Lazaro Aleman: Greene Publishing, Inc.
This past Wednesday afternoon, about a dozen people -- friends, relatives and members of the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) -- gathered at the I-10 site where FHP Trooper Jimmy Fulford was killed exactly 25 years ago, to pay homage to his memory.
As part of the ceremony, the group played a cassette tape recording of Fulford singing in church, prayed together, and reminisced about Fulford’s ties and contributions to the community, as well as the impact of his death 25 years ago when they first heard the news.
The ceremony was held at Fulford’s I-10 memorial, which consists of a white cross with his name inscribed on it. On Wednesday, a bouquet of red roses adorned the memorial.
Fulford, of Greenville, was killed at age 35 on the Aucilla exit ramp off I-10 (mile marker 233) on Feb. 1, 1992, when a pipe bomb, inside a gift-wrapped package, exploded in the trunk of a car whose driver he had pulled over for speeding. The bomb, it turned out, was intended to silence a Marianna woman who was scheduled to testify for the prosecution in a murder case involving brothers Paul and Patrick Howell and a South Florida drug ring.
As it happened, Fulford stopped the vehicle for doing 85 m.p.h., only to discover that the driver didn’t possess a driver’s license. What’s more, the vehicle was a rental, registered to a Paul Howell in Miami.
Following the arrest of the driver and passenger and their transportation to the jail, Fulford had the dispatcher call Howell, who never bothered to inform the dispatcher that a package in the car’s trunk was rigged with a bomb.
While waiting for the wrecker to pick up the rental car, Fulford conducted a search of the vehicle. Spotting the gift-wrapped package in the trunk, he used his penknife to open it, triggering the explosion that killed him instantly.
On Jan. 10, 1995, a jury in Monticello found Howell guilty of first-degree murder in Fulford’s death and the judge sentenced Howell to death. Meanwhile, Patrick Howell, the driver of the rental car, and the others in the drug ring got lengthy prison sentences.
Paul Howell was executed by lethal injection on February 26, 2014.
Jefferson County Sheriff David Hobbs and Greene Publishing Inc.’s Publisher Emerald Greene Parsons were two of the state’s witnesses for the execution.
Later in 2014, the portion of I-10 between the Aucilla and Monticello exits was dedicated the “Trooper James Herbert Fulford Jr. Memorial Highway.”