True Crime Mama

WARNING: This article contains graphic sexual material. It is not suitable for all readers.

After the half-time break in our first Famous Murders class session, Major Connie Shingledecker continued her description of the Brannon investigation by telling about another crime, one that happened in a trailer ten miles from the Brannon home early the morning of Friday, October 22,1999. Lisa Bennett (not her real name) had awoken by the sound of tapping on the sliding glass door that led from the front porch to the living room where she dozed on the couch .

She recognized the visitor, a muscular man wearing shorts and a tee shirt and a ball cap. He was a casual acquaintance, not someone she considered a friend. Nonetheless she was relieved to see someone she knew rather than a housebreaker, yet annoyed at the same time. It was not yet 4:00 a.m. She had fallen asleep after putting her new puppy outside ; the dog had been “having accidents” on the floor the last two nights. Her boyfriend, Jim McEvoy, known as Mac, (not his real name) was asleep in the back bedroom. She knew he would not be pleased with the late-night company.

Her guest said his truck had broken down and she invited him in. He immediately produced a handgun from the waistband of his shorts and ordered her to sit down so he could tie her up. He had brought duct tape and a length of yellow surveyor’s twine. “This is all about about sex,” he had said. “Just do what I say and nobody’ll get hurt.” He sounded like a television outlaw. He fastened together her ankles and then her wrists.

“Why are you doing this?” Lisa asked him. “We’re friends, aren’t we?

He lit a glass pipe she assumed was filled with cocaine or crystal meth, inhaled, and began to pace. “I was gonna pop that asshole boyfriend of yours right in his sleep,” he said. “If he gives me any trouble, I’ll do just that. I’ll pop both of you and then burn down the trailer. You keep quiet now, and don’t wake him up yet.”

She could tell he was agitated from the drugs and not talking rationally: they barely knew each other and she also was aware that he was married. He went on to tell her that he’d done something “real bad,” and had to get out of town after he collected $3,000 he was owed, but couldn’t pick up until 6:30 that night. Until then, he said, he planned to spend the day carrying out some sex fantasies with her and Mac. He said he wasn’t sure whether he was gay or bisexual, he told her, but he wanted to watch them have sex together and then he wanted to do some stuff with Mac.

Lisa tried to calm him, but he ordered her into a nearby spare bedroom. “How do you expect me to get there with my ankles tied together?” she asked.

“Just point your toes in that direction and get in there a little bit at a time,” he advised. She was slowly able to do as he said. When she reached the bed, he pushed her back onto the mattress and ordered her to spread her legs and arms. He fastened her, spread-eagle, to the four corners of the bed frame using more tape and twine. When she was immobilized, he took off his shorts and attempted to have sex with her. He wasn’t able to maintain an erection, though, but managed to have oral sex with her.

After what seemed like an eternity to Lisa, she heard the sound of Mac moving in the hallway toward the bathroom adjacent to the kitchen.

“Now you be quiet,” he said. “If Mac comes in here all riled up, I guarantee I’ll kill both of you. I’ve done it before and I’m not afraid to do it again.” He hesitated. “Not that I’d want to do it, but I will if I have to.” He told her to tell Mac he was there and convince him to do what their captor wanted.

Lisa followed Mac into the bathroom and whispered to him.

“What the hell. I can’t understand you. Talk louder.”

She moved a step closer to him, continuing to whisper. She tilted her head toward the bedroom. “He says he’s going to kill us,” she said. “He’s crazy and he’s got a gun.”

Mac faced his adversary who was just emerging from the bedroom across the hall. “Get the hell out of my house,” he said.

I’m calling the shots here tonight, Mac,” he replied. “Just shut the fuck up. I’ve got some plans for us. Now go into that bedroom and sit down on the bed. I’m going to tie you up. That way we won’t have any trouble. Maybe I won’t have to kill you.”

Mac moved into the adjacent kitchen and said before he went into the bedroom, he was going to have a cigarette and a beer. He moved toward the fridge, acting much calmer than he felt. While he could tell the other man was anxious and not likely to let him continue acting in control much longer, he remained in the kitchen. Then he saw his chance: the gun was hanging loosely in the crook of his enemy’s arm while the latter lit up his crack pipe again. Mac made his move and grabbed the gun.

The men stumbled into the living room and Mac was tackled. Lisa grabbed a fireplace poker and began hitting their assailant every place she could reach. Mac wasn’t familiar with guns and while he tried to pull the trigger, the gun seemed to jam, and within seconds it was in the other man’s hand.

“One of us isn’t going to get out of here alive,” he told Mac.

Mac grabbed the gun in a final lunge and threw it out the sliding glass doors toward a nearby pond. He picked up the fireplace tool holder and raised it over his head, hitting his opponent in the head repeatedly. The intruder crawled through the glass doorway and begged Lisa and Mac to stop hitting him. He promised he was leaving, but at the last minute threatened that he had a shotgun in his truck.

“Let’s get out of here,” Mac said. He and Lisa quickly pulled the screen from a large window in the rear master bedroom and crawled through it toward the ragged meadow behind their trailer. Hiding in a clump of palmetto trees, they could see either headlights or a huge flashlight searching the ground near their hiding place. They broke free and ran toward the nearby street where their friend, Alicia Ruiz (not her real name) lived.

Alicia had dated their assailant for a year, but the relationship ended when he became seriously involved in drug use. She believed Lisa and Mac’s account and urged them to get into her truck quickly. If he went anywhere for help, Alicia explained, it would be to her house. She called 911 and asked the sheriff’s office to send a car to meet them at a nearby intersection.

When Manatee County Sheriff’s Office detectives met Alicia, they had no doubt a serious assault had taken place. Lisa and Mac were bleeding, scratched, and partially dressed and shoeless. They accompanied them to Manatee Memorial Hospital emergency room where the two were separated and interviewed. Lisa was examined and photographed and a rape kit was administered. Mac was interviewed by other detectives.

Detectives collected evidence from the hospital, including Lisa and Mac’s clothing, plus duct tape and yellow twine that was still attached to Lisa’s ankles and wrists. Calling sheriff’s dispatcher, Detective William Vitaioli reported the evidence to dispatching Lieutenant Atkinson who immediately recognized the twine.

“What color was the twine?” he said

Vitaioli replied that it was yellow.