4 Dead in Jacksonville, Fl. Rampage
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4 Dead in Jacksonville, Fl. Rampage
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) - A man suffocated his ex-wife and girlfriend,
fatally
shot his boss and then turned the gun on himself as police chased him
Tuesday
afternoon.
Police were pursuing Tracy Moss, 26, for questioning when he pulled his
BMW
over and killed himself.
Authorities were not sure of the motives for the slayings.
Kenyatta Shantell Mines, 23, was found dead by family members about 8
a.m. at
an apartment complex, the sheriff's department said.
Mines was the mother of Moss's 2-year-old son. The boy was with
relatives when
she was killed, police said.
Detectives then went to the home of Moss's ex-wife, Mitzi Moss, 26, to
check on
her and found her dead, Chief of Detectives Frank Mackesy said. The
couple's
9-month-old son was with relatives.
Police said both women were found in their beds with plastic bags over
their
heads, although they are waiting for autopsy results to determine the
cause of
death.
Tracy Moss's supervisor Matthew Wells, 47, was shot about 1:20 p.m. at
Diversified Products Manufacturing, a company that manufacturers towing
equipment. He died later at a hospital, police said.
Officers pursued Moss for about 5 miles before he killed himself.
AP-NY-02-01-00
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The following three news articles all appear courtesy of the 2/2/00
online
edition of The Florida Times-Union newspaper:
Wednesday, February 2, 2000
Man leaves 3 dead, then takes own life
Ex-girlfriend, wife slain in Arlington
By By Kathleen Sweeney
Times-Union staff writer
Tracy Moss shook hands with his boss yesterday afternoon, then shot him,
making
him the third victim of a killing spree that also ended the lives of
Moss' wife
and former girlfriend.
About 20 minutes later, Jacksonville police surrounded Moss, 27, on
Interstate
295 after he led them on a chase on the Northside, causing police to
shut down
the northbound lanes of I-295 for several hours.
Officers shot the tires of Moss' red BMW as he turned his shotgun on
himself
and pulled the trigger. He died on the scene.
What sparked the killings is unknown, but police think it began sometime
Monday
and fear there could be more victims, said Frank Mackesy, chief of
detectives
at the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.
The first victim was found about 9 a.m. yesterday in her Justina Road
apartment
with a plastic bag covering her head. Relatives went to check on
Kenyatta
Shantell Mines, Moss' 24-year-old former girlfriend, when she didn't
answer her
telephone or show up for work.
Fred Curry, Mines' uncle, said he saw her Monday afternoon giving her
2-year-old son a bath and showing off new clothes she bought for the
child.
Curry and his wife then took the boy for the evening. The next time he
saw
Mines, she was laying in bed with the bag over her head.
"Who would kill my niece?" he screamed to no one in particular. "She
hasn't
done anything."
While interviewing Mines' relatives, friends and neighbors, detectives
learned
she had been dating Moss and was raising their son.
Then, someone told the detectives Moss talked about killing two people.
Police
knew they had found one and set out to find a second victim.
Then they went to check on Moss' wife, who lived with him about a mile
from
Mines in the Carriage House Apartments on University Boulevard North.
Police
found Mitzi Moss, 26, dead inside her apartment about 11 a.m. She, too,
had a
plastic bag over her head.
"I just want to know why," said her 15-year-old sister, Vera Haywood.
Police suspect the women were suffocated, but autopsies are pending.
They alerted authorities to keep an eye out for Moss, who they wanted to
question about the slayings. He was driving a red BMW and possibly
headed
toward Alabama, where he had attended college.
About 1 p.m., as police searched for Moss, they were called to a
shooting at
Diversified Products Manufacturing, 8330 Atlantic Blvd., where he worked
as a
brake press operator. The company makes and sells tow truck accessories,
trailers and towing dollies.
Moss had called his boss, Matthew Wells, 47, over to his BMW parked in
the
business's parking lot, shook his hand and shot him in the side. Moss
fled, and
Wells died an hour later at Shands Jacksonville hospital.
"This is a very terrible shock to all of us," a company official said.
Every police officer in Jacksonville was told to look for Moss, now
considered
armed and dangerous.
Within minutes, an off-duty internal affairs detective spotted him
driving
north over the Dames Point bridge. The detective called for backup and
police
started chasing Moss south on I-295.
Moss lost control near Pritchard Road after he was bumped by a squad
car, spun
into the median and into the north lanes of the highway. At least five
police
cars surrounded the BMW and shot out the tires.
Moss raised the shotgun to his chin and pulled the trigger.
The three slayings and suicide left family members, friends and
co-workers in
disbelief, and some too shaken to speak.
Eleanor Curry, Mines' grandmother, walked in circles yesterday morning
outside
the Justina Road apartment, weeping and shouting.
"I'm depending on you, Lord," she yelled again and again. "Wake her up,
Lord.
Wake her up."
By afternoon, Yolanda Banks, Mines' cousin, was comforting the
grandmother. She
said Mines was a private person and didn't talk about her relationship
with
Moss.
"I didn't know her personal business. None of us did," Banks said.
Last year, Mines filed a paternity suit against Moss, and he was ordered
to pay
child support, court records show.
Moss' relatives only knew Mines as a former girlfriend, but they knew he
was
having trouble at work and at home.
He also had trouble in the past. In 1997, Moss spent 10 months in jail
after
being convicted of discharging a firearm at Ed White High School.
Halson Moss said his son came to his family's Sherwood Forest home
Sunday to
watch the Super Bowl. Tracy Moss talked about his family and money
problems,
but left at halftime.
He returned on Monday to give his brother, Tavaris, his motorcycle.
And yesterday he returned with his 9-month-old son, Tracy Moss Jr., his
clothes
and other belongings. He said he was having problems with his wife, and
gave
his brother most of the $800 he had withdrawn from the bank.
He told Tavaris Moss he planned to get in his car, drive away and never
return.
"He kept saying, 'I can't go back to jail again,' " said Tavaris Moss,
who said
he didn't know what his brother had done.
The brothers cried together, and then Tracy Moss left. His brother
immediately
called their mother but blamed himself for not stopping him.
"I just didn't know what to do," he said.
Anyone with information about Tracy Moss should call the Jacksonville
Sheriff's
Office at (904) 630-2172.
Times-Union staff writers Veronica Chapin, Marcia Mattson, Peralte C.
Paul and
P. Douglas Filaroski contributed to this report.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, February 2, 2000
Ex-honor student's life crumbled
Marriage, career beset by problems
By P. Douglas Filaroski and Vivian Wakefield
Times-Union staff writers
Tracy Moss' career plans had hit a detour and his 10-month-old marriage
was
falling apart.
Moss had been convicted in a shooting in 1997 that disrupted his plans
to
become an art teacher. His marriage to a high school sweetheart was
filled with
money problems and accusations of infidelity, relatives said.
Police said the 27-year-old factory worker killed his wife, a former
girlfriend
and his boss before pulling off Interstate 295 near his home yesterday
and
fatally shooting himself in the head.
Hours later, Moss' parents and two brothers tried to explain what drove
the
former honor student, three-sport athlete and father to turn violent,
then
suicidal.
"I guess he just couldn't take it anymore," Moss' brother, Tavaris,
said. "He
was OK for a while, trying to get his life back together. But everything
didn't
come out for him."
Moss' mother, Aletha, a physical education teacher, said her son's life
started
to sour after he was involved in a shooting at a football game at Ed
White High
School in 1997.
Moss pleaded guilty to discharging a firearm on school property but
claimed he
fired in self-defense after a group of men attacked him. He served 10
months in
jail.
After his plea, Moss wrote to a judge asking for a sentence reduction,
saying
his incarceration was creating a financial hardship for his fiance,
Mitzi
Haywood, who was caring for his children.
"All of my 4 years of college is gone down the drain because I can't be
a
teacher with a felony on my record," he wrote.
Moss' family said the criminal record made it difficult for him to find
other
good-paying jobs, too.
Last year, former girlfriend Kenyatta Mines -- one of the victims found
yesterday -- took Moss to court and won a court order naming him the
father of
Keian Shamar Moss, now 2. Moss was required to pay child support and
maintain
insurance for the child.
According to court records, he was behind $5,464 in child support after
earning
$8.65 an hour doing customer service at Humana. When the petition was
filed, he
was making $10 an hour as a brake press operator at Diversified Products
Manufacturing on Atlantic Boulevard, where he fatally shot his
supervisor,
Matthew Wells, in the parking lot yesterday.
His monthly expenses totaled $1,060 and included payments on a $4,800
student
loan, a $750 Sears bill and a $2,000 debt consolidation loan, records
show.
His family said money was a central problem after his marriage in April
to
Haywood, with whom he also had a child, his third.
The couple had other problems. They had accused each other of having
affairs,
according to Aletha Moss.
Moss' father, Halson Moss, said Moss recently purchased a do-it-yourself
divorce document, filled it out and asked his wife to sign it.
"He said she refused," Halson Moss said.
Family members said they didn't realize the problems had escalated to
the point
where Moss would do something tragic. He never discussed his work, other
than
to say it didn't pay enough.
Up to 1997, Moss had been mostly successful, his family said. He was an
honor
student and a football, basketball and baseball athlete at Ribault High
School,
where he graduated in 1990.
He attended Alabama State University in Montgomery, where he played one
year of
football and made the dean's list.
Moss struggled through six years of college but needed only a teaching
internship to earn his bachelor's degree and become an art teacher.
"He kept it all inside. He wouldn't confide in me," Aletha Moss said,
crying on
the front porch of their Sherwood Forest home. "I see it now, that he
had all
this built up inside him. I couldn't see it then."
Times-Union staff writer Shannon Womble contributed to this report.
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Wednesday, February 2, 2000
Man leaves 3 dead, then takes own life
Kenyatta Shantell Mines
Known to friends and family as "Kenya," Mines was described as a quiet,
beautiful and kindhearted woman who died far too young.
The 24-year-old had a 2-year-old son, worked at a credit card company in
Jacksonville and had a promising life ahead of her, family and friends
said.
"Kenya was very soft-spoken, a very sweet young lady. She was a great
mother, a
lot of fun to be with," said Rosalin Smalls, a neighbor and close family
friend.
Unfortunately, she had also known tragedy prior to yesterday.
Her sister, Sylvia, was slain on New Year's Day in 1995.
Another sister attends college, and Mines had lots of support and love
from
family and friends, said Yolanda Banks, her cousin.
Relatives gathered at the home of Mines' grandmother, Eleanor Curry,
yesterday.
Many said they didn't know Tracy Moss or have any insight into the
relationship
between Mines and Moss, other than they shared a child, 2-year-old Keian
Shamar
Moss.
Court records show Mines took Moss to court last year and won child
support
from the father. Smalls' daughter and Mines were nearly inseparable when
they
attended Paxon High School. Smalls said the death has shaken her
terribly.
"I've been living here for 20 years, and they moved in two to three
years
later," she said. "It's devastating."
-- Beth Kormanik/staff
Mitzi Denise Haywood Moss
Moss' friends and family gathered yesterday at her mother's northwest
Jacksonville home to grieve for the 26-year-old woman.
Their question: Why?
"Everybody's pretty much in shock," said Nikki Williams, a friend.
Family and friends wouldn't discuss Moss' husband and killer, Tracy
Moss, or
the couple's relationship. They said they had no idea what led to her
slaying.
"She was a loving sister, and she was sweet," said Moss' sister,
Carlette
Browning, 31. "She was really smart and very independent."
Dozens of people gathered at the home of Moss' mother, Betty Haywood, to
join
in prayer and offer their support to the family. Moss also leaves a
sister,
Vera Haywood, 15; and her brother, Michael Haywood, 25.
Moss worked out of her home, processing medical claims for Aetna, her
employer
the past four years, said her friend, Stephanie Forde. She also was
studying
pre-law at the University of North Florida.
She was a member of St. Paul Baptist Church and graduated from Ribault
High
School in 1991.
This was her second marriage.
Friends and family said Moss was a sharp dresser who enjoyed shopping
for her
only child, 9-month-old Tracy Moss Jr.
"Being with her baby, that was it," Forde said. "She was very quiet and
sweet,
never raised her voice."
--Marcia Mattson/staff
Matthew Wells
On the porch of the Green Cove Springs Marina where Wells, 47, often
gathered
with friends and neighbors to chat and talk of their love of sailing,
there was
nothing but grief last night.
Members of that group gathered to mourn Wells' death and try to figure
out why
he was slain. About 100 people live at the marina, most of whom know
each
other.
"The world lost a good man," said Paul Alexander, 61, the marina's
general
manager. "He would help anybody he could, any way he could."
Wells, who was divorced, lived at or near the marina on his 32-foot
sailboat
Refuge for at least 12 years, said his friends. He enjoyed golf,
crossword
puzzles and Jimmy Buffett, but his main passion could be found on the
water.
"He loved sailing," said Keith Ekelund, 42. "He loved the freedom."
Alexander said among the many things Wells did was income taxes for his
friends
and neighbors.
"He'd do anybody's taxes," Alexander said. "He was a very smart man."
Alexander also described Wells as a kind man who treated people with
respect.
"You never heard him say a cross word about anybody."
Ekelund said one of the things he will miss the most about Wells is his
ability
to make people laugh. He recalled a day not too long ago in which Wells
accidentally painted one of his shoes red, then purposely painted the
other
green to mimic the running lights of a boat. Ekelund said Wells ran
around
joking about the shoes, causing laughter throughout the marina.
That laughter was gone yesterday.
"I just can't believe it," Ekelund said. "I just can't believe he is not
here
anymore."
--Jim Schoettler/staff