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Indictment handed down in 2008 taxi driver slaying

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TBO.com

Published: October 2, 2009

Updated: 10/02/2009 03:35 pm

ST. PETERSBURG - A man already in prison on a robbery charge has been indicted in the fatal shooting of a woman cab driver last year.

Louis Tillman, 22, was charged with first-degree murder in an indictment handed down by the Pinellas-Pasco grand jury on Wednesday, St. Petersburg police said.

Tillman is accused of killing Linda Faison, 39, shortly before 8 a.m. on July 12, 2008, at 7855 22nd Ave. N., St. Petersburg police said.

Faison was working as a Yellow Cab driver when she picked up Tillman in western St. Petersburg shortly after 5 a.m., police said today. A witness riding a bicycle discovered Faison's body a short time later on a one-lane service road at Azalea Middle School, 7855 22nd Ave. N.

The road is located between the school and the Science Center next door.

Investigators believe Faison was killed at that location and that Tillman then drove her Yellow Cab away from the scene, abandoning it a short time later in a parking lot at 7010 Sunset Drive S. in South Pasadena.

Tillman is currently serving a 10-year sentence for an unrelated robbery in Pinellas County.

St. Petersburg police spokesman Bill Proffitt said investigators learned early on that Faison was dispatched to the home where Tillman was living with his family, but the family would not cooperate.

Tillman also fit the description of a man a witness saw driving Faison's taxi after the slaying, he said.

This year, several witnesses came forward and gave testimony that supported what investigators already suspected. That testimony made detectives comfortable enough to present their case to the grand jury, Proffitt said.

At the time of the slaying, Faison was going through a divorce, with her soon-to-be ex-husband living in Orlando. She was staying in a local motel, Proffitt said.

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