A Florida therapist is accused of fatally shooting an unhoused man and hiding his body in the trunk of a car, DeLand police announced.
Travis McBride, 46, was charged with murder Friday in connection to the death of 51-year-old Clinton Dorsey, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by HuffPost.
Police responded to a call Thursday from an anonymous man on a “911 only cell phone” stating that someone had been killed, the document said.
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“Older white guy named Travis, he’s the one who killed a dude named Clint,” the caller told dispatchers, adding that the man he identified “was cleaning up the blood,” “drug the body across the road” and then “put it in the car and left.”
Around the same time, police dispatch received a separate call from a woman using the same phone number, stating that “the person who committed the murder” was outside her door.
According to the affidavit, responding officers found McBride outside the woman’s residence and noticed multiple injures on his hand and arm, which he attributed to a gun he owned. They also found scratches, but McBride said they were caused by dogs he trained, per the document.
While one responding officer was speaking with McBride, another met with the female caller at the rear side of the home.
The woman was “frightened” of McBride, and said that he’d killed a man named Clinton the night before, according to police. Multiple witness described Dorsey as an unhoused man living in the woods across from the woman’s home.
Officers inspecting the area noticed a large amount of water where the woman said McBride had committed the killing, despite it not raining in recent days, the affidavit said.
Responding officers then found 9 mm shell casings next to blood droplets nearby, prompting police to seal off the area for investigation.
During her interview with police, the woman said that McBride arrived at her home around 7 to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, stating that he was going to kill Dorsey over an argument about McBride’s dogs.
The woman told investigators that she witnessed the shooting hours later, alleging that McBride fired eight to nine shots at Dorsey before dragging his body to a wooded area.
McBride arrived back at the woman’s home the next morning and told her to not call 911, according to the affidavit.
Police searched a building less than a block away from the scene where neighbors said McBride lived. The neighbors told police that they’d heard gunshots the previous night, and investigators who searched McBride’s vehicle found Dorsey’s deceased body inside, the document said.
They also said that McBride operated the business Starting Point Mental Health LLC. Its website says the company was established in 2009, and that McBride works with individuals to resolve “a wide variety of mental health concerns.”
Prosecutors asked a judge to deny bond for McBride on Friday, stating that “the proof is evident, and the presumption [of guilt] is great,” according to local paper The West Volusia Beacon.
Michael Gray Moore, an attorney reportedly representing McBride, did not respond to HuffPost’s request for a statement.
Advocates for unhoused people have often pointed to the issue of violence against them. Between 1999 and 2019, there were 1,852 incidents of violence against unhoused individuals by people who weren’t homeless, according to a 2020 report by the National Coalition for the Homeless. It noted that Florida has “consistently seen high rates of violence” toward such populations.
