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A deck of crime solvers

Playing cards with details of 13 murders are being givento inmates, hoping they may have leads to the crimes.

By ABBIE VANSICKLE
Published July 19, 2006

TAMPA — Richard Lynch thinks the answer to his son’s murder is in the cards, quite literally.

Chad Elliott Lynch stares out from the 10 of diamonds, spades, clubs and hearts. He wears an orange T-shirt and his expression is serious. Underneath, there’s a description of his last moments.

On July 14, 2005, he was sitting in a car with a friend, when a stranger wearing a dark mask tried to rob them, it reads. The stranger shot 17-year-old Chad, killing him.

“He took a good kid,” said his father, Richard Lynch, 47, of Thonotosassa.

Chad’s slaying is unsolved. That’s why he is one of the 13 men and women whose photos appear on 10,000 decks of cards to be handed out, starting today , to inmates at Hillsborough County jails. Investigators hope inmates will help them crack the baffling cold case homicides, bringing closure to victims’ families and bringing criminals to justice.

Jail officials will distribute the decks, printed in both English and Spanish. Crime Stoppers funded the $11,000 project.
The card trick is catching on with other agencies, too.

The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office is working with Crime Stoppers and other police departments to create its own deck, sheriff’s spokesman Mac McMullen said. It plans to distribute 10,000 decks, beginning in September.

The cold case deck idea has already been successful in Polk County. In 2005, Polk County investigators handed out cards to each inmate housed at the jail.

Within a few months, they got a tip that led to two arrests in one of the homicides.

On May 7, 2004, Thomas Wayne Grammer was shot several times during a robbery inside his Lakeland apartment, according to the Ledger newspaper in Lakeland.

The case went unsolved until an inmate at the Polk County jail picked up a deck of cards, said Lakeland police Detective Scott Kersher, who was investigating the homicide.

Grammer was the three of spades.

The inmate told investigators that an acquaintance had confessed to killing Grammer.

Two men, Jason Seawright and Reggie Williams, were later charged with the murder. They are awaiting trial on the charges.
Kersher credits the cards.

“I think they’re very important,” he said. “They develop a lot of leads that we may not otherwise get.”

The project worked so well Polk County officials have handed out a new deck that highlights a different set of cold cases.

Now, at least eight Florida counties are considering the cards and Polk County officials have received inquiries from Texas, England and Australia, said Wayne Cross, 55, executive director of the Heartland Crime Stoppers, which works in Polk, Highlands and Hardee counties.

In Hillsborough, Lynch hopes someone playing a game will know about the crime and give his family an answer and a little peace.

“With all of us, it’s just going to give us closure, knowing that the guy who shot my son isn’t running around out there,” he said.

The cards feature a variety of cases.

The jacks show Isaiah Brooks, 18, who was found shot to death in a field, wearing a woman’s brown flower print dress and brown slippers.

The sixes are all Maria Rodriguez Luperon, 52, shot to death while sitting in her vehicle at the Temple Terrace post office.

The aces are Donna J. Cooke, 23, found dead in Lake Thonotosassa with injuries to her upper body. The last time anyone saw her alive, she was getting into a red sports car with two men.

Staff writer Jacob Fries and researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report. Abbie VanSickle can be reached at (813) 226-3373 or vansickle@sptimes.com.

[Last modified July 19, 2006, 22:50:56]