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3 Shot Dead, 1 Wounded In Pinellas

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By STEPHEN THOMPSON and KEITH MORELLI

spthompson@tampatrib.com kmorelli@tampatrib.com

Published: March 31, 2009

LARGO - Monday morning's call to 7983 Shadow Run Drive was nothing unusual for the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. The agency already had been called to the home three times in March, including the night before.

This time, deputies found a bloodbath.

Three people and a dog were dead inside. A woman lay bleeding from a gunshot wound.

Sheriff's detectives released few details, but it appeared the home's owner, 57-year-old Mike Roberts, wounded his sometime girlfriend, Sherry Hice, and shot to death Hice's 21-year-old son, Tyler Newman, and Newman's 16-year-old girlfriend, Taylor Nicole Reiterman.

Authorities responded to the house at 6 a.m. Monday after receiving a report of a suicidal person in the home. They heard a woman inside calling for help - later identified as Hice - so they forced their way in through a back door.

Hice was taken to Bayfront Medical Center with a gunshot wound, said sheriff's Sgt. Jim Bordner. Her family requested her condition not be released.

After killing Newman and Reiterman and shooting Hice, Roberts stayed in the house for at least a couple of hours before turning the gun on himself, said Peggy Gray, his sister-in-law.

"We know he made a phone call before he killed himself," to a friend who recently had let Roberts stay with him for a short time, Gray said. "He said, 'Bye.'"

The killings came after a long period of conflict among Roberts, Hice and others living in the house. There were threats and counter-threats of violence made and requests for restraining orders.

Gray said Roberts' adult daughter had a childhood friend from school, Newman, who was homeless, so about a year ago, Roberts took him in. He also took in Newman's mother, a breast cancer survivor. Also living at the house was Roberts' 21-year-old daughter, Carolyn Roberts.

Court records and Gray paint a picture of a dysfunctional household.

Gray said Roberts had become incensed that neither Hice nor her son was contributing any rent money.

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

Argument Escalated To Brawl

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

The first fight was 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. Members of the two clans started shoving one another, and at some point Newman punched a Pontiac car belonging to Carolyn Roberts' boyfriend, causing $350 damage, according to sheriff's officials and records.

Two days later, Newman filed a request for a restraining order against Mike Roberts. He claimed that on March 16, Roberts pulled a .380-caliber handgun on him during the fracas, according to a copy of his petition.

"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.

Hice also filed a request for a restraining order against Mike Roberts.

"After it was all done, Roberts ... told me he will make my life living hell for next 30 to 60 days until I get out and to watch my back," Hice wrote in her petition.

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

Her son also filed a request for a restraining order against Carolyn Roberts, saying she had hit him on the jaw, court records show.

Newman's requests for temporary injunctions against Mike and Carolyn Roberts were denied, and he was arrested March 18 on a charge of criminal mischief because of the damage to the Pontiac.

Hice Given Restraining Order

Although Newman's request for a temporary injunction against Mike 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 state.

Roberts had to move out until a judge on Thursday refused to make the injunction permanent, according to court records and Gray.

It was while Roberts was staying with a friend that Newman's girlfriend, Reiterman, moved in, Gray said.

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

Roberts wrote in his petition that Hice threatened him on March 16. "Ever since that night, she told me she was going to come into my room while I'm sleeping and stab me to death."

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

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

The next call was Monday morning. By then, three people were dead.

Reporter Stephen Thompson can be reached at (727) 451-2336. Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760.

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