MANATEE — When Frieda Smith’s sons visit, she cautions them to be careful.
That one of them did four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan makes no difference.
“I tell them, when you go into town, be aware of your surroundings,” the 64-year-old Terra Ceia resident and 1964 Manatee High School alum said. “It’s not like it was when you were kids.”
Given Manatee County’s 24 homicides this year, Smith feels she has no choice.
Last Monday’s slaying of fellow Terra Ceia resident Kathleen Briles, 48, followed by Tuesday night’s shooting death of Dejuan Williams, 18, have increased her anxiety level and heightened her guard.
“It was a shock, but then again it’s not. It’s happening everywhere,” Smith said. “Someone comes home and finds their life partner like that? And that boy protecting his sister? It’s bad, really bad. That’s what it’s come to.”
Whether it involved drugs, a domestic dispute, a home invasion or a bar fight, the wave of random homicides has residents alarmed.
Briles was beaten by an assailant in her home off Bayshore Drive, a winding, narrow road along Terra Ceia Bay flanked by Old Florida growth.
Williams was slain at a Bradenton duplex where he and his family lived off Cortez Road. He had come home to find his 14-year-old sister had guests, forbidden when their parents weren’t home.
When Williams confronted Byron Galloway, sheriff’s detectives say, the 16-year-old shot him.
“It rips my heart out,” Smith said.
She isn’t alone.
Sheriff Brad Steube’s public warning during Thursday’s press conference on the Briles investigation — “This is not the Manatee County of 20 years ago” — resonated on both sides of Manatee River.
Jan Bragg has lived for 39 years on York Drive, her home opposite the Williams’ duplex.
“A safe, quiet dead-end street nobody knows about,” said the 73-year-old.
That changed Tuesday night.
“I worked at Manatee Memorial Hospital for 30 years and seen violence come through the ER, but I’ve never seen somebody brought into the street for CPR like that,” Bragg said. “The pain his sister was going through. Her screams. Words can’t describe it.
“What are we doing with all these guns? It doesn’t make sense.”
Barbara Cobb feels at a loss, too. She also lives on York Drive — and her path crossed both victims.
She was stunned to hear about Briles, who was a patient at The Eye Center Inc. nearby on Cortez Road when Cobb worked there.
Then Williams, an outgoing youngster who graduated from Bayshore High in May, was killed down her street a day later.
“A day never went by without him going, ‘How you doing?’ ” said Cobb, 54. “It’s going to be hard not seeing that beautiful smile and him come around the cul-de-sac and wave. Such a good kid. It breaks my heart.”
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