Z that he had rented from an acquaintance.

Collins was also seen in the area of MLK and Twigg Street between 11 and 11:30 p.m. Then it was "as if he disappeared," one witness told police. In his place was a red Nissan headed west on MLK.

Around this time, Scotty Kirkpatrick was walking north on Broad Street to meet a friend at the Sunoco gas station. As he approached Buena Vista Boulevard, he saw a red sports car sitting at the intersection of Buena Vista and Roberta avenues.

Three or four loud bangs broke the midnight silence; Kirkpatrick thought they might be fireworks. The sports car barreled down Buena Vista at a "high rate of speed" and zipped through the stop sign at Broad Street, where it turned north.

Kirkpatrick hurried to the Sunoco and met his friend and together they drove back to the intersection. Collins was found lying in the roadway, bleeding from the head, according to 911 records.

Police arrived and found a blood trail leading from the body to a shattered car window held together by tint. An anonymous call several hours later led them to the home of the car's owner, where they found the red Nissan.

Police immediately spotted a bullet casing lodged in the dashboard. Further search yielded four bullet casings, along with two projectiles from the interior frame of the car. The shells were dusted for fingerprints. Two belong to Spears, according to a report.

The car's owner told police Spears called her the early morning of May 26 to say the window of the car had been "shot out" during a fight at a party. He agreed to pay for the damage and returned the car to her driveway around 1:30 a.m., a report states.

From there, an acquaintance gave Spears $200 in cash and a ride to the Greyhound bus station in Crystal River.

On July 1, Spears was interviewed in prison. He told the lieutenant Collins asked him for a ride that night to a drug deal.

When they pulled up to the scene of a shooting, another car approached from the rear. A person known to Spears as "Freaky" stepped out and started shooting, the suspect alleges. When the shots ended, Freaky drove off in his car and, as Spears followed, he noticed that the passenger-side door was open and Collins was missing.

The lieutenant followed up on this story and reportedly found that Spears' alleged shooter, Freaky, was spending the night with a female friend.

On Wednesday, Spears' attorney, Peyton Hyslop, said he has yet to see the indictment, but "scuttlebutt" at the courthouse is the grand jury returned a second-degree murder charge. That indicates the jury did not believe the murder was premeditated.

Spears is scheduled for an arraignment May 12, but has already entered a written plea of not guilty.

Hyslop had no other information about the case.

Reporter Kyle Martin can be reached at 352-544-5271 or kmartin@hernandotoday.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT