ocala shooting - not rainbow related!

thank goodness they caught this guy already.

Teen's deeds puzzle cops

Authorities ask why Leo Boatman would spend about $700 and go as far as Ocala National Forest just to kill.

Stephen Hudak and Erin Cox | Sentinel Staff Writers
Posted January 12, 2006

OCALA NATIONAL FOREST -- Leo Boatman paid $32.50 for a Greyhound ticket from Clearwater to Ocala the night of Jan. 2 -- a stolen AK-47 tucked in his bag and murder hidden in his heart, authorities said.

While Boatman rode the bus, college students Amber Peck and John Parker, both 26, were eagerly anticipating their camping trip the next day to Parker's favorite spot in the forest.

Less than 48 hours later, Peck and Parker would be dead -- victims, authorities said, of a 19-year-old budding serial killer looking for a thrill.

Many lives were turned upside down in the eight-day span between Boatman's bus ride and his arrest Tuesday on first-degree-murder charges in the slayings of the two students at Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville.

And just as many questions remain for investigators about why Boatman would hop a bus to Ocala, spend more than $500 on camping supplies and take a $57 taxi ride to the woods, allegedly in search of someone to kill.

"From what we have learned, it didn't really matter who," said Marion County sheriff's Capt. Tommy Bibb, the lead investigator in the case.

The bodies were found by Peck's family the morning of Jan. 7 at a remote campground called Hidden Pond. Boatman shot the students seven times at close range, Bibb said. The discovery launched an intensive investigation involving agents from the FBI, the National Forestry Service, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Investigators said Boatman, who worked at Hooters in Clearwater, arrived at 12:05 a.m. Jan. 3 at the Ocala bus station, which was closed, and hailed a cab to take him to Wal-Mart. He lugged his pack with the hidden assault weapon -- stolen from his uncle's mobile home in Largo -- through the store, spending $391.64 on camping gear, food and warmer clothes, investigators discovered after viewing store security videotape.

Boatman called an Ocala cab company for a ride to the forest about 2 a.m. He was looking for a campground with showers and flush toilets, said Annette Biggs, general manager of Dan the Taxi Man cab company and wife of owner Dan Biggs.

She said the driver dropped him at Juniper Springs Recreation Area, about a 90-minute hike from the crime scene. The fare: $57.

Biggs said she alerted Marion County deputies after learning of the slayings and finding a late-night fare to the forest while checking her drivers' logs. Though stranded campers sometimes summon cabs for rides, they generally look like outdoorsmen, she said. This fare did not, her driver told her.

Peck and Parker, meanwhile, left Gainesville about 10 a.m. Jan. 3 in Peck's red 2000 GMC Jimmy truck, destined for Hidden Pond. Investigators said Boatman, who had spent $151 on supplies at the Juniper Springs camp concession, camped somewhere nearby. The receipt from the store was found near the bodies, Bibb said.

Sheriff's investigators think Boatman and the college students crossed paths about noon Jan. 4, shortly after Peck and Parker broke camp to head for home. Two hunters talking at the trailhead heard gunshots. Retired corrections Officer Harold Singletary of Orlando turned to his pal and said, "Oh, boy, some idiot's hunting in the wilderness area." Firearms are forbidden there.

About 7:30 that night, Leo Boatman was leaning against a road sign on the shoulder of State Road 40, blinking a flashlight at sparse westbound traffic and hoping for a ride, investigators said.

Joey Tierney, 20, of Altoona stopped. He said the hitchhiker, clean-cut and fresh-faced, looked as if he had stepped from an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. Boatman wanted to call a cab, but Tierney's cell phone couldn't get a signal in the southern part of the 383,000-acre forest.

"All the time, you get city boys out here in the woods, and they don't know what they're doing, trying to rough it," Tierney said. "I felt sorry for him."

Tierney, who collected a $5,000 reward Wednesday for providing authorities with the tip that led to Boatman's arrest, said he saw a knife on Boatman's belt as Boatman climbed into his gold 1995 Geo Prizm, and Boatman also confided that he had a rifle in the bag resting between them. Investigators think he burned some of the camping gear he bought and stashed the rest in the woods.

Tierney and Boatman chatted casually during a nine-mile ride to a Kangaroo gas station where Boatman was supposed to call his cab. Tierney said Boatman didn't seem like a killer to him. He was friendly -- offering gas money and plunking down a dollar and change for a banana slush -- and Tierney offered to take him to a motel.

Tierney left him at the Holiday Inn in Silver Springs and watched him limp into the hotel, the bag with the rifle slung over his left shoulder. "All right, man, take it easy out there," Tierney told him.

Inside, Boatman found he was too young to stay at the hotel -- it requires patrons to be at least 21 -- and balked at the $89 price before taxes. He walked to the Silver River Inn a block away for a $40-a-night room.
The motel's manager, who would not give his name, said a drivers license or other photo ID is required to check in. The clerk photocopied Boatman's, which gave a face and a name to a suspect.

Boatman checked into Room 206 before 9 p.m., the manager said. He was gone by 9 a.m. when the housekeeper arrived to make up his room. He had called Dan the Taxi Man again -- this time for a lift to the bus station and a ride home.

Boatman arrived in Clearwater about 4:30 p.m. Jan. 5. That night, Bibb said, he bought a pellet gun at a nearby Wal-Mart in Pinellas County, apparently because he feared he would be questioned about the killings. He showed it to sheriff's detectives -- inside the blue bag he had taken to Ocala -- when they finally made their way to his front door Monday.

But the ruse did not fool detectives, Bibb said, saying that Tierney's 15-minute ride, and Boatman's motel stay, were key to the arrest: "It put Boatman here [in the forest]."

Evidence found near the bodies also helped investigators. Sheriff's Lt. Bill Sowder and Deputy Sheriff Jeff Owens found four shell casings that identified the AK-47. Boatman had taken the gun from the mobile home he shared with his uncle Victor, deputies said.

Ellen Wilcox, a special agent for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, heard about the gun from Rosezilla Boatman, Leo's sister, who said Victor Boatman had called her Jan. 4 and said Leo was missing, along with "a big gun."

The rifle belonged to Lucas Merryfield, who had asked Victor Boatman to hold the weapon while he moved. Deputies said Merryfield and his girlfriend, Jamie Coutcher, got the gun back Friday -- but they did not get an explanation for its disappearance. Nor was there an explanation why the gun -- empty of bullets when Merryfield turned it over to Victor Boatman -- was returned loaded.

Coutcher also recalled to investigators a brief conversation she had with Leo Boatman on Sunday, a day after the bodies were discovered in the forest.

The teenager walked into his uncle's home, she said, flicked on the television and said, "Hmm, let's see if I'm on the news today."

Stephen Hudak can be reached at shudak@orlandosentinel.com or 352-742-5930. Erin Cox can be reached at 352-742-5926 or ecox@orlandosentinel.com.