Latest / The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories / Serial Killer Documentary - The Manhunt for Howell Donaldson

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Serial Killer Documentary - The Manhunt for Howell Donaldson · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:10
Speaker 1: Losing your daughter, you're going to be devastated. Add to that,
0:18
Speaker 1: there's somebody out there who's still doing this.
0:22
Speaker 2: We had concern right away after Monica's death that this
0:25
Speaker 2: was a spree killer.
0:29
Speaker 3: This terrifies this community.
0:32
Speaker 4: It's another killing.
0:33
Speaker 1: What?
0:35
Speaker 4: I said, that's my brother.
0:39
Speaker 3: For 51 days not knowing what's going on with these
0:43
Speaker 3: murders taking place.
0:45
Speaker 2: They're putting together a puzzle, and they have no idea
0:48
Speaker 2: what the pieces even look like.
0:50
Speaker 5: There were really no red flags in his family.
0:54
Speaker 1: He grew up in church. He shouldn't be a serial killer.
0:59
Speaker 4: He had a successful life. He had something going on.
1:02
Speaker 4: I mean, come on. What really happened?
1:17
Speaker 1: Thank you.
1:46
Speaker 2: Seminole Heights is a beautiful, historic neighborhood in central Tampa.
1:51
Speaker 2: And over the past decade or so, it's really thrived.
1:57
Speaker 5: It's a lovely place to live. It's a pretty low
2:01
Speaker 5: crime rate. It's a pretty diverse community.
2:05
Speaker 4: If he was born and raised here, we always travel
2:09
Speaker 4: by feet. It was like a very unique, up-to-class place,
2:14
Speaker 4: Seminole Heights.
2:16
Speaker 1: The weather's nice. The people are great. Tampa's a great
2:20
Speaker 1: place to live. It seemed like, to me, a place
2:24
Speaker 1: that I would like to move to one day.
2:29
Speaker 6: This Florida neighborhood is also home to Howell Donaldson III.
2:33
Speaker 6: Born in 1993, he moves here from North Carolina as
2:37
Speaker 6: a young boy with his mom, dad, older sister, and
2:40
Speaker 6: younger brother. They have a happy life.
2:44
Speaker 4: Donaldson.
2:45
Speaker 2: Grew up in Tampa. He had a relatively normal upbringing.
2:49
Speaker 5: He was born into a very loving family, a very
2:53
Speaker 5: devout family. Religion was very important to them. They were
2:56
Speaker 5: active participants. And he really had so many advantages growing up.
3:01
Speaker 3: As a criminologist, we look to environment. He is raised
3:06
Speaker 3: in a devout Christian home, attends church, and seen as
3:11
Speaker 3: doing all the right things as a child growing up.
3:14
Speaker 2: He attended and graduated high school here in Tampa. He was,
3:18
Speaker 2: by all accounts, a popular kid. He played basketball.
3:21
Speaker 5: His parents were loving. His parents owned their own business.
3:23
Speaker 5: He lived in a middle-class community. And there were really
3:27
Speaker 5: no red flags in his family.
3:32
Speaker 6: Seminole Heights is also home to popular student Benjamin Mitchell.
3:36
Speaker 6: Benjamin and Donaldson don't know each other and have never met.
3:41
Speaker 3: Benjamin Mitchell, 22-year-old African-American.
3:48
Speaker 5: On October the 9th, 2017, Ben Mitchell is waiting for
3:53
Speaker 5: a bus in Seminole Heights. He's all excited. He's going
3:58
Speaker 5: to see his girlfriend.
3:59
Speaker 2: He was a full-time college student who had played sports
4:03
Speaker 2: and done theater in high school, and he was taking
4:07
Speaker 2: the bus and just caught in the wrong place at
4:09
Speaker 2: the wrong time.
4:11
Speaker 5: And all of a sudden, he's shot and killed. There
4:19
Speaker 5: seems to be no motive. Nobody knows who did it.
4:22
Speaker 5: And if you're living in this community, it's got to
4:25
Speaker 5: be terrifying because this could happen to anybody.
4:30
Speaker 2: Mitchell's death was a shock to the community. Most of
4:34
Speaker 2: the homicides we see in Tampa is an extremely safe city.
4:38
Speaker 2: are between people who know each other or people who
4:40
Speaker 2: are fighting for the reasons we commonly see those fights
4:44
Speaker 2: over drugs or other illegal activity. But to have a
4:47
Speaker 2: young man like Mitchell, who is just going about his day,
4:52
Speaker 2: killed for no apparent reason, caused some immediate concern with
4:56
Speaker 2: the law enforcement community.
4:59
Speaker 6: With no leads, Tampa PD released this video of a
5:02
Speaker 6: person of interest in Benjamin's murder. a $ 3, 000 reward is
5:07
Speaker 6: offered for information leading to the killer's arrest.
5:13
Speaker 3: We often find that once that killer gets past the
5:16
Speaker 3: first victim, an ease comes about. Two things that stop
5:21
Speaker 3: a serial killer, being caught or dying. For the most part,
5:26
Speaker 3: we don't believe that they simply stop.
5:43
Speaker 1: I'm Kenny Hoffa. I'm Monica Hoffa's father. You know, we
5:47
Speaker 1: had a close father-daughter relationship. When we were together, it
5:53
Speaker 1: was like we never missed a beat. She grew up
5:56
Speaker 1: in Tampa. She lived with her grandmother and grandfather. Great people.
6:03
Speaker 1: They did the majority of her being raised. Her mother
6:07
Speaker 1: was deaf, and Monica was kind of her link between
6:11
Speaker 1: the hearing world and the deaf world. She had told
6:18
Speaker 1: me quite often that she would like to have been
6:21
Speaker 1: a deaf interpreter. Her and her mother were very, very close.
6:26
Speaker 1: She was really a different kind of light, you know?
6:39
Speaker 1: She did not show up for her grandmother's birthday. And,
6:45
Speaker 1: you know, it's 24 hours before they could think that
6:49
Speaker 1: someone was missing. But it was not like her not
6:53
Speaker 1: to be around her grandmother, especially on her birthday.
7:02
Speaker 6: A journalist is one of the first to learn of
7:04
Speaker 6: Monica's fate. Sick with fear, Kenny receives a devastating call.
7:09
Speaker 1: I was actually driving to Tampa and got the phone
7:13
Speaker 1: call from my wife. And she said, baby, pull over.
7:18
Speaker 1: And I said, why?
7:19
Speaker 5: What's wrong?
7:20
Speaker 4: What's wrong?
7:21
Speaker 1: And a reporter had called her, and she called me.
7:29
Speaker 1: And then the reporter wanted to get on the call
7:32
Speaker 1: with us, and he told me what happened. It was
7:36
Speaker 1: a very bad moment in my life. It was, I
7:40
Speaker 1: hope that you never experience anything like it. She was
7:48
Speaker 1: shot three times. Left in a overgrown lot. And they
7:58
Speaker 1: didn't find her body for two days. And as she
8:04
Speaker 1: was walking to meet a friend, And she must have
8:08
Speaker 1: recognized that someone was following her, because in this case,
8:13
Speaker 1: there were five shots that were fired. Two were misses,
8:19
Speaker 1: and the other three killed her.
8:27
Speaker 5: It was especially heartbreaking that her body had been laying
8:30
Speaker 5: in this tall grass for two days. And so for
8:33
Speaker 5: that two days, her family had to wonder and worry
8:36
Speaker 5: about where she was. And then they had to worry
8:39
Speaker 5: about how long was she alive? You know, was she
8:41
Speaker 5: alive for hours? Was she alive for a day? If
8:44
Speaker 5: somebody had found her, could they have saved her? I mean,
8:46
Speaker 5: these are all the kinds of things that would haunt
8:49
Speaker 5: any family member.
8:51
Speaker 1: They tell me that she died almost immediately, which is,
8:56
Speaker 1: you know, some... some comfort to know that she didn't
9:02
Speaker 1: lay in that field for two days and suffer. But still,
9:12
Speaker 1: there's really no comfort in it whatsoever.
9:18
Speaker 6: Monica's body is found less than a mile from where
9:21
Speaker 6: Benjamin was shot.
9:24
Speaker 3: So our second victim, Monica Hoffa, 32 years of age,
9:28
Speaker 3: white woman, different age, different race, different gender. There's no
9:36
Speaker 3: pattern here. Police investigation is looking for clues that link
9:42
Speaker 3: people together, time, space, location. These don't have that. They're
9:48
Speaker 3: people getting off of public buses. They're people walking down
9:52
Speaker 3: the street. This terrifies this community. So you can imagine
9:56
Speaker 3: that the police department is perplexed with the ideas of
10:00
Speaker 3: what's going to happen next.
10:03
Speaker 1: Losing your daughter, no matter what, you're going to be devastated.
10:07
Speaker 1: Add to that, you know, there's somebody out there who's
10:11
Speaker 1: still doing this.
10:13
Speaker 2: This type of crime, just from those two murders... had
10:18
Speaker 2: the appearance that it could impact anyone at any time.
10:21
Speaker 2: So immediately law enforcement got into action, working with the community,
10:26
Speaker 2: working with prosecutors, not just to follow the leads and
10:28
Speaker 2: try to find the suspect, but also to take prophylactic
10:32
Speaker 2: measures to make sure that this vibrant city could continue
10:36
Speaker 2: without a lot of disruption, without a lot of fear.
10:42
Speaker 6: Like the rest of the community, James Felton and his brothers,
10:46
Speaker 6: twins Ronald and Reggie, were deeply troubled by the murders.
10:50
Speaker 6: They helped run a local church and food bank.
10:53
Speaker 4: We never think that it would happen like that in
10:55
Speaker 4: that area, especially with a business suite. We were saying, oh, okay,
11:00
Speaker 4: we need to light up the bus stops. We need
11:04
Speaker 4: to be alert. It was kind of dark going down
11:07
Speaker 4: these suites. Sometimes you have to get your flashlight and say, hey,
11:10
Speaker 4: this is where I met a stop bus, you know,
11:11
Speaker 4: like that. If you see anything that looks suspicious, if
11:14
Speaker 4: you got a dog that barked, make sure you check.
11:17
Speaker 4: You know, that's after more of the second. That's when
11:18
Speaker 4: they start getting serious about it. And so when we
11:22
Speaker 4: had the food ministry, you know, they get there like
11:25
Speaker 4: 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning. Hey, don't come
11:27
Speaker 4: this early. Come when it's daylight.
11:32
Speaker 2: With your typical homicide, you have a relatively small universe
11:36
Speaker 2: of suspects. Most murders, the victim and the murderer know
11:41
Speaker 2: each other. Here we have a situation where you have
11:44
Speaker 2: two victims not doing anything wrong in their lives. It's
11:48
Speaker 2: a little bit like searching for a needle in a haystack.
11:50
Speaker 2: Law enforcement doesn't know exactly where to start because they're
11:53
Speaker 2: putting together a puzzle and they have no idea what
11:56
Speaker 2: the pieces even look like. We have immediate concerns because
12:02
Speaker 2: you never know what's going to be the next murder.
12:06
Speaker 4: But never knew that it was going to happen again
12:10
Speaker 4: and again and again. And that's when he started getting
12:12
Speaker 4: worried after the second one.
12:25
Speaker 6: The apparently random shootings of Benjamin Mitchell and Monica Hoffa
12:29
Speaker 6: have sent shockwaves through this usually safe Florida neighborhood. Police
12:34
Speaker 6: believe the murders are linked and have CCTV footage of
12:37
Speaker 6: a potential suspect, but know nothing about the man in
12:40
Speaker 6: the video. Local man, Howell Donaldson III.
12:55
Speaker 5: Howell Donaldson III was very interested in athletics, particularly basketball.
13:00
Speaker 5: He had his heart set on being a basketball star,
13:03
Speaker 5: and he practiced a lot.
13:06
Speaker 3: So from this basketball ability that he has, he's searching
13:11
Speaker 3: to be that star. And he goes from high school
13:14
Speaker 3: to high school looking for that opportunity to be the
13:17
Speaker 3: starting guard. But you get this feeling as you're looking
13:20
Speaker 3: at his life, he's searching for something. He's searching for
13:25
Speaker 3: the greatness.
13:26
Speaker 5: Donaldson absolutely was shooting for the stars. I mean, he
13:30
Speaker 5: was willing to give up a lot by changing schools.
13:33
Speaker 5: It is very clear that his number one priority in
13:36
Speaker 5: high school was basketball. And he was willing to do
13:40
Speaker 5: whatever it takes to try to be that basketball star
13:44
Speaker 5: that he not only, I think, wanted to be, but
13:47
Speaker 5: really saw himself as being.
13:52
Speaker 2: Donaldson went up to New York City to St. John's
13:55
Speaker 2: University to attend college. He walked onto the basketball team there.
14:00
Speaker 2: He played for one year.
14:02
Speaker 5: He doesn't get a scholarship. He's not recruited. And so
14:06
Speaker 5: he ends up walking on. That's a pretty bold move.
14:10
Speaker 5: The odds are stacked against you when you walk on
14:14
Speaker 5: at a university and want to be a basketball player.
14:16
Speaker 5: But he certainly was motivated to do that. Does that
14:19
Speaker 5: mean that Donaldson was unrealistic in terms of his skills?
14:24
Speaker 4: Possibly.
14:26
Speaker 5: And for somebody, I think, who was invested from a
14:28
Speaker 5: very young age in being this basketball star, that would
14:31
Speaker 5: have been really disappointing to him. It took him six
14:35
Speaker 5: years to get a degree. So we don't know how
14:39
Speaker 5: motivated he was to get through school, but we do
14:42
Speaker 5: know that he had the self-discipline and the perseverance to
14:46
Speaker 5: eventually get a degree.
14:55
Speaker 6: Donaldson is back in Seminole Heights with a major in
14:58
Speaker 6: sports management and a minor in business. He's working at
15:01
Speaker 6: a medical education company, but is aiming higher.
15:04
Speaker 2: He was looking for work in the sports industry, potentially
15:09
Speaker 2: as an agent.
15:10
Speaker 5: The problem with that is that that takes years to
15:14
Speaker 5: become a sports agent. And it doesn't seem like Donaldson
15:18
Speaker 5: really understood that. And within three months, he's fired. And
15:22
Speaker 5: he's fired from absenteeism. He's basically not showing up at work.
15:27
Speaker 2: It appears that Donaldson may have had some troubles with
15:31
Speaker 2: how difficult life proved to be. Again, a young man
15:34
Speaker 2: who had his future in front of him and who
15:36
Speaker 2: thought that success maybe would have come a little bit
15:38
Speaker 2: more easily than it had. And he didn't quite achieve
15:42
Speaker 2: what he had hoped on the basketball court or in
15:44
Speaker 2: his professional life at such a young age.
15:50
Speaker 3: Now he has housing problems where he's moving from house
15:54
Speaker 3: to house, sleeping over at mom's house some days, girlfriend's
15:58
Speaker 3: house at another.
16:00
Speaker 5: So what we're seeing, I think, is just a slow
16:03
Speaker 5: downward spiral. And along this period of time, we start
16:08
Speaker 5: seeing some other things happening that I think are adding
16:12
Speaker 5: to this downward spiral.
16:13
Speaker 3: The question is, how do you respond to those low points?
16:18
Speaker 3: What is going to be the action when these tough
16:21
Speaker 3: situations of life continuously come your way. What's going to
16:27
Speaker 3: happen next?
16:36
Speaker 5: 20-year-old Anthony Neboa, who's autistic, happens to get on the
16:40
Speaker 5: wrong bus.
16:41
Speaker 4: He's on his way home.
16:42
Speaker 2: He was working packaging supplies to be sent to Puerto
16:46
Speaker 2: Rico to help with hurricane relief. He was an aspiring
16:50
Speaker 2: musician and a rapper. He was, you know, one of
16:53
Speaker 2: several children who had a close relationship with his siblings
16:56
Speaker 2: and with his parents. And he was someone who was
16:59
Speaker 2: stolen from our community, like Monica, like Benjamin, far too young.
17:04
Speaker 3: His murder occurs.
17:07
Speaker 5: Why?
17:07
Speaker 3: Because he gets on the wrong bus, wrong place at
17:11
Speaker 3: the wrong time.
17:17
Speaker 6: Anthony is killed barely 200 yards from Benjamin Mitchell and
17:20
Speaker 6: less than half a mile from Monica Hoffa.
17:26
Speaker 1: I'm sure that when they examined the shell casings, they
17:29
Speaker 1: realized that, you know, this is the same shooter. And
17:33
Speaker 1: then when Anthony was killed, they knew they had a
17:38
Speaker 1: serial killer on their hands, someone who was, you know,
17:41
Speaker 1: committing all these murders in Seminole Heights. I think that
17:45
Speaker 1: the entire... area was just under the stranglehold of these murders,
17:52
Speaker 1: these killings. After Monica's memorial, that's when the rumors were like, oh,
18:02
Speaker 1: we think there might be a serial killer, and I
18:05
Speaker 1: think there might have even been some press coverage about that.
18:15
Speaker 1: It was really intense in that neighborhood. You could feel
18:19
Speaker 1: just the tension. Nobody was on the street. We went
18:23
Speaker 1: to visit these memorials that they had put on the
18:27
Speaker 1: side of this building. People would have all their lights on.
18:31
Speaker 1: The city would make sure that all the street lights
18:35
Speaker 1: were up. I mean, it was very tense.
18:39
Speaker 2: There was a palpable sense of fear in the community.
18:42
Speaker 2: And our mayor at the time famously said, you know,
18:46
Speaker 2: bring me his head on a platter.
18:48
Speaker 7: This guy is not going to win. He's not taking
18:51
Speaker 7: over this neighborhood. He's not taking over these streets. You
18:54
Speaker 7: guys go hunt him down and bring his head to me.
18:59
Speaker 4: All right, let's go get it done.
19:01
Speaker 2: That's not the most diplomatic thing a mayor could say,
19:04
Speaker 2: but it captured the frustration and anger of the community.
19:13
Speaker 6: The reward for information on the killer is increased to $ 25, 000.
19:18
Speaker 6: Police release new CCTV clips of a man walking away
19:21
Speaker 6: from the scene of Benjamin's murder, hoping someone recognizes the
19:25
Speaker 6: way the suspect appears to flip a phone in their hand.
19:29
Speaker 2: Without any promising leads, without any evidence to help us
19:32
Speaker 2: find that one person who's committing these crimes, there's a
19:36
Speaker 2: real concern that this is going to continue.
19:40
Speaker 5: If you're in that community, you are doing whatever you
19:43
Speaker 5: can to try to see any pattern, anything that's going
19:46
Speaker 5: to help you feel safer. So, for example, you have
19:49
Speaker 5: people who kind of go, okay, the first victim was
19:51
Speaker 5: at a bus stop. The second victim was maybe missed
19:54
Speaker 5: the bus, so I'm not going to take the bus,
19:56
Speaker 5: or I'm not going to walk down this particular street.
19:59
Speaker 5: People were just frantically trying to figure out, how can
20:02
Speaker 5: I be safer?
20:05
Speaker 4: Have your lights on because this guy had on a
20:08
Speaker 4: black hoodie, he had on, you know, black clothes. No
20:12
Speaker 4: one would catch the bus, especially when the third got hit.
20:19
Speaker 2: At this time, Donaldson was working at a McDonald's, like
20:22
Speaker 2: a lot of young people do to try to make
20:24
Speaker 2: ends meet. But for someone who had told his friends
20:27
Speaker 2: that he was going to be a basketball star in college,
20:30
Speaker 2: for someone who had ambitions of being a sports agent,
20:33
Speaker 2: He must have felt like he had hit rock bottom
20:37
Speaker 2: with his career and his path in life.
20:40
Speaker 5: It's almost like a narcissistic injury that these bad things
20:43
Speaker 5: have happened. And I think that at this point, that
20:46
Speaker 5: Donaldson is really angry about all the things that have
20:49
Speaker 5: happened to him. I do think there was a part
20:52
Speaker 5: of him that said, I am special. I'm going to
20:55
Speaker 5: be special in some way. You are going to pay
20:58
Speaker 5: attention to me. You are going to notice. Look what
21:00
Speaker 5: I'm doing. I can go out and I can... give
21:04
Speaker 5: somebody the gift of life or the gift of death
21:06
Speaker 5: at any moment, and I'm controlling an entire community. It's
21:13
Speaker 5: pretty clear that Howell Donaldson had absolutely no compassion for
21:20
Speaker 5: the people he was killing. As a matter of fact,
21:21
Speaker 5: it almost appears like he's out hunting for prey. And
21:26
Speaker 5: that is really the ultimate, I think, in dehumanizing somebody,
21:29
Speaker 5: to go out and just kill a random person who
21:32
Speaker 5: you don't know who's never done anything to you, who
21:35
Speaker 5: you have no attraction to, you have no anger toward.
21:38
Speaker 5: It really is the ultimate in dehumanization.
21:45
Speaker 2: With three murders in 10 days, law enforcement had some
21:49
Speaker 2: information to work with and are doing their best to
21:52
Speaker 2: develop suspects, doing their best to work with the community.
21:55
Speaker 2: But then there are no real leads going on for
21:57
Speaker 2: a while. Donaldson did a really good job of hiding
22:02
Speaker 2: after Anthony's murder and not putting himself in a position
22:07
Speaker 2: where he could get caught.
22:09
Speaker 5: And the media moves on like they do because there's
22:12
Speaker 5: always things to talk about. And so at this point,
22:15
Speaker 5: things are slowly starting to creep back to normal. And
22:20
Speaker 5: then on November the 14th, another murder happens.
22:42
Speaker 3: So it's been five weeks since Benjamin Mitchell was killed.
22:48
Speaker 4: One morning, I got up and I heard what happened again.
22:55
Speaker 6: This time, the victim is Ronald Felton, James' older brother
22:59
Speaker 6: and twin to Reggie.
23:01
Speaker 4: One thing about Ronald, well, they always say that when
23:03
Speaker 4: we was born that we all look alike. We was
23:06
Speaker 4: like triplets. We went to high school together, elementary school,
23:10
Speaker 4: junior high school together, and we was always together. And
23:14
Speaker 4: Reggie was always the one that was so stubborn. So
23:18
Speaker 4: me and Ronald was more closer than his twin brother.
23:23
Speaker 4: We never was apart, but he always look out for
23:26
Speaker 4: the others than himself.
23:33
Speaker 2: Ronald was a construction worker. He'd spent 25 years on
23:36
Speaker 2: the job, and this was someone who was giving back
23:39
Speaker 2: to the community by working at a food bank. He
23:43
Speaker 2: was by himself at a time when there weren't a
23:45
Speaker 2: lot of people out. He was crossing a relatively busy
23:48
Speaker 2: street early in the morning at about 5 a.m. when
23:51
Speaker 2: there weren't a lot of people around, and that's when
23:53
Speaker 2: he was killed.
24:06
Speaker 4: Why is the bus so full and everybody talking about
24:08
Speaker 4: the same thing? And I just looked around and said,
24:11
Speaker 4: what's going on? It's another killer.
24:13
Speaker 3: What?
24:15
Speaker 4: So I went up to the bus robber.
24:17
Speaker 3: And he knew.
24:18
Speaker 4: And it was saying that it was Ronald Felton. I said,
24:21
Speaker 4: that's my brother. He said, what? He just took me
24:25
Speaker 4: down to Hillsboro and there it was. I don't know
24:27
Speaker 4: if he stopped, but he got me there safely. And
24:29
Speaker 4: that's where they had everything was blocked. So when I
24:33
Speaker 4: went across the street, some of my family was there.
24:36
Speaker 4: All of a sudden, we just braced each other. They said,
24:39
Speaker 4: it's him. I said, are you serious? Another murder happened
24:43
Speaker 4: in Seminole Heights. And it was Ronald Felton. When he
24:49
Speaker 4: was walking, that's when he heard someone behind. That's when
24:53
Speaker 4: he got shot. And he fell backwards. And when he
24:57
Speaker 4: fell backwards, he went up to him over him to
25:01
Speaker 4: shoot him again. Who would do this to a person?
25:06
Speaker 2: The tragic irony of Ronald's death was that the morning
25:10
Speaker 2: that he was killed, he was actually going to a
25:13
Speaker 2: food bank to volunteer like he did regularly. So you
25:16
Speaker 2: have someone who, as a construction worker, has dedicated part
25:20
Speaker 2: of his life to giving back to the community at
25:23
Speaker 2: the moment when someone who has decided to rob this
25:26
Speaker 2: community of four innocent lives kills him in cold blood.
25:30
Speaker 4: They couldn't even have us to come and see the
25:32
Speaker 4: body because the way they said where he got shot at.
25:36
Speaker 4: They said, no, we think we better not, don't see him.
25:39
Speaker 4: And they have them all cover up. I felt like this,
25:43
Speaker 4: this is the end of it. After they did, that's
25:46
Speaker 4: the way I felt.
25:57
Speaker 2: This had become a story nationally and internationally because we
26:01
Speaker 2: had a serial or a spree killer in our midst
26:03
Speaker 2: in Tampa.
26:06
Speaker 6: SWAT teams start patrolling the area. The community feels terrorized again.
26:11
Speaker 3: When you look at the type of killing that occurred
26:13
Speaker 3: with this case, it is random. But then we have
26:16
Speaker 3: to look at what is random. Random could be easily accessible.
26:22
Speaker 3: Someone walking down the street, someone getting off a public bus.
26:26
Speaker 3: If I have an anger about me, if I have
26:29
Speaker 3: a weapon available to me, I'm looking for easy targets.
26:33
Speaker 3: Seems random, but perhaps the key issue is access.
26:39
Speaker 6: This time there's a witness. The police announced they are
26:42
Speaker 6: looking for a thin black male dressed in all black
26:45
Speaker 6: with a black baseball cap.
26:47
Speaker 3: Imagine being the police of Seminole Heights, Florida. What appears
26:52
Speaker 3: to be random killings are taking place in your jurisdiction.
26:56
Speaker 3: People are fearful. There seems to be no pattern.
27:02
Speaker 6: The reward for the capture of the killer is raised
27:05
Speaker 6: to $ 110, 000. But in the days following Ronald's murder, the
27:10
Speaker 6: police make no arrests. The killer is evading them again.
27:14
Speaker 2: Even after four murders... In all the diligent work that
27:18
Speaker 2: law enforcement was doing and all the help we had
27:21
Speaker 2: from the community, it was really hard to develop a
27:23
Speaker 2: solid lead into the suspect. But just like Donaldson had
27:27
Speaker 2: this misperception of where he was in life that may
27:31
Speaker 2: have caused him to commit these crimes, he probably felt
27:34
Speaker 2: like things were closing in on him. And he panicked
27:37
Speaker 2: a little bit.
27:39
Speaker 5: He's 24 years old, and one of the things we
27:41
Speaker 5: know is that You know, our brains continue to develop
27:44
Speaker 5: until we're at least 25. And so I think there's
27:47
Speaker 5: an immaturity there as well. You know, it's difficult when
27:50
Speaker 5: you're in your early 20s or early to mid 20s
27:53
Speaker 5: to think about the fact that a year from now,
27:56
Speaker 5: things could be completely different. Two years from now, things
27:59
Speaker 5: could be different. It's much more likely to think how
28:02
Speaker 5: things are right now is how they are always going
28:06
Speaker 5: to be. And I think for Donaldson, that was intolerable.
28:11
Speaker 2: Donaldson had told people that he was looking to leave
28:13
Speaker 2: the state, that he was looking to flee. In our perception,
28:19
Speaker 2: he probably felt like the walls were closing in on
28:21
Speaker 2: him and he was going to get caught, so he
28:23
Speaker 2: was trying to escape from Tampa before it happened.
28:26
Speaker 1: You know, he was trying to get a ticket to
28:29
Speaker 1: go back to New York. He was trying to leave Tampa.
28:39
Speaker 2: He's working at McDonald's. He tells his manager that he's
28:42
Speaker 2: going to quit. He turns in his uniform. He says
28:45
Speaker 2: he needs to run to go buy a ticket to
28:48
Speaker 2: leave town, and he's gonna come back. Shockingly, he handed
28:52
Speaker 2: the manager a bag and said, hold on to this
28:56
Speaker 2: for me and don't look into it.
28:58
Speaker 5: I would imagine most people, if somebody gave them a
29:01
Speaker 5: bag with something in it, a plastic bag, you would
29:05
Speaker 5: be concerned about what this is. Their relationship was not
29:09
Speaker 5: that close. He's given this to his manager, who, of course,
29:13
Speaker 5: looks in the bag.
29:16
Speaker 2: And that was the stroke of luck that we needed,
29:19
Speaker 2: combined with law enforcement's diligence efforts to make the huge
29:23
Speaker 2: break in the case.
29:24
Speaker 3: The bag contains a weapon, a gun.
29:29
Speaker 2: Well, the McDonald's manager immediately knew that there was a problem.
29:33
Speaker 2: She found a police officer in the parking lot at McDonald's.
29:36
Speaker 2: And by the time Donaldson returned to the McDonald's, you
29:39
Speaker 2: had a whole group of law enforcement officers waiting to
29:42
Speaker 2: arrest him immediately.
29:54
Speaker 7: But you're responsible for this?
29:55
Speaker 1: No.
29:56
Speaker 4: Because it's the gun, okay?
29:59
Speaker 6: You murdered those people.
30:00
Speaker 4: Your phone would put.
30:01
Speaker 5: You right there at specific times.
30:04
Speaker 4: We know it's you. Can you please tell us why?
30:06
Speaker 4: I don't know.
30:07
Speaker 7: Why?
30:07
Speaker 3: I just don't know anything else to say.
30:11
Speaker 7: I just want to, I guess, talk to my attorney
30:13
Speaker 7: and talk to her who I need to talk to.
30:16
Speaker 1: Shortly after Mr. Felton's death, my brother said there's a
30:20
Speaker 1: report on TV that they might have the guy at
30:25
Speaker 1: a McDonald's. So I started watching TV Everything I could
30:30
Speaker 1: watch online and watching the news. I think all the
30:34
Speaker 1: press was there and they came out and they said
30:37
Speaker 1: they've arrested someone. They believe in connection of the murders.
30:42
Speaker 1: That's kind of when I saw, you know, the face
30:45
Speaker 1: of evil.
30:52
Speaker 2: When Donaldson was arrested, when Donaldson was charged by my office,
30:57
Speaker 2: You could feel the sense of relief in the community.
31:06
Speaker 7: Today is a good day. Today, the good guys won. Today,
31:12
Speaker 7: Seminole Heights can sleep.
31:19
Speaker 4: The mayor, he talked to me when we had to say,
31:21
Speaker 4: he said, at night while y'all was asleep, I was
31:24
Speaker 4: with them trying to capture him.
31:32
Speaker 1: I mean, who walks around with a murder weapon in
31:37
Speaker 1: a sandwich bag in McDonald's and then asks his boss
31:42
Speaker 1: to hold this while I go try to get money
31:45
Speaker 1: to get a ticket to get out of town? I mean,
31:51
Speaker 1: for all of his opportunities, he was just a dumb kid.
32:00
Speaker 2: It's hard to explain how someone who had been relatively
32:04
Speaker 2: careful for a month in murdering four people hands the
32:07
Speaker 2: murder weapon to his manager at McDonald's and then walks away.
32:12
Speaker 5: I have often said that 99.99% of serial killers do
32:18
Speaker 5: not want to get caught. And if they make stupid mistakes,
32:24
Speaker 5: it's because they're so narcissistic or so grandiose that they've
32:28
Speaker 5: convinced themselves that I can't get caught. I'm the smartest
32:32
Speaker 5: person around here. Is it possible that that is completely
32:37
Speaker 5: 100% what happened with Howell Donaldson?
32:41
Speaker 2: Yes, it is.
32:42
Speaker 5: I have to say this is one of those few
32:45
Speaker 5: situations when I have to wonder if on some level
32:50
Speaker 5: Howell Donaldson at the very least was wanting to stop
32:54
Speaker 5: doing what he was doing. It's so hard for me
32:56
Speaker 5: to believe it was just stupidity.
33:00
Speaker 4: That led to that.
33:02
Speaker 6: With Howell Donaldson arrested, the residents of Seminole Heights feel
33:06
Speaker 6: safe for the first time in 51 days. Investigators quickly
33:10
Speaker 6: link him to the murder spree.
33:13
Speaker 3: He then is questioned, his car is searched, and they
33:17
Speaker 3: find bloodstained clothing. So the bloodstained clothing matches surveillance footage
33:24
Speaker 3: of the killer.
33:27
Speaker 2: The gun that he handed to his McDonald's manager was
33:30
Speaker 2: the gun that was involved in all four murders. That
33:36
Speaker 2: was ultimately the strongest piece of evidence in tying Donaldson
33:39
Speaker 2: to these crimes.
33:42
Speaker 1: I got to talk to Chief Dugan. I met Mayor Buckhorn.
33:47
Speaker 1: He's the one that said, bring me his head. There's
33:50
Speaker 1: t-shirts made, bring me his head. Once I had learned
33:54
Speaker 1: all the different things, and I had read all the
33:56
Speaker 1: things that they were possibly using to track and to
33:59
Speaker 1: find this guy, I was relieved, knowing now that he
34:05
Speaker 1: was behind bars.
34:19
Speaker 3: So as Case moves forward, he enters a plea of
34:23
Speaker 3: not guilty.
34:26
Speaker 5: I think one of the really problematic things about Donaldson
34:30
Speaker 5: was how he coped with things. And one of the
34:32
Speaker 5: things that you see or we see emerging is this
34:36
Speaker 5: lack of responsibility. It's not my fault. It's other people's fault.
34:40
Speaker 5: It's circumstances fault. It's anybody but my own fault.
34:53
Speaker 1: There was a meeting with the state's attorney We all
34:57
Speaker 1: made the decision that we wanted him to have the
35:01
Speaker 1: death penalty. We wanted death.
35:16
Speaker 6: Investigators are preparing for the August 2020 murder trial of
35:20
Speaker 6: Howell Donaldson III. The victim's families are hoping he's found
35:24
Speaker 6: guilty and sentenced to death.
35:26
Speaker 2: We were able to build a strong case against Donaldson
35:29
Speaker 2: really on three different pillars. One was on his general description,
35:35
Speaker 2: one was on his whereabouts and location, and the third
35:38
Speaker 2: was on the gun and the ballistic evidence. But you
35:41
Speaker 2: know when you walk into court, you still have to
35:43
Speaker 2: persuade a jury unanimously, beyond and to the exclusion of
35:47
Speaker 2: any reasonable doubt, that he's the one who committed these crimes.
35:56
Speaker 3: So we find after each and every one of these
35:59
Speaker 3: activities that he goes home, plays video games, and watches porn.
36:06
Speaker 2: That's a pattern you see in spree and serial killers
36:10
Speaker 2: where they're able to commit these heinous, horrific, barbaric acts
36:15
Speaker 2: and then go back to their normal life every day.
36:19
Speaker 2: And it turns out that's exactly what Donaldson was doing.
36:22
Speaker 2: But think about the type of person, think about the
36:25
Speaker 2: type of mentality you have to have. It's really hard
36:29
Speaker 2: to wrap your head around. There's no such thing as
36:45
Speaker 2: a sure thing when you're talking about taking a case
36:47
Speaker 2: to trial. And the defense was doing as best they
36:50
Speaker 2: could to poke holes in our theory of the case,
36:53
Speaker 2: poke holes in the description of this young man who
36:55
Speaker 2: was seen on video, poke holes in the location we
36:59
Speaker 2: had for him as he was going from where he
37:02
Speaker 2: was staying and living to the murder scenes, poke holes
37:06
Speaker 2: in the ballistic and forensic evidence we had connecting him
37:10
Speaker 2: and the gun to these murders.
37:20
Speaker 6: Donaldson's defense team are successful in their request for each
37:24
Speaker 6: murder to be tried separately.
37:26
Speaker 2: This ends up prolonging the difficulty for the victims' families.
37:30
Speaker 2: It makes the case take years and years before they
37:33
Speaker 2: can get a sense of justice, and it really ends
37:36
Speaker 2: up hurting them twice because they have to relive these
37:40
Speaker 2: tragedies throughout the court case as it continues for years.
37:44
Speaker 1: When it comes to red tape and prolonging the inevitable...
37:50
Speaker 1: We should look for mercy for the victims. There needs
37:54
Speaker 1: to be some kind of preponderance of the evidence that says, listen,
38:02
Speaker 1: no matter what, you are tied to all of these
38:06
Speaker 1: murders with this evidence. And we cannot have all of
38:10
Speaker 1: these families suffer because you have the right to a
38:18
Speaker 1: not-so-speedy trial. I think what happened to me, the Feltons,
38:23
Speaker 1: the Nyboas, Benjamin's family, was nothing short of torture. Then
38:28
Speaker 1: the second year went by. Then the third year. Then
38:33
Speaker 1: the fourth year. Then the fifth year. And we're almost
38:36
Speaker 1: into the sixth year. And just thank God that he
38:40
Speaker 1: decided he had had enough.
38:45
Speaker 6: Donaldson changes his plea to guilty on all counts. in
38:49
Speaker 6: a deal that will see him avoid the death penalty.
38:52
Speaker 1: Sitting in jail for almost six years, I think he
38:56
Speaker 1: just wanted to do enough to get out of being
39:00
Speaker 1: executed so that he could just move on. And by
39:05
Speaker 1: doing that, I think he got some kind of gratification also.
39:10
Speaker 1: He knew he wasn't going to die. And you took
39:20
Speaker 1: my daughter's life.
39:22
Speaker 4: I'll never understand.
39:24
Speaker 1: I'll never understand why it took so long to get
39:27
Speaker 1: to this point. It was a total release. All the anger,
39:34
Speaker 1: all the pent-up frustrations I had with the court system,
39:39
Speaker 1: it was a release. It was a dedication, kind of,
39:45
Speaker 1: to my daughter.
39:54
Speaker 3: He is sentenced to four consecutive life sentences without the
40:00
Speaker 3: possibility of parole.
40:06
Speaker 1: I struggled with forgiveness. I really did. And I know
40:11
Speaker 1: now forgiveness for me is kind of letting go and
40:16
Speaker 1: letting God shepherd me through the things that I can't
40:20
Speaker 1: shepherd myself through.
40:22
Speaker 4: I said, this guy really had a good life, but
40:26
Speaker 4: what tricked him to do something like that? He went
40:29
Speaker 4: to college, basketball. He wants to better himself. And I just,
40:34
Speaker 4: at that moment, just looked at him and I couldn't
40:37
Speaker 4: shed a tear for him. I just couldn't do it.
40:40
Speaker 4: I just like, I couldn't do that. He had a
40:45
Speaker 4: successful life. He had something going on for himself, for
40:48
Speaker 4: him to really do that. I mean, come on.
40:54
Speaker 5: This case really is about a young man who did
40:57
Speaker 5: not live up to his perhaps unrealistic expectations for himself
41:01
Speaker 5: and his accomplishments. And instead of finding a way to
41:03
Speaker 5: deal with that directly, took it out on the world
41:07
Speaker 5: around him.
41:08
Speaker 1: He grew up in church. He's got a tattoo of
41:10
Speaker 1: Christ on his arm. He shouldn't be a serial killer.
41:15
Speaker 1: I'm at peace knowing now that when he went into prison,
41:21
Speaker 1: he thought he was somebody. but there's a lot of
41:23
Speaker 1: people there that think he's a nobody. I'm sure he
41:27
Speaker 1: is suffering now like we have been suffering.
41:33
Speaker 2: We have four victims, Benjamin, Anthony, Monica, Ronald, who we
41:37
Speaker 2: can talk about as a college student and as a
41:40
Speaker 2: construction worker, but that will never capture who these people are.
41:45
Speaker 2: I sat with their families and heard the stories and
41:48
Speaker 2: saw the pictures and laughed and cried with them as
41:51
Speaker 2: we remembered the loved ones lost. Nothing will ever justify,
41:56
Speaker 2: nothing will ever explain these four innocent lives that were
42:00
Speaker 2: ripped from our community.
42:02
Speaker 4: And Ronald left this legacy about love. Do what you
42:06
Speaker 4: can for people. If you want to leave here and
42:09
Speaker 4: be with God, love the people. Do what you can.
42:13
Speaker 1: I'll never stop loving my daughter. She was just a
42:16
Speaker 1: great child who had a great sense of humor and
42:19
Speaker 1: a whole future ahead of her. She was really, she
42:25
Speaker 1: was a light in the darkness.