Man accused of killing aspring ‘ultimate fighter’ for ‘ginger’ comment
At a small house party early Sunday, a man with anger issues kept clashing with an aspiring “ultimate fighter.” To…
At a small house party early Sunday, a man with anger issues kept clashing with an aspiring “ultimate fighter.”
To defuse the tension, friends offered to set up a supervised fight. Like in the mixed martial arts fighting enjoyed by 19-year-old Samuel Smith of Wesley Chapel, there would be rules about where to hit and when to stop.
That orchestrated fight never happened, according to witness Jason Wansor, 27. Instead, it was a spontaneous fight in a carport around 1 a.m. that led to 27-year-old Richard Starks Jr. knocking out Smith, his blows laying the larger man onto a chair.
Bleeding near the eyes and the bridge of his nose, Smith stopped breathing after a few minutes, Wansor said. Partygoers called an ambulance to the house party at 4422 Transue Drive and tried to resuscitate him.
Smith died at a hospital, according to the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office. Hours later, Starks was arrested at a Zephyrhills house where he lives with his children, wife and parents. He faces second-degree murder charges and was taken to jail.
According to Wansor, the witness to the fight and a recent acquaintance of Smith’s, the 19-year-old was a good fighter but not aggressive, the type who liked to spar in the back yard but didn’t seem to instigate fights.
Smith’s Facebook page lists full-contact fighting as a sport he plays and mixed martial arts as one of his interests. It also says he attended Wiregrass Ranch High School in the class of 2010.
Experts say it’s unusual for a fistfight to turn deadly. Without special training, fighters often don’t strike with enough force to cause significant damage to a vital organ, according to Dr. David Ciesla, medical director of the trauma center at Tampa General Hospital.
