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Sheriff's Office Waited 34 Hours To Announce Homicide

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By KEITH MORELLI, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 5, 2007

TAMPA - For 34 hours, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office withheld the news that a Tampa woman had been slain, leaving the public to think that she and her boyfriend were still missing.

On Sunday, in response to repeated inquiries, sheriff's spokesman J.D. Callaway told reporters that nothing was new in what the office was describing as a missing persons case.

Callaway made the statements even though investigators had found the body of 34-year-old Wendy Dusza at about 11 the night before in a storage shed near the condominium she shared with Trevor McGinty, 30.

News of Dusza's death was made public about 9 a.m. Monday, the morning after authorities tracked McGinty to a Gainesville motel and he shot himself to death during a standoff with Gainesville police.

Investigators had obtained a warrant for his arrest in Dusza's slaying, which they think occurred about 10 days earlier.

"We had a sensitive investigation going on and we were trying to locate the individual involved," Callaway said Monday. He would not elaborate.

How much information to reveal is often a close call for investigators, said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Arlington, Va.

Still, Dalglish said, a killer was at large.

"I could envision a situation where laying low might help find this guy," said Dalglish, whose group works to ensure a free flow of public information. "But, the public had a right to know that there was a murderer on the loose somewhere. It doesn't do much to your credibility when you go lying about something like this."

A sheriff's spokeswoman, Debbie Carter, said Monday that investigators made the call against informing the public.

"We decided not to release the information that we had found her body," Carter said. "It was a decision by homicide detectives. There were other things we wanted to follow up first. We didn't want to tip our hands."

Carter cited two reasons for the decision to keep the death a secret.

First, she said, investigators did not know immediately whether McGinty was a suspect or a victim. Second, once he became a suspect, they didn't want him to know the body had been found.

The sheriff's office did not explain how secrecy might have aided their investigation in either circumstance.

"From the time her body was discovered, it was homicide," Carter said. "We were investigating a homicide and we were still investigating the disappearance of McGinty."

Investigators did inform Dusza's family on Sunday morning that she had been killed.

Here's the sequence of events in the case:

Missing persons: Authorities received a call at 1:30 p.m. Friday that Dusza and McGinty were missing. Deputies searched the condominium and found the couple's dog and cat inside. There were no signs of forced entry.

First notice: On Saturday, deputies issued the first news release about the search for the missing couple. Detectives learned the couple had leased a storage area from another condominium resident.

Finding the body: At 11 p.m. Saturday, detectives searched that area and found Dusza's body. The continued searching for McGinty. Homicide was confirmed as the cause of death.

Investigative leads: Early Sunday, deputies notified Dusza's family of her death. They uncovered information that led them to McGinty as a suspect and obtained an arrest warrant for him. They tracked him to a room at the Gainesville Holiday Inn.

Locating the suspect: Gainesville police were contacted Sunday and found McGinty in the room about 6 p.m. After a standoff, he shot and killed himself.

Informing the public: At about 9 a.m. Monday, the Hillsborough sheriff's office issued its first public statement since Saturday's missing persons news release. The statement said Dusza and McGinty were dead and that the search was over.

Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760 or at kmorelli@tampatrib.com.

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