PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) – Ebony Williams-Dixon stood with family members and friends Friday at the end of Granville Court in St. Petersburg, occasionally wiping the tears from her eyes.
She just can’t believe her 21-year-old stepson, Tommy, is dead.
“Just even hearing that he has been shot,” said Williams-Dixon. “I mean, we were just so confused because the crowd that he hangs around, the stuff that he does, does not warrant this type of stuff. It’s not his thing.”
Investigators say 29-year-old James Pagan showed up at a home located at 1738 Granville Court on Thursday night and shot and killed Dixon and 18-year-old Barbarajean Lombardi.
Police say Pagan fled the area and headed north. Authorities in Alachua County stopped him and arrested him near Gainesville.
Gabrielle Clark and her husband are Pagan’s roommates. Clark says Pagan was upset because he and Lombardi had recently broken up.
“He wanted to be with her, but she just wanted to be friends and that was about all he really said,” said Clark. “He was drinking and he was sad as anyone would be after five, six months of dating somebody.”
Clark and her husband went to bed. The next thing they knew, the police were outside their door.
“All of a sudden, cops are out here and saying come out here with your hands up,” said Clark. “So my husband called him and said the cops are looking for you and he’s like I cut my ankle monitor off and put it on your table.”
Williams-Dixon describes her stepson as a good kid, who stayed out of trouble.
“He was good. He loved music. He played in the band, the marching band at St. Pete High,” she said. “He worked at the Hungry Howies on 34th Street North. Been there for like five years. At least five years. They loved him at work.”
Lombardi worked at Swah-Rey, a dessert shop in downtown St. Petersburg, for a period of time prior to the pandemic. Her boss told 8 On Your Side that she was an extremely hard worker and “like a daughter to her.” She was shocked when she learned Lombardi had been murdered.
Clark is also in disbelief. She thought she knew Pagan.
“It just proves you never know who somebody actually is. And, even we did a background check on him and still, you just never know what someone is capable of,” she said.
An online fundraiser has been set up for the family of Lombardi following her death.
