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Brandon parents grapple with loss of 21-year-old son in Tampa club shooting

 
Nina and Marvin Lancaster Jr. of Brandon are struggling with the loss of their son in the Feb. 6 shooting. “I’ll trade places with him,” his father said.
Nina and Marvin Lancaster Jr. of Brandon are struggling with the loss of their son in the Feb. 6 shooting. “I’ll trade places with him,” his father said.
Published Feb. 21, 2016

BRANDON — Nina and Marvin Lancaster Jr. had their routine.

Mornings with multiple alarms and phone calls to make sure their 21-year-old son, Marvin Lancaster III, woke up in time for work. Grocery store trips with stops for Cap'n Crunch's Crunch Berries cereal and cheddar sour cream potato chips, his favorites. Nights with phone calls and text messages, checking in on him while he was out with friends.

That routine came to an abrupt end Feb. 6 when a spray of bullets killed their son at Club Rayne in Tampa.

Another patron, 20-year-old Christopher Houston, died in the hospital days later from his injuries, and six others were also wounded. Tampa police spokeswoman Andrea Davis said Friday that investigators are still searching for a suspect and still asking for anyone with information to come forward.

So are the Lancasters, who spoke from their home Friday surrounded by flowers in honor of their son who, even at 5-foot-11 with a full beard, still climbed into bed with his parents on some nights.

"He's our baby," said Nina Lancaster, 44. "How do we get back to normalcy? I don't know what normal is anymore."

At the time of the shooting, the Lancasters were in Hawaii celebrating their wedding anniversary and the father's 48th birthday. They spoke with their son after returning to the hotel from dinner. He had left a party near the University of South Florida, he told them, and stopped at another one at Club Rayne.

The elder Lancaster told his son to go home, that he was in a bad part of town. He told them he was leaving soon.

"He was just so carefree that maybe he didn't realize potential dangers out there in the world," the mother said.

From the club, Marvin Lancaster III used a live-streaming app called Periscope to broadcast his experience. Bass thumped and lights flashed while he panned around the club and pointed the camera at himself. Then, a pop and seven more before the livestream went dark.

In Hawaii, the calls poured in from friends and family as the news spread, including one from Nina Lancaster's best friend, whose daughter saw the video.

"I was just numb," the mother said. "It's hard to believe that this happened so quickly, so tragically, so senselessly."

The soonest flight they could catch out of Hawaii was 24 hours later, then another 14 hours with a stop in Chicago to get back to Tampa.

When they got back, they went to the medical examiner's office, then to their son's pediatric orthodontist to get dental records so authorities could identify their son's body. They couldn't do it themselves, Nina Lancaster said. They didn't want it to be the last time they saw him.

At his funeral, the service was standing room only in a church that fit 1,200 people, his parents said. The large crowd makes sense for a man who put 30,000 miles on his car in a year driving around to hang out with friends and serving as the designated driver when he went out with them.

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"Everybody is telling us how great our kid was, what kind of parents we were," the mother said. "He was always a protector of people without one ounce of aggression."

Marvin Lancaster III graduated from Bloomingdale High School in 2012 and worked two jobs, one at a driving range and one at an insurance company. In his spare time, he went roller skating at Union Skates of America in Tampa and to football games at his alma mater.

He also was going through emergency medical technician school, on his way to becoming a firefighter — his dream, his father said.

In the son's bedroom were clues of another passion: dozens of shoe boxes stacked in the closet and against the wall, some with brands such as Adidas and Gucci. He loved glitz and glamor, his mother said, standing beside her son's unmade bed that the father had taken to sleeping in. They hadn't yet washed his sheets and towels, which still smelled like the Yves Saint Laurent cologne their son often wore.

With the funeral and services over, the Lancasters feel overwhelmed by the emptiness of their home and the loss of their son's future. He will never marry, he will never live in his own apartment, he will never have his own children.

"My son had his life ahead of him," his mother said. "He was robbed."

"I'll trade places with him," his father said.

In their back yard, loved ones planted a garden in his memory with plants and flowers from the funeral, such as birds-of-paradise and lilies. Nina Lancaster said she's never been one for the outdoors.

But now, she said, standing beside the colorful plot, this is her place.

Contact Kathryn Varn at (727) 893-8913 or kvarn@tampabay.com. Follow @kathrynvarn.