Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 1

WEATHER High 84, low 76 thunderstorms rain chance 70 Florida's Best Newspaper SUNDAY, June 11, 2006 Ml itb THE TIMES TODAY In the 1980s, these women were victims of a serial killer along Interstate 91 in the Connecticut River Valley. money. 1 0. 11 w2 1 Av Pi griwi ihrrr-Hi In 2005, a restless man killed his wife, stepdaughter and himself in Tampa. A St.

Petersburg private investigator is certain there's a connection. 1 1 A woman with little income and meager assets buys 10 properties worth more than and doesn't have to put a dollar down. What's going on? JUM Mi By JEFF TESTERMAN Timet Staff Writer One family's cancer mystery Cancer has struck Stephanie Battle. And her sister. And her children, including Craesha Gordon, above.

Part of her wants to know why. Part of her dreads finding out. FLORIDIAN, IE Tarver falls in Atlantic City Bernard Hopkins stuns Tampa's Antonio Tarver on Saturday night with a devastating title fight loss. SPORTS, 1C TAMPA Jill Jackson is not your average real estate investor. A 30-year-old single parent, Jackson takes home about $24,000 a year from her job at a credit services company.

She rents an apartment in St Petersburg and, until this year, her assets totaled about $8,000 and her financial statement showed a negative net worth. She had zero experience in real estate acquisition until Feb. 28. That day she bought three Tampa homes for $560,000. In the next few weeks, she bought seven more properties.

She used 10 different mortgage lenders and managed to borrow 100 percent of the cash she needed for every deal. The grand total for this greenhorn investor 10 weeks, 10 purchases totaling not a single penny down. Jackson won't say much about her sudden foray into real estate. She won't discuss why she paid a huge premium for a handful of lower-value homes in Tampa or reveal how her financial statement and meager income qualified her for almost $2-million in mortgage loans. "It's a business I started with the help of others," she said.

"The mortgage payments are being made. I can't talk any more right now." Jackson won't divulge who her partners are. V. Eating at Egmont Egmont Key is disappearing due to erosioa In August it will get more sand, but the man in charge of the island is worried it wont be enough. LOCAL, IB But the St.

Petersburg Times found connections with William Ondra Joel II, a Tampa real estate investor who has been arrested seven times on drug charges. He served four months of ft 1 a one-year sentence a IN i Ni Georeia boot camo in 2002 Timet photo DANIEL WALLACE It looks much the same in Claremont, N.H., more than 20 years since nurse Ellen Fried called her sister from a pay phone at Leo's Market. She had mentioned she heard a car coming. Her body was found near a dirt road less than 10 miles away. Dividends pay And with the dot-com bust firmly in the past more investors are clamoring for the return of quarterly payment s.

BUSINESS, ID William Ondra Joel II, 26, says he worked as a consultant for Jill Jackson's purchases. for possession of cocaine. He has purchased properties in Polk, Pasco and Hillsborough counties since being released. Joel is a protege of Kenny Rushing, 32, who promotes himself on Tampa TV commercials, billboards and bus benches as Captain Save- By BEN MONTGOMERY and ALEXANDRA ZAYAS Timet Staff Writer together a killer's past They would learn Nicholaou was a war-scarred veteran with a missing girlfriend and a dead wife; a former porn shop owner who both charmed and terrified women; a man who lit fires in anger and was always on the run. Was he also a serial killer? Michael Nicholaou, 56, shot his wife, her, daughter and himself New Year's Eve not the first loss of a woman in his life.

Michael Nicholaou slipped into the West Tampa home on New Year's Eve. It was daylight He wore a black suit and tie and carried a guitar case full of guns. He found his estranged wife at the dining room table. "You didn't think you were ever going to see me again," he said. When it was over that day on Walnut Street, blood stained a floral bedspread and a beige and pink dresser.

Nicholaou, 56, killed his wife and fatally wounded his stepdaughter before shooting himself in the mouth. The new year would ring. The crime a-House and pitches a message of empowerment through real estate flipping. After serving seven years in federal prison for cocaine dealing, Rushing has seen his companies rack up dozens of property sales, a success advertised in his House Hustling magazine. Six years ago, Joel earned $8 an hour at a north Tampa mental health center.

Now 26, he operates Investors Outlet He is featured in a full-page ad in House Hustling wearing a tailored suit under the banner, "Learn How to Make $10,000 in 30 Days Without Using Your Own Money." Joel's real estate learning curve is described on Rushing's Rehabber's Superstore Web site is one of my Platinum Clients. He is a cash buyer and closes quickly. Each Lynn-Marie Carty sniffled with a sinus infection on New Year's Day. She sat on the couch in her St Petersburg home in her bathrobe with the morning paper. The 2005 Christmas season had been busy for Carty, 49, who makes a living reuniting families.

When she opened the paper to the story Please see KILLER 10A scene tape would come down. But the name Michael Nicholaou would find its way north into a mystery two decades old, a string of unsolved murders that gripped Vermont and New Hampshire. A St, Petersburg private investigator, a retired Vermont criminal profiler and a New Hampshire cold case detective would piece Glass action Imitation isnt always flattering, says glass master Dale Chihuly, who accuses a former employee of stealing his ideas. SUNDAY ARTS, 8E Please see INVESTOR 13A Up north, it's a self check-in border Working vacation A recent college graduate wont have all fun on her five-month European trek. Shell work there to pay for the trip.

TRAVEL, 1T Steer hurricanes? This wheel does Want to know if a storm will bend our way? Keep an eye on the Bermuda High. BY GRAHAM BRINK Timet Staff Writer V-T lir r.i.i With hurricane season under way, Floridiaris want to know whether any storms will slam into the state in coming months. list of alcohol or anything else acquired outside the country. It's even more basic on the Canadian side. At Rockport, a picturesque village west of Ogdensburg, the tiny Canadian customs office is open only in summer and only in daylight Private boaters arriving from the United States at other times are directed to a nearby pay phone booth where they are supposed to report in using a toll-free number.

If this sounds like a system a smuggler, or terrorist could easily exploit that's because it is. "We like to think people obey the law," says Kevin Corsaro of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. But he acknowledges, "it's hard to guarantee it" The attention of most Americans has long been focused on their southern border, which thousands of Mexicans Boaters don't just slide unheeded from Canada to the United States that is, as long as they follow rules and announce themselves. By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN Timet Senior Correspondent ST.

LAWRENCE RIVER, US-Canadian border Call it the "honor system" of combating international crime and terrorism. When private boaters enter U.S. waters from Canada, chances are there won't be any U.S. Customs officials there to meet them. Instead, they are supposed to go to a videophone like a the one at the city marina in Ogdens- burg, N.Y.

and give the home port, 0 boat registration number, the names and citizenship of all passengers and a The science isn i good enough for precise answers. But keeping an eye on the Bermuda High can help. The vast high pressure INSIDE First tropical depression could come this way. 3A INDEX Abby2E Astrology 2E Books 6P-7P Classified Comment 3P Crossword 7E, 14F, 7P Editorials 2P Entertainment 2B JobsF Letters 2P Lottery 2A Markets Movies 4E NIE Hot Spot Parimutuels 9C Also inside TV Times Comics Parade system often plays a starring role during hurricane season by helping to steer hurricanes toward the United States or benignly out to sea. And it might have an even bigger influence this year.

Timet photo SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN While there's no personal greeting from customs agents, boaters entering the United States from Canada are expected to report in. Captains use this phone box at the city marina 12 lection C20O6. Timet Publitrtmg Co. Horn to call ye: Pag 2A Please see CANADA 6A in Ogdensburg, N.Y., to register themselves. Please see STEER 11A.