University of Tampa student murdered

By: Tammie Fields

Palm Harbor, Florida - For those who knew 19-year-old Samantha MacQuilliam, the grief is unbearable. Her roommates gathered along with neighbors to console one another Friday morning.

Some cried while others hugged each other near the crime scene.

MacQuilliam's body was found at a residence in the Windmill Pointe subdivision in Palm Harbor around 9:00 Thursday night. MacQuilliam's two male roommates made the grisly discovery. They found her body inside the home they all rented together. Neighbors say they'd only lived together about six weeks.

John Lasser lives next door with his family and explains what one of the roommates says he found: "He saw a door that was locked and he broke in and jimmied it. And he got in and she was in the bathtub."

Lasser says he would often speak to MacQuilliam when he saw her outside, saying she'd often baby sit for a family living nearby and would walk their child in a stroller up and down the sidewalk. “She was a nice, quiet, girl,” Lasser recalls.

MacQuilliam is from Gambrills, Maryland, a suburb in the Washington D.C./Baltimore area. She was studying at the University of Tampa and neighbors say she was taking classes this summer. She wanted to become a nurse.

MacQuilliam spent her evenings working at the Varsity Club restaurant. Nancy Planeta trained Samantha, and said of her death, “It's going to send ripples through the staff." Planeta adds that, “We're a family here. We really take young girls under our wings to help them.”

Planeta said she's seen wait staff come and go, but felt that MacQuilliam was special. "Matter of fact I told her the last time I worked with her that 'You will make a hell of a nurse.' I just always felt that way about her."

Co-workers say MacQuilliam talked about her boyfriend, who also lived at the house where her body was found. Pinellas County Sheriff's detectives are trying to track him down to talk to him as part of the investigation.

Meanwhile co-workers and neighbors are just trying to come to grips with what happened.

"It's just a real tragedy," Planeta says. "She was so young and had so much ahead of her."

The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office is not releasing information on how MacQuilliam was killed, but an autopsy is being performed on her body.