For Immediate Release
June 11, 2007
A 33-year-old Turner County, Georgia
man who killed a mother of three Sunday morning was charged with her death
Monday, hours after he admitted to a Clearwater Police Homicide Detective that
he’d stabbed the Clearwater woman in the neck.
JOHN LEE HAMPTON (05-14-74),
who arrived in Clearwater recently and was staying with relatives, was jailed
during the earliest stages of the murder investigation Sunday on an arrest
warrant (Kidnapping) out of Georgia. Hampton was one of many people interviewed
by investigators, and was taken into custody Sunday and held at the Pinellas
County Jail on the strength of that warrant.
During a later interview with Case
Agent Detective Joseph Ruhlin, Hampton acknowledged using an edged weapon to
cut a woman he’d met just recently, 25-year-old Renee McKinnes.
Renee McKinnes was found dead in
her Sable Walk apartment at 9:43 Sunday morning by a relative. Police sealed
apartment F-134 at the Highland Avenue complex, and began the investigation
into who would have killed Ms. McKinnes, and why.
Although Hampton admitted to
Detective Ruhlin that he cut Ms. McKinnes, the edged weapon has not been
located. Evidence of the crime, however, was located in a trash dumpster in a
parking lot near the scene of the slaying.
According to Detective Ruhlin,
Hampton was introduced to Ms. McKinnes by a common friend, and the Georgia man
was one of several people to gather at her modest apartment Saturday night. At
some point, Detective Ruhlin said, Hampton left, but returned sometime after
midnight.
Detective Ruhlin said Hampton
claimed, during the interview, he was in Ms. McKinnes’ house when she awoke and
confronted him. There was a dispute and at some point, Hampton told the
investigator, he stabbed the woman in the left side of her neck. Hampton also
told Detective Ruhlin he applied several chemicals to Ms. McKinnes’ body to try
and obscure the evidence of a crime.
Renee McKinnes died inside her 2065
North Highland Avenue sometime before dawn Sunday.
This is the extent of information
available at this time regarding this investigation; please refer all inquiries
to Public Information Officer Wayne Shelor at 727.562.4333.
/s/
Captain Robert Jones
Commander: Criminal Investigations Division