Police get tip from prison card game; man arrested

FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — A prison card game dealt police the tip they needed to arrest a man in a killing that occurred nearly three years ago, authorities said Saturday.

In July, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement gave nearly 93,000 state inmates playing cards that highlight 104 of the state’s most troubling unsolved homicide and missing-persons cases.

On Friday, police arrested Derrick L. Hamilton after an inmate tipped them off about the November 2004 killing of James Foote, who was found dead with a gunshot wound to his chest in a Fort Myers parking lot. Foote’s picture and the details of his death were featured on a card bearing the seven of clubs.

An inmate at a Lake City prison told authorities Hamilton had bragged about killing Foote, WINK-TV in Fort Myers reported.

Hamilton was charged with felony murder, Fort Myers Police Sgt. Abdul Salaam said. He was being held without bond at Lee County jail. Neither police nor jail officials knew whether Hamilton had a lawyer.

Police have received other tips since the cards were handed out, but this is the first to lead to an arrest, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said.

“If one case is solved because of these playing cards, it makes the entire initiative worthwhile,” she said. “But we hope this is the first of many.”

A second deck is planned, and authorities hope to make enough for each new inmate to receive one.