Murder suspect nabbed on tip

1:10 A.M. — The argument started over cigarettes.

It ended with two gunshots.
Percy Hood Sr. and Bobbie Marshall, both 52, were with two
other people at Hood's home on Wright Street in Fort Myers on
Saturday morning when Hood asked Marshall to pick up
cigarettes, according to witness testimony detailed in a St.
Lucie County Sheriff's Office arrest report.
Marshall refused, so Hood told him to leave, the report said.
Then Marshall told Hood he couldn't make him leave.
"You gonna shoot me?" Hood responded.
Paramedics found Hood lying in the driveway with a bullet in his
chest. They pronounced him dead moments later.
Marshall fled to Fort Pierce and was arrested there Monday by
St. Lucie County sheriff's deputies. A Crime Stoppers tip from
Fort Myers led authorities to an apartment where Marshall was
sitting on the couch. He also had a misdemeanor warrant for
his arrest in Martin County for violating probation for failing to
appear with a $5,000 bond.
Two Fort Myers police detectives questioned Marshall in the St.
Lucie County Jail in Fort Pierce on Monday. He is awaiting
transportation to Lee County. He is facing a second-degree
murder charge in Hood's death.
Wendell McCutcheon told police that he heard two shots and
saw Hood struggle out of his home, clutching his stomach,
blood pouring from his mouth, the report says. Marshall
followed.
Fearing Marshall would shoot him, McCutcheon began walking
with him down the street, the report says. Marshall told him he'd
shot at Hood and missed. Later that day, he told another man,
Eugene Thomas, that he'd accidentally shot Hood.
Marshall's criminal record includes a 2002 misdemeanor arrest
for driving with a suspended license. He also was twice
pursued for child and/or spousal support, in 2001 and 2004.
When Hood's daughter, Brendnekia Shorter, 26, heard the
news of Marshall's arrest, she pulled over the car she was
driving and screamed.
Shorter and Hood's three other children began planning his
funeral Monday.
Tentative details are still being worked out, Shorter said, and
the rest of the family is still absorbing the news of his death.
Shorter said she didn't sleep Sunday because she was scared
that police wouldn't catch Marshall. In addition to his four
children, Hood had nine grandchildren ages 1 to 9.