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Woman: Shot Victims Pushed Her Brother-In-Law Too Far

News Channel 8 photo by CHIP OSOWSKI

Neighbors gather this morning outside 7983 Shadow Run Drive, where deputies had responded twice this month on domestic violence calls.

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By STEPHEN THOMPSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 30, 2009

Updated: 03/30/2009 08:49 pm

LARGO - Mike Roberts was a longtime worker at a yacht company. His adult daughter had a childhood friend from school, Tyler Newman, who was homeless, so Roberts took in Newman, along with Newman's mother, Sherry Hice, a breast cancer survivor, Roberts' family members said.

That was about a year ago, said Roberts' sister-in-law, Peggy Gray. About six months ago, the living arrangement began to deteriorate. Monday morning , it exploded in bloodshed.

That's when Roberts shot and killed Newman, 21, and Newman's 16-year-old girlfriend, Taylor Nicole Reiterman, who had recently moved in, said Gray. At some point, Roberts also shot Hice, 46, wounding her, before he turned the gun on himself, Gray said.

The killings came after Hice and her son pitted themselves against Roberts and his family, according to Gray and court records. There were threats and counter-threats of violence made, and Roberts, 57, had become incensed that neither Hice nor her son was contributing any rent money, according to family members and court records.

"They just kept pushing him, pushing him," Gray said of Hice and her son. "Apparently they pushed him too far."

"We don't want him to look like a monster," Gray said.

Hice was taken to Bayfront Medical Center with a gunshot wound, said Pinellas Sheriff's Sgt. Jim Bordner. Her family requested her condition not be released. The other three lay dead in the home at 7983 Shadow Run Drive until the medical examiner's van arrived.

Deputies had responded three times this month to the home before they came upon this morning's bloodbath.

Authorities responded at 6 a.m. after receiving a report of a suicidal person in the home. When deputies arrived, they tried making a telephone call to the house, but no one answered. They heard a woman inside calling for help so they forced their way into the home through a back door, Bordner said.

The woman was later identified as Hice.

While Roberts' family say Roberts was responsible, deputies merely said the deaths may be the result of a murder-suicide but released few details about what happened. Deputies said a dog also was killed in the house.

Pinellas court records list four people as having lived at the house: Hice, Newman, Roberts and his 21-year-old daughter, Carolyn.

The four and other associates of the families had been fighting among themselves for weeks, with alleged threats and counter-threats, court records show. Roberts was siding with his daughter and Hice was siding with her son.

Pinellas sheriff's spokeswoman Cecilia Barreda said there were three previous domestic-related calls at the home this month.

The first fight this month occurred March 16, Barreda said. Hice complained that Roberts wanted her out of the house because she hadn't had sex with him for a year, but she told Roberts she knew her rights and wasn't going anywhere, Barreda said.

About 20 minutes after that confrontation, Roberts' daughters showed up with their respective boyfriends, and Hice called her sons, Barreda said. The two clans started shoving one another, and at some point Newman punched a 4-door Pontiac belonging to Carolyn Roberts' boyfriend, Christopher Wakim, causing $350 worth of damage, according to sheriff's officials and records.

Two days later, Newman filed a request for a restraining order against Michael Roberts, Pinellas court records show. Newman claimed that on March 16, Roberts pulled a .380 caliber handgun on him during the fracas, according to a copy of his petition. Roberts also verbally abused him, the petition states.

"I am afraid he might fight me or end up shooting or stabbing me," Newman wrote. Newman said that in addition to the handgun, Roberts had a 12-gauge shotgun, rifles and a crossbow. When Roberts pulled the handgun on him, Newman left the house because he was afraid Roberts "was going to kill me!" Newman wrote, underscoring the last two words.

Hice also filed a request for a restraining order against Michael Roberts. In her petition, she says Roberts started calling her names when he found her on the Internet March 16. She also wrote that, after the allegation was made concerning Roberts wielding a gun, deputies told Roberts to give the weapons to his daughter.

"After it was all done, [Roberts] …told me he will make my life [a] living hell for next 30 to 60 days until I get out and to watch my back," Hice wrote in her petition. "I believe his daughter came back last night and gave him his gun back."

As part of her argument for a restraining order, she mentioned that she had no money and no place to go, while Roberts could stay with a friend, her petition says. She asked that Roberts be ordered out of the house until she got enough cash to live somewhere else.

In a different petition – one which Hice filed againt Carolyn Roberts, claiming the woman harassed her – Hice also says breast cancer has left her weak physically, and the vision in her left eye remains blurry.

Her son also filed a request for a restraining order against Carlolyn Roberts, court records show. Newman claimed that on the same day Michael Roberts reportedly pulled a gun on him, Carolyn Roberts hit him in the jaw, Pinellas court records say. Newman also claimed that Carolyn Roberts enlisted her boyfriend and a friend of her boyfriend to jump him, records say.

Newman says in his petition that when authorities arrived, "they did nothing to help situation," his petition says. Newman said authorities told him he had to turn himself in for allegedly damaging the car, but then a deputy told Newman he shouldn't have been arrested, the petition says.

Newman's requests for temporary injunctions against Michael and Carolyn Roberts were denied, and he was arrested March 18 on a charge of criminal mischief because of the damage to the Pontiac. There was a follow-up hearing on the requested injunctions on Thursday to see if permanent injunctions should be issued, but those were denied too.

But while Newman's request for a temporary injunction against Michael Roberts was denied, his mother's was granted, and on March 18, a Pinellas deputy showed up at the house to serve it, Barreda said. Deputies confiscated a .45-caliber gun and miscellaneous ammunition, court records say. Roberts had to move out until a judge last Thursday refused to make the injunction permanent, according to court records and Gray.

It was while Roberts was staying with a friend named Tony that Newman's girlfriend, Reiterman, moved in, Gray said. When deputies told Roberts he had to move out, they wouldn't let him take his Labrador retriever, named Onyx, or a bird, a macaw named Sport, that Roberts had taken in, Gray said. She said the dog killed was Onyx, and that her brother-in-law had taken the animal's life.

On the same day Hice's and Newman's requests for permanent injunctions were denied, Roberts filed a request for a restraining order against mother and son, Pinellas court records show.

In his petition, Roberts claimed Newman told him that Newman and Newman's mother, Hice, were going to seek revenge because Newman's request for an injunction had been denied, court records show.

Roberts claimed that on the same day he allegedly pulled a gun on Newman and Newman had allegedly damaged the car, Newman's mother threatened him. "There was an altercation that night, and her son was arrested for damaging [the] …car," Roberts wrote. "Ever since that night, she told me she was going to come into my room while I'm sleeping and stab me to death. Her room is right next to mine, and I fear she will really do it. She has threatened me again after the injunction … was thrown out."

According to Roberts' request, Hice said she and her son were going to harm Roberts. "She said, 'You're really going to die now,' " Roberts quoted her as saying. "She has several knives and keeps a butcher knife on her nightstand to intimidate me," Roberts said. He claimed Hice had drug and alcohol problems.

Roberts' financial circumstances were also described in his petition. He said his home was at risk for foreclosure, that he could be laid off at any moment and that he had no money. He said Hice had saved "up to $2,000 to move out," his petition states. Roberts also filed a delinquent tenant lawsuit against Hice on Friday. A hearing for that case had not yet been set.

In his petition, Michael Roberts writes that Newman filed his petition to get Roberts thrown out of the house. He said that on March 16, in addition to damaging the car, Newman also attacked his daughter, the petition says. When Roberts tried to pull Newman off her, Newman threatened to do him harm "because we live together and he will kill me," the petition states.

"He said to me, 'You're going to die, Mike,'" Roberts claimed.

Roberts also described Newman as a problematic housemate. "He is constantly putting holes in my walls, refrigerator and breaking things," Roberts wrote in his petition. "He threatened to kill me again because he lost the injunction."

Roberts also said Newman "has several collectible sharp knives," the petition states.

Neither of Roberts' requests for a temporary injunction was granted. A hearing on both was scheduled for Thursday.

Last Thursday, on the same day Michael Roberts filed his requests for restraining orders against Hice and her son, Wakim, the boyfriend of Carolyn Roberts, filed a request for an injunction against Newman, claiming Newman had his hand around Wakim's neck and started to choke him roughly two weeks ago.

The request for a temporary injunction was denied, and a hearing was set for a later date.

Sheriff's deputies also showed up at the home last night , Barreda said. Hice had called to complain that Roberts had moved her furniture out of her room, the spokeswoman said.

This morning, several hours elapsed between Roberts shooting the three and turning the gun on himself, Gray said. "We know he made a phone call before he killed himself," Gray said. It was to Tony, who had let Roberts stay with him pending the outcome of the injunction hearing. "He said, 'Bye,'" Gray said.

Roberts worked at Catalina Yachts in Seminole. The news this morning shocked the 40-some employees there.

"He was a very hard worker," said Brenda Stratford of Catalina Yachts, a company that builds boats. "He worked in the glass shop."

Roberts got along with everyone who worked there, she said, including the workers in the shop and the office personnel, she said.

"He was a nice guy," she said. "He was nice to talk to."

She said the news this morning shocked the small manufacturing plant on Bryan Dairy Road.

"We never did think anything like this would happen," she said.

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