By Jodie Tillman and Stephanie Wang, Times Staff Writers
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
BRANDON — Authorities confirmed Tuesday that the body discovered in a backyard garbage can is that of Benna F. Rogers, the late homeowner's 33-year-old brother who had been out of touch with his family for months.
Although the remains were badly decomposed, the Hillsborough County Medical Examiner's Office was able to confirm his identity through fingerprints.
But investigators are still working to determine how and when he died, and who sealed him in the garbage can.
Deputies continued their investigation at the home Tuesday, digging up the back yard in search of evidence, said Hillsborough County sheriff's spokesman Larry McKinnon.
The home at 517 S Larry Circle belonged to Micah Rogers, 31, Benna Roger's younger brother.
Micah died Feb. 14 from carbon monoxide poisoning after putting a motor scooter in his bedroom, turning it on and asphyxiating himself, according to McKinnon.
On Monday, family members trying to get the house in order after his suicide discovered the garbage can, sealed with tape. Inside was the decomposed body.
Detectives learned that Benna Rogers has been unaccounted for in the past few months, though family members never reported his absence to authorities.
Micah and Benna had grown up at the home, living with their father, Benjamin Franklin Rogers, who died in 2010. Their mother, Debbie Cook, moved out when they were teenagers.
Micah told neighbors he was selling the home, and they said a closing was scheduled just three days after his suicide.
The weekend before he killed himself, Micah told neighbor Skip Lujack he was going to Atlanta to pick up Benna, and then the pair were headed to North Carolina to start over.
Lujack has replayed that conversation many times since learning that Benna's remains were found in the garbage can.
"You say you're going to pick up your brother, and he's in the back yard?" he mused.
Micah was also trying to sell baseball cards, furniture and jukeboxes to his neighbors that weekend. The brothers' father had sold jukeboxes at one time.
Micah told Lujack that he owed $500 to "someone important" and needed to make quick cash. Lujack ended up paying $200 for two jukeboxes.
Lujack said that Micah, an out-of-work machinist, appeared distraught over having to sell his belongings. When he later saw the jukeboxes in Lujack's garage, he burst into tears.
"He said, 'It's hard to part with my treasures,' " Lujack said.
Micah also told Lujack's wife that his romantic life hit the skids after he broke up with a longtime girlfriend a few years ago. He said he had been trying to reconnect with her.
McKinnon, the sheriff's spokesman, said Micah left a suicide note but it did not reveal anything about a body in the back yard.
Records from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement show extensive criminal pasts for each brother — including vehicle theft, dealing in stolen property and heroin possession convictions for Micah, and grand theft, dealing in stolen property and possession of drug paraphernalia convictions for Benna.
But both had stayed out of trouble with the law in recent years — Benna had not had an arrest since 2005, Micah since 2007.
Their maternal grandfather, Max Cook, said Tuesday that he assumed the pair had made improvements in their lives.
"I don't know what went wrong," he said.
Cook, who discovered Benna's body Monday, declined to say when he last saw either alive.
Asked if he knew what happened to Benna, he said, "I have no idea." He declined to comment further.
Though neighbors say the home on Larry Circle had been a blight for years, the Sheriff's Office made relatively few visits there since 2006, records show.
In January, deputies showed up to serve a warrant on a woman who had been living there but could not locate her, according to records.
Deputies did not arrive again until the Valentine's Day suicide.
Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Reach Jodie Tillman at jtillman@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3374.