At a glance
- Location: Clearwater, Florida
- Case period: Investigation stretched more than six years after a Super Bowl Sunday shooting
- Victim: A successful businessman found shot multiple times in the foyer of his own home
- Critical clue: A firearm hidden inside the victim’s wife’s car, discovered days after the killing
For a long time, detectives in Clearwater, Florida, believed they knew exactly who had killed Larry Fenton. What they could not do, for years, was prove it in a way that would hold up in court — and that gap between suspicion and proof would define one of the strangest homicide investigations in the department’s history.
A Whirlwind Romance Ends in Blood
Larry and Rebecca Fenton met at a gym when she was in her late 30s and he was in his early 50s. According to Rebecca, it was love at first sight, and Larry proposed just three months into the relationship. The couple held two weddings — one in Clearwater, another months later in Laughlin, Nevada — and settled into a comfortable life funded by Larry’s success in architecture and the surgical equipment business. Rebecca described her husband as a quiet, respected man who treated her, in her words, “like the first lady.”
That fairy-tale life ended on a Super Bowl Sunday afternoon. Rebecca told investigators she had gone to work out in the couple’s detached home gym while Larry planned to order pizza and nap before kickoff. When she returned less than two hours later, she said she found Larry lying in a pool of blood in the foyer, and their home appeared ransacked.
“Our House Has Been Ransacked”
Rebecca’s 911 call captured a woman who sounded hysterical, repeating that her husband wasn’t moving and that the house had been burglarized. Paramedics confirmed Larry was dead from four gunshot wounds to the neck and back.
At first, police treated it as a home invasion gone wrong. Drawers were pulled out, cabinets left open, belongings scattered across the floor. But according to police, something didn’t add up: Larry’s wallet, still stuffed with cash, was untouched, and nothing of significant value was missing except his Jeep Cherokee.
“I believe that this was a staged crime scene,” one investigator said, noting that books knocked off shelves and drawers pulled open served no obvious purpose for a burglar. Detectives also flagged Rebecca’s own account — she told them she checked for a pulse, then ran through the house to see “what the hell had happened” before calling 911, rather than immediately seeking help.
Cracks in the Fairy Tale
As detectives dug into the Fentons’ private life, the “perfect marriage” Rebecca described began to look more complicated. She admitted to police that she had worked for seven years as a high-priced escort before marrying Larry, and had once been arrested on prostitution charges — a past she said she’d disclosed to Larry before their wedding and that he’d accepted.
Investigators also learned Rebecca had grown restless in the marriage and had developed a close relationship with a younger prep chef named David. Sergeant Carrie Spalding said she believed the two met secretly at a hotel, though she could never prove an affair took place. Rebecca insisted their relationship was a “crush” and nothing more.
“I absolutely know that Rebecca is the shooter and believe it based on the totality of the entire investigation, without a doubt,” Detective Michael Hasty said.
Investigators theorized Larry had been killed after Rebecca allegedly told David she planned to leave her husband, and David ended things — sending her, in their view, into a tailspin.
The Gun in Her Car
Two days after the murder, Larry’s missing Jeep turned up abandoned a block from the house. Inside was only costume jewelry, a jar of coins, an iPod and a laptop — nothing a genuine burglar would likely leave behind.
Then came what police considered the case’s turning point. Investigators found Larry’s own handgun hidden in a plastic bag under the front passenger seat of Rebecca’s car, along with five spent shell casings, jewelry Larry always wore, and keys to both the gun case and the missing Jeep.
To detectives, the physical evidence painted a damning picture: an intruder would have had to search the house for a hidden weapon, kill Larry, stage a burglary, drive the Jeep around the block, abandon it, and then double back to plant the gun in Rebecca’s car — a scenario police found implausible. They also pointed to life insurance and inheritance that could net Rebecca well over a million dollars.
The Climax: Detectives Had to Let Her Go
Despite the circumstantial case they’d built, investigators hit a wall. Gunshot residue tests on Rebecca came back negative. And in a development that stunned detectives, Rebecca passed not one but three separate polygraph exams — two administered by investigators themselves and a third conducted independently.
With no residue on her hands, no fingerprints linking her to the weapon, and passed lie-detector tests working in her favor, police had no legal basis to charge her. Rebecca was released, and the case went cold.
Cold Case Reignited by Fire
Years later, the Fentons’ former home — long empty — burned to the ground. Arson investigators found evidence of accelerants. Rebecca, who by then was broke and facing foreclosure on the property, denied any involvement, saying she had nothing financially to gain.
The suspicious fire drew renewed attention to the unsolved case, prompting cold-case investigators to take a fresh look at the physical evidence collected years earlier.
A Boyfriend’s Bombshell
The break came from an unlikely source. Rebecca herself called 911 to report a domestic dispute with her boyfriend at the time, Alfred Nolan, a man with an extensive criminal record. During the investigation into that incident, Nolan told detectives that Rebecca had once held a knife to his throat and threatened, “I’ll kill you like I killed Larry.”
Rebecca denied the confrontation ever happened. Detectives acknowledged Nolan’s credibility problems but said other witnesses corroborated that he had described the alleged threat before police ever approached him.
Where the Case Stands Today
More than six years after Larry Fenton was found dead, detectives arrested Rebecca for his murder, citing the totality of the evidence — the gun in her car, the insurance motive, her behavior at the scene, and Nolan’s account. She has continued to deny killing her husband, insisting a burglar was responsible and that the gun was planted to frame her.
A former British Home Office investigator, Andrew Tizzard, has taken up her cause, arguing there was never direct forensic proof placing her at the scene and calling Nolan’s testimony unreliable hearsay. He has said he intends to pursue her case through every available means. For now, Rebecca’s appeals have not succeeded, and the fight over what really happened inside that Clearwater home on Super Bowl Sunday continues.
