Kill For Me (22 page)

According to what Tobe White told Ski, she was dealing with a guy who was going to do anything in his power to see that he never went back to jail. Those other women weren’t kidding when they reported that Humphrey was terrified of being locked up. This was not a fear the big man had trouble vocalizing or sharing with friends, girlfriends, and wives. Yet, Tobe probably got a better sense than anyone regarding just how far Humphrey was willing to go.

“He cornered me one time,” Tobe explained to Ski, “and, after saying how he was
never
going back to prison, told me right to my face: ‘If you betray me, I
will
kill you.’”

That statement injected the fear of God into Tobe. As she continued to work with Ski and the FDLE, she started to call Ski at all hours of the night, he said later, and would say things along the lines of, “I think he’s coming for me…. I need to get out of here.”

When she wasn’t with Humphrey or Ashley, around every corner, in every ring of the telephone, in every knock at the door, was the threat of Tracey Humphrey jarring Tobe into worry.

Ski would then have to call FDLE special agent Steve Davenport, who was closer to Tobe’s house than he was, and ask him to head out to Tobe’s and pick her up—and, Tobe would insist, her two dogs—and find a motel that accepted canines. This happened more than once.

Whenever Ski met with Tobe, or answered one of her calls to relocate her and the dogs, he never went by himself.

“I didn’t want to go alone with her,” Ski recalled. “God bless Agent Davenport, he was great…. Humphrey’s key to success in life, I knew by then, was making the other person or party look bad. What I didn’t want to do is ever be alone with Tobe White. You know, Humphrey could have her say that I beat her up, I sexually harassed her, I did this and that. So Agent Davenport always came with me.”

Humphrey’s paranoia grew to a dizzying level as police put their focus on Tobe White. Leading up to that day when Tobe first wore a wire and went into her house to try and get Ashley and Humphrey to talk about their roles in the murder, Humphrey was always out and about, checking to see if the cops were watching or tailing him. Driving around, he’d be looking in all directions. Tobe said that as they drove around town, he would constantly say things like, “I think that’s a cop behind me.”

Then there were the calls. Ski would be meeting with Tobe, talking about what to do, and Humphrey would call Tobe on her cell phone repeatedly. No fewer than five or ten times within an hour.

“Where are you?”

“At the bank,” she’d say.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing, Tracey….”

Then he’d couch the call—always—in business, trying to hide a constant fear that Tobe was one day going to betray him.

Humphrey was livid and perhaps even a bit scared as he, Ashley, and Tobe drove to Wal-Mart. On the way he was doing his usual paranoid glance in all directions as they came upon stoplights and stop signs. The PPPD had a black Mustang following him—which had to blow a red light at one point to stay close to Humphrey’s vehicle.

They all listened as Tobe’s wire relayed what Humphrey said.

“See that…. That Mustang is a cop!”

Ski called the Mustang off the tail and had another vehicle catch up to Humphrey.

“He picked us off a few times,” Ski said later.

“He always knew when cops were following us,” Tobe added.

Tobe’s heart raced. She knew that when they got to Wal-Mart, Humphrey was going to cause a scene. There was no chance, Tobe thought, of her finding her cell phone at Wal-Mart, because she had never lost it there. She needed to come up with
something
to tell Humphrey, once he realized her phone wasn’t there. She needed an excuse, some sort of story to quell what was an avalanche of paranoid anger getting ready to tumble out of Humphrey. When he found out that her cell phone was gone, Tobe believed Humphrey was going to poke a finger into her chest and say he didn’t believe her. Then he might even ask her to take off her shirt. More than that, if Humphrey was able to get far enough away, the beeper or the microphone strapped to Tobe’s bra would fail. It would be out of reach. The surveillance team would have no idea where she was or what was happening.

Only minutes before Tobe, Ashley, and Humphrey pulled into the parking lot of Wal-Mart, a female detective, driven there in record time by an agent who knew the area well, ran inside the store, hustled up to the courtesy desk, flashed her badge, and said hurriedly, “I need a Wal-Mart vest…and I need it now. Please do it!”

“What’s going on?” the clerk behind the counter asked.

No time to explain.

“Look, give me your vest right now!”

Humphrey and his gang were just about pulling into the parking lot.

The detective put the vest on, hopped behind the counter, and then told the clerk to go away.

Of course, Humphrey and Tobe, along with Ashley, walked into the store, and Humphrey led them straight to that same courtesy desk. Tobe felt as if her heart was going to pump out of her chest as they approached the clerk behind the counter. She had no idea they were heading straight for a PPPD Vice detective.

Humphrey nodded for Tobe to ask about her phone.

Stumbling through her words, Tobe stammered, “I—I think I lost my cell phone here earlier today. Did anyone find a cell phone?”

The detective in the Wal-Mart vest played it smooth. She reached under the counter, looked around, shuffling things about, and finally emerged with a cell phone.

“Yeah, as a matter of fact, is this yours?”

Tobe felt the biggest relief of her life. She couldn’t believe it. There was her cell phone.

She’s a cop.

Indeed! Tobe now recognized the woman from earlier that day as one of the detectives in the group with Ski and Paul Andrews.

The wire began to break down. It wasn’t working right. Something in Wal-Mart had tripped it up. The team was having trouble hearing what was going on as Tobe, Humphrey, and Ashley left the store.

“It’s really
not
like it is on television,” Ski said, referring to the reliability of a wire.

Humphrey wasn’t saying much as they walked out; his eyes darted, focusing on everyone they passed.

“We knew he was still suspicious,” Ski recalled, “even after Tobe got her phone back, but he seemed satisfied.”

That adjective described Tracey Humphrey to a tee during those early days after Tobe White started working with police: “satisfied.” Or maybe “temporarily content” was better. Humphrey was never certain or totally on board with what Tobe might tell him; only “momentarily satisfied” with a particular explanation. Whenever she gave Humphrey an excuse, Tobe knew there was a “for now” somewhere in the mix of Humphrey’s saying, “Okay, I accept that.” Like with the cell phone, for example. Humphrey was shell-shocked that Tobe had come up with it. For now, things were okay. But there would come a time, Tobe knew as the electronic door swung open and they emerged from Wal-Mart, when Humphrey was going to want more of an answer. And Tobe White had better damn well have one ready.

Or else.

Humphrey started the car, and, as Ski, watching from afar, put it, “He just tore out of there.”

Fast and furious, as they say.

That was when things got really scary, Ski remembered.

“Because we lost contact with Tobe’s wire and had no idea where Humphrey had taken off to.”

They also lost the tail.

Tobe and Humphrey and Ashley were now alone—heading in the opposite direction of Tobe’s house.

It still wasn’t over.

For Tobe White, now sitting in the backseat of Humphrey’s rental car while he sped down the highway, driving somewhere Tobe did not know, she knew her life was on the line. Through her conversations with Ski, Tobe was entirely convinced that Ashley Humphrey had murdered Sandee Rozzo under the direction of Tracey Humphrey. On top of that, there was nothing stopping Humphrey from putting a cap in Tobe’s head, or snapping her neck if he found out she was talking to the police. And all the evidence Humphrey needed to prove such a thing to himself was strapped to Tobe’s stomach and hip.

“Every time [he] brought [me] to the edge, I got as close as I could without falling off, and something saved me,” Tobe remembered.

Not this time, however, she believed. As she sat and stared out the window of the rental car that Humphrey drove, Tobe felt her time was up.

When they first got into the car, Tobe thought Humphrey was okay with things. She had gotten her phone back. He gave her a double take, and one of those “this seems fishy” stares. But what could he say? She proved him wrong by coming up with the phone, and there was a sense of relief.

That lasted until Humphrey took the Crosstown Expressway and headed away from Tobe’s house, where they were supposed to be going.

Now I’m out of range,
Tobe told herself.
Great. They’ve lost me.

Humphrey was driving erratically: running red lights, barreling through stop signs, bobbing and weaving through traffic.

This is it…,
Tobe kept saying in her head.

Her final ride.

I’m dead.

Humphrey drove down to the Tampa docks, near the waterfront on the Rocky Mount side of Old Tampa Bay. By now, it was dark, not even a cascade of moonlight skipping over the water, illuminating the early evening.

“Completely desolate,” Tobe said later. “There weren’t even streetlights down there.”

This is where they’re going to find me floating.

Humphrey wasn’t talking, just giving directions: “Get out. Walk over there. Stop.”

“Tobe,” Humphrey finally said as they approached the water, “really, where
were
you all day long?”

He was still stuck on that.

“I told you, Tracey.”

“Tobe, what the
hell
is going on here?”

The guy’s instincts were spot-on.

“I was with my brother, Tracey.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Tobe shrugged. “What can I say?”

I don’t even believe that you lost that phone,
Humphrey was thinking, Tobe could tell. He paced. Rubbed his head. Ground his teeth. He was trying, Tobe assumed, to come up with an alternative explanation for them finding the phone. Perhaps he felt that mentioning the idea that it might have been a cop behind that counter at Wal-Mart sounded so ridiculous, he didn’t want to go there.

“What do you want me to tell you, Tracey.” It was a statement more than a question.

“I want to know what the
fuck
is
really
going on here!” He was getting louder, more forceful.

“This is what’s
really
going on, Trace. Come on.”

Ashley stood by, not saying a word.

“Okay…tell me again.”

Tobe went through it all one more time. Her brother had called and told her the cops were busting his chops, so she drove over to his place to assuage his growing trepidation and concerns.

“I spent the whole day listening to him harp about it, Trace,” she said sincerely. “I had gone into Wal-Mart shopping, first, and lost my phone.”

Humphrey was jumpy, nervous, looking around.

“He was very red-faced and angry,” Tobe recalled.

Anytime Tobe needed to get away from the Humphreys, she had used her father’s deteriorating health as an excuse. In fact, the beeper/wire she wore (the one Ski had put on her), Tobe told Humphrey, was something she had so the hospital could get ahold of her in a moment’s notice if her father’s health had taken a turn for the worse.

“Turn for the worse”…such an appropriate way to phrase Tobe’s night.

She swallowed one lump in her throat after another, watching Humphrey walk along the shoreline, as he asked her pointed questions they had already gone over. Tobe was resigned to stick to her story. What Ski had told her.

The plan.

The surveillance team had no other choice but to drive back to their hidden location near Tobe’s house, hoping she and the Humphreys would soon return. Part of the team
circulated the general area in an attempt,
one report said,
to locate
Tobe and the Humphreys.

That search, of course, proved fruitless.

Ski and Paul Andrews were worried.

“We just hoped and prayed,” Ski told me later, “that when—and if—they returned, that three people got out of Humphrey’s car.”

After waiting for a half hour or so, Ski and Paul Andrews devised a plan to call Tobe, using one of the female detectives on the team as a mark to play the part of Tobe’s friend.

“Tobe,” the detective said when Tobe answered, “what’s up?”

Perfect timing.

Tobe knew who it was. But more important, she knew how to drop subtle hints letting Ski and the team know where she was and how she was doing. She had a friend whose husband was in China working. She locked onto that.

“Not much…I’m in Ybor City with some friends but will be heading home soon.” She paused to indicate that the other party was talking. Then: “Paula, I know you’re upset he’s in China. But calm down. I’m going to come talk to you tonight.”

Humphrey stood nearby, watching, listening intensely.

Tobe was still at the docks, Humphrey by her side asking questions, interrogating the poor woman as though she were a terrorist; Ashley, quietly in the background, as usual, going along with whatever crazy idea her husband now had.

Every few minutes, though, the female detective would call Tobe, knowing, obviously, and definitely hoping that she was probably interrupting Humphrey and one of his rants.

“You’ve got to calm down, Paula,” Tobe said, playing the part perfectly. “I know—I know you’re upset. Look, I’m twenty minutes away”—another pointer—“and I’ll be home shortly. Then we can talk. I’m with some friends right now. I’m near downtown…. It’s going to take me some time to get back, though.”

Humphrey started walking toward the car as Tobe finished the call. It was time to go. The phone calls from “Paula” and Tobe’s answers had apparently calmed him down enough to drive her back home.

Satisfied.

Or maybe not. Perhaps he had another plan entirely?

Who the heck knew?

In the car Humphrey said, “No more talking inside your house. I know it’s bugged.” He looked at Ashley and Tobe. “Got it?”

Tobe and Ashley said okay.

Humphrey was calling it a night, apparently. He returned to Tobe’s house and parked.

Not knowing what was going on, Paul Andrews watched from afar, Ski by his side. Like Ski and the FDLE agents on hand, Paul was seriously concerned.

“If only two people come out of that car,” he told Ski, “and one of them is not Tobe, we’re taking him down.”

Ski looked at him.

Humphrey and Ashley, Tobe not far behind, walked inside Tobe’s house.

The team watched, somewhat relieved, waiting to see what would happen next.

Humphrey and Ashley didn’t stay long. Within about ten minutes, they walked out of the house, got into Humphrey’s rental, and took off.

Ski waited ten minutes before calling Tobe.

“It’s time to cease the operation,” he said.

No shit, Sherlock,
Tobe thought defiantly.

Ski told her to meet right away at their secret rendezvous point—in the back of Kmart.

She took off.

Arriving shortly after Ski and Paul Andrews, Tobe explained to the detectives how Ashley and Humphrey had reacted to the conversations she’d had with them throughout the day and evening. It was one thing to wire a CI and listen in on those conversations, but a wire couldn’t pick up gestures and body language. And when you’re talking about Tracey Humphrey, body language and reaction spoke volumes.

Tobe took a few moments and filled in the blanks.

“What did you talk about in Wal-Mart?” Ski wondered, explaining that they were having trouble with the wire and heard only part of the conversation.

“He just told me to stick to the story.”

“That’s all?”

“Well, he wants me to change part of it, actually. He asked me to tell the state attorney that I was
not
in the car with Ashley. That way, I am unable to account for where she was on that night.”

This comment told Ski and Paul Andrews that Humphrey was beginning to change his plans, perhaps reacting to the pressure being put on him. This was a good sign. Humphrey was breaking down. And Ski and Paul knew from experience that when homicide suspects felt like they were being backed into a corner, they made mistakes.

There were other portions of the night that had gone unrecorded, Tobe told Ski. For example, Humphrey’s growing fear of the possibility that the PPPD had phone records.

“He’s really paranoid…. He kept asking me why, if you guys had all this evidence, why wasn’t he being arrested? He said he wanted to throw up when I told Ashley about you guys having the phone records. ‘I am just going to run away,’ he said at that point,” Tobe explained. “‘I am being set up for a murder I did not commit. I’ll kill myself…. I can get pills…. I won’t go back to prison.’”

By 10:00
P.M
., after what had been one of the longest days of Tobe White’s life, Ski cut her loose, and Tobe drove back to her house to try to find some sleep.

The following morning, Tobe was back in the hot seat at the SAO. She needed to put what she had recently admitted to the PPPD and FDLE on record. This would be considered Tobe’s second chance, as Ski had promised. If she lied during this interview, all bets were off. She would be charged with a felony.

After being sworn in, Tobe admitted that she had lied to the SAO during her last interview. Then she got down to the business of telling the SAO what she truly knew about Humphrey and his wife, Ashley.

“Mr. Humphrey told me,” Tobe spoke clearly into the microphone as a court reporter typed, “the police were setting him up and he needed an alibi witness. This conversation happened at the Athletic Club.” Tobe explained that it took place right after Ski and Detective Shannon Rozzi interviewed Ashley at her apartment, and Humphrey barged in through the door and stood by, taunting Ashley.

Small facts become important factors when investigating a homicide. In the case of Sandee Lee Rozzo’s murder, one of the most significant pieces of the puzzle—something only the cops knew for certain—was how many times Sandee Rozzo had been shot. This was never reported in the newspapers or given to any witnesses. Georgia Hiers had told Ski that Ashley said she “heard” it was eight times, but the PPPD had never confirmed the number with anyone.

Now, here was Tobe White, sitting, describing her part in this complicated tale, saying she had heard the same thing.

From Tracey Humphrey.

“He told me a friend had told him that Sandee was shot
eight
times.”

For the next several hours, Tobe sat and corrected her earlier testimony, going through the entire case from her point of view, adding what she could, along with correcting the lies she previously had told.

When it was over, Tobe mentioned something to Ski about a note Humphrey had written to her.

“I have the note he wrote me. It’s at my house.”

Ski wanted it.

They made plans to meet the following morning.

Humphrey had warned Tobe about not destroying anything he wrote on paper. But Tobe was smart enough to know that the notes could be of great help to her at some point.
Protection,
a carrot to dangle in front of Humphrey maybe, especially if he ever got really nasty and she felt his threats were going to be acted upon.

Insurance.

More than one note, Tobe explained, she had several. Since Humphrey had told Ashley and Tobe not to talk about the homicide or anything related to their alibi or the case while inside Tobe’s house, he started writing out his conversations to both of the women. They’d be hanging around Tobe’s house. Humphrey would want to communicate something about his alibi, what the cops were saying, or give Tobe some new advice regarding what to tell the police. In fear of being recorded, he’d do it with a note.

One in particular, written the night Tobe returned home from her second interview at the SAO, Humphrey wanted to know if the cops had arrested Tobe, and if she was setting him and Ashley up. He was worried that the cops were putting pressure on Tobe, watching every move she made, and calling her in a second time made him think she was now working with them.

Tobe had written back to Humphrey:
No, I was not arrested.

In response to that emphatic rebuff, Humphrey, having to have the final word, wrote a page-and-a-half response back to Tobe.

He explained that he needed Tobe to stick to the plan. If she did that, she would be okay. He went on to write how it wasn’t Tobe’s
ass on the line…you’re not defending yourself from the death penalty
. He stated that Tobe was only trying to
help a friend
out. He encouraged her to
stick to your guns.
Strange choice of words, Tobe thought. Nonetheless, he then wrote how he wanted her to
stand by what [she] said….

Beyond that, primarily, the note was more of the same rhetoric from Humphrey: He and Ashley were innocent, but they needed Tobe to lie for them, or the cops were going to set them up and make sure they went to jail. He didn’t realize how convoluted it all sounded. How stupid it seemed for him to be so concerned about being set up, especially with the growing amount of evidence building against him. He had to realize that the more lies he told, and the more he asked Ashley and Tobe to lie for him, the better the chances were that he was going to be found out.

But he apparently did not.

In another section of the note, Humphrey addressed Ashley specifically. The note was more of a conversation (on paper) among all of them as they stood around. To Ashley, he reminded her that she had never been in Pinellas Park and didn’t know where it was—that she had simply driven around
aimlessly
on that night. She and Tobe needed to keep repeating that. It was important.

“He wrote others,” Tobe explained to Ski, “but generally ripped them up and flushed them.”

“How’d you keep this one?”

“I made it look like I flushed it, but hid it, instead.”

The case was coming together. As the early days of October peeled off the calendar, the PPPD took a serious look at the evidence that it had compiled against Tracey and Ashley Humphrey thus far. Having it all sketched out on paper, the SAO realized there was enough evidence to arrest Ashley.

“But we didn’t, at that time, have a lot on him,” Ski said. “We had a motive, but not a lot more.”

And they wanted Tracey Humphrey.

They figured, once they arrested Ashley, she’d probably flip over and turn on Humphrey in a swap for a lighter sentence.

What they needed to do was collect everything, put it together, and have the SAO bring it in front of a grand jury.

They could indict the two of them.

Ski figured that since they didn’t have enough to arrest Humphrey on murder charges, why not approach his arrest in a different manner altogether?

“I was able to determine that he had handled a firearm and loaded a firearm when he would take Ashley shooting,” Ski recalled.

They also had Tobe saying that Humphrey had taken Ashley to a shooting range to show her how to fire a gun.

“With him being a convicted felon,” Ski added, “we had the ATF come in and nail him with felony possession of a firearm.”

It was a way to arrest Humphrey on the same day as his wife, once the grand jury came back and arrest warrants were signed and issued.

They had a plan.

But needed more time.

Tobe White had receipts from a firing range Humphrey had given her. He wanted her to put the receipts in her safe, because, he claimed, the police would try to destroy them to make their case against him stick. The receipts were part of Humphrey’s alibi, apparently, time-dated and stamped. He thought he was being slick in keeping them.

Those receipts, however, proved that Tracey Humphrey, a convicted felon, had held and loaded a handgun.

A big no-no, for sure. But was it enough to indict/arrest him?