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Jury Breaks Without Verdict In Rosa Trial

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By KEITH MORELLI

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 19, 2008

Updated: 07/19/2008 12:15 am

TAMPA - A jury of four men and eight women in the first-degree murder trial of Joshua Rosa deliberated for a little more than three hours Friday night before announcing they could go no further.

The court ordered the panel to return Monday morning to continue in the case against the former youth minister on trial in the strangulation death of a teenage neighbor in the woods of northwest Hillsborough County in 2005.

Circuit Judge William Fuente cautioned the packed courtroom against any outbursts that could taint the jury and result in a mistrial.

The emotionally charged weeklong trial was halted earlier this week when graphic autopsy photos prompted a relative of the victim, Stephen Tomlinson, to shout at the 22-year-old Rosa, seated at the defense table.

The prosecution and defense agreed that Rosa was at the scene of a homicide in the darkened woods near a Logan Gate Village park on Dec. 8, 2005. Scientific evidence showed the victim's blood on Rosa's gloves, shoes and clothes. The disagreement was when that blood got there.

Defense attorney Brian Gonzalez argued that his client, a Hillsborough Community College student and part-time employee of a sports apparel store, is guilty only of trying to help the stricken 13-year-old boy.

"His involvement has not helped his case," Gonzalez said.

Gloves Used In Closing Argument
Assistant State Attorney Jay Pruner told the jury that all the evidence, though circumstantial, made a clear case of guilt.

The veteran prosecutor donned the gloves he says were worn by Rosa when he strangled the teenager and demonstrated how the boy was throttled. Pruner left the bloody and soiled gloves on for much of the rest of his closing argument.

A motive was unclear, but Pruner said there was testimony that Rosa was looking for Stephen throughout that day.

"There is one person covered in the victim's DNA who had gloves that night in the park ... who had a flashlight and who lost his keys under the victim's body," Pruner said, his voice getting louder and louder.

"The defendant is guilty," he said, pointing to Rosa, who almost imperceptibly shook his head no. "The defendant is guilty beyond any reasonable doubt."

Closing arguments finished shortly before 4 p.m. and Fuente handed the case to the jury at 4:34 p.m. As the jury began deliberations, about 20 friends of the defendant held a prayer session outside the courtroom.

Expert Floats 2nd Attacker

Through much of the closing arguments, Rosa sat motionless, leaning back in his chair, his head cradled in his left hand.

His defense rested late Friday morning, without calling him to the stand.

Stephen's father, Ron Tomlinson, and other family members left the courtroom when gruesome autopsy photos were shown to the jury.

The defense's only witness Friday was Ronald Wright, a forensic pathologist who testified for about two hours that based on his observation of injuries to the teen's hips and neck, there may have been more than one attacker.

But on cross-examination, Wright acknowledged Stephen could have been killed by one person. In his closing argument, Pruner said that any theory that there was more than one attacker was "ludicrous."

The teen was found with his pants down and his nose and shirt bloody, but there was no evidence presented that he had been sexually assaulted. Traces of his blood were found on Rosa's shoes, hands and pants, prosecutors said, and DNA samples on a set of fingernail clippers found on Rosa matched that of the victim.

Gonzalez tried to convince the jury that his client is innocent and that he happened upon Stephen after he had been attacked in the woods. The teen's blood on a pair of gloves belonging to Rosa got there when Rosa tried to help Stephen, Gonzalez said.

Prosecutors have pointed to what they call inconsistencies in Rosa's story. Rosa, for example, told a young man who was in the woods that night that he found someone dead or injured who needed help. The young man asked Rosa whether he knew the person and Rosa said he did not.

Rosa, a former youth minister at Zion Pentecostal Church for All People, lived near the Tomlinson family. He once or twice took Stephen to his church and introduced him to church members.

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

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