Violence continues to plague former firefighter
SPRING HILL –
For years Richard Boothby Jr. has struggled to bottle his anger.
His arrest for attempted murder Wednesday in Hudson capped a criminal history that has lasted for most of his adult life. His run-ins with the law ranged from verbal threats to physical violence – even against those closest to him.
Boothby, 37, of 16036 Kemper Drive, was pulled over at the corner of U.S. 19 and Denton Avenue after his battered and half-dressed fiancée had been seen by a deputy outside the couple’s home earlier that morning, authorities said.
An arrest report filed by the Pasco Sheriff’s Office showed Boothby had thrown her to the ground and repeatedly slammed her head.
She struggled and eventually escaped, but he grabbed her again, dragged her into the bedroom, ripped off her jewelry, covered her nose and mouth and pressed his knee against her throat all while promising to kill her, deputies said.
She feigned unconsciousness to make him stop, according to the report.
Boothby worked for Spring Hill Fire Rescue for two months in late 2000. The board of fire commissioners terminated his employment because he didn’t have the right certification for the job.
He didn’t take the news in stride. He argued with them during a public meeting, at which time he had to be warned by Chairman Bob Kanner as well as the commission’s attorney to calm down.
In the weeks following the meeting, in January 2001, Boothby’s father and mother were hospitalized. News reports show their son had slipped into a violent rage after speaking to his estranged wife over the phone. He turned his anger toward his parents.
In spite of their injuries – facial lacerations for the father and a head abrasion and back pain for the mother – the victims declined to press charges.
During that emergency call, deputies with the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office heard Boothby make threats against the fire district and the three men on the board who voted to end his employment, according to reports.
Kanner was one of them. When he learned about it, he called the fire chief and told him to lock down all of the fire district facilities – including all of the stations and the headquarters building.
Fire Chief Mike Morgan, the man who hired Boothby, disagreed with the chairman’s decision. Kanner said he didn’t care.
“As soon as I received the information that he made threats against three members of the fire commission, I told the chief to lock down the fire stations,” said Kanner.
He called it a “necessary precaution” considering Boothby’s temperamental tendencies.
For at least a couple months after the incident, an undercover sheriff’s deputy sat in during the fire board meetings just in case Boothby showed, Kanner said.
A dog bite and a domestic battery call
When the deputy encountered Boothby’s fiancée walking outside Wednesday morning, she pleaded with him to leave, according to the arrest report.
“If he finds out you are here, he will kill me,” the deputy said she told him.
She tried to walk away, but the deputy followed her and told her paramedics would arrive soon. She wouldn’t change her mind easily.
Once an ambulance arrived, she didn’t feel any safer, according to the report.
She went back inside her home along with the deputy. She put on more clothes and sat on the couch in the living room. He noticed she was still shaken.
“If he finds out I called 911, he is going to kill me,” she told the deputy. She refused to be taken to the hospital.
The victim, in her statement, said the fight started while she was playing a game on her computer.
Her phone rang. She asked Boothby whether he knew where her phone was.
He answered her with an obscenity, according to the report.
At that time, the violence began.
While he was stripping her of her jewelry, he told her “I’m going to make sure you die without any jewelry on, (expletive deleted),” the deputy wrote in his report.
As he choked her, he told her “You will never see the light of day again,” the report showed.
That was the second time this year authorities were called to arrest Boothby.
In May, while the couple lived in Spring Hill, Hernando deputies responded to the Holiday Inn Express on State Road 50 and met with the same victim.
The two were involved in an argument about text messages on her phone while they were in the bedroom of their home at 14210 Eastmount Road, according to public records.
Boothby at that time grabbed his fiancée by her hair and dragged her from the back bedroom to the front lawn, deputies said.
While dragging her, he repeatedly punched her, the report showed.
At one point, she was struck in the eye with a closed fist, deputies said.
Boothby said the couple had been drinking at a local bar earlier that night. Her phone kept ringing while he was trying to sleep and he lost his temper, he said.
He said he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out of the house, but he denied hitting her in spite of the bruise on her left eye, the report showed.
The victim was driven to the hotel by Boothby’s parents, deputies said.
In June 2004, while employed with Nature Coast Emergency Medical Services in Homosassa, Boothby was involved in another fight. Boothby and another emergency medical technician arrived at a home of a man who reportedly had been bitten in the face by his 98-pound male Rottweiler.
The two were cleaning the victim’s wound when he assaulted Boothby’s co-worker. He kicked him in the stomach and punched him several times in the face, according to news reports.
Afterward, he struck Boothby, who then fought back.
When a Citrus County Sheriff’s deputy arrived, one of the EMTs was lying on the ground unconscious while the dog bite victim lay semi-conscious, according to news stories.
Boothby, despite claiming to have been punched by the dog bite victim, had no visible injuries, deputies said.
Boothby told his employer he knocked out the man after he had assaulted his co-worker.
He was allowed to return to work the next day.
The dog bite victim was arrested and eventually sentenced to probation, court records show.
A message left with Nature Coast EMS was not returned Thursday.
More arrests, more outbursts
In 1993, Boothby was arrested in Orlando for a DUI charge, state records show.
In 2002, he was found guilty in Hernando County of misdemeanor assault and criminal mischief. He was required to pay restitution.
For his domestic assault charge five months ago, Boothby was allowed to take part in a pre-trial intervention program.
Such a privilege is reserved for a defendant with no prior adult felony arrests and/or convictions and no more than one prior conviction for a non-violent misdemeanor crime.
Boothby is employed as a private paramedic, according to his latest arrest affidavit.
He remains in the Land O’ Lakes Jail without bond.
In addition to his brief employment with Spring Hill Fire Rescue, he also worked for the now-defunct Northwest Hernando County Fire Department in the mid-1990s.
He moved to Illinois for a job there before returning to Hernando County, where he applied for and accepted a job in Spring Hill.
Boothby’s state certification had expired. It was noticed, not by the chief, but by Dennis Andrews, a fire commissioner at the time who had previously taught at the Florida State Fire College in Ocala.
“He is not qualified,” said Andrews to Hernando Today in 2000.
Andrews was the first commissioner to move toward firing Boothby.
Boothby was the second former Spring Hill firefighter in seven days to be arrested in relation to a domestic crime.
Michael Vitale, 45, of Spring Hill, was arrested Oct. 27 on a charge of criminal mischief. He was accused of kicking his estranged wife’s car during an argument last summer.
Vitale also has a history of domestic violence.
Spring Hill Fire Chief Mike Rampino said he “vaguely remembers” Boothby. He didn’t recall working with him directly.
He said if a similar incident happened today that happened in January 2000, he would lockdown the fire stations the way Morgan did, but without any resistance.
“You want to make sure your employees are safe in that situation,” Rampino said. “I would do the same thing today if I were in that position.”
Reporter Tony Holt can be reached at 352-544-5283 or [email protected].
