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Deputies: Child-Rearing Discussion Led To Slaying, Standoff

News Channel 8 photo by ERIC HAUSMANN

A 21-year-old man was killed and two others seriously wounded in a shooting today just after midnight in Pinellas County.

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TBO.com

Published: January 1, 2009

Updated: 01/01/2009 04:11 pm

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Bartholomew Letthand

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A standoff between a homicide suspect and Pinellas County deputies ended peacefully this morning with his surrender.

Bartholomew Eugene Letthand, 39, held authorities at bay until he was talked into surrendering about 10 a.m. on charges he shot three men, including two of his girlfriend's sons after a dispute with her over child rearing. One of her sons was killed. Letthand, who had a gun with him, had been threatening suicide before he surrendered, officers said.

Letthand was charged with one count of first-degree murder and four counts of attempted murder, detectives said.

Authorities began negotiating with Letthand about 7 a.m. when they found him in a vehicle at the west end of Madonna Boulevard. That's just off the Pinellas Bayway in Tierra Verde.

Deputies evacuated several nearby condominiums and homes while a SWAT team set up a perimeter and began negotiations.

Letthand shot the three men in two locations just after midnight, sheriff's office spokeswoman Marianne Pasha said. Two of the victims were sons of Letthand's girlfriend, Carmen Woods, Pasha said.

One of the sons, Terry Dwayne White, 21, died from his injuries. The other brother, Marquez A. White, 19, was seriously wounded, Pasha said. The shooting happened outside the mother's apartment at 4301 28th St. N., St. Petersburg, Pasha said.

Deputies said Letthand had been arguing with Woods over "child rearing issues" and that the sons came over after their mother left the apartment. Letthand told deputies her sons had threatened him in the past and he was afraid they were going to break in.

He told deputies that he saw Marquez White jump on his car and break out the windshield, a sheriff's report said. Letthand opened the door and shot Marquez White and fired a shot at the other brother as he tried to leave in a car, the report said. Terry White was hit in the neck and died.

The third man, Daniel Selsor, 55, was critically wounded at his residence, 5424 70th Lane, St. Petersburg, shortly after the brothers were shot, deputies said. Selsor has life-threatening injuries, Pasha said. Selsor is the father of Letthand's ex-girlfriend, Kathy Vaughn, deputies said.

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