TAMPA, Fla. — Months before his trial begins, attorneys for Howell Donaldson III filed a motion to suppress some key evidence that helped tie him to the murders of four people.
Donaldson is accused of killing Benjamin Mitchell, Monica Hoffa, Anthony Naiboa and Ronald Felton in 2017, terrorizing the Seminole Heights neighborhood for weeks.
Officers found him after a co-worker at McDonald's said he handed her a bag with a gun in it. Investigators say she believed he fit the description of the killer previously released by police.
Now his defense is arguing the arrest and the searches through his bag and his car was illegal.
They say investigators at the time didn't have enough to go on to begin those searches in the first place and that they didn't tell Donaldson that they were trying to connect him to the murders when they asked for his consent to search.
"There were no other facts at that time to support whether the firearm had been used in a crime," court documents read. The document also states the gun turned over was a "Glock firearm" and described it as "very common."
The document continues, in part, "Additionally, there were no facts known to any of the officers that Mr. Donaldson had engaged in criminal activity at the time they detained him and took him into custody."
Attorneys for Donaldson say since his detention and arrest was "unlawful," the evidence collected is "tainted and inadmissible."
The judge will decide how to proceed. Donaldson's trial begins in August.