Authors: M. William Phelps
The case was becoming a tangled mesh of information. For lead detective Scott “Ski” Golczewski, one haunting voice—Sandee’s—kept pointing him in a single direction.
“If anything should ever happen to me…”
Ski couldn’t get around that voice from the grave. Sandee had left specific instructions that if she was ever harmed in any way, it was Humphrey. Tony Ponicall had pointed this out on the day after the murder. Sandee had said it over and over. She wrote it down. Kept a file on Humphrey and the sexual assault case. She had told Tony on numerous occasions how frightened she was of this guy.
“Her exact words were that
his
exact words were ‘If you go to the police and you tell anybody, I will go get three crackhead niggers to come over here and rape you until you beg for death.’”
This was the second time the PPPD had heard this particular line. As Ski looked at it all, it was almost as though Sandee Rozzo knew that, sooner or later, Humphrey was going to get to her.
Thinking about it, the detective shook his head.
Tracey Humphrey was lawyered up. It was impossible to talk to him.
This was an obstacle, Ski considered, but not necessarily a roadblock. The way to get around it was to begin talking to all those people who knew Humphrey. His close friends. Family. His wife, Ashley Humphrey, whom he had married the day before Sandee was murdered.
With the investigation widening, priorities needed to be sketched out.
“What do we need to do?” Paul Andrews discussed with his colleagues. “Subpoenas? Telephone records? Computer records?”
It wasn’t going to be as easy as asking for these things—the PPPD needed to file warrants and affidavits.
Those take time.
“And that was just for Sandee Rozzo,” Paul recalled. “We needed to find out as much as we could about our victim.”
The tedious part of this leg of the investigation began by going through Sandee’s phone book and contacting everybody she knew. The same set of questions needed to be posed of everyone: What has she told you recently? How much do you know about her? When was the last time you talked to her? Had she mentioned Tracey Humphrey or anyone else she believed wanted her dead?
As detectives spread out and conducted tireless, countless interviews, the same answers kept coming back, time and again.
Tracey Humphrey.
“If anything should ever happen to me…”
Ski got in touch with Joseph Greco on July 9, 2003. Greco was a corporal with the HCSO at the time Sandee had filed charges against Humphrey for the rape and kidnapping. Greco had spoken to Sandee on a number of occasions while helping out with that case. She seemed to feel comfortable speaking with him.
“She confided in me one day,” Greco explained to Ski.
“How so?” Ski asked.
“It was about the criminal court case against Mr. Humphrey.”
“Were there any specific threats she mentioned?”
Ski knew the answer, but he needed Greco to confirm it.
“Yeah, I remember one very specifically. She told me one day, ‘If anything ever happens to me, Tracey is the only person who would kill me.’”
They talked some more, Greco giving Ski every detail he could remember.
“Give me a call,” Ski said when they finished, “if you hear anything else.” Greco was a private investigator now, no longer with the HCSO. He had contacts on the street. Could be helpful.
“Will do.”
In going through the mountain of paperwork attached to Humphrey’s name and Social Security number (his proverbial rap sheet, if you will), the PPPD came across the name of Bailey Ravor (pseudonym), a late twenty-something woman who had known Tracey Humphrey, and like Sandee, she had ended up filing sexual battery charges against the guy, months after Sandee Rozzo had.
Victim number two.
The guy had committed the same act, basically, after he had attacked Sandee.
Incredible,
Ski thought.
As Ski sat and listened to Ravor tell her version of the events through a barrage of tears, obviously still very much afraid of Humphrey, the stories were strikingly similar. Ravor said she knew Humphrey. Dated him for a few weeks. Slept with him a few times. But then the guy wouldn’t let go after Ravor said she wanted to end the relationship. Humphrey started creeping her out then.
“We got into a fight one night,” Ravor explained. “It was August 2002. Things escalated and got out of hand…and he raped me.”
“It’s okay,” Ski said. “Take your time. What happened after that?”
“He told me, ‘Don’t go to the police or I’ll make your life miserable. Other people will hurt you.’”
Ski noted to himself how parallel this was to Sandee’s story. It was almost as though he was interviewing Sandee.
“He also said,” Ravor added, “that he would do anything, including suicide, before he went back to prison.”
“Did he ever talk about Sandee Rozzo?” Ski wondered.
Ravor didn’t hesitate. “Yeah, he talked about her and the case against him. He made it sound like she was making up a story about him.” Humphrey was good at spinning the truth—especially with females.
“Do you remember any specific threats he might have made against Miss Rozzo in your presence?”
Ravor thought about it. “No,” she said. “None.”
“Is there anything else you can think of, Miss [Ravor], that might be helpful?”
Ravor began shaking her head, indicating no.
But then she suddenly stopped.
“You know about Candis Maines (pseudonym), right?”
Ski was not familiar with the name. “No. What about her?”
“She’s an ex of Tracey’s. I found out he was dating the both of us at the same time…but…anyway…”
“When was that?”
“Late 2002.”
Ski took notes.
“I know,” Ravor said, “that Candis had gone onto the Internet to do some ‘research’ for Tracey about Sandee.”
This was interesting. An arrest warrant—or, at the least, a search warrant—was developing.
“What type of information was she looking up for Humphrey?”
Ravor said she wasn’t sure.
“Do you know Mr. Humphrey’s e-mail address?”
She walked over to her computer, looked it up, handed it to Ski.
“I know where Candis lives.” Ravor described the area in Brandon.
“You got a phone book?” Ski asked.
Ravor found the address.
Ski took out his business card. “If you think of anything else,” he said, handing it to Ravor, “or you hear of any new information, I need you to call me.”
Ravor said she would.
Several hours after leaving Bailey Ravor’s apartment, Ski drove into Tampa and headed for the Rain Lounge. He had made contact with another source close to Sandee and Humphrey who had worked with them at Inferno. They met inside the guy’s office.
“She confided in me,” Sandee’s former coworker said, “after the alleged incident with Tracey.”
“How was she?”
“Scared out of her mind. She asked me to help her move. She didn’t want to live in the same apartment anymore because he knew where she lived. It was the only reason why she moved…. I started driving her to work and then home.”
“Is that all there was to it?”
The coworker looked down, concerned. “No, we started dating soon after and started sleeping together.”
“When was this, approximately?”
“Oh, I’d say, definitely between September 2002 until February 2003. We lived together.”
“You hear her mention any threats Mr. Humphrey might have made?”
This guy told that same crackhead story—adding to it, however, that Humphrey made a point of saying that if Sandee talked about the incident to anyone, those same crackheads would also kill her.
Perhaps, Ski had to believe, they had done just that. Although Humphrey was still at the center, acting as the mastermind, the suspect pool just grew considerably.
Ski and several colleagues spent July 10, 2003, taking aerial photographs of the crime scene and driving up to Hillsborough County to speak with trial attorney John Terry, the assistant state attorney (ASA) at the time. Terry had some information about Humphrey, along with a few depositions taken from witnesses in the alleged rape case now at the center of the homicide.
Most of the information confirmed a few things for Ski: one being that Humphrey had repeatedly threatened Sandee with that crackhead warning, according to several sources. Ski knew better than most that when you hear something from more than one person—suffice it to say when those sources don’t know each other and have never met—it is generally the truth. It appeared from the interviews Ski and other detectives had conducted over the course of four days that Humphrey was unafraid of telling those around him how tough he was and how Sandee would pay if she ever went to police.
Driving back to Pinellas late that night, Ski felt it was probably time to demand an alibi from Humphrey and find out where he was on the night Sandee Rozzo was murdered.
Ski drove into Brandon the following day and found Candis Maines at an apartment complex she had recently moved into.
No apartment number,
Ski thought as he got out of his unmarked cruiser.
He called the HCSO.
“She no longer lives there,” Ski was told.
“No?”
“Hold on, I’ll get you her new address.”
The new address was in St. Petersburg, nearly an hour’s drive from Brandon. Ski got on the I-275, drove over Old Tampa Bay, and made it to the new apartment by 7:15
P.M
.
Candis answered the door and Ski announced why he was there. The look she gave him when Ski mentioned Sandee’s name told him that the interview was going to be productive. Candis knew something. No doubt.
After stepping into her apartment, Ski asked Candis what she thought when the name Tracey Humphrey was mentioned.
“Tracey Humphrey?” Candis said without hesitating. She had a contorted look of disdain on her face.
“Tell me about your relationship with Mr. Humphrey.”
Candis said they had dated from August 2002 until December of the same year.
“I met him at the Athletic Club in Brandon after joining the gym. He was my personal trainer.”
“How soon before you started dating?”
“Shortly after we met, we became intimate,” Candis said with reservation, sounding regretful.
“What happened? Why’d it end?”
“I found out he was also dating [Bailey Ravor]. We broke up on New Year’s Eve. He was cheating on me.”
“How ’bout Miss Rozzo…did he make any threats against her in your presence?”
The question gave Candis pause; she stopped for a moment.
There was something there, definitely, Ski knew. Her shoulders had dropped a little. Her face grew quite dim.
The weight of the world.
“I—I…he wanted harm to come to her, I can tell you that. But he said he could never harm her himself because he would be the prime suspect.”
“I’m looking for specific threats—anything that you can recall that he said he was going to do
specifically
?”
Candis mentioned that she had heard Humphrey say something one day about “crackheads doing her harm.” However, she couldn’t recall the exact quote.
That was fine with Ski.
As they spoke, Ski noticed that Candis drifted further and further into her memories of Humphrey, and they were certainly not of walks on the beach during moonlit nights. She didn’t believe Sandee Rozzo’s accusations, the way Humphrey explained. It was early in their relationship. “He asked me to dig up some dirt on her on the Internet,” she said. So Candis obliged, thinking she was helping an innocent man prove himself. “He said Sandee was trying to ruin his life. I believed him.”
“When did that change?”
Candis looked a bit taken aback by the question. She took a breath, then told Ski how Humphrey’s actions had changed her mind.
Candis and Humphrey had an argument one night. Humphrey was once again ranting-and-raving mad, huffing and puffing and making threats against a weaker opponent—his girlfriend.
“You’re lying to me!” Humphrey screamed at her.
“No, Tracey…no, I’m not.” Candis was terrified.
Humphrey lunged at her. Put his large hands around her skinny neck and began choking the woman.
Within a minute, Candis saw a white light and then slipped away into unconsciousness.
Moments later, when she opened her eyes and came to, Candis wondered what in the hell had just happened and how she had ended up on the floor. Before she could even discern where she was, she realized Humphrey was kneeling over her, staring at her in the eyes, nearly face-to-face.
“You gonna tell me the truth now,
bitch
?” he said angrily.
“I did,” she pleaded. “I told you the truth already, Tracey.”
Humphrey grunted and again grabbed her around the neck and choked her out.
When Candis came back that second time, the same scenario played out.
“I was honest with you, Tracey. Please.”
“You bitch!” he said. “Have you
not
learned your lesson?”
It was as though all she had to do was admit she had lied to him—even if she hadn’t—and he would let her be.
“No, Tracey, please.”
“I’m going to choke you even longer this time,” he snapped. Now he was sweating. He had the look of a madman on his face.
Humphrey then used one hand and choked Candis for a third time, until she lost consciousness.
When she awoke, Candis knew that she was now fighting for her life, essentially. He was going to kill her if he continued choking her out. Sooner or later she wasn’t going to wake up.
This time, however, Humphrey didn’t want the truth; he wanted something else.
Sex.
“I realized I needed to survive this incident,” Candis told Ski on the evening that he interviewed her. “He pressured me into having sex, and we did have sexual intercourse. I did it with him because it was the only way I felt I could survive the ordeal.”
Ski asked Candis if she called the police.
“I was terrified of him. I did not report it.”
Tears.
After a period of catching her breath, Candis got back into talking about Humphrey’s actions pertaining to Sandee. She said she was “pretty sure” that he had done his own Internet research at his apartment on his own computer.
This was important to Ski.
“He also told me he wanted to hire a private investigator to follow her.”
Ski could sense that Candis was emotionally beaten down by the conversation. He didn’t want to push her.
At least not now.
Walking Ski to the door, Candis said she was scared to death that Humphrey would find out she had talked to the police about him and what the retaliation for such a breach of trust might entail.
Ski handed her his card. “You call me if you think of anything else, or if you’re worried about him and you think he’s coming.”