Stunned Sebring girds for race invasion

SEBRING — Like many people in town, Jimmy Anzueto still tears up when he thinks about the five women, one a longtime friend, and how they were callously executed on the floor of the SunTrust Bank overlooking Lake Jackson.

He’s reminded of their violent deaths, and how that January day forever changed his little community, every time he drives home from work at Sebring International Raceway, a route that takes him right past the shuttered bank.

Turning left from U.S. 27 onto Tubbs Road, he sees the shrine that has sprouted up over the past six weeks, a makeshift memorial of flowers, crucifixes, candles, Teddy bears, hand-written notes, a Puerto Rican flag. There’s even a 12-pack of Mountain Dew because Jessica Montague, a beloved 31-year-old mother and bank teller, loved her Mountain Dew.

The mementos, dropped off just about every day by relatives, friends and strangers, are neatly arranged beneath a poster of the five smiling women, their images tacked to a brown tarp that covers the patched-up hole breached by a SWAT team that awful afternoon.

“You look to your left and you’re still shocked that this just happened a month ago," said Anzueto, who worked years ago at another bank with one of the slain women, Marisol Lopez, whose daughter recently graduated from Lake Placid High School with Anzueto’s daughter.

Just about everyone else in the town of 10,000 passes the shuttered bank every day, too. It’s right there at an intersection off U.S. 27, the same six-lane road that will swell with traffic this week when thousands of motorsports fans make their annual pilgrimage to Sebring International Raceway for the biggest party of the year — the Twelve Hours of Sebring endurance race Saturday.

The oldest endurance road race in America, first held in 1950, this year’s event is supposed to be the biggest yet. It will include an eight-hour race on Friday, making for an endurance doubleheader that’s expected to attract more than 160,000 people not just from Tampa and West Palm Beach, Sebring’s two biggest markets, each about 100 miles away, but from as far away as Great Britain, Denmark and France.

Except for the annual kick-off parade through Sebring’s historic downtown Tuesday night, all of the action will take place about 7 miles east of town, at the 3.75-mile race track, famous for its 17 distinct turns, built on an old World War II B-17 training base among the cattle farms and citrus groves of Highlands County.

Gearheads coming from the west side of Florida might notice the memorial and the bright orange barricades blocking the entrances to the bank as they pass through Sebring on their way to the racetrack.

Or they might be too distracted by the sun rays bouncing of Lake Jackson, directly across the road from the nondescript building, stripped of its SunTrust signage. Or they might simply be too focused on getting to the racetrack to realize that they’re passing the scene of a horrific crime.

But the people of Sebring and the nearby towns of Lake Placid and Avon Park know it’s there. And if they don’t stop to drop off flowers or say a prayer, they almost always slow down and recall the day when their little town, linked for decades with car-racing names like Daytona and Homestead, suddenly became synonymous with Parkland and Orlando.

“For the rest of our lives, every time we drive by there, it’s going to be a reminder," said Billy Kingston, safety director at Sebring raceway. “That’s where it happened. That’s the day our small community changed."

‘Intent to do damage’

Change came to Sebring around 12:30 p.m. that day, Jan. 23, when a 21-year-old man walked into the bank carrying a 9mm handgun and wearing a bullet-proof vest over a T-shirt of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Authorities said he ordered the five women — four employees and a customer — to lie face down on the floor. Then he executed them, one by one, with shots to the back of their heads and upper torsos.

He called 911 a minute or two later and told a dispatcher, “I have shot five people." When police arrived, he refused to let them in. He barricaded himself inside for more than an hour before surrendering without a fight when a SWAT team swept in at 1:54 p.m.

Before they found the gunman hiding in a rear office, police and deputies saw five bodies with “multiple spent shell casings” scattered around them.

The gunman, Zephen Xaver, who reportedly moved to Sebring from Indiana a year ago, was charged with five counts of first-degree murder. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, a decision met "with no hesitation" from the victims’ families, State Attorney Brian Haas said.

“This guy was intent to do damage and not rob a bank, so it’s very personal," said Mayor John Schoop, who worked as a manager at the bank in the late 1980s.

“We are such a small community," he added, comparing his town to the fictional Mayberry, “so you are one step away from knowing them or knowing someone who knew them."

Like many people at the race track, Anzueto was familiar with most of the slain bank tellers. He knew Lopez best. He trained her years ago, when they both worked at another bank, before he took his current job as events manager at Sebring International. But they stayed in touch.

Lopez, 55, was born in Puerto Rico. A mother of two, she was a longtime SunTrust employee who was active with church and youth groups.

Montague, 31, an outgoing mother of three, was known for showing consistent kindness to SunTrust customers.

Ana Pinon-Williams, 38, was a new employee at the bank and a mother of seven. A brother-in-law who works as a Sebring police detective responded to the shooting but was pulled off the scene when she was identified as a victim.

Debra Cook, 54, a teller at the bank, was a mother and grandmother who left behind a husband who’s a Marine Corps veteran. They would have celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary in February.

Cynthia Watson, 65, who lived on a farm with chickens and goats about 45 miles south of town, had gotten married two weeks before she walked into the bank that day to make a transaction.

Reeling with shock and grief, the community somehow rallied together almost immediately after the massacre. They held candle-lightvigils for the victims and collected money for their families — from Sebring Strong T-shirt sales to an Elks Club breakfast. A Sebring Strong Survivors Fund has raised more than $300,000.

The women will be remembered again at a ceremony Tuesday during the Twelve Hours of Sebring’s annual Fan Fest and its parade of cars through the town’s historic downtown, a few blocks from the Highlands County Jail where the gunman is being held.

And when the green flag drops on Saturday’s race, most of the 38 cars will be decorated with the same “Sebring Strong” decals that can be seen in the windows of local shops and restaurants, like the Ranchero Cafe. Owner Jose Torres says Montague’s father still has breakfast there every day, usually at the same table where his daughter often joined him.

Grieving racetrack workers

“As much as this race might be a distraction for a while, it is not going to complete the healing process," said Wayne Estes, the president and general manager at Sebring International.

In the weeks after the shootings, Estes said, he and his staff received phone calls of support from members of the International Motor Sports Association, whose drivers on Saturday will represent countries from as far away as Belgium, Russia and New Zealand.

“People are most definitely rattled, and that’s nothing compared to what the families and people who work at SunTrust have gone through," Estes said. "It is going to be felt here for a long time. Heck, my daughter was there the day before cashing a check."

To put on the 12 Hours race each year, Estes and his 12-member staff rely on 2,000 volunteers, most of them residents of Sebring, Lake Placid and Avon Park, who help out every year in exchange for free admission.

As they greet visitors at the raceway’s parking lots, ticket windows and entrance gates, they’ll do their best to mask the grief and sadness that has consumed their community.

“I hope (the race) brings families back together," said Elaine Bryant, a volunteer from Lake Placid, who didn’t personally know any of the slain women. “It will be like a family reunion. I hope it can be a big healing event for everyone."

At the very least, Schoop said, the race will be another small step, like last month’s Highlands County Fair, toward a return to normalcy.

“It will help us focus on what we do as a community, and this is a pretty big event," Schoop said. “It’s always been a community event and that’s what has made it so successful. People are not asked to participate. They want to participate."

The bank tragedy will be on the minds of many racetrack visitors from outside Highlands County, too, even if their main goal is to party and cheer for their favorite race teams.

‘Woodstock of Auto Racing’

Some hardcore gearheads started gathering outside the track two weeks ago with their campers, trucks and RVs, ready for the mad scramble for prime viewing spots when the gates open at 6 a.m. Wednesday.

“We call that the Sebring Land Rush," said Bill Farmer, a West Palm Beach native who will be attending his 44th consecutive Twelve Hours race.

Many of those Sebring sooners return every year to Green Park, the grassy area between Turns 5 and 10 affectionately known as “The Woodstock of Auto Racing” and, perhaps more appropriately, “The Zoo."

Green Park’s unofficial mayor is Terry Harms of West Palm Beach, a loyal soldier of “F Troop," one of hundreds of campsites that have grown over the years into “little neighborhoods,” he said, with names like “Dodge City: The Stumble Inn,” “Hank and Sheila’s Big Freakin’ Tent” and “Barbie Camp."

Like he has done at most of the past 39 Sebring races, Harms will bring his drum kit so he can jam with other gearhead musicians in the A2Z Band. “We play everything from A to Z," he said. “Allman Brothers, The Beatles, Little Feat, ZZ Top."

There will be other bands playing in Green Park all weekend, too. The A2Z Band plans to honor the slain women with a tribute song or two. “Maybe ‘Free Bird.’ That would be a good one. Or ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door,"’ he said.

“I personally didn’t know anybody who was killed in the bank but many of the people at Sebring do, so I grieve with them," Harms said. “If I can ease a little pain by saying something about it, then I’m glad to do it."

The mix of screaming race cars and loud rock bands and 160,000 people all crammed in and around the busy racetrack will create a wild and adventurous atmosphere.

“To me, it’s kind of like a mind cleanse," Farmer said. “Sebring allows you for five days to take your mind off whatever is going on back home or in your life. In that respect, I think it will allow people to kind of divert and take their minds off (the bank shootings), even if it’s just for a few days."

‘It’s, like, haunting’

For many, the Twelve Hours of Sebring won’t do anything to dull the pain of what happened on Jan. 23.

“People are still numb," said Tim Smolarick, publisher of the Highlands News Sun, who has fond memories of his “professional friendship” with Montague, his favorite teller. He said they’d been trying to connect for lunch in the days before she died.

“Certainly the race will be a distraction," he said, “but come Monday morning it’s still going to be on your mind. You think about it every day. It just doesn’t go away. It’s, like, haunting."

In the first week after the tragedy, people were still so shaken that many banks around town were mostly empty or had long lines at the drive-through windows.

“We think about it every time we go to the bank. I know I do," said John Salo of Sebring.

When Dorothy Jellots of Sebring finally mustered the courage to go to her bank, she was relieved to see a police cruiser — an unoccupied decoy car — in the parking lot.

“But two weeks later I went back and the police car was gone," she recalled. “I went in anyway but I was so nervous standing in line. I kept looking around. Some lady behind me, a stranger, she put her hand on my shoulder and said, ‘It’s OK. I’m scared, too.'"

Jellots didn’t know any of the victims. “But I cried," she said. “I cried because it was so senseless. It never gets too far from my mind."

The massacre wasn’t the community’s first brush with tragedy.

Last May, a 40-year-old deputy in Lake Placid was shot in the head and killed after responding to a dispute over a cat.

Then in November, a 24-year-old Sarasota woman was killed driving a jet dragster at Sebring raceway. “That shook up a lot of people," recalled Bryant. “We still hadn’t gotten over that, and then that guy shoots up the bank."

Permanent memorial?

Longtime locals still remember the old S&H Green Stamps store that stood on the corner of U.S. 27 and Tubbs Road before it became a SunTrust bank. Now, the site has an uncertain future.

SunTrust officials, who announced a few days after the massacre they were permanently closing the bank, said they will continue to preserve the memorial until a decision is made about what to do with the structure.

“We are working with local officials and the families of those impacted by the tragedy to determine the appropriate next steps for our Sebring Midtown branch," said Kyle Tarrance, a spokesman at SunTrust’s corporate office in Atlanta.

Highlands County Commissioner Don Elwell, who’s on a committee that will help determine the corner’s future, said an announcement will be made some time after the race.

“Out in the community, the overwhelming thought process is to raze the building and make it into some sort of memorial or park," he said. “But it’s really in a difficult location, on a narrow split of land next to a six-lane highway."

For now, residents like Jose Sanchez will continue to visit the site where his longtime friend, Montague, died with the four other women.

“It’s horrifying, a real kick in the face to this community," he said. “It’s in the back of your mind 24-7 and it’s hard to shake it off."

Sanchez, 60, plans to go to Saturday’s race. When he’s there, the Sebring man said he will think about Montague, who loved cars and drove a Mustang.

“You want to have a good time," he continued, referring to the race, “but you’re mourning at the same time."

The night before the race, he will make his daily visit to the bank memorial. It’s usually 3:30 a.m. when he stops by on his way to work delivering newspapers.

“I’ll stare at their pictures, talk to the Lord a little bit and ask him to take care of them," he said. “I have a high-powered flashlight that I left there and I change the batteries every day.

“I want to make sure to shine a light on their faces at night and show the world that these people were something special."

jcapozzi@pbpost.com

@jcapozzipbpost

This story originally published to palmbeachpost.com, and was shared to other Florida newspapers in the GateHouse Media network.