This is in a historic area of Tampa. Three murders in 11 days, has people scared. The killer seems to be targeting people at bus stops, traveling alone.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/public...y-investigate-third-death-in-seminole/2341766
When asked Friday if Tampa police believe a serial killer is stalking the residents of Seminole Heights, interim Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan paused for a moment.
"We can call it what we want," said a clearly frustrated Dugan, who called a news conference to talk about the discovery Thursday of yet another body, the third person to be shot and killed in the neighborhood in 11 days. "If that brings attention to it, that's fine."
The latest killing took place about 8 p.m. Thursday, Dugan said. It was both frustrating and hauntingly tragic.
Anthony Naiboa, 20, should not even have been in the southeast part of Seminole Heights when he was shot, apparently without motive. After he left work Thursday night, he got on the wrong bus. His body was found near the intersection of 15th Street N. and E. Frierson Avenue, just 200 yards from where he left the bus and began walking.
Police officers who were flooding the area because of the two previous murders heard the gun shots, Dugan said, but arrived too late. The shooter was gone.
Authorities are releasing little information about their investigation, which is being assisted by the FBI. The three victims, Naiboa, Benjamin Edward Mitchell, 22, and Monica Caridad Hoffa, 32, are all connected by proximity and time-frame, said Dugan, who declined to say whether there is any connection between the type of weapon or ammunition used in the killings.
As of now, he said, there is no suspect or motive.
Authorities have said repeatedly that the victims did nothing wrong and there is no connection between them.
But there are similarities.
All three victims were bus riders and all three were shot at or near bus stops. Mitchell and Naiboa both attended Middleton High School.
Mitchell was waiting for a bus at the stop on North 15th and E. Frierson when he was shot. Two days later, Hoffa was killed, but it would be another two days until her body was found on the 1000 block of E. New Orleans Avenue — about six blocks west of the Ellicott Street bus stop on the No. 9 line. A city worker found her body in a vacant lot.
Naiboa was found at North 15th and Conover streets, a few hundred yards south from the No. 9 bus stop where he had gotten off and where Mitchell was killed 11 days earlier.
Hoffa did not drive and relied heavily on public transportation, said Caz Taylor, 34, a close friend of Hoffa.
"Every day she was walking to the bus stop," Taylor said. "That was not unusual. Her main mode of transportation was her feet."
http://www.tampabay.com/news/public...y-investigate-third-death-in-seminole/2341766