Cops release notes left by teen suspects in Windermere officer's killing
"I get to die peacefully with the woman I love," suspect Brandon Goode wrote.
Windermere police Officer Robert German, 31, was shot to death… (Windermere Police Department )
Handwritten notes about love and suicide; investigative reports; and a timeline released Tuesday document the troubled home lives and the hot-and-cold relationship of two Davenport teenagers suspected in the shooting of Windermere police Officer Robert German.
But the records shed no light on what happened between the teens and the policeman early Saturday morning, after which 17-year-old Alexandria "Alex" Hollinghurst and 18-year-old Brandon Goode are thought to have taken their own lives.
And authorities also revealed that perhaps the best chance at a concrete answer will not pan out: A body-mounted camera German was wearing on the night he was slain was not recording when he encountered his killers, investigators said.
A Polk County Sheriff's Office timeline of the case begins Thursday morning, when 17-year-old Alexandria "Alex" Hollinghurst's mother reported her missing, calling the girl a "habitual runaway" who had disappeared overnight.
"If I had stayed another minute I would have painted the walls and stained the carpets with my blood, so you could clean it up," the girl wrote in a note to her mother, who she said turned "a conversation about depression and suicide into something all about you."
The girl returned while a deputy was still at the house, and explained she left because she was upset with her mother but was not suicidal, a report states. The deputy left. The next day, deputies were called to the home of Hollinghurst's boyfriend, Goode.
He, too, had disappeared, leaving behind a note that his mother worried suggested suicide: "Please don't be sad, this is what I want now, I get to die peacefully with the woman I love, the woman of my dreams, my fiance (Yes we were engaged!)."
Deputies soon confirmed Hollinghurst was missing again. They "pinged" Goode's cellphone, tracking the teens to a shopping plaza in Kissimmee, where Kissimmee policeCpl. Edward Martinez encountered them in their 2003 silver Isuzu Rodeo about 10 a.m. Friday.
Goode reportedly told Martinez that he was in town trying to sell jewelry for cash but sped off when the officer asked him to exit the vehicle. Kissimmee police released audio Tuesday of Martinez reporting the incident to dispatchers:
"All right, he's fleeing," Martinez reported in the audio released today, adding later: "We're not following the car; he took off. I've got his ID. ... I'll call the detective in Polk County back."
Martinez explained that he and a fellow officer were on foot and not in position to pursue the teens.
"I was right there; he almost hit me, so just be careful," the officer added. He secured warrants for the couple's arrests on charges of resisting law enforcement and reckless driving. Their deadly confrontation with German came less than 24 hours later.
'We could live on the beach'
Much remains unclear about what led the teens to Windermere, how they got there — the Rodeo was found abandoned 20 miles away at a Kissimmee bank — where they were going next or why they would shoot German, who was 31.
Goode's father lived in Windermere, but his mother told investigators her son wouldn't have gone there. His father was in Mexico for work, she told deputies, and had changed the locks, so Brandon wouldn't have had access.
Connie Goode also said she did not think her son was suicidal: All of his clothes were gone, as were a lawn mower and golf cart, as well as tools she thought he intended to sell.
She told deputies she'd found a box full of nonperishable food items in her son's room in the past, according to a Sheriff's Office report. The box led her to think her son and his girlfriend "planned on living on their own."
Hollinghurst's parents provided deputies with a series of handwritten notes between the teens, several of which suggested they were planning a life together:
•A letter apparently from Goode to Hollinghurst in which he laid out a plan to flee to Clearwater: "Then we steal a boat and sail down to Panama which is a 4-6 day sail," he wrote.
"We could live on the beach just me and you forever in our small little cozy house," he wrote. Hollinghurst's mother told investigators she found the letter several weeks ago in her daughter's room.
•A letter dated March 10 in which Hollinghurst wrote about being nervous about a pending court date stemming from the couple's arrest in February on drug charges. She closed the letter referring to herself as Mrs. Goode: "Living with you is going to be bliss."
•Undated lists apparently written by Hollinghurst. In one, she listed the "things we're gonna do" on the day she turned 18 "and after." The list included "get married." The other list appeared to be things she planned to pack for travel.
•A March 19 letter to Hollinghurst in which Goode apologized for "all the things that I've caused and the relationships that I probably ruined between you and your family." He ended the letter suggesting they should see other people: "I'm sorry I really am, Goodbye Alex."
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