Howell Donaldson III killed people and then soon after visited an adult-themed website, according to newly released investigative reports in the trial of the man accused of four Seminole Heights murders.
Data from his cell phone showed a "significant amount of Internet activity" within close proximity to the shooting deaths of Benjamin Mitchell on Oct. 9, Monica Hoffa on Oct. 11 and Anthony Naiboa on Oct. 19, records show.
The website name is redacted. In a warrant, a Tampa police sergeant described it as a place where customers could view others in sexually themed situations and interact with models privately.
"In summary, Howell Donaldson showed a pattern of visiting this adult-themed website after committing three homicides," the warrant said.
The latest insight into the Donaldson case was provided in a release by prosecutors late Friday of more than 1,500 pages of investigative reports and audio recordings, material obtained by the Tampa Bay Times through a public records request.
The records portray Donaldson, now 25, as a man whose behavioral changes had begun to trouble his on-again, off-again girlfriend but whose parents stood by him even as police were about to charge him with ending the lives of strangers.
His sister had just had a baby and he wouldn’t visit. Friends said he was no longer the sharp, together guy they knew in high school. He needed a haircut and his clothes were sloppy. They noticed he would repeat the same mundane questions to them, even after they had answered multiple times.
It was a period of intense activity in his life.
On Oct. 3, the day his on-again, off-again girlfriend began a new job, Donaldson went to Shooter’s World and bought a .40-caliber Glock 27 handgun, records show.
He first began visiting the porn website on Oct. 5.
He picked up the gun on the morning of Oct. 7 after passing a background check. He also bought a 20-round box of ammunition.
The last murder was Nov. 14, when Ronald Felton was shot to death along Nebraska Avenue.
Police have previously acknowledged that they used Donaldson’s cell phone to establish his location at the time of the killings.