Opinion ID: 1594000
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: The Providence Reserve Foot Chase and Subsequent Investigation: Saturday, April 22, 2000

Text: After Hogan returned Wright to the apartment complex following the Winter Haven carjacking, Wright was observed throughout Saturday handling a pistol at the Providence Reserve Apartments. He also spoke with people regarding the murders. Wright confessed to R.R. that he received a cellular phone from a lick, meaning it had been stolen. He also described to R.R. the details of the abduction and murders. Wright then gave the stolen phone to R.R. Later that day, Wright was seated with Latasha Jackson on the steps of the apartment building, and Wright had a small firearm resting in his lap. During their conversation, Wright told Jackson that he shot two white men in an orange grove and that he had shot one in the head. Soon after this, the police responded to a report of an armed man, who matched Wright's description, at that location. [8] A uniformed officer approached Wright and Jackson and stated that he needed to speak with Wright. Wright jumped over the balcony railing and raced down the stairs. As Wright ran from the apartment, his tennis shoes fell off. Jackson picked up the shoes and placed them by the apartment door. The police later seized these sneakers from the apartment during the murder investigation. James Felker's DNA was determined to match a blood sample secured from the left sneaker. Though Wright contended that the shoes were not his and that he had never worn them, both Wright and Pitts were required to try on the shoes. The shoes were determined to be a better fit for Wright than for Pitts. Several officers chased Wright from the Providence Reserve Apartments to a nearby mobile home park, which was located across a field from the apartment complex. During the chase, the officers noticed Wright holding his pants pocket as if he carried something inside. Wright was arrested at the mobile home park, and his pocket contained live rounds and a box of ammunition containing both .380 Federal and Winchester caliber of rounds. This was the same caliber ammunition as that recovered from the drive-by shooting, the murders, and the carjacking. After the police departed, a resident of that mobile home park entered her car to leave for dinner. Her vehicle had been parked there with the windows down when Wright had been arrested near her front door. As she entered her vehicle, she discovered a pistol, which was not hers. This weapon was determined to be the pistol stolen from the Shank residence. Wright was taken into custody pending resolution of the aggravated assault charges. While Wright was in custody, Auburndale police officers discovered David Green's white Chrysler abandoned in an orange grove. Crime-scene technicians discovered blood on both the exterior of the vehicle and on the interior left side. Four of the blood samples from the vehicle matched James Felker's DNA profile. Further investigation revealed that prints lifted from multiple locations on the vehicle matched known prints of Wright. [9] A deputy with the Polk County Sheriff's Office linked this abandoned vehicle with a missing persons report for David Green and James Felker. After the vehicle was discovered, the family of the victims gathered at the orange grove to search for any items that might aid in the missing persons investigations. Green had his personal Nextel cellular phone and a soft black bag filled with special computer tools that he utilized for his work in the Chrysler. A Polaroid camera had also been left in Green's vehicle. Green's fiancée discovered her son's jacket in that grove, but Green's workbag, tools, cellular phone, and camera were all missing from the vehicle. A couple of days after the murders, Pitts attempted to sell the black bag that contained Green's computer tools to a pawnshop. R.R. assisted his stepfather in securing proceeds for the Polaroid camera from another pawnshop. The police had begun contacting pawnshops looking for the items missing from Green's car and recovered the black computer bag and the pawn tickets, which led them to Pitts and R.R. [10] Further investigation established that three latent fingerprints from the black bag matched Wright's known fingerprints. Following the information obtained from the pawnshop, the police traveled to R.R.'s residence where they identified and seized the Nextel cellular phone Wright had given R.R. The phone seized from R.R.'s residence matched the serial number of David Green's phone. R.R. told the police that Wright, who was still in jail on the aggravated assault arrest, had given him the phone. A few hours later, a detective questioned Pitts, who revealed the general location of the bodies. Six days following the disappearance of David Green and James Felker, their bodies were discovered in a remote orange grove in Polk City. Each man had been shot three times, and spent bullet cases surrounded the bodies. David Green was face-up, with bullet wounds in his chest and in his head. From his outstretched hand, the police recovered a wallet that contained Green's license. James Felker was face-down in the same area, with three bullet wounds in his head. Green's cause of death was determined to be multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, the forehead, and the back of his neck. A medical examiner removed a projectile from Green's face and a deformed projectile from his throat. Felker's cause of death was determined to be gunshot wounds to the head, one by a .380 caliber projectile to the forehead and two by a shotgun blast to the back of the head. Except for the gunshot wound to Green's chest, any of the gunshot wounds would have rendered the victims unconscious instantaneously. Law enforcement never recovered the shotgun used in these murders. However, a Florida Department of Law Enforcement firearms expert inspected the pistol recovered from the mobile home park, which was identified as the pistol stolen from the Shank residence, and the firearms-related evidence collected from the various crime scenes. The expended projectiles from the pistol and those found in Wright's possession were of the same caliber but were different brands. Due to the damage sustained by some of the projectiles, the expert was unable to conclusively establish that the pistol stolen from the Shank residence fired all .380 caliber bullets discovered at the scene of the murders. However, the projectiles and the firearm were of the same caliber and displayed similar class characteristics. Five Federal .380 caliber casings discovered near the victims were positively identified as having been fired from the pistol. Thus, the stolen Shank pistol had likely been used in, and connected with, the Longfellow Boulevard drive-by shooting, the double murders of David Green and James Felker, and the Winter Haven carjacking.