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2nd Man Charged With Murder In 2005 Slaying

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By STEPHEN THOMPSON The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 20, 2007

CLEARWATER - Authorities have made a second arrest in the death of a man whose body was found among rocks off the Courtney Campbell Parkway in Tampa two years ago.

Samuel Robbins, 38, was being held on unrelated charges in the Fairfield County Detention Center in Winnsboro, S.C., when he was charged with second-degree murder in the death of Larry Sanders, Clearwater public safety spokeswoman Elizabeth Daly-Watts said.

Another suspect, Dominic A. Coretto, was extradited from Vermont in April. Like Robbins, he faces a charge of second-degree murder.

Sanders, 26, turned up in March 2005, and at first Tampa police thought it would be their case based on where the body was found. However, they then discovered his cell phone was missing and subpoenaed telephone records to see whether that would help solve the case.

They found several calls were made to Sanders from the phone of a woman living at 224 N. Mars Ave. in Clearwater, court records state.

The woman, Selena Duncan, told investigators Sanders supplied cocaine to Robbins, who was her boyfriend at the time. Robbins lived next door to her in the same duplex, and Coretto was a friend of Robbins, she said.

Sanders supplied Coretto with cocaine, too, court documents say.

Duncan told investigators that the night before Sanders' body turned up, Robbins borrowed her phone to ask Sanders to bring over cocaine, the documents state. Later she heard a 'loud banging and loud moaning, consistent with a physical altercation,' emanating from her boyfriend's apartment, court documents say.

Clearwater investigators obtained a search warrant and found blood on the carpet of Robbins' apartment, documents say. In a bag was a 10-karat gold necklace with a pendant of Jesus that belonged to Sanders, along with some of Coretto's belongings, according to documents.

Coretto told investigators he was with a woman named Carrie Meeks at the time of the slaying, but Meeks told investigators that wasn't the case. She told investigators she was afraid of Coretto because she had stolen 20 pieces of crack cocaine from him, documents say.

Investigators got a break when they learned from another of Coretto's associates that, according to documents, he had claimed to have struck Sanders in the head with a lead pipe, which is consistent with Sanders' autopsy.

Coretto apparently thought Meeks had given the cocaine she stole from him to Sanders so he could sell it, documents say. They say Sanders was asked to come to Robbins' apartment March 14 so he could be made to return Coretto's cocaine to him. Coretto got his cocaine back, he told the associate. Sanders was found dead the next day.

Reporter Stephen Thompson can be reached at (727) 451-2336 or spthompson@tampatrib.com.

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