TAMPA, Fla. — It took five years for the man police say killed four people in Seminole Heights to admit to guilt. Five years later and people in the neighborhood still remember living in fear in 2017.
"You would open the door and it would just be eerie because there was no one around anywhere at night," Rev. Matt Horan, who was the pastor at Seminole Heights United Methodist Church at the time, stated.
In the fall of 2017, those living in Seminole Heights feared the serial killer who was on the loose.
"Overnight everything changed," Horan recalled. "Businesses struggled because no one will go outside at night."
Horan remembers the Seminole Heights neighborhood around the church living in fear for 51 days.
"There were police everywhere and he still managed to get away," Horan recalled about the suspect.
Four lives were taken with no reason why. Pastor Horan remembers Anthony Naiboa‘s service at his church.
"I don’t normally ask people to come to church with guns, but I did that day," he said.
It’s been years and Horan can still remember those fearful months in 2017.
"It was this constant tense what next kind of feeling," Horan stated.
At the time, Horan assured his community when they caught the person, he would alert everyone.
"I said listen, when they catch this person we'll ring the bells," Horan said.
At midnight on Nov. 29, Pastor Horan finally rang the church bells with relief.
"It was a neat moment when people came outside after hearing the news, and then, hearing the bells," he recalled.
He’s sharing that moment with so many more in a book he wrote, "Church Bells at Midnight." It details his community coming together in a time of pain and panic.
For years to come, the church bells remind the neighborhood, in trying times, they have each other.
"It’s almost like he picked the wrong place to do this because he had a lot of people come together to get through it together," Horan said.
Howell Donaldson III will serve four consecutive life sentences for killing the four innocent people, according to court spokesperson Mike Moore.