'He loved everybody': 2021 Sarasota hotel shooting victim missed by family, friends

It’s the 9th of the month – the day that signals a gut-wrenching pain for Amy Thompson. It was the date she lost her son to a shooting, and it’s another month – another reminder – he was taken too soon.

Colton Wright, 24, was killed in a Sarasota shooting on Dec. 9, 2021. Thompson tries desperately to keep herself together as she not only carries the burden of her grief, but also while she works to honor the memory of her son and make sure he’s remembered long after she’s gone. It’s a task that has undoubtedly been achieved, evidenced by the thousands of locals who’ve attended the Colton Wright Memorial Car Show over the last three summers, an event that raises money for an automotive scholarship at the Danville Area Community College in Danville, Illinois in honor of Colton Wright’s love of cars.

It’s important for Thompson to be able to give out scholarships through the fund long after she is here on this earth to keep Wright’s memory alive. She has been able to raise $23,000 for the scholarship fund over the last three years through the car show.

“I just want to honor his memory because Colton would have given his shirt off his back to anybody,” Thompson said. “He was just such a kind person. He loved everybody.”

Wright and his family would regularly visit the Sunshine State. He always had the travel bug, was never scared to try something new and was looking for work during the COVID-19 shutdowns. With Illinois restaurants mostly closed, he moved to Florida in July 2020 to work as a server.

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The move was marked by a rocky start after Wright was arrested in Pinellas County in January 2021 for possession of methamphetamine and driving without a license. Thompson would visit Wright several times while he was in Florida and tried to help him get his life on track. She wanted him to move back home, but Wright wasn’t ready to leave.

Then he started dating Brennan Wakey in June 2021, nearly six months before Wakey shot Wright in a hotel room at the Hyatt Place Hotel at 950 University Parkway. The two men were arguing when Wakey claimed that he fired the gun in self-defense to protect himself from Wright who appeared to be under the influence and swinging a bottle of margarita mix at him.

Wakey has been in the process of a "Stand Your Ground" hearing since February. A third hearing was scheduled for June 21, but it was unexpectedly cancelled less than 30 minutes into the start of what was scheduled to be a full-day hearing. Thompson drove more than 1,000 miles for the hearing to be rescheduled at a later date. The 28-year-old Wakey has been on supervised release since March 7, 2022, and as a condition of his release, he must wear an ankle monitor.

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After seeing delay after delay from COVID setbacks and a "Stand Your Ground" hearing that has stretched from February into June, the family’s frustration with the court system process is clear.

“I can’t even put it into words how horrible that was to be there [at the first hearing] and then have to go back again,” Thompson said. “I have to be sitting 50 feet away in a courtroom from the person who killed my son.”

While it’s been nearly three years since Wright’s death, Thompson continues to receive messages from strangers about the lovingness of her son. More than 2,300 people follow the Colton John Wright Memorial Facebook page that’s chock-full of friends, family members, classmates and strangers who were touched by his kindness and goofy sense of humor.

One of Thompson’s favorite memories of her son is the loving notes he would leave for her. She was the kind of mom who saved everything, including notes – reminders of Wright’s thoughtfulness and deep love for his mother.

“I love you, mom.”

“Have a good day!”

He always made sure his mom felt special.

“He just always looked out for me as much as I did for him,” Thompson said. “He didn’t have to look out for me, but he had that way about him. He had such a caring heart. He loved everybody, and he would hurt when somebody else hurt.”

Growing up, Wright was a huge animal lover and wanted to adopt every animal that he saw, but he settled for four pets: three dogs and one cat. Peewee, the family’s Chihuahua-Terrier that Wright talked Thompson into getting in 2008, died two months after Wright was killed. While Peewee helped Thompson get through the first two months of grief and will surely be missed, she takes comfort in knowing that Wright and his favorite dog are now together. Several family and friends have offered Thompson a new dog, but she's not quite ready.

Cassandra Smith’s husband makes a special trophy for the Colton Wright Memorial Car Show every year. The 2024 trophy is made with a vintage carburetor that was donated by a car collector and handcrafted with red flames.

Smith, Wright’s aunt, remembers the day he helped her pick out her own car so clearly. While some may think it’s time for a new car, Smith can’t part with her Chevy Equinox – it’s a piece of her nephew she’s not ready to let go of yet.

Wright got his love of cars from his father, who has always been in the automotive industry. At 10 years old, Wright bought his first golf cart on his own. As he got older, he traded the golf cart in for a four-wheeler and eventually bought his own car at 16 years old with money he saved mowing lawns, bussing tables or detailing cars.

Even though she lives about two hours away from Wright and his family, Smith has always shared a special connection with him, seeing her nephew more like a son. She credits that closeness to Wright with him sharing so much of his mom's likeness – inside and out – and with who she also was very close with growing up.

He had the best sense of humor and would always make her laugh. They would always take little trips together. One of her favorites is going to Indiana Beach, a small amusement park in the area. They would relish the junk food, go on rides and have a blast.

Anytime a certain song, birthday, our Christmas – Colton’s favorite holiday – rolls around, it brings a wave of grief and sadness for Smith.

“I know it can happen in any family, of course, but we just cannot believe that this happened to somebody in our family – much less Colton,” Smith said. “It was just so shocking, and it still is that he’s not here.”

Chandler Randolph quickly hit it off with 19-year-old Wright while they both worked seven days a week at Giordano’s in Champagne, Illinois in 2016. They were together every day for four years and became close. While the two friends had times where they would disconnect, they would reconnect just as quickly with Wright coming over to Randolph’s house and staying for days at a time. When Randolph moved down to Florida in 2020, he followed suit.

At times the friendship was riddled with tension and frustration. Wright was on his sobriety journey and living with Randolph following an arrest in Pinellas County. She wanted to help him get his life together, but it was hard for her, as she was trying to take care of herself and her own mental health while also helping a friend who was navigating a difficult time.

After living with Randolph for a month, Wright moved in with Wakey and began abusing drugs again, Randolph said. The good friends shortly moved to not being on speaking terms. Randolph would still check on Wright and seek updates from Wakey on his sobriety and overall well-being.

Randolph is no stranger to the fallout of addiction and was wary of maintaining a friendship with Wright while he was continuing this path, but she still cared about him and wanted to see him get better.

In her grieving process, she’s learned to compartmentalize the good times and the difficult ones, and she chooses to remember Wright for the good – the times they went camping in Shelbyville and kept everyone up because they were laughing so hard; the way he called birds Pterodactyls and their multi-day sleepovers. Whenever she’s missing him, she puts that energy into giving love to Thompson. She’ll send her things for Mother’s Day and Wright’s birthday.

“That's how I've learned to cope with it,” Randolph said. “When I'm upset about him and what's been done to him, I just try to give Amy that love because she's the one that's here, and she's the one that's hurting the most.”

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: 'He loved everybody': 2021 Sarasota hotel shooting victim greatly missed