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One Dead After Homeowner Opens Fire During Lakeland Home Invasion

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TBO.com Staff

Published: March 29, 2009

LAKELAND - One of two men who kicked in a kitchen door and ran into gunfire from the homeowner Saturday night dropped dead in the driveway of the Lakeland home Saturday, while the other man got away in a black sports utility vehicle.

The homeowner, though, wound up going to jail on a possession charge, and so did his girlfriend, the Polk County Sheriff's Office said.

About 10:30 p.m. Saturday, two men, at least one of them armed, kicked open the door leading from the carport to kitchen at 3637 N. Frontage Road in Lakeland.

As the men burst in, Darek Wimes, 32, grabbed a pistol and began shooting, the sheriff's office said.
The two men ran out of the duplex toward an SUV at the end of the drive, but Jameel Young, 20, collapsed before he could reach the vehicle that sped away. He was pronounced dead at the scene, the sheriff's office said.

Deputies later arrested Wimes, on a charge of possession of marijuana with intent to sell and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. His live-in girlfriend, Michelle Smith, 28, was charged with possession of cocaine, the sheriff's office said.

Detectives are searching for the SUV that may have been a Dodge Durango or Cheverolet Trailblazer. A third man may have been in the vehicle when the other two broke in, the sheriff's office said.

A warrant was issued for Young on Friday in connection with the armed robbery of the Hilltop Food Mart on Daughtery Road in Lakeland March 2, the sheriff's office said. He also was arrested in 2005 on a fugitive warrant from New York for robbery.

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