This webpage is dedicated to the four victims of the Tampa, Florida Winn-Dixie Store Firebombing that occurred on July 02, 1983 at 8:05 PM in Clair Mel City (a suburb of Tampa). It is given as a Memorial to those who died in the store that night and is hoped that all four customers and my sister (a cashier) would not be forgotten.
The victims of this Firebombing were: Leigh Anne Carter (who died first in the store that night as a direct result of Billy Ferry's acts of Murder against her and the four customers in her line), Misty McCullough, Melody Darlington (cousins), Jennifer and Marty Vance (daughter and mother). Please see above at the recently obtained picture of each precious person who lost their lives because of Ferry's Deliberate Acts.
The events that occurred are that on a 4th of July weekend in 1983, a loner named Billy Ferry walked into a grocery store in Clair Mel City and deliberately, without remorse threw in 5 gallons of gasoline using an open bucket and then lit the fuel with a 'Flick the Bic' cigarette lighter. My sister received 4 of those 5 gallons confirming that he premediated his acts against her. He had made a threat to a cashier a week before he committed these acts and told her that "You'd better not be in here next week because I'm going to firebomb this store". She reported this to the manager, Mr. Rick Vetzel, who had been seeing Ferry each week coming into the store loittering. My sister worked at another store in Brandon, FL and was asked the holiday to work across town at this store in Clair Mel City. He saw her from the back and assumed she was the same cashier he warned and threw the gas directly on her. She died instantly from the explosion that followed.
The four customers in her line would die the following week from the severe burns they sustained in the explosion. Within 24 hours of the firebombing, Winn-Dixie completely stripped and restocked the entire supermarket for the holiday shoppers who were to come in. Not considering at all the fact that 5 innocent people had been murdered there just a day earlier. Ferry was at large for 24 hours and was arrested the following day. He was incarcerated for 1 year in a state mental hospital and then a trial was held. He was found guilty of 1st degree murder and arison. The judge recommended Death in the Electric Chair because of his haness acts of premediation. The jury felt pity for him and his supposed mental illness and recommended life in prison. The case was appealed to the Florida Supreme Court in 1987 when the judge sentenced him to Death. The Flordia Supreme Court overturned that decission and gave him 5 consecutive life sentences. With jail overcrowding, it is a very high possibilty that he will be released one day. We pray this will never happen.
