John Jefferson
Inset: Patricia Whitehead (Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office); Main image: the house where she allegedly murdered her messy roommate (Google Maps)
A septuagenarian Florida woman is behind bars after she allegedly killed her roommate because he was too messy, police say.
Patricia Whitehead, 71, currently stands accused of one count of premeditated felony murder in the first degree, according to the Tampa Police Department and Hillsborough County Court records.
In an initial press release, police described several shots fired near a residence on East 26th Avenue just before 9:30 a.m. on June 13.
Law enforcement took stock of the grim aftermath — an unidentified adult male victim with upper body trauma who later succumbed to his injuries at a nearby hospital. The first press release observed that early on in the investigation, “it does not appear this was a random incident.”
A subsequent press release filled in the details.
Officers arrived at the scene of the crime at exactly at 9:28 a.m. on Thursday morning and found a severely injured Black male outside the residence, police said. He was “pronounced deceased” after being transferred to the hospital. His identity has yet to be released.
“On the day of the incident, the victim was leaving the residence, when Whitehead heard the victim slam the door,” police said in the follow-up press release. “Whitehead retrieved her firearm from her bedroom, exited the residence, and shot the victim multiple times.”
An ensuing investigation determined the alleged assailant and the victim “shared a residential space,” police said. And, at some point on the day in question, Whitehead allegedly “had become angry with the victim, claiming he did not clean up after himself.”
The defendant is currently being detained in the Orient Road Jail without bond, according to booking records. She has been assigned a public defender and a judge to oversee her case but no scheduling is publicly available on the court’s docket as of this writing.
Law&Crime reached out to the Tampa Police Department to submit a public records requests for additional information related to this case but no response was immediately forthcoming.
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