TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Details Emerge On Library Attack, Victim

ADVERTISEMENT

By MIKE WELLS and THOMAS W. KRAUSE

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 7, 2008

Updated: 06/07/2008 12:33 am

Kendrick Morris

TAMPA - Detectives found blood on the library driveway, blood on a sidewalk near a set of benches, blood on a signpost outside the entrance and blood on the west wall of the building.

Ultimately, on the evening of April 24, Hillsborough County sheriff detectives found blood on the ground near the spot where the family of an 18-year-old senior at East Bay High School found her unconscious and gasping. She had been raped and beaten.

Less than 12 hours after the attack, a 16-year-old boy detectives were looking to question had returned to the scene of the crime.

Kendrick Morris walked back to the library about 10 a.m. on April 25, and into the hands of Hillsborough County deputies who were expecting him, according to court documents released by prosecutors Friday.

The victim, who is not named because of the nature of the crime, suffered numerous strokes caused by attempted strangulation and had lost her vision, according to the documents.

"What happened to me?" she asked a detective, who tried to interview her three days after the attack. "Why can't I see?"

The woman's condition is grim. She is in an induced coma.

On April 24, the young woman drove to the Bloomingdale Regional Public Library to return some books and was talking on a cell phone with a friend. She mentioned seeing a man on the benches outside, and that she was having difficulty stuffing the books in a drop box, the documents state.

The friend heard the victim scream and their call was disconnected at 10:39 p.m.

Friends and family later found the victim bloodied and beaten into unconsciousness in an isolated area west of the library. She was surrounded by broken bamboo sticks.

Her pink purse hung 15 feet in the air from the branches of a tree. Her identification card was inside, but the other contents had been strewn about.

The woman had suffered a fracture to her forehead, a small fracture near the tip of her nose and multiple strokes, the documents state.

Although sheriff's officials and prosecutors have said she was in critical but stable condition, the extent of her injuries had not been released previously.

The documents also detail how the Florida Department of Law Enforcement matched semen found on the victim to Morris.

After making that match, the FDLE ran Morris' DNA through a state database and linked him to the June 2007 rape of a 62-year-old worker at Children's Lighthouse Day Care Center - less than a mile from his Clair-Mel home.

In all, Morris faces nine adult charges. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.

Library Loiterer

Investigators had been told by witnesses that Morris, a troubled student at Bloomingdale High School, frequently hung out at the library after school and waited hours for his mother to pick him up.

A classmate of the suspect told detectives he saw Morris sitting outside the library about 9:30 on the night of the attack.

The next morning, sheriff's Cpl. David Waytovich spotted Morris walking to the library's front doors and stopped the teen inside, according to his supplemental report.

The corporal stated that he had been alerted by a sergeant to watch for any sign of Morris or anyone matching the boy's physical description in the area of the library.

Morris also was listed in the department's computer records as having been recently reported as a runaway, the documents state. The corporal told Morris that because of this, he must come with deputies to be returned to his mother.

Earlier that morning, other detectives went to Morris' home but no one answered the door, documents state.

Deputies took Morris to the sheriff's juvenile division office, contacted his mother, Lisa Stevens, and asked Morris whether he had been to the library the night before.

The teen told them he had been there but that he left at 9 p.m. - about an hour and 40 minutes before the attack is thought to have begun, the reports state.

Timeline Conflicts

Morris' account of that night, however, does not match a timeline of his whereabouts compiled by detectives from witness statements and video surveillance tapes.

Morris told detectives he left the library to go to McDonald's and then to Wal-Mart to call a cab. He said he got to the McDonald's about 10 p.m., went to the Wal-Mart shortly afterward and was home by 11 p.m.

Surveillance video from the McDonald's shows Morris arriving about 11:10 p.m. and leaving at 11:30 p.m.

Detectives said Wal-Mart employees remembered seeing Morris entering the store about 11:25 p.m. and talking about needing a cab. After looking through a phone book for a number, someone at the customer service desk helped him make the call.

The cab driver told the sheriff's office that he picked Morris up about 12:30 a.m. Morris' family was not home, so the teen borrowed money from a neighbor to pay the driver. The neighbor told detectives that Morris had arrived about 1 a.m.

Morris spent the night at the neighbor's home, and her husband drove the teen to school the next morning.

When Stevens came to the juvenile division office April 25 to retrieve her son, she told them her son had spent the night at the neighbors' house because she and her mother were working the previous night.

Jail records show otherwise.

Stevens had been in jail for the past few days on a traffic-related charge and didn't get released until 9:43 p.m. on April 24.

DNA Links To Second Rape

In addition to the DNA linking Morris to the attack at the library, the documents detailed further evidence that placed Morris at the library that night.

His fingerprints were found on the blue benches in the front of the library doors and on what appeared to be a plastic eating utensil found below a blood stain on a wall on the west side of the library. The utensil had been filed down into a sharp weapon.

When contacted by a reporter, Stevens said she didn't know about the DNA linking her son to the crime or about the torn and grass-stained clothing deputies found inside an unlocked portable classroom adjacent to the library property.

"I can't talk about it because I don't know anything about it," Stevens said.

She declined to comment further.

When the FDLE matched Morris' DNA, they ran it through a statewide database. It matched an unsolved Tampa rape from June 2007.

According to the documents, a woman who works at Children's Lighthouse Day Care Center opened the business about 5:30 a.m. on June 28. While closing the door behind her, a hand pulled it open.

A young man wearing a ski mask held a silver knife and told the woman to lie on the floor. He repeatedly asked for money. When she said she had none, he told her to stand up again, but had to help her. She had difficultly standing because of her arthritis, she told detectives.

The man told her to take off her clothes. At that moment, another employee began to knock at the door. The masked man ignored the knock and attempted twice to rape the woman, according to the documents. When the woman told her attacker that the woman at the door might have a key to get in, he fled.

DNA found on the victim was tested against two possible suspects. Neither proved a match. The case remained unsolved until Morris was charged in the Bloomingdale library rape.

Victim Speaks

April 27, three days after the attack, deputies tried to interview the victim at Tampa General Hospital.

"What happened to me?" a sheriff's detective quoted her as saying. "I remember going to the library. ... I was on the phone."

The detective asked whether she remembered anything after that.

"No, what happened to me?" she responded. "Why can't I see? ... Why me?"

Another detective came to the hospital a few hours later. The woman was sleeping, but her doctor told the detective about her fractures and the strokes.

The victim's family invited Tampa Tribune columnist Steve Otto to her hospital room. The young woman never regained her ability to see, Otto said.

Her mother has spent the past six weeks in the hospital, Otto said, rarely leaving her daughter's side.

News Channel 8 reporter Krista Klaus contributed to this report. Reporter Thomas W. Krause can be reached at tkrause@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7698. Reporter Mike Wells can be reached at mwells@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7839.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT