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Man Charged In Club Slaying Says He's Been In Miami

News Channel 8 file photo by ERIC HAUSMANN.

Hillsborough County deputies collected evidence from Club Fluid after a deadly shooting there on Oct. 17, 2007.

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By JOSH POLTILOVE | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 28, 2008

Updated: 01/28/2008 12:43 pm

TAMPA - Tyrone Lamont Grimes says he spent the past three months hiding in Miami, trying to avoid an arrest for first-degree murder after the shooting of Karen Williams inside a Brandon nightclub.

Tyrone Grimes

The 27-year-old Brandon man said he didn't speak to his family or get a job, and he was "sleeping here, sleeping there."

Grimes said he is innocent and could not take it any longer. He has a wife expected to deliver any day now and a 6-year-old daughter, and he said that until he turned himself in to deputies this morning, he had not had a chance to speak with loved ones since October.

"My whole life was torn apart," Grimes said today by telephone from Orient Road Jail.

Hillsborough County deputies arrested him at 2:48 a.m. today and charged him with first-degree murder. The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office had issued a warrant for him in October.

Witnesses say that on Oct. 17, a person fired three shots from a handgun inside Fluid, a club at 2016 Town Center Blvd. Sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter said Grimes fired several shots after an argument with someone at the club and that Williams, 36, was a bystander.

There were about 100 people in the club, authorities say.

Williams died at the scene. She had three children, one of them a stepchild.

"She was a beautiful person," said her father, Rowe Williams. "She was a Christian. She went to church. … You ask anyone – she had the voice of an angel."

Grimes said he was in the club that night. He was fired at and didn't fire a gun, he said.

He had been trying to start a music promotion company, Trestar. The people who fired shots in the club had a record label, he said.

"I went in the club promoting and left the club feeling like I lost my whole life," said Grimes, who is being held without bail.

"I recently had a car stolen and burnt up. It was rumored people were getting tired of me in Tampa, period. I guess [they thought] I was here trying to spark off what they were trying to do."

He fled the people who were shooting at him, and he learned later that deputies were searching for him, he said. He said he could not afford a lawyer.

Carter said that to her knowledge, deputies were not aware he was in Miami.

Joseph Bodiford, a lawyer, said he likely will represent Grimes.

Bodiford would not comment today other than to say his client plans to plead not guilty.

When told that Grimes claimed he was a victim, Carter said everything will be sorted out in a trial. Rowe Williams also said he will leave it up to the judicial system to work it out.

"I am a Christian; I am a true believer," Rowe Williams said. "At my church, I miss very few things that happen there. I truly believe that I do have favor with God. My faith is built on him. And so I trust my life, whether it appears good or bad. And nothing that happened happens vicariously.

"What the days have been like since we lost her, I have continued to believe that justice will prevail in time. I haven't been discouraged. It seems like it's been forever, but I haven't been discouraged."

Late last year, Fluid became Cee-Jay's Martini Bar and Lounge. The club, which also formerly was Quench Bartini, has a history of problems, Capt. Robert Spooner said in October.

The club had 78 calls for deputies in 2005, 81 in 2006 and 63 through mid-October 2007, Spooner said.

In June 2006, an argument outside the bar ended with two shots fired, a man and woman wounded and a person fleeing. Their injuries weren't considered life-threatening.

Reporter Josh Poltilove can be reached jpoltilove@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7691.

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