By Cindy Lane and Tom Vaught
SUN STAFF WRITERS

CORTEZ – Manatee County Sheriff’s deputies have arrested a suspect in a murder that occurred at Sunny Shore Mobile Home Park Monday morning. It appears to be drug-related, according to sources in the park.

Tammy Lynn George, 42, who lived with the victim, Mimi M. Pace, 42, in a trailer, was charged with murder. She made her first court appearance Tuesday. The slaying was the first of the year in Manatee County.

Deputies first identified George as a person of interest and then arrested her after interrogation. The victim appeared to be beaten to death, but the sheriff’s office did not release a cause of death and would not do so until the coroner’s office finished its autopsy.

According to neighbors, George lived in the mobile home that her parents had bought for her. Neighbors said she had a history of drug abuse. Court records showed Pace was arrested in Nov. 2005 for possession of rock cocaine and paraphernalia and in Oct. 2002 for possession of cocaine. Pace had moved in with George recently. George’s county court records showed one arrest for battery, in late Dec. 2005.

Neighbors said Pace had been told not to show herself on Anna Maria Island after several run-ins. The Bradenton Beach Police Department had no record of such incidents and neither did the Holmes Beach Police Department.

Neighbors at the park were not surprised to see police investigating a report of a dead woman inside a trailer at 3707 115th St. Court W.

"We knew it was coming," said Sunny Shores Neighborhood Watch Captain Charles Councilman, who lives a few homes north of the crime scene with his wife.

Councilman said he had called the police numerous times about suspected criminal activity at the trailer where the body of Pace was discovered on Monday morning by a neighbor, Scott LaVelle.

Councilman blamed drugs for the death, while other neighbors said it was a romantic triangle.

"This used to be a peaceful neighborhood," said 11-year-resident Darla McKean, who said she has called police many times to report criminal activity at the trailer where the woman was found with fatal head injuries.

McKean said that she has been kept awake by car doors banging, fist fights and other disturbances around the trailer, especially on weekend nights, and has occasionally been afraid to go to her car to leave for church on Sunday mornings.

The death will stop the trouble, she predicted, adding, "It’s a terrible way to get some sleep."