Kevin McGinley was a handsome and charismatic man of twenty-one, a devoted student who delivered pizzas to help support his way through school. He had a sunny disposition and a hopefulness for the future when his life was cut tragically short. On February 13th, 1998, Kevin was struck and killed by a UPS tractor trailer unit on Highway 275 in Tampa, Florida.
Earlier in the evening, Kevin and acquaintance Michael Lipp had been partying at a club in Ybor City. At some point during their festivities, the two got into a physical altercation with a group of several individuals, which was quickly broken up by police. Kevin and Lipp left the club in Lipp's vehicle, and the individuals in question followed them onto the highway. The suspects' vehicle struck the back of Lipp's, and they all pulled over to the side of the road. According to Lipp, a fight ensued between Kevin and the occupants of the other vehicle. One of the occupants allegedly suffered a broken a nose.
It is here that the story, at least from Lipp's point of view, gets iffy. Lipp said that the fight, which allegedly occurred in a grassy area near an on-ramp, had been brief. After it ended, Kevin began to make his way back to Lipp's vehicle when suddenly and without warning, Kevin stopped and took one step backward onto the highway. Lipp said that Kevin was immediately struck by a vehicle, which fled the scene. The impact sent him further into the roadway, eventually coming to rest directly in the path of the tractor trailer. The problem with this story is simply this: it's not supported by any evidence at the scene, it is effectively refuted by multiple eyewitness accounts, and Lipp failed a polygraph test when questioned about key elements in his version of events.
A 911 call placed about fifteen minutes before Kevin's death reported an all-out brawl in the middle of the highway, involving at least four individuals. Six more subsequent calls (all within a twelve-minute period) reported a man in the middle of the highway, with two of the calls reporting an on-going fight. Two of the later calls reported a man down and likely unconscious in the roadway, a full five minutes before he was struck and killed. Three witnesses who had swerved to avoid Kevin said that he seemed "dazed," "disoriented," and "white as sheet." Yet another witness called to say a group of individuals was scuffling beside the roadway and appeared to be attempting to a force a man into oncoming traffic. Another individual called the Florida Highway Patrol to report that in the moments before his death, Kevin had his hands up in a defensive manner and was quite obviously being attacked. A man then hit Kevin in the chest, causing him to stumble back onto the highway.
To me, this seems like more than enough information to warrant a thorough investigation. But apparently not to the Florida Highway Patrol, or investigating officer Corporal Dennis Jetton. In fact, Jetton deemed this information so insignificant that he failed to include any of it in his official report. He also failed to include the accounts of multiple people who came forward to accuse one Anthony Lloyd of the murder. They said Lloyd confessed to the crime and admitted his final punches had knocked Kevin out into traffic. Instead, Jetton insisted that Kevin's death was an alcohol-related incident--even after Kevin's blood alcohol content was found to be a mere .10, the equivalent of 2-3 beers. His tox screens were negative for all other substances. Jetton also insisted that Kevin had stepped out in front of the hit-and-run vehicle entirely of his own volition--even though Michael Lipp's word is the only evidence that suggests there even was a hit-and-run vehicle. Out of all of the 911 calls and witness statements, no one mentions seeing Kevin struck by anything other than the tractor trailer. Evidence would suggest that Kevin, rendered unconscious and seriously wounded, was struck by the trailer after being physically forced into the roadway.
The questionable investigation report was not Jetton's only failing. He refused, for no discernible reason, to do even the most basic legwork on the case. He refused to request composite sketches of the persons of interest based on eyewitness reports. He refused to look into any of the clubs in Ybor City to learn more about the altercation that occurred there. He refused to check local hospitals to attempt to corroborate the report that one of the suspects had a broken nose--which would have proven incredibly valuable at the time. One of the suspects had been treated at a local hospital and told staff that he had been in a fight over a girl. The hospital called the Tampa Police Department, who arrived over an hour after the patient had left. They made no attempts to contact the patient and never followed up in any way.
After Kevin's tragic death, his family went to the site to erect a cross in his memory. While there, they found a knife in the grass and immediately notified the police. They were eager to find out how a weapon could be at the scene if it had supposedly been thoroughly searched. The FHP offered them no answers and informed them that the evidence couldn't be collected for a week. In a later interview with Jetton, Michael Lipp admitted that it was his knife, and he threw it aside after the fight between Kevin and the individuals from the club. Lipp could give no good reason for why he did this but still maintained that no altercation occurred on or near the highway and that Kevin had killed himself.
While the FHP was eager to close the case, Kevin's parents were tireless advocates in their quest for the truth. They refused to let his story be swept under the rug, like countless other dirty little secrets Florida law enforcement would rather forget. The FHP has a long-standing history of corruption--the mishandling of Kevin's case wasn't the first or last example of this. The first trooper on the scene of a fatal crash in Pasco County, Florida drove the suspect home and started a sexual relationship with her. This same trooper had previously bungled four separate crash investigations within a small time frame--and had received only a written reprimand for the grievous mistakes. Troopers in South Florida had publicly placed blame for a fatal collision squarely on the shoulders of a black youth pastor, only for it to come out that evidence proved it was the fault of a drunk FBI agent. A Sarasota trooper investigating a deputy's crash let him go without a ticket and allowed him to dispose of multiple beer cans in his vehicle. The trooper listed incorrect information throughout his report to keep the deputy out of trouble. One FHP officer was found guilty in federal court for withholding evidence in an arrest affidavit. During a separate case, a lead FHP investigator admitted to lying in several sworn affidavits.
It was with all this in mind that the McGinleys continued to appeal to higher powers, even after the FHP made their stance on the case clear. Kevin's family went so far as to appeal to their member of Parliament in England, Melanie Johnson, M.P. She wrote to Governor Jeb Bush on Kevin's behalf. Eventually, British Investigator Terry Merston was called in to help with the case.
It wasn't far into his investigation that Merston found serious fault with Corporal Jetton's report. An original, and much more thorough report had been filed by an FHP Basic Crash Investigator. This report said that Kevin was killed on the north side of the junction. Jetton's report alleged that Kevin had been killed on the south side, in accordance with Michael Lipp's account. However, this was easily disproven by the photographs of the scene in the original report. The photos also aligned with the evidence gathered from witness statements. In comparison, Jetton's report falsely lists items of importance, such as Kevin's shoes, as being found over 150 feet away from where the photos show they actually came to rest. It seems as though Jetton changed the crime scene report in an effort to make it appear consistent with Michael Lipp's hit-and-run story.
While further investigating, Merston found that key witnesses, such as the UPS driver, had recently been instructed not to speak with him--even though the FHP supervising officer had promised full cooperation. Despite the setbacks, Merston was able to track down truck driver Mark Allen, who had seen Kevin's murder and provided FHP with his version of events on four separate occasions. Yet only a small part of Allen's story had been included in the investigation report. Jetton had left out the part where Allen said he saw a man hitting Kevin in the chest with both hands, before Kevin fell into the roadway. When asked where he saw this incident occur, Allen identified the exact location listed in the original report. Allen said he wanted to stop at the scene but was unable to; he was carrying a load of liquid nitrogen and by law was prevented from stopping on a highway. But Allen had made sure to call and notify the authorities as soon as he reached his destination in Tampa.
I cannot wrap my head around the handling of this case. My initial reaction when I read about cases like this is shock and disbelief, but that feeling fades quickly, replaced instead by anger and disgust. Because the truth is, I'm really not shocked anymore. I've studied cases like this across the nation, and the pattern of police corruption is the same. It's not contained to one state, it is a disease that has infected every corner of our nation. The thing that shocks me the most now is that people are continuing to accept it. No changes have been made to the hiring and training process of police officers. No legislation has been passed to hold them to a higher degree of the law, to ensure that they exhaust every avenue of investigation when dealing with a suspicious death. It's obvious to me that justice was not served in the case of Kevin McGinley, but it still can be. It's not too late. It's up to us to tell his story--to tell the story of countless others like him. If we all join our voices together, no one will be able to drown us out.
If you have any questions or comments, or if you have any information about Kevin's case, please contact me at theblackswanbooks@outlook.com.
