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Search Continues For Suspects In Triple Slaying

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By The Tampa Tribune | The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 25, 2008

Polk County detectives continued searching today for suspects in a shooting that left three men dead in an Auburndale bar early Saturday morning.

The Polk County Sheriff's Office was looking for two men seen running from the bar and may have driven away in a white, late-model BMW.

With more than 200 people in the Thunderbird Bar at the time of the shooting, sheriff's office investigators think someone saw the shooting, said department spokeswoman Donna Wood.

Investigators are finding a mix of cooperation from the bar's patrons.

"Some folks are talking to us. Some folks aren't," Wood said Sunday.

The shooting took place about 2:40 a.m., initially reported as a noise disturbance.

Antone Geargo Neely, 29, of Tampa, Michael F. Rittigan, 35, of Riverview and Kevin Jordache Webster, 29, of Deltona were killed.

Neely and Rattigan were members of a Tampa Bay area DJ group named Poison Dart. Webster was an associate of the group's members.

Wood said the bar on New Hope Street was familiar to deputies. Most of the calls were for disturbances, criminal mischief or stolen vehicles, though Polk Sheriff Grady Judd said he had made calls at the bar when he worked in narcotics.

The sheriff's office did not know how someone got a gun into the bar where patrons were swept with a metal detector wand, Black said.

The owner, who has run the bar for 30 years, was making efforts to curtail trouble, she said.

Also, neighbors around the bar have been trying to revitalize the area. Wood said the neighbors closed one end of the street in front of the bar to cut off through traffic.

The first suspect was described as a black male between the ages of 23 and 30, 6 feet to 6-foot-2, approximately 200 to 225 pounds with a short braid hairstyle. He was wearing black dress-style slacks, a black, short-sleeve button-up shirt, and square-toed loafer-style shoes.

The other was a black male between 23 and 30, 5-foot-5 to 5-foot-7, approximately 150 to 170 pounds with a short braid hairstyle. The man was wearing bluejeans and a beige jacket with a hoodie.

Poison Dart's Web site and the MySpace pages of its members describe them as "reggae/hip-hop/soca" performers.

Rattigan went by the stage name of "Chris Rock" and Neely went by the stage name "Tony Montana," Judd said.

Neely had five children, the youngest a 1-year-old, said his mother-in-law, Diane Donaldson of Tampa.
"He is loving. He is kind. He is good. Everybody knows him. My heart is gone," she said.

Neely would have turned 30 on July 18.

Of Neely's children, Donaldson said, "We don't know how we're going to tell them" of their father's death. "How are they going to manage now, their dad gone?"

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