Homeless man found dead near where girlfriend died

Homeless man found dead near where girlfriend died
By Rebecca Catalanello, Times staff
In print: Thursday, July 10, 2008

TAMPA — The man started coming around about six weeks ago.

He was an unemployed electrician. Fifty-two years old. A nice guy, though given to drink.

Pastor Jarvis Ball liked the man. An electrician himself, Ball fed him, clothed him, invited him to attend services at Covenant of God Ministries here in Sulphur Springs.

And the man did.

At some point in his life, through what Ball calls "circumstances," this former electrician became homeless and turned to alcohol. But he refused to sleep under someone else's roof, slumbering instead in his car.

Most mornings, Ball would look out from his church near N Nebraska Avenue and E Juneau Street and see the man's white Ford Explorer parked in the tree-lined lot across the street.

The pastor and the electrician would talk about life and God and the man's girlfriend, who'd died.

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