Donald Montanez and the Death of Glen Rich

When Montanez' attention turned other people at the scene, Glen Rich saw a chance to take his car back and made a break for it. Witnesses agree Rich ran to the car, got in, and started the ignition. Cory Crites saw what was happening and ran to his flatbed to retrieve a GoJak (a boot-like device that attaches to a wheel to immobilize the car) and then hurried over to affix it to the front passenger side wheel of Rich's Sebring. Celester Rich moved quickly to wrestle with Crites so he could not fully attach the GoJak.

Glen Rich backed the Sebring up slightly so he could veer to the left and drive around the flatbed parked in front of his car. Then he floored it -- the wheels spraying grass and debris, the GoJak twisting and firing off behind him as the tires searched for traction. An instant later he was hurtling forward toward Bonacker -- possibly hitting Cory Crites (although this would later be disputed) and possibly in the direction of Donald Montanez and Lorraine Marie Whitehead.

The account of Montanez' exact position and the position of his other employees changes witness by witness. Many of the eyewitnesses placed Montanez on the driver's side of the car. Montanez maintains he was standing in front of the car, next to Whitehead -- and that he pushed her away to the driver's side and then jumped out of the car's path to the other side. The undisputed fact is that Donald Montanez fired a single shot at the Sebring as it passed him, smashing through the passenger side window and hitting Glen Rich on his right side under the armpit. "Somebody hit me," Rich cried out on the 911 call, as he drove the Sebring across Bonacker through a fence into an adjacent property and then through a second fence to get onto East Hanna Avenue.

With the abrupt departure of the Chrysler Sebring, the Rich party turned to leave. Celester Rich recalled Montanez told him "Ha ha, your friend's in trouble now."

Glen Rich drove a long block north and then pulled into a Citgo. He made one final call to his wife Adama, telling her "I love you. I'm sorry. I'm going to die." By the time paramedics arrived, Rich had lost a massive amount of blood. At St. Joseph's Hospital, doctors worked hard to revive him, but the bullet had pierced his side and through his liver, diaphragm and arteries. Although he was given an entire adult body's worth of blood transfusions, Glen Rich died in the hospital later that day from complications due to loss of blood and internal injuries. He was 30 years old, survived by five children. The Rich family would bury two brothers in the space of a week.

Law enforcement arrived on the crowded scene; they investigated, took statements from witnesses, and retrieved Montanez' gun from him. When they called the preliminary information into the State Attorney's Office, they were told there was not enough probable cause to arrest Montanez at that time but to continue investigating. Weeks later, prosecutors decided to move forward with the case against Donald Montanez, indicting him on six counts including second-degree murder -- potentially life imprisonment. Montanez was arrested on February 3, 2006 and released on $100,000 bail.