http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3181690
May 14, 2005, 2:28AM
Violence was the one constant in his past
Slaying suspect's rootless existence began in childhood
By TERRI LANGFORD
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
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Charged: Jerry Hobbs
In Jerry Hobbs' world, there have been few constants.
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From age 19 on, Hobbs seemed tied to the lower-income neighborhoods of Wichita Falls, a place where he logged 29 arrests between 1990 and 2003.
When he wasn't in the Wichita County Jail, he lived on his own, with his mother Joann or at the homes of girlfriends and others.
The rootlessness that marks his life started early, as Florida school records indicate. Second grade was spent in Hillsborough County at Cork Elementary. He finished third grade in 1978 at Bartow Elementary in neighboring Polk County.
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Night deposit was missing
Then, the Hobbs family emerges in a long-forgotten police report filed in the summer of 1980 by the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.
Four days into his mom's new job as a cashier at the Frosty Dan Food Store outside Tampa, a then-9-year-old Hobbs found himself packed with four siblings into his parents' red Chevrolet with the travel trailer hitched to the back, according to a police report. The family steered the car out of town as police were looking for the mother, a witness told officers.
Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Debbie Carter, who located the report Friday, said police had been called because a $1,279.93 night deposit was missing at the Frosty Dan store. The last person to have had access to the money, the report indicated, was Joann Hobbs.
A fugitive warrant for two counts of grand larceny for the mother of five remains active, said Manny Pondakos, an intelligence analyst with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
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Just before Hobbs' 20th birthday, he resurfaced in an arrest report that resulted in his first conviction.
On July 27, 1990, the sound of a car's spinning tires outside his home provoked Hobbs. The 19-year-old cook pulled a knife on the motorist, Stacey Townsend, and told him he intended to stab and kill him.
Hobbs was convicted of felony assault, but six weeks later, Townsend beat up Hobbs, making it tough for prosecutors to call for a tough penalty and paint Townsend as the victim.
"The victim didn't have clean hands," said Assistant Wichita County District Attorney Rick Mahler.
Hobbs' original felony was reduced to a misdemeanor, and he was sentenced to 60 days in jail. The following year, Hobbs hit a security guard at a local grocery store.
........................ another incident involving abusing Sheila ............
Even as Hobbs sits in a Lake County, Ill., jail cell, he's still wanted on a Palm Beach County warrant for violating probation after that incident.
Hollabaugh and Hobbs' stormy relationship continued for years, according to Sgt. Cindy Walker of the Wichita Falls Police Department, who said a handful of his 29 arrests involved assaults on Hollabaugh and another girlfriend.
But the cases were dropped because Hollabaugh refused to press charges.
"You could not ask for a better neighbor," Dickerson said. "She left Monday (for Illinois), and she had no idea they would accuse Jerry."
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