FHP Trooper Jimmy Fulford remembered

Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.

A good-sized group recently gathered at the off-ramp of the I-10 Aucilla exit to commemorate the memory of Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) Trooper Jimmy H. Fulford, who was killed on the same spot 28 years earlier.
“It was a good turnout,” said retired FHP Lieutenant B. J. Tinney, who organized the 28th annual remembrance ceremony at the Fulford's memorial on Saturday, Feb. 1. “We had about 25 to 30 people show up, including eight troopers in uniform. Sheriff Mac McNeill was there.”
Tinney said the 30-minute ceremony started at 3 p.m. and included him reading Psalm 23 (The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want...) and playing a tape of Fulford – who was a Baptist deacon in his hometown church in Greenville – singing.
After which brief ceremony, Tinney said the group stood at the site and reminisced about Fulford, his contributions to the community, and the impact that his death had on those gathered at the memorial site.
“I was his lieutenant,” said Tinney, who was then a FHP district supervisor for Jefferson, Madison and Taylor counties. “We worked together for 12 years. I would sometimes ride with him in the patrol vehicle. Jimmy was like a son to me. He was a fine young man.”
Tinney said that on the day that Fulford was killed, he arrived on the scene shortly after.
“It was a terrible day,” he recalled. “I thought I was going to have a heart attack.”
Tinney has said in other interviews that during his then 37 years and three months of service with the FHP, Fulford's death was probably the worst day of his life.
“He was an all-around good person and a fine young man,” Tinney said. “It about killed me when it happened.”
He noted that Fulford was 35 when he died. Had he lived, Tinney said, Fulford would have been 64-years-old this May.
The Fulford memorial, located at mile marker 233 on I-10, is now marked by a newly-installed monument that consists of a white metal circle with the FHP logo and Fulford's name and date of death printed on its face, with the circle mounted on a cypress cross. Bud Wheeler, a longtime FHP Auiliary trooper and friend of Fulford's, donated the new memorial.
Fulford died on Saturday, Feb. 1, 1992, the unintended victim of a pipe bomb that was meant to silence two women in Marianna whom the state planned to call as witnesses in a Broward County murder trial.
That Saturday, Fulford was conducting a routine patrol on I-10. After reporting to duty at his Madison station at 3 p.m., he headed west on the interstate toward Tallahassee, part of the 50-mile stretch of highway that he regularly patrolled. It's surmised that had he not clocked a Mitsubish Galant going 85 mph near the Jefferson County line, he would have likely turned around and headed back east.
As it was, Fulford pulled the Galant over at the off-ramp of the Aucilla exit in Jefferson County, where the memorial monument now stands. Lester Watson was the driver of the Mitsubish Galant; Leroy Williams, his passenger.
When neither men could produce a valid driver's license, Fulford asked the two to exit the car, which is standard procedure. Watson then reportedly claimed that a friend had lent them the vehicle to attend a funeral in Tallahassee, for which event they were running late.
Made suspicious by the two men's nervousness, their disheveled appearance and general demeanor, plus the fact that they were far from home and driving a rental vehicle, Fulford asked for permission to search the car, which the driver granted. A quick inspection of the vehicle, however, turned up nothing, with the exception of clothing, an empty baby bottle and a box in the trunk that was wrapped in pink-and-blue flowered gift paper.
Unbeknownst to Fulford, the box contained a bomb-rigged microwave that the two men were supposed to deliver as a gift to the two Marianna women. The bomb had been made by Broward County resident and former U.S. Army technician Paul Howell, with help from his brother Patrick, both of whom were members of a South Florida Jamaican drug ring.
According to court testimony, Howell paid Watson $200 to deliver the gift-wrapped package, which Watson later claimed he believed contained drugs. Fulford on the Saturday had the Madison County dispatcher contact the rental-car agency, from which it was learned that the car had actually been rented to a Paul Howell. Fulford then had the dispatcher call Howell to verify Watson's story.
Per the dispatcher, Howell confirmed that he had lent Watson the rental car, but claimed that he had never given permission for the car to be driven north. At which point, Fulford had the rental car impounded and arrested Watson. Watson's associate, meanwhile, decided to accompany his friend to the jail.
After a van from the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office had carried off the two men and while he waited for the wrecker to come for the rental car, Fulford began conducting an inventory of the car's content. Curious about what the gift-wrapped package might contain, he used his penknife to carefully cut away the wrapping around the cardboard box and pulled out the microwave. When he opened the microwave door, it triggered an explosion that killed him instantly. The explosion, witnesses said, was so powerful that it left a depression on the roadway. Fulford's wristwatch, later recovered at the scene, had stopped at exactly 4:34 p.m., according to police reports.
Fulford was buried with honors in Madison County, where he had been born, raised and attended school, and where member of his family still resided. In 2014, the portion of I-10 between the Aucilla and Monticello exits was formally dedicated as the “Trooper James Herbert Fulford Jr. Memorial Highway.”
Paul Howell, meanwhile, was convicted of first-degree murder in Jefferson County in 1995 and given the death penalty. He was executed by lethal injection in February 2014. Patrick Howell, also convicted of the first-degree murder, received a life sentence. And Watson got 40 years in prison.