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Brandon Club Slaying Suspect Says He Hid In Miami

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By JOSH POLTILOVE of The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 29, 2008

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

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 Monday morning, he had not had a chance to speak with loved ones since October.

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

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

Witnesses say that on Oct. 17, someone 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.

Authorities say there were about 100 people in the club, which became Cee-Jay's Martini Bar and Lounge late last year.

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 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."

Grimes said a big fight broke out at the club and a couple of people attacked him. There was a tussle over a gun, but it wasn't his and he never gained possession of it, he said. When he left the club, he was bloody and injured and said he thought he had been shot.

He said he "can't really say" who shot Williams.

"I'm a lot of things, but a murderer, I'm not," he said.

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 an attorney and was afraid he'd be convicted of a crime he didn't commit.

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 Monday 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," 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."

Grimes, who also considers himself religious, said that if he had the opportunity to speak to Williams' family, he would apologize for his involvement in the fight at the club.

"It was out of control. I was actually attacked that night," he said. "If there was anything that I could do to prevent a girl from getting hurt, I would've done it - even as far as taking a bullet myself."

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