Steele guilty of first-degree murder

DADE CITY -- A jury convicted Alfredie Steele Jr. of first-degree murder at 7:56 p.m. Thursday in the sniper-style slaying of beloved Pasco sheriff's Lt. Charles "Bo" Harrison nearly four years ago.

The next task for the panel of 10 women and two men: decide whether or not Steele, 23, should be put to death for his crime.

"I'm just glad that it's over so my children can finally have some peace," said Lydia Harrison, the slain deputy's former wife. Her son, Charles Jr., hugged her outside the Pasco County Courthouse, as TV news cameras lined up to speak to Harrison's family. "It's been a terrible thing for all of us and I'm jsut glad that God allowed me to be there for them, to stand in the gap in the absence of their father."

But should the man who killed the father of her children be put to death?

"That question I will not answer," she said. "I cannot answer that."

Steele's family left quickly, without comment.

In recorded confessions, Steele admitted to shooting Harrison as he sat in his parked cruiser outside a Trilacoochee nightclub June 1, 2003. But Steele wept with regret about killing a man he had known his whole life.

"Mr. BoBo, I'm sorry," Steele sobbed in an apology recorded for Harrison's family soon after the murder, a recording the family didn't hear until it was introduced as evidence on Monday. "God bless your soul."

Steele was distraught over the deaths of several friends -- deaths he blamed on the Sheriff's Office -- when he killed Harrison in an act of vengeance, authorities say.

But even prosecutors conceded that Steele hit the wrong target.

"Even as upset as he was -- he likely didn't intend to kill Bo Harrison," Assistant State Attorney Bob Lewis told jurors in the state's closing argument Thursday, "But he intended to kill whoever the deputy sheriff was that was sitting in the car."

"He just didn't know it was Bo."

Authorities say Steele took an SKS semi-automatic rifle out shooting the night of May 31, 2003, in the Withlacoochee State Forest. Then he went to the infamous Trilacoochee nightclub Rumors to drink.

As he left the club, he spotted a sheriff's cruiser parked across U.S. 301 on stakeout. He drove into some nearby woods, parked, walked back, raised his rifle and opened fire about 130 feet from the car. At least thirteen shots were fired early that June 2003 morning.

Deputies patrolling nearby didn't know at first that one of their own had been felled by a bullet. Finding him unconscious, they thought Harrison had suffered a heart attack and began CPR. It wasn't until paramedics rolled him onto his back that they saw the blood and two bullet wounds in his back.

It was only later that Steele learned the man he had killed was someone he knew and respected, a man who often helped Steele's own family and many others in the impoverished community of Lacoochee.

Harrison, 57, was a high school sports legend who grew up during segregation and rose through the ranks of the Pasco County Sheriff's Office. He was one of the agency's first black deputies. When he died he was highest-ranking African-American in Sheriff's Office history, and he touched many lives along the way.

"He worked 31 years for justice," said Charles Harrison Jr. of his father, "and this was justice for him."

The murder weapon was never found, but Steele made several recorded confessions after Harrison's death, including two videotaped interviews with detectives. The jury heard them all during the trial.

On a television screen, jurors watched Steele bury his face in his hands as he cried while telling detectives he pulled the trigger -- but didn't mean to "kill that man."

"I didn't mean to kill Mr. BoBo," Steele cried. "Sorry Mr. BoBo."

The defense argued Steele acted without premeditation, the key element of first-degree murder. If the jury believed Steele when he said he pulled the trigger, his lawyers argued, then they should believe him when he said he didn't mean to hurt anybody, that he couldn't see if anyone was in the car, that he only meant to scare, not kill.

"Why can't you believe that?" implored Assistant Public Defender Tom Hanlon in an emotional closing argument Thursday. "Why can't you believe when that young man has the decency -- even though he did a completely indecent act -- to tell you he did it. And your common sense tells you if he was gonna lie about it, he'd just say 'I didn't do it.' "

Harrison was a 31-year deputy two weeks from retirement when he died.

And his family will get their say when Steele's sentencing hearing begins at 9 a.m. Friday.

Said Harrison's son: "My name ain't Charles if I don't testify tomorrow and tell him how I feel."

-- JAMAL THALJI and MOLLY MOORHEAD