Dontae Morris

Dontae Morris was born the son of a 16-year-old who suffered from depression. His father was murdered when he was two years old, and the crime remains unsolved. He grew up partially with his sick grandmother and changed schools several times. From a new relationship his mother engaged in, two step-siblings were born. Dontae Morris is said to be a member of the "Bloods" street gang according to prison records,[5] and he had a 7-year-old son in 2013.

His aunt, Carolyn Riggins, worked at the Tampa Police Department and was released in July 2010, as the authorities discovered that she withheld important information that could have led to Morris being arrested earlier.

His girlfriend, Cortnee Brantley, who had driven the car on the night of the June 29 murder, was sentenced to a one year prison sentence for fleeing from a crime scene and concealing a dangerous weapon.

Between May 18 and June 8, 2010, Morris shot and killed 21-year-old Derek Anderson, 42-year-old Rodney Jones and 25-year-old Harold Wright. According to the investigation, the reason was due to drug trades.[6] The crime scenes were located in the Kenneth Court Apartments, the Cotton Club Bar and Palm River-Clair Mel, all located in Tampa.

On June 29, 2010, Morris shot and killed police officers Jeffrey Kocab and David Curtis as they attempted to arrest him in East Tampa. Morris was a passenger in his girlfriend's vehicle when they were stopped on the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd and 50th Street for missing license plates. As there was an arrest warrant for Morris from Jacksonville for check fraud, Curtis requested assistance from his partner Kocab. When they asked him to put his hands behind his back, Morris shot both officers in the head with a pistol and then fled on foot.[7]

A witness alerted the police, who started a search for the culprit with a large contingent. The murders of the two officers had been recorded by the dashcam of David Curtis' patrol car, which helped identify Dontae Morris as the perpetrator. His girlfriend, who had fled the car and hid in an apartment, was also identified from the dashcam video. It was the most deadly day of the Tampa Police Department in over twelve years since May 19, 1998, when detectives Ricky Childers and Randy Bell were shot dead by Hank Earl Carr.[8]

In the following days, the search for Morris became the biggest manhunt in Tampa's history. More than 1,000 officers and employees from 22 agencies were involved in the search, including FBI and ATF officials, SWAT teams, armored vehicles, dog teams and helicopters with thermal imagers. In addition, about 300 homes were searched and a media-assisted search was launched, with hundreds of wanted posters installed in Florida and two other states. The reward for clues leading to his arrest was increased to $101,000.

The authorities announced that Morris' criminal record was 14 pages long and he had twice been in jail.[9] Offenses included disturbances on the street, car theft, drug possession, drug trafficking, violation of the weapons law, resistance to arrest, assault, violation of probation, attempted robbery and dangerous bodily harm. He was also charged with murder, but acquitted. At press conferences, the police also announced that Morris was suspected of two more murders of African-American residents of Tampa.[10]

On July 2, Dontae Morris was arrested by law enforcement at a law firm in south Tampa, and was taken to an isolated cell in the Orient Road Jail.[11]

His trial began in July 2012 for the murder of Rodney Jones, who was shot dead on May 31, 2010 after leaving the Cotton Club Bar on North Albany Avenue. Based on text messages and testimonies, Morris was convicted and sentenced in March 2013 for murder and attempted robbery to a life sentence without parole, plus an additional 25 years.

In November 2013, his trial began for the murder of the two police officers, Jeffrey Kocab and David Curtis. Since Morris had been filmed during the killings by the dashcam of Curtis' patrol car and his name and date of birth were picked up, the jury only needed four hours to convict him of double murder. Following the ruling, Morris was sentenced to death in May 2014 by a judge in Hillsborough County.[12]

In June, a judge announced that he would begin a new trial for Morris for the murder of Derek Anderson on July 20. Anderson had been shot dead in front of his home on May 18, 2010 after he had previously had an argument with Morris on a basketball court. A ballistic expert and a police spokeswoman also announced that the same weapon had been used in the murder of Anderson as in the murder of the two police officers. In July 2015, he was convicted by a jury after three days of counseling for the murder and again sentenced to death.

The authorities also announced that Morris was accused of the July 8, 2010 murder of Harold Wright, who was robbed next to his vehicle on 51st Street and killed with a headshot. At that time, Morris' fingerprints had been secured at the crime scene. An acquaintance of his told the authorities that Morris had planned to rob Wright. However, in December 2015, the prosecutor announced without further public statement not to bring this last murder charge in court. Judge William Fuente then ordered the transfer onto the death row of Florida State Prison.

In April 2017, his appeal against the death penalty in the case of the two police officers was rejected by the Florida Supreme Court. However, in January 2018, the Florida Supreme Court reversed the death penalty in the Derek Anderson case on the grounds that the jury's verdict was not unanimous.[13]