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Witnesses recount discovery of wounded 7-Eleven clerk as trial begins in Riverview killing

 
Prosecutors say Lawrence Bongiovanni’s DNA was found nearby.
Prosecutors say Lawrence Bongiovanni’s DNA was found nearby.
Published June 7, 2017

TAMPA — Early one morning in the summer of 2013, two men stood at the gas pumps outside a Riverview 7-Eleven chatting about motorcycles.

During a lull in the conversation, they heard the store's front door slam open. Someone in a dark jacket ran out, bumped into a trash can, scurried behind the building and disappeared. They thought he had stolen cigarettes.

James Walker walked inside to tell the clerk, Kenneth Redding, about the theft. But Redding was not behind the counter. Walker found him crouched on his knees and elbows in one of the aisles, drenched in blood. He yelled for the other man, Ryan Guy, to call 911.

Redding, 54, died that morning, July 10. Nearly four years later, a jury will decide if Lawrence Bongiovanni is the man who killed him.

Assistant State Attorney John Terry told a jury that Bongiovanni is guilty during opening statements Tuesday. He detailed the evidence he said will prove the state's case.

At the center of it are Bongiovanni's own words, given in a statement to detectives hours after the crime.

"Everything is me, man," he said, according to the prosecutor. "I killed the dude."

The trial of Bongiovanni, 24, was long delayed, in part because the state had originally sought to send him to death row.

Last month, though, prosecutors reconsidered the death penalty, citing his history of mental illness. While awaiting trial, his competency was called into question as he penned rambling letters to judges.

But in his opening statement, Assistant Public Defender Charles Traina said nothing of his client's mental health. He simply implored jurors to scrutinize the evidence.

Behind him sat the defendant, silent and attentive in a dress shirt and dark blue sports jacket.

"This young man is innocent … until proven guilty," Traina said. "One man's life has been taken and another man's life is at stake."

Among the evidence the state plans to show is a surveillance video from inside the 7-Eleven. It shows a man, whom prosecutors say is Bongiovanni, walking into a restroom and hiding for several minutes. When he emerges, he crouches down below shelves, creeping through an aisle as Redding works in the store, unaware.

He attacks, lunging with a knife at Redding's neck and chest and head.

A medical examiner determined the clerk was stabbed 37 times, Terry said. The killer then grabbed a roll of lottery tickets and took off.

During the stabbing, Bongiovanni cut his finger, the prosecutor told jurors. Investigators know that because they found his DNA in a trail of blood that led down Bloomingdale Avenue.

The stolen lottery tickets were cashed later that morning at numerous stores, which investigators tracked all the way to Charlotte County. They had Bongiovanni's fingerprints on them, along with those of another man, Russell Beasley.

Bongiovanni had run to his home after the attack, Terry said. Along the way, he had hopped a fence and dropped the knife he used, and a bloody latex glove.

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He told Beasley he had killed the clerk, Terry said.

The state's first witnesses included Walker and Guy, both of whom were friendly with Redding. They called him "Ken."

They described finding him in a store aisle, covered in blood, still conscious, but unable to speak. Guy called 911. Walker grabbed napkins to try to stop the bleeding. He told Redding an ambulance was coming. He said a prayer.

The trial is expected to last through next week.

Contact Dan Sullivan at dsullivan@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3386. Follow @TimesDan.