Opinion ID: 1594000
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Longfellow Boulevard Drive-By Shooting: Friday, April 21, 2000

Text: At approximately 9 a.m. on Friday, April 21, 2000, Carlos Coney and Bennie Joiner observed a black Toyota Corolla approaching slowly on Longfellow Boulevard as they were standing outside a nearby house. Wright and Coney had been embroiled in a continuing dispute since their high school days. Joiner made eye contact with Wright, who was sitting on the passenger side. The car made a U-turn and slowly approached the house again. Wright leaned out the passenger side window and fired multiple shots. One bullet struck Coney in his right leg. Coney's neighbor carried the wounded man to a car and drove Coney and Joiner to a Lakeland hospital where a .380 caliber projectile was removed from Coney's leg. While Coney was being treated at the hospital, crime-scene technicians collected cartridge casings and projectiles from the Longfellow Boulevard scene. Two projectiles had entered the house and lodged in the living room wall and table. One spent.25 caliber casing and three spent Winchester.380 caliber casings were recovered from the driveway and the street. The projectile recovered from Coney's leg and the one removed from the living room table were fired from the .380 pistol stolen from the Shank residence. [5] The recovered casings definitely had been loaded in the stolen pistol, but the firearms analyst could not state with precision that they had been fired from the pistol because the casings lacked the necessary identifying characteristics. Approximately one hour after the drive-by shooting, Wright unexpectedly visited James Hogan at a house in Lake Alfred, Florida. Lake Alfred is approximately fourteen miles away from the Longfellow Boulevard location. Wright testified that he and an accomplice from the Shank burglary and Samuel Pitts traveled to see Hogan because the accomplice wanted to sell the stolen shotgun. When they arrived, the accomplice attempted to show Hogan the shotgun, but Hogan was not interested. At that point, Wright pulled a small pistol from under the floor mat in the front seat of the vehicle. This placed Wright in possession of the possible murder weapon on the day of the murders.