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Jilted Rage Leads To His 30-Year Term

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By TODD LESKANIC, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 18, 2007

NEW PORT RICHEY - Sometime during their eight-month relationship, Gary Lee Wilson Jr. made an ominous promise to Kelly Webster:

"If I ever get in trouble again, I'm going to make a name for myself," he said.

Wilson made good on that promise on Jan. 13, 2006, when he drove a Ford pickup into a bank lobby, trying to hit Webster. Instead, he injured her mother, Renee, and grandmother, Linda Hodges.

On Monday, Wilson, 29, etched his name into Florida's criminal record books when he pleaded no contest to three counts of attempted murder. Circuit Judge Thane Covert sentenced Wilson to 30 years in prison.

Renee Webster, 44, and Hodges, 65, watched from the back of Covert's courtroom. Outside, Webster said she wasn't completely satisfied with the sentence.

"I don't want him out," she said.

Kelly Webster, 25, recently had a baby and didn't attend Wilson's plea hearing.

Wilson's angry attempt to get back at her for breaking up with him left her uninjured. Renee Webster and Hodges weren't as lucky. The truck's impact broke Renee Webster's leg in four places and cracked her pelvis.

She spent four days in the hospital and now lives with four metal rods in her right leg. Her career as a house painter is over because she can no longer climb ladders. She last worked as a telemarketer but is now unemployed, she said.

Hodges suffered a broken right leg, spent 10 days in the hospital and another eight in a nursing home. Both women were able to walk through the courtroom doors, but Hodges said she has residual pain and swelling.

The ordeal also cost them about $200,000 in medical bills, Hodges said.

Kelly Webster began dating Wilson in April 2005. Her family warned her about him.

"I knew from the day that I met him he was a loser," Webster's grandfather, Spencer Hodges, told the Tribune last year.

Renee Webster said Monday she never got along with Wilson. In fact, the two argued the first time they met, she said. Kelly Webster and Wilson also fought frequently.

In a deposition taken in September 2006, Kelly Webster said she never left Wilson because she was terrified of him.

"I thought he would kill me," she said. "And he lives within probably 10 minutes' walking distance from my house to his mother's house. So, I was scared if I was to leave, that he would hurt me or my family or anything."

The couple's final dispute began the night before the crash when Wilson told Webster he didn't want her spending time with her mother. When Renee Webster found out the next morning, she called Wilson, and the two argued over the phone.

The same day, Webster told Wilson she wanted to end the relationship. On the way to his house to pick up her belongings, she, her mother and grandmother stopped at the SunTrust bank at 6128 U.S. 19 to cash their paychecks.

Wilson called Webster while she was in the bank, and she told him where she was. Soon after, the truck came crashing through the front doors of the bank. Webster and Hodges were hit as they were walking out the front.

Wilson jumped from the truck and ran into an adjacent parking lot, where he slit his own throat. Two men who had been inside the bank caught Wilson and held him down until police arrived.

Linda Hodges said Monday they still don't know who the men are.

"I'd like to really thank those people," she said.

Reporter Todd Leskanic can be reached at (727) 815-1084 or tleskanic@tampatrib.com.

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