Murder, international intrigue and a Panhandle computer whiz

By BILL KACZOR
The Associated Press
6/14/03 1:07 PM

PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) -- A murder mystery featuring international intrigue, jailhouse snitches, illegal aliens and gun-toting Eastern Europeans has an unlikely suspect.

He's Matthew McKinney, a clean-cut, sandy-haired 28-year-old family man and mild-mannered computer whiz from the Florida Panhandle.

A struggling businessman, McKinney by chance fell in a ring of foreigners that imported aliens on tourist visas to work illegally as janitors and maids across the country. Almost three years after one his associates was shot to death, McKinney is awaiting trial on a first-degree murder charge.

FBI agents came across McKinney in January 2002 as they sought Petr Pospisil and Vladimir Janko. The two were among several Czech nationals accused of using illegal aliens in their cleaning businesses and skimming their wages.

McKinney, who worked for the Czechs, eventually told investigators where they could find Pospisil -- a grave in Alabama. His decomposed body was clad in a bathrobe and wearing a gold ring, gold chain and gold earring.

"I did not shoot Petr," McKinney told investigators. He said Janko shot Pospisil on July 31, 2000, at the victim's rented home in a quiet Pensacola neighborhood.

McKinney acknowledged, however, that he had taken Janko there, created a diversion by starting a lawn mower and helped him roll the body in a carpet secured with duct tape. He said Janko dug the bullet, which went through the victim's head, from a mirror, and kissed it.

Janko then stopped at a Wal-Mart to buy a pair of shovels on the way to Seminole, Ala., just across the state line west of Pensacola, where they buried the victim, McKinney said.

He insisted he was coerced and didn't know Janko intended to kill Pospisil. Initially, McKinney said he was forced to help at gunpoint and that a couple Russian men were with Janko, but he later dropped those claims.

McKinney said he did not report the killing until authorities questioned him about the two wanted men. He said he was afraid to come forward sooner because he feared the same thing might happen to him, his wife and three children, ages 3, 6 and 8.

"My forthcoming of the events of this crime were revealed so I could get closure and peace in my life by bringing a killer to justice," McKinney wrote to Circuit Judge Linda Nobles, who will preside at his trial.

"I wanted the threat I was living under to end," he continued. "The threats caused terrible nightmares that the same killer would come for my wife, my kids and me."

Assistant State Attorney David Rimmer, who is prosecuting McKinney, said he's not seeking the death penalty, but McKinney automatically would get life without parole if convicted of first-degree murder. Jury selection in his trial is set to begin Aug. 4.

"He doesn't really strike you as being the type" to commit murder, Rimmer said.

McKinney didn't mention it in his letter to the judge, but his stepsister, Jessica Schuchman, met a gruesome death three months after Pospisil's murder. Her dismembered body was found floating in Pensacola Bay. Her killing remains unsolved.

"It's just very odd, a weird situation," Rimmer said. There's no evidence the slayings are connected.

Two Czechs pleaded guilty in January 2002 to employing up to 350 illegal aliens to clean hotels and restaurants in Jacksonville and St. Augustine. Janko, Pospisil and other suspects could not be found although all had Florida driver licenses.

"You go to the address and it's an empty lot," said Escambia County sheriff's investigator Kent Vancil.

He had no trouble, however, finding McKinney, whose name kept popping up in connection with Emerald Coast Cleaning Services Inc. and Gulf Coast Cleaning Services, the companies Pospisil and Janko ran in the Florida Panhandle.

Shortly before he met the two Czechs in late 1999, McKinney's Niceville business specializing in lighting and sound systems had failed. He met Pospisil when he called in December 1999 looking for help installing a satellite system at his Panama City home.

Soon, McKinney was doing other work for Pospisil. He built a computer for him and set up payroll software for the cleaning business. Pospisil later hired him as a manager. McKinney claimed he was unaware the Czechs were under investigation for alleged immigration and tax violations.

Friction developed between Janko and Pospisil in 2000 when $100,000 turned up missing from company accounts, McKinney told FBI agents. He said the 5-foot-5 Pospisil was afraid of Janko, nearly a foot taller, and left Panama City. McKinney rented a house for Pospisil in Pensacola where he was killed a few months later.

State prosecutors initially charged McKinney with being an accessory after the fact to murder and evidence tampering based on his statements to investigators.

That changed after he was jailed. Another inmate, Jonathan Bluntson, told investigators McKinney confessed to him that he, not Janko, pulled the trigger. A grand jury then indicted McKinney for murder.

Bluntson is a problematic witness because he also has spent time in a state mental hospital after being found incompetent to stand trial on burglary and grand theft charges. Rimmer said another inmate has since come forward with a similar story.

Larry Shaw, who owns Joel's TV & Satellite in Pensacola and had rented McKinney space in his shop because of his computer expertise, said he can't believe he would do anything violent.

"The guy doesn't have a mean bone in his body," Shaw said. "I've never seen him get angry with anybody."

Local investigators and the FBI, meanwhile, still are seeking Janko on charges related to the cleaning businesses and the murder investigation remains open. They suspect he may have returned to the Czech Republic with about $250,000 in cash but as yet have received little help from authorities there, Vancil said.

"We strongly believe he's out of the country," Vancil said. "He could be anywhere on the globe."