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4th Man Gets Life Sentence For Killing Haines City Officer

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By ELAINE SILVESTRINI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 18, 2008

TAMPA - A 29-year-old man convicted in the 1998 murder of a Haines City police officer was sentenced this morning to life plus 10 years in federal prison.

Charles Fowler, the fourth and final defendant in the slaying of Officer Christopher Todd Horner, was convicted in June.

Testimony at the trial showed that Fowler was the gunman who shot Horner less than an hour after the rookie police officer started his 6 a.m. shift on March 3, 1998. Horner was shot in the back of the head with his own gun in a cemetery.

The three other men who took part in the killing have received life sentences. They are: Christopher Gamble, 30, who was sentenced to life plus 107 years; Andre Paige, 28, and Robert Winston, 27.

Horner was killed after he told dispatchers he was checking a suspicious vehicle parked at Oakland Cemetery. Other officers responded when Horner stopped answering his radio.

They found him on the ground between his patrol car and where investigators thought the other car was parked.

It was 2004 before the first of four men was charged.

Gamble was already in prison when he was charged with Horner's killing, and he began cooperating with federal prosecutors. He was a key witness against the other three.

Gamble testified at Paige's trial that on the morning of the slaying he and a group of men were in a car at the cemetery planning a bank robbery. It was just before sunrise, and they had guns, gloves and ski masks and were donning dark clothing.

Horner was patrolling the area, where stolen cars routinely were dumped. His last broadcast to a dispatcher was that he was checking out a suspicious vehicle.

Gamble testified that the men were surprised by Horner, who drew his gun and shined a flashlight on them in the car. Fowler was in a nearby orange grove.

Horner struggled with the men and was shot with his own gun, according to the government. One of the men tucked the weapon beneath the officer's body, leading to years of speculation that Horner had committed suicide.

Horner was the only officer in Haines City, a town of about 14,500 residents east of Lakeland, to die in the line of duty

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