Fugitive’s Sister Requests Investigation; Body Disfigured; ID Blocked
Dade City Funeral Home Photographs Fugitive with
Hole in Stomach, Numerous Cuts on Body; Surprised
at Body Damage From Drowning after Only 38 Hours
in Water
Hunter’s Lake, Spring Hill, Hernando/Pasco Counties, FLORIDA:
Friday, October 2, 2009:
Rebecca Harris, 33, biological sister of deceased fugitive, James “Little Man” Rayford, called civic activist, Brian Moore, Friday, after reading a local newspaper’s story (Tampa Tribune’s Hernando Today, October 2, 2009
to thank him for efforts in exploring the cause of her brother’s death and for requesting the Hernando County Sheriff’s Department to initiate an investigation on her brother’s “mysterious” death in Hunter’s Lake.
She said her brother was an “expert swimmer” and ”never toted a knife, gun nor any instrument of violence.” She said despite his trouble with the law ”he had a heart of gold.”
Ms. Harris, who resides in the Ridge Manor area, with a Webster address, says her younger brother was blocked by the sheriff’s deputies from looking at or identifying James Rayford when they pulled his body to the Hunter Lake shoreline on Saturday afternoon, September 12th. The sheriffs deputies, according to the distraught sister, said the sheriff department officials identified the fugitive only from documents in Rayford’s pants pockets.
Harris said they discovered, upon finally receiving the body, that her brother “had a big hole in his stomach,” was “cut all over his body,” and he was “so disfigured” that her brother “could not recognize” his face when the body was brought to the Milton Funeral Home in Dade City. The body has since been cremated.
Ms. Harris, and her brother, are upset as to how her older brother, James, could have died since he was an expert swimmer, and had swum in Hunter’s Lake numerous times while fishing there. Harris said she drove her deceased brother to a Hunter lakefront friend’s home that fateful midday to go fishing.
Ms. Harris told Moore that she also “wanted an investigation of the police chase,” and asked how to formally request one. Moore contacted Sergeant Kathleen Reid of the Internal Affairs Department of the Hernando County Sheriff’s Department, on Ms. Harris’ behalf, and provided Harris’s phone number to the sergeant. Sgt. Reid said “she would telephone Rebecca Harris immediately to advise her of the proper paperwork and procedures for such a request.”
Rayford’s siblings told the local activist by phone today they are arranging for an attorney to represent their interests as well and will make efforts to obtain photos of their brother, James, from the Medical Examiner’s Office in Leesburg, Lake County, where, according to local news, the autopsy was conducted.
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