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Crane-Climbing Killer Sentenced To Life

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By STEPHEN THOMPSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 12, 2009

Updated: 02/12/2009 06:05 pm

Carl Roland

CLEARWATER - A local murder suspect who drew national attention in 2005 for perching himself atop a crane in Atlanta for 56 hours was found guilty today and sentenced to life in prison.

After deliberating for roughly an hour and twenty minutes, a jury convicted Carl Roland, 45, of first-degree murder in the May 24, 2005, strangulation of his ex-girlfriend, Jennifer Gonzalez, a 36-year-old mother of two.

Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.

Before sentencing Roland to life without the possibility of parole, Pinellas Circuit Judge R. Timothy Peters heard from Gonzalez's family and friends, who blasted the defendant for taking a mother away from her children.

"I hate you, Carl Roland," said Gonzalez's mother, Cindy LeVan. "Maybe one day I will find the strength to push that hate aside for what you have done, but I will never forgive you, when all you had to do is walk away."

"What a selfish act of violence," she said.

Gonzalez's friend, Jana Diaz, told Roland, "I hope you rot."

Roland showed little reaction.

On May 24, 2005, Gonzalez's daughters found her in a retention pond behind their Oldsmar apartment complex after Roland had knocked on their door, and he and Gonzalez walked off together. The next day, Roland was found atop the crane, 350 feet in the air above busy Peachtree Street.

In closing arguments this afternoon, Assistant State Attorney Fred Schaub touched on the evidence introduced during Roland's three-day trial, including DNA tests that showed Gonzalez dug her fingernails into Roland as she tried to pry his large hands from around her neck. Six of her ribs were broken during the attack, Schaub said.

As evidence of Roland's premeditation, Schaub noted that the day before the slaying, Roland had tried purchasing a gun but couldn't take the firearm home with him because there was a cooling-off period. He had also told a bartender he wanted Gonzalez dead, Schaub said.

Roland's defense attorney, John Thor White, questioned whether trying to buy a gun the day before a strangulation was evidence of premeditated strangling. He suggested that premeditation is a topic that turns on a person's "state of mind," and that it was a difficult prospect "when you try to get into somebody's head."

Schaub didn't believe it was that difficult at all.

"It was first-degree murder," Scaub told the jury before deliberations. "This killing was personal….He was brewing and thinking about it prior to this day."

"He wanted to send the message that he was the person who took the life of Jennifer Gonzalez," Schaub said.

Schaub said after the strangulation, Roland went to Georgia, where he switched license plates to elude capture and went to a Barnes & Noble in Atlanta for a café latte before climbing atop the crane.

"He decided to climb on top of a tower and 'I'm gonna take my life' …but he didn't take his life," Schaub said. "Why would he climb up on that crane if he didn't commit that crime? Maybe he wanted to convince the world he was nuts."

In Atlanta he told four people – including a construction worker, a police officer and an emergency medical technician – that he had just killed a girl, Schaub said.

After he and Gonzalez broke up, Roland grew increasingly jealous and wrote Gonzalez a series of letters, Schaub told the jury. The prosecutor quoted contents from the letters, saying Roland claimed at one point, "I can have any girl I want," and at another, "Oh baby don't leave me. You're making a mistake."

"He couldn't take no for an answer," Schaub said. "And if he couldn't have her no one would."

At one point in his efforts to woo Gonzalez back, Roland sent photos of himself to her, Schaub said, and in one of them he was wearing the same size 12 Adidas sandals authorities say were later found at the retention pond after the slaying.

A maintenance worker saw someone run off and later picked Roland out of a series of photographs, Schaub said.

Reporter Stephen Thompson can be reached at (727) 451-2336

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