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Old suspect is new focus in disappearances

 
Published July 17, 1998|Updated Sept. 13, 2005

First, Cynthia Clements disappeared. Eight days later, Elizabeth Graham was gone. Months later, Bobbie Barkley and Margo Delimon were missing.

In 1980 and 1981, these four Pinellas County women who never knew each other became inextricably linked by their fates. Two were found murdered; two others have never been found.

Eighteen years later, sheriff's detectives with new information have focused on James Delano Winkles, a convicted kidnapper who has been in prison since shortly after the last woman disappeared.

Winkles, 57, has been held at the Pinellas jail since he was transferred from a state prison in Hardee County on March 30. Since then, records show, sheriff's homicide detectives have taken him out, writing on jail logs that Winkles was taken on "show and tell" trips to undisclosed destinations four times.

Sheriff Everett Rice would not confirm or deny Thursday that detectives have been digging at various places either shown to them or described by Winkles, who has not been charged in any of the murders or disappearances.

"He was brought back here because he's a suspect in those four cases. He was a suspect then, and he's a suspect now," Rice said. "He's here because we have new interest in an old suspect."

The sheriff declined to elaborate on what new information or development detectives are investigating. Winkles was a suspect during the original investigations of the women's disappearances.

Winkles once lived in Pinellas Park, worked as a mechanic and operated a lawn maintenance service. He listed a Clearwater address when he was booked at the jail, but he has been in state prison for the past 17 years.

He is serving a sentence of life plus 90 years for a crime that had similarities to one of the Pinellas cases.

Using one of his many aliases, Winkles arranged in January 1982 to meet with Donna Maltby, 28, a woman who worked for a Sanford realty company. He told her he wanted to look at some property near Interstate 4. After she got into his car, he pulled a knife and pushed it against her side.

He tied her up, took $111 from her and drove around the Orlando area for a while. When Winkles stopped for gas, Maltby ran from the car, screaming. Orange County deputies found him hiding nearby behind a building.

The Seminole County judge who sentenced Winkles for robbery, kidnapping and grand theft, said he wanted to keep him in prison "for as long as possible."

Margo Delimon, 39, one of the four women who disappeared 18 years ago, was a Clearwater real estate saleswoman. She vanished Oct. 2, 1981, after leaving her office in Pinellas Park and depositing her paycheck.

Her headless body was found 19 days later in Citrus County. Her head was discovered seven months later in Hernando County.

At that time, former Pinellas Sheriff Gerry Coleman said the same person "in all probability" was responsible for the deaths or disappearances of Delimon, Graham, Clements and Barkley.

A deeply religious, quiet woman, Clements disappeared first. The 19-year-old clerk vanished on Labor Day 1980 while working at a convenience store on 54th Avenue N near Kenneth City. Her purse was left behind, and nothing was taken from the unlocked store.

Six weeks later, her remains were found about four miles away off Bryan Dairy Road near Belcher Road. Wire was wrapped around her neck and her mouth was taped.

A dog groomer, Graham was last seen Sept. 9, 1980, driving a Pampered Poodle van to a house off Roosevelt Boulevard. A man had described Graham, 19, and asked specifically for her to come to the house.

Detectives found the grooming van at the deserted house. Missing from the van were Graham's purse and a small choke-chain with a leash. Graham has never been located.

"I drove myself crazy," said Gary Muchmore, who was Graham's boyfriend. "I finally had to try and let it go. It's something you learn to live with, but it never, ever goes away."

Muchmore said investigators visited him several months ago to ask, among other things, if he remembered what color underwear his girlfriend was wearing the day she disappeared.

Like Graham, Barkley has never been found. On May 29, 1981, the 19-year-old St. Petersburg woman opened the Pinellas Park furniture store where she worked and turned on the television. Several hours later, her brother found the unlocked store deserted and the television on.

Barkley's purse and cigarettes were on the store desk, but her car was gone. It was found three days later in a Clearwater Mall parking lot.

"It's not something you forget," said Dan Ullian, who was Barkley's boyfriend. "Every year around that time, it bothers me. It's hard for me to drive through Pinellas Park."

_ Staff writer Mike Brassfield and researcher Carolyn Hardnett contributed to this report.

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