Hundreds of Job Cuts on the Way at Department of Corrections

The Florida Department of Corrections honored its fallen officers Wednesday morning. The ceremony was a time to remember those who served the community with bravery.

Crowds gathered at the Wakulla County Correctional Institution, to remember the 37 officers who died on the job, in the department's history. But it wasn't too long before talk turned to Florida's looming budget cuts.

A wreath adorned with roses was presented, each rose representing an officer who died in the line of duty. "When we come on duty we face .... the unexpected. Everything that can possibly happen might happen," says 13 year employee, Sergeant Carol Lewis of the Department of Corrections.

"You have to realize that you're working with inmates. A lot of them very violent inmates. If you're not aware of that at all times, you put yourself in jeopardy," says Sergeant Laura McDonald, who has worked for of the Department of Corrections for more than 10 years.

Many say that the threat of violence and knowing people who have been injured or killed helps them to put things into perspective.

"And what's important in life are our friends, our family and our dedication to service to this community," says Walt McNeil, Secretary at the Department of Corrections.

But for some in the Department of Corrections, their dedication and service won't be needed anymore. That's because the Department is facing a $28.8 million cut.

"No matter what the odds, no matter what the circumstances, people working together as a team we will prevail and we will make sure that the citizens of Florida are safe," adds McNeil.

Officials at the Department say, they'll try to achieve that massive cut by eliminating more than 600 jobs statewide. Right now it looks like the biggest chunk will be taken out of the budget for probation's staff, but administrative positions will be cut, as well as education programs. And those cuts will go into effect in July.

Reporter: Roman Lillie

Email Address: mailto:Roman.Lillie@wctv.tv

Florida Back To The Future: Build Prisons, Cut Schools

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 6, 2008

The Miami Herald's analysis probably said it best: The big winners in the new state budget are prison builders; the big losers are public schools.

Talk about getting your priorities wrong.

When the legislative session ended Friday, Gov. Charlie Crist and lawmakers congratulated themselves for a job well done. But public schools and parents found nothing to celebrate. They know the $900 million cut in K-12 funding will hurt education when public schools begin the new year in August.

In remarks after the Legislature closed, the governor focused not on the cuts, but on having saved the state's merit-pay plan for teachers, a program used by just a handful of districts, including Hillsborough.

The merit-pay plan is not highly regarded because the way it's scored - a mix of FCAT scores and performance reviews - falls short of rewarding the most effective teachers. This year half of the finalists for Hillsborough's Teacher of the Year - including the winner - didn't qualify.

It would be far better to spend the money in ways that clearly benefit students and reward strong teachers.

Floridians deserve straight talk from the governor. Even the most optimistic among us cannot pretend our schools will be better off next year, and Crist should not suggest otherwise.

Most disappointing is that the governor promised to hold education harmless when he campaigned in January for Amendment 1, the state constitutional amendment that allows homeowners to take their property-tax cap with them when they move. Critics said the amendment's passage would hurt public education, but Crist promised education would be held harmless.

Harmless. That was his word.

Harmless. Tell that to the teachers in Pinellas County who face pay cuts and the closure of seven to 10 schools.

Harmless. Tell that to Hillsborough students who will likely see fewer librarians and school nurses, as well as overcrowding in elective classes not covered by the class-size amendment.

Harmless. Tell that to Broward and Miami-Dade schools, which will take about a third of the $900-million cut and expect to have to lay off social workers and guidance counselors.

Harmless. Tell that to the schools cutting summer school programs, school security, and art and music classes.

In Tallahassee's depressing climate, lawmakers couldn't even agree on a way to give cash-strapped districts temporary relief from class-size caps, which continue to require the construction of costly new classrooms.

None of this sounds very harmless at all.

At the same time, the state plans to spend nearly $300 million to build new prisons and, incredibly, another $86 million to operate a private prison.

Florida's prison population is expected to soar from about 96,000 inmates today, to 120,000 inmates by 2012.

Experts say the best way to slow the need for prisons is to put your money into cheaper, more humane efforts at prevention, starting with education.

This year, Florida sounded a retreat in the battle. By doing so, lawmakers failed our children.

Wrongly imprisoned Crotzer receives financial compensation from Florida

By Stephen D. Price
news-press.com Tallahassee bureau

TALLAHASSEE — Alan Crotzer has heard plenty of apologies from lawmakers and state officials for 24 years he spent in prison for crimes he didn't commit.

Today he and Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink signed the $1.25 million agreement that will put dollars behind those words. Crotzer will receive a tax-free lump sum of $250,000 and then $6,700 a month for 20 years beginning June 1 from an annuity.

"Twenty-seven years ago the state made a mistake, Alan Crotzer ended up paying for that mistake with over 24 years of his life, in pain and suffering, " said CFO Sink.

Crotzer thanked his team of lawyers, family and God for getting him to this point.

"I hope this is truly the beginning of a not-ending life for me," Crotzer said.

Frank Peterman, Secretary of the Department of Juvenile Justice, has said he is looking for a job for Crotzer in his department. Crotzer said he wants to counsel youth to stay out of trouble.

Crotzer was charged with rape, aggravated assault and false imprisonment in 1981 and eventually received a 130-year sentence. He was set free in 2006 after DNA evidence proved he was innocent.

Sink said the claims process has been made less political since the Legislature approved a bill that will allow automatic compensation for the wrongfully incarcerated. The plan includes a provision to make those with prior felony convictions ineligible for the automatic payment.

Sen. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, sponsored that bill and gave some of the credit for it passing to the attention given to Crotzer's fight for compensation.

"The fact that Mr. Crotzer was in the claims process this year helped highlight the importance in Florida seeking to do what's right," Joyner said.

Since Crotzer has a felony on his record for stealing beer as a teenager, he would not have been eligible for automatic compensation.

Crotzer, who is from St. Petersburg, said he wants to stay in the Tallahassee area and buy a house. He also promised to return to the capital next year and lobby lawmakers to refine the "clean hands" provision on the global compensation bill.

"It would make me feel good," Crotzer said.

Mystery at Boca mall: Cops seek killer of woman, child

The entrance sign to the Town Center Mall in Boca Raton, where two strikingly similar abductions occurred in 2007.

BY ANI MARTINEZ AND PHIL LONG

The two cases are strikingly similar.

The victims were abducted in their own vehicles from the parking lot of Boca Raton's Town Center Mall, near Nordstrom.

Both were women who drove black SUVs. Both were forced to drive to ATMs and withdraw money.

And they were bound in a peculiar way: handcuffed, their feet and neck bound with plastic zip ties.

Each had swim goggles, blacked out with duct tape, placed over her eyes.

The similarities end there.

In the first case, a 30-year-old woman and her 2-year-old son were left bound and gagged in her SUV about 4 p.m. Aug. 7, 2007. The woman managed to free herself and call for help.

Four months later, on Dec. 12, Nancy Bochicchio, 47, and her daughter Joey, 7, were shot in the head at point-blank range. Mall security personnel found their bound bodies in the SUV with the motor running about midnight.

Since then, a team of investigators has been sifting through hundreds of leads, in a makeshift war room at the Boca Raton Police Department.

The city of Boca Raton is offering a reward of up to $350,000.

And investigators have marshaled the power of the Internet, launching a MySpace page. At one point, they posted a video on YouTube in the hope that someone will give them the clue they need to catch a killer.

They have a composite sketch of a possible suspect.

No one has been arrested.

TAKEN AT GUNPOINT

In the first incident, the assailant was waiting.

The woman, who has since asked not to be identified, was strapping her 2-year-old son into his car seat that August afternoon when the man appeared and fixed a gun to her child's head.

''Get in,'' he said.

He turned the gun at her, and told her to drive her black Lincoln Navigator from the Nordstrom parking lot to an ATM machine, where $600 was withdrawn from her account.

He was about five feet six inches tall. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and he wore dark sunglasses and gloves. His face was covered with a floppy hat.

''Please don't kill us,'' the woman begged as they drove around. ``Take whatever you want.''

At one point, he forced her to pull over in a deserted parking lot of a Boca Raton restaurant.

He bound her ankles with zip ties, handcuffed her and fastened her neck to the headrest. He drove back to the mall, near the Sears entrance, and placed swim goggles on her, blacked out with duct tape.

Before leaving, he reminded her of what he took: ``I have your license. I know where you live. I'll come after the both of you.''

He disappeared. She wriggled free of her restraints and went to the Neiman Marcus valet, where someone called the police.

The memories of that terrifying afternoon are never far from her mind.

'There were times I thought to myself, `I'm going to die. He is going to kill us,' '' the woman said. ``As soon as I started to cry, I knew I had to hold it in for the sake of my son.''

SECOND INCIDENT

In the second incident, on Dec. 12, a surveillance video captured Nancy Bochicchio and her 7-year-old daughter entering the mall at 2:19 p.m. They were shopping for Christmas presents. They left less than an hour later, at 3:11 p.m.

Eight hours later, a security guard on patrol found Bochicchio and her daughter, Joey Bochicchio-Hauser, dead in their black 2007 Chrysler Aspen. It was parked near Nordstrom and Sears with its engine running.

Mother and daughter were shot in the head. The killer had handcuffed them, bound their ankles and neck with plastic ties, and covered their eyes with goggles blacked out with duct tape.

Bochicchio's purse with wallet and cellphone were gone.

Police are not sure what happened after Bochicchio left the mall. They did say she made a 911 call from her cellphone, but it was quickly disconnected. An operator called back, but no one answered.

Investigators say $500 was withdrawn from her account at a Bank of America ATM machine, but they won't say where or when those events occurred.

Days after the murders, two homeless men found Bochicchio's purse with her wallet, credit card and cellphone in downtown Miami.

The bindings on Bochicchio's wrists were broken. Police are unsure whether the killer broke them or Bochicchio resisted.

Friends and family members say they believe she put up a fight to protect her daughter.

''She had New York in her blood,'' her sister JoAnn Bruno said. ``She always did whatever she could to protect her little girl.''

TASK FORCE AT WORK

At the Boca Raton Police Department's training facility, the walls of a converted meeting room are covered with pictures of the victims and aerial snapshots of the crime scene at the mall.

Nine full-time members of a task force -- six from the Palm Beach County sheriff's office and three from Boca Raton police -- spend every workday combing through evidence.

They are also looking at a third unsolved case -- a murder -- as a possible link to the abductions and Bochicchio killings, even though the circumstances are different.

On March 23, 2007, Randi Gorenberg, 52, was abducted from the Town Center Mall in her black Mercedes SUV.

Surveillance tape shows her leaving the mall. An hour later, according to police, she was shot in the head and her body was pushed out of her car in a county park.

''We're told in the police academy not to take this stuff personal, to leave it behind . . . when you go home at the end of the shift,'' said investigator Matt Duggan. ``There is no way you work a case like this and not take it personal.''

VICTIM'S ODYSSEY

Nancy Bochicchio was a financial analyst on Wall Street, living with her family in the Bronx. She later moved to Long Island, where she met her future husband, Philip Hauser.

In 1999, the couple moved to a two-story home in Boca Raton. They liked the area, and family members were already there.

Bochicchio had wanted to have a child, but was devastated when doctors told her that she couldn't conceive.

But she learned she was pregnant as they were moving south. She insisted on having the baby despite doctors' warnings that she might have complications.

''Being a mother changed her life,'' said Bruno, her sister. ``That's all she lived for.''

Joey Noel, named after her grandfather, was born Dec. 20, 1999.

''She was a perfect Christmas angel,'' Bruno said. ``Nine pounds six ounces.''

Joey called Bruno Aunt Mame.

''I can still hear her calling me,'' she said. ``Aunt Mame.''

Bochicchio and Hauser divorced in 2006. He now lives in New York.

NEIGHBORS REMEMBER

In Boca Raton, the white and beige house on the corner lot is dark and empty. Neighbors say they miss the way it was elaborately decorated depending on the season.

Joey played golf, acted in school plays and loved dancing. ''She could play dolls with a 2-year-old and then talk about politics with an adult,'' Bruno said.

Joey was looking forward to celebrating her eighth birthday and seeing her father, who was planning to visit for the Christmas holidays. The father and daughter spoke a few times, but had not seen each other in several years because of the divorce.

Bruno and other family members sent balloons to heaven to say goodbye to the inseparable mother and daughter.

''Mostly, I feel like I'm in a cloud,'' Bruno said. ``I can't close my eyes without dreaming about them.''

Villages killer is youngest inmate on Florida's death row

Stephen Hudak

Sentinel Staff Writer

May 7, 2008

OCALA

A 20-year-old Marion County man convicted in the first-ever murder in The Villages became the youngest person on Florida's death row, a state corrections spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Renaldo McGirth was sentenced to death Monday by Marion Circuit Judge Brian Lambert, who called him the "primary actor" in the July 2006 shooting death of Diana Miller, 63, at her home in the affluent retirement community.

McGirth, who turned 20 on April 29, supplanted 21-year-old Jerone Hunter as the youngest person on the state's list of inmates sentenced to death, said Jo Ellyn Rackleff, a state corrections spokeswoman.

Hunter was ordered to die for his role in the August 2004 bludgeoning deaths of six people and a dog in Deltona.

Jurors who convicted McGirth of first-degree murder and other crimes had recommended death as his punishment by a vote of 11-1, a recommendation that the judge was required to give "great weight."

In a 30-page ruling, Lambert called the murder of Miller and the attempted murder of her husband, James, a crime "with no moral or legal justification."

James Miller, 71, was shot in the head at close range but survived.

Marion County sheriff's detectives said McGirth and two accomplices, Jarrord Roberts, 22, and Theodore Houston, 19, tried to rob the Millers at their home in The Villages of Springdale.

McGirth's defense lawyer, Candace Hawthorne, has called the verdict unfair and accused the Millers' 40-year-old daughter, Sheila Miller, of plotting the crime against her parents, retired corporate accountants.

Hawthorne pointed out that Sheila Miller would have inherited more than $750,000 if both had died.

The daughter, who knew McGirth from past drug deals, was living temporarily with her parents while recovering from disabling injuries she had suffered in a drunken-driving accident.

Sheila Miller denied any role in the crimes and insisted she was forced to accompany the men to an ATM, a Kmart and a Gainesville mall. Jurors acquitted McGirth and Roberts of kidnapping.

Roberts, convicted of manslaughter and robbery with a firearm, was sentenced last month to life in prison. Houston is awaiting trial on first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and other charges.

State Attorney Brad King said he does not think an appeal of McGirth's death sentence would succeed if based on age.

"The law requires that an offender be at least 18 years old, and he was," King said.

Neither James Miller nor Sheila Miller attended the sentencing.

State records show McGirth is among the youngest defendants sentenced to die in Florida since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

Reputed vampire-cult leader Rod Ferrell, who also was defended by Hawthorne, was 17 in 1998 when sentenced to die for the murders of Richard and Ruth Wendorf of Eustis. Upon appeal, his sentence was commuted to life because of his age.

The state lists 386 inmates on death row, including John Couey, 49, convicted of sexual battery and first-degree murder of 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, and Jason Wheeler, 32, convicted in the ambush and murder of Lake County Deputy Sheriff Wayne Koester.

Florida temporarily suspended executions after the botched lethal-injection killing of Angel Nieves Diaz in December 2006. The suspension is lifted, but no one has been put to death since then.




Stephen Hudak can be reached at shudak@orlandosentinel.com or 352-742-5930.

High court hears appeal in Deltona murder case

By JIM SAUNDERS
Tallahassee Bureau Chief

TALLAHASSEE -- The Florida Supreme Court heard an appeal today in the death-penalty case of Jerone Hunter, one of the men convicted in the 2004 murders of six people in a Deltona home.

The hearing marked the first time Supreme Court justices have listened to arguments about the grisly murders that drew nationwide attention and led to death sentences for Hunter and Troy Victorino.

Justices particularly focused on whether Hunter should have been tried separately from Victorino and Michael Salas, another defendant who was sentenced to life in prison.

At one point during the hearing, Justice Peggy Quince said the case had "three people basically pointing fingers at each other."

Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Nunnelley said prosecutors worked to differentiate the evidence against the defendants. He also said Hunter, now 21, admitted his guilt in the case.

Justices also asked questions about Hunter’s relationship with Victorino, who was widely portrayed as the ringleader in the case.

"Hunter’s defense (at trial) was essentially he was under the domination of Victorino, and he didn’t have a choice," said Ryan Truskoski, who is Hunter’s attorney in the Supreme Court case. Hunter was also described as schizophrenic.

Nunnelley, however, said Hunter and Victorino were “running buddies" and that Hunter was the first of the men to charge into the Telford Lane home where the people were bludgeoned to death.

"Hunter was a full and active participant in this crime," Nunnelley said.

Justices likely will not rule on the appeal for months. Victorino also has an appeal awaiting hearing in the Supreme Court.

The men were convicted in the murders of Jonathan Gleason, 17; Michelle Nathan, 19; Erin Belanger, 22; Francisco “Flaco" Ayo-Roman, 30; Anthony Vega, 34; and Roberto “Tito" Gonzalez, 28.

Along with Hunter, Victorino and Salas, Robert Cannon accepted a life sentence in exchange for his testimony, though he later refused to testify at trial.

Rollover kills unbelted boy and pregnant mother

BRADENTON A two-vehicle accident on State Road 64 in Manatee County this morning has left a pregnant woman and her child dead, highway patrol officials say.

The accident happened about 7:50 a.m. when a westbound SUV carrying the pregnant woman, another woman and seven children was cut off by an eastbound car making a left turn on S.R. 64 at 48th Street Court East, Florida Highway Patrol officials said.

Friday started off as a typically busy day for Christi Charles.

The pregnant single mother of seven children got everyone up and dressed, and loaded her six youngest into her 2002 Ford Expedition SUV.

The children needed to be dropped off at school in west Bradenton, and Charles, an assistant manager at the Kentucky Fried Chicken on Cortez Road, had to be in at 9 a.m. to prep the store for opening.

By the time she got on State Road 64, they were joined by a KFC co-worker and another youngster.

Most of the nine people in the SUV put on their seat belts, including a 2-year-old who was strapped in a child seat.

But apparently, Charles, 33, and her 10-year-old son, Christopher, did not buckle up. That oversight, police say, proved fatal when their SUV was hit by a car turning left off S.R. 64 at 48th Street Court East about 8 a.m.

The SUV rolled into the median, and Charles and her son were ejected. Christopher was pinned beneath the vehicle after it rolled. Both died at the scene.

None of the others in the SUV had life-threatening injuries; the driver of the car that collided with the SUV was also not seriously injured.

At the crash scene, shoes, papers and backpacks were thrown from the Expedition after it rolled onto its top. The vehicle's windows were shattered.

The crash shut down eastbound lanes of S.R. 64 for more than two hours as Florida Highway Patrol troopers investigated the wreck.

The other adult SUV passenger was Michelle Glass, 28, of Bradenton. The other children in the car who survived were Heather Charles, 13; Nicklaus Charles, 9; Brian Crowl, 7; Eduardo Charles, 6; Sandra Charles, 5; and Alejandro Charles, 2.

Family members and friends of the victims gathered at Manatee Memorial Hospital, consoling each other with long hugs.

Charles, who lived in Heritage Harbour, east of Interstate 75, was headed for Moody Elementary in Bradenton, which Christopher attended.

She had worked at the KFC restaurant in the 8000 block of Cortez Road West for 18 years.

"She was like a sister to me," KFC employee Michael Twiss said. "She was a great, happy, outgoing person."

Authorities say Charles and the driver blamed for the crash, Christine E. Crews, 43, of Palmetto, both had green lights.

Crews' Toyota sedan struck the Expedition on its left rear side in the right westbound lane of S.R. 64, near the entrance to the Braden River Lakes community.

An FHP sergeant, William Pascoe, said Crews was shaken up by the wreck. "This is very traumatic for her," he said.

Crews was cited for violating the right of way of the SUV. Criminal charges are not likely, Pascoe said. Crews, reached Friday night, declined to comment.

Pascoe said Crews, who was eastbound, likely misjudged the distance of the oncoming vehicle or did not see it. In the morning, the rising sun is directly in the eyes of eastbound drivers on S.R. 64 East.

'A good boy'

At Christopher's school, Moody Elementary, Principal Tom Wailand said his staff was upset, particularly Christopher's teacher. Wailand phoned the parents of the boy's fourth-grade classmates late Friday to break the news.

"He was a very well-liked young man, a lot of friends, an industrious student," Wailand said. "He was a good boy; I was glad to have him in class."

When school resumes on Monday, the district will have crisis counselors and psychologists on site to help students deal with their grief.

Christi Charles and Reyes Charles Jr. were married about 15 years and had seven children before divorcing last year, Reyes Charles Sr. said.

Christi was described as outspoken and a strong mother who adored her children and did everything within her means to provide for them.

Reyes Charles Sr. did not know if Christi routinely wore a seat belt.

He hung his head in sorrow as he spoke, lost in reflection.

"When things like this happen, it's like you don't believe it," said Charles, a plant worker at Callaghan Tire in Bradenton. "Then you realize it's true. Then you think no, no."

Even after Christi and his son had divorced, she remained close to Charles Sr. and his wife. "I know my son is going to be devastated," he said.

Charles Sr. said Christi had a big heart.

When he recently could not afford to buy medication that cost about $100, she gave him the money and told him not to pay it back.

Christopher, he said, was a happy child.

"He was funny," his grandpa said, adding that the boy liked to joke and play tricks on people.

Family friend Carol Griffith of Bradenton said Charles adored her children.

"She loved her family," said Griffith, who had known Charles and her ex-husband for about 15 years. "This was not supposed to happen. What a loss."

Police see lesson in wreck

As authorities expressed sympathy, they were also bothered that not everyone in the Expedition was buckled up. According to the Web site Internetautoguide.com, the 2002 Expedition has seating, and seat belts, for nine people.

"It's a tragedy that possibly could have been avoided," FHP Capt. John Baumann said at the scene.

A Manatee County sheriff's deputy called the deaths "senseless."

In 2006, authorities reported 2,103 vehicle fatalities in Florida in vehicles equipped with safety belts.

About 1,300 people -- nearly 62 percent -- were not wearing safety belts, according to state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicle reports.

Seat belts will not help in some crashes, depending on angle of impact and speed, said Wiley L. Howell, a former Tampa police officer who has reconstructed accidents for more than 30 years.

At high speed, the chance of a car flipping after being struck on the side increases significantly, Howell said.

And death is more likely for a person who is thrown from a vehicle than for someone who is belted in.

"The person is going to be shot out like a cannon" if not wearing a seat belt, Howell said. Windows often shatter after high-speed crashes, he said, so they do not prevent people from being ejected.

In Florida, front-seat occupants must wear seat belts regardless of age. State law holds drivers responsible for passengers under 18 who are not strapped in, according to the DOT. Children 6 to 17 must be buckled up. The penalty is a $30 fine.

People do not wear belts for a variety of reasons, Howell said. Some are in a hurry, while others feel claustrophobic.

Every year, authorities hold safety campaigns to alert drivers to the benefits of wearing seat belts. But Howell said many drivers do not think about the consequences.

"Nobody ever thinks it's going to happen to them," Howell said Friday.

Troopers could only speculate about why Charles and her 10-year-old son were not buck-led up.

One trooper said Charles, who was seven months' pregnant, might have found wearing a seat belt uncomfortable.

Herald-Tribune staff writer Christopher O'Donnell contributed to this report

Judge: Doctors to examine King's brain

SARASOTA The man accused of kidnapping and murdering Denise Lee will be examined to see if a past head injury has affected his brain function, a judge ruled Friday.

Attorneys for Michael King, 36, said in a motion that the defendant had suffered a head injury and they wanted doctors to do a test known as a PET scan. No date has been set for the test.

Experts say such injuries can change a person's personality and behavior later in life.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for King, who is charged with kidnapping, rape and murder.

Lee, 21, was reported missing from her North Port home on the afternoon of Jan. 17.

Her body was found two days later in a shallow grave six miles from her home. She left behind a husband and two young boys.

A lab has matched King's DNA to DNA found on Lee's body, according to court documents filed by the prosecution.

King is being held in the Sarasota County jail without bail. He attended the brief hearing wearing a yellow jail jumpsuit.

Earlier in the week, authorities released pictures and other documents reletaed to case.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Deputy accused of inmate sex

May 3, 2008

BARTOW

A Polk County detention deputy accused of having sex with an inmate was arrested Friday, the Sheriff's Office said.

Donald Kurns Jr., 40, who has been a detention deputy since 1993, is accused of having sex with an inmate in a bathroom at the Central County Jail in Bartow.

The inmate, whose identity was not released because she is an alleged victim of sexual abuse, said she did not want to have sex with Kurns but "went along with it because Kurns was an officer and she was afraid she would be removed from trusty status if she didn't," a sheriff's report said.

Trusty status lets an inmate earn gain time to be released from jail early and provides other privileges.

The report said Kurns admitted to the intercourse and said it was consensual.

He was arrested on charges of sexual battery and sexual misconduct between detention employees and inmates.

He has resigned, the report said.




Susan Jacobson, Willoughby Mariano, Stephen Hudak, Bianca Prieto and Amy L. Edwards of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

Florida lawmakers aim to eliminate gangs

The House and Senate passed a bill that will dole out harsher penalties.
Walter Pacheco

Sentinel Staff Writer

May 3, 2008

State lawmakers are taking a bite out of gangs by imposing harsher sentences, including life in prison for gang members; felony charges for communicating over the Internet and preventing gang members from bailing out and threatening witnesses.

The anti-gang bill, unanimously approved by the House on Thursday and previously by the Senate, is headed to Gov. Charlie Crist, who has said he will sign the bill into law.

The measure is good news for Central Florida law-enforcement officials who have counted about 6,000 gang members in the region -- or 10 percent of the state's 65,000 documented gang members.

"Frankly, this is earth-shattering legislation," Polk Sheriff Grady Judd said. More than 3,000 gang members and 40 criminal gangs call Polk County home, according to Sheriff's Office records. "The message is that we are not going to tolerate gang activity in this state. We are going to send gang members to prison for a very long time and keep them there."

Attorney General Bill McCollum, along with co-sponsors Sen. Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, and Rep. William Snyder, R-Stuart, proposed the bill in January, a week after a state grand-jury report showed gang membership and violent crime associated with gangs had increased in Florida.

Drug stings led by the Orange County sheriff's SWAT team in March and April netted 33 gang members who were trafficking cocaine. Many of those arrested were linked to homicides, home invasions, criminal racketeering and armed robbery across the state, records show.

"This really serves as a tool that not only enhances our powers in preventing gangs, but allows us to roll out a more complete strategy in the future," McCollum said.

The attorney general said he plans to unveil an anti-gang task force next month that will bring together community and law-enforcement leaders from across the state, as well as prosecutors, to create plans of action, including the collection of data on criminal gangs.

One of the key elements of the measure keeps gang members who are arrested for committing a crime in jail without bail until their initial appearance.

Statewide prosecutor Bill Shepherd said witness tampering has been an ongoing problem when it comes to prosecuting gang-related cases.

"Instead of bailing out through some formulaic standard bond system and threatening a witness, they now have to remain in jail until a judge hears the case at initial appearance," Shepherd said.

Additionally, gang "kingpins" who organize and lead criminal gang activities could face first-degree felony charges punishable by up to life in prison.

The bill considers communicating through social networking Web sites, such as MySpace and Facebook -- a popular trend among budding gangs -- a third-degree felony.

In recent years, gangs have bypassed traditional communication by turning to online sites to share photos, meeting information and planning criminal activities.

"Gangs are not only recruiting members through the Internet, but they are also committing white-collar crimes online, such as identity theft, fraud and Internet scams," McCollum said.

Officials at McCollum's office said a video titled Gangstas 'N Thugs circulated on the Internet in 2007 and showed gang members robbing and beating people.

"When you take away any organized group's ability to share information, you take away their power," Judd said. "The only thing missing from this measure is charging gang members with a third-degree felony for breathing."




Walter Pacheco can be reached at wpacheco@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-6262.

Austin teen's murderer sentenced to life in prison

By MIA SIMPSON/mia.simpson@austindailyherald.com

The jury deliberated only one hour before convicting 29-year-old Matthew Castro of murdering Austin resident Lance David Ulland, who was shot dead in March 2007 at a Florida motel in a case of mistaken identity over a bogus drug deal.

Matthew Antone Castro was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for his crime, a single count of first-degree premeditated murder.

“This defendant intended to shoot and kill somebody,” said Assistant State Attorney Leah Case, who works in Florida’s Seventh District.

“His only accident was that he killed the wrong guy,” she said.

Castro had been recently discharged from the Navy when he shot 18-year-old Ulland point-blank in the eye in what authorities called a random incident over a bad drug deal.

According to prior Herald reports, Ulland and his mother were staying in Florida’s Daytona Beach area to visit his grandfather in the region. At the night of the murder, Ulland had left for the party while his mother remained with relatives.

Reports said Ulland and friends were at the beach when they met several Navy men, including Castro, before returning to their hotel room at the Atlantic Economy Inn.

More than two dozen witnesses said they saw Castro knocking on hotel doors at the motel late that night in pursuit of someone when he reached room 127, where Ulland and his friends sat inside.

They said Ulland answered Castro’s knock, and said he recognized him. Castro then shot once him in the face.

The Jacksonville, Fla., resident was arrested not far from the motel 10 to 15 minutes later. He initially denied involvement— then claimed it was an accident — and finally, admitted he shot Ulland and showed police where the weapon was hidden.

The coroner declared Ulland dead at 3:30 a.m.

According to Case, Castro testified during the week-long trial that he was in search of a drug dealer, then the people that introduced him to the dealer, when he came upon Ulland.

“He thought Lance was one of the guys who sold him the drugs,” she said, adding that Castro also said the gun accidently discharged. “We know Lance was not involved.”

Ulland’s family members described the teen as a good person who “loved everybody.” He is survived by a fraternal twin, Erik; sister, Jessica Taft; mother and father.

Family members did not immediately return phone calls.

Baldwin prison expansion could create 500 jobs

Posted by llupo May 03, 2008 01:15AM

BALDWIN — At the round table in the Main Stream Cafe, there was no debating the big news of the week.

A Florida company's plan to re-open and expand a "punk prison" that was shuttered 2 1/2 years ago is nothing but good news for this village of 1,200 residents, cafe owner Mareo Tabiadon said Friday.

"When they left, it hurt me. It hurt us all," said Tabiadon, who opened his cafe in 2005, just before the state canceled its contract with the privately owned prison.

This week, GEO Group Inc. announced it will reopen the 500-bed facility and expand it by another 1,225 beds. The company said it plans to market the facility to federal and state agencies around the country. Groundbreaking on the $60 million expansion should begin soon and be ready for occupancy in early 2009, said GEO Group spokesman Pablo Paez.

The news is a welcome ray of hope for Baldwin, whose economy was shattered when the state canceled its 20-year lease on the "punk prison" -- the name it was given because it was designed to house the worst youthful offenders.

While it is not clear where the new prisoners will come from, Baldwin residents say they will be welcome.

Business owner James Truxton, the former village president, estimated the expansion will bring as many as 500 good-paying jobs to the area. The old facility employed 230.

"I would expect to see housing sales go back up," he said.

"People who are working for $20,000 a year now should be able to start out at $42,000 a year."

State Rep. Goeff Hansen, R-Hart, said the announcement was made possible by a 2006 state law that gave GEO more latitude in the type of prisoner that can be housed in the facility. The law changed a rule that restricted the prison to offenders younger than 18, Hansen said. The new law permits medium- and minimum-security prisoners of all ages.

"The prison was built as a maximum security prison, but I didn't want other states to send us their worst or their hardest to deal with," Hansen said.

The state law also requires GEO to return prisoners to their sentencing jurisdiction before they are released, Hansen said.

"They have to go back to where they came from."

While GEO has remained mum on the type of prisoner it hopes to place in the facility, Truxton said he has heard from "relatively reliable sources" the new prisoners may be illegal aliens who have run afoul of the law or apprehended.

"I don't think it makes any difference to the local population," Truxton said. "Prisoners are prisoners."

During the six years the prison housed youthful offenders, only one inmate escaped, Truxton said. He was apprehended within hours with the assistance of local police and residents.

"This is up north," he said. "We've all got guns. We consider a jail break to be a sporting event."

Taxpayers pick up tab for Grodin case

More than $300,000 spent since 2000

BY PAT GILLESPIE
pgillespie@news-press.com

In the eight years since Gretchen Grodin's 11-month-old body was found inside a shallow grave in south Fort Myers, taxpayers have spent a small fortune pursuing justice.

According to research by The News-Press, taxpayers have spent more than $300,000 investigating, defending and prosecuting Justin Grodin, who is charged with Gretchen Grodin's death. The 34-year-old from North Fort Myers - the girl's father - faces the death penalty if found guilty. He is scheduled for trial May 27.

Getting accurate numbers to portray cost of the case to taxpayers is difficult because no one keeps those statistics. Court spokesman Ken Kellum said that's because there are too many cases, it's difficult and there's no benefit to the court system to do so.

But Lee County taxpayers have spent nearly $85,000 to house Grodin at the Lee County Jail since 2003 and Lee County Sheriff's detectives estimate they spent about $71,000 investigating the case.

Grodin's state-funded defense has cost more than $100,000 in fees related to attorneys, doctors, travel and investigation. Taxpayers spent another $57,000 to house him at Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee for 160 days, where he was receiving psychological treatment.

The case has faced delays in the past eight years, mainly because Grodin's competency has been questioned. Competency deals with one's understanding of the court system. He was found incompetent in 2005. A judge ruled last August he is competent to stand trial.

What's unclear about the costs is how much time, and therefore money, has been devoted to Grodin in the courthouse. Kellum said it's impossible to determine how much time judges, clerks, bailiffs and other court personnel have spent on more than two dozen Grodin hearings. On top of that, judges and staff attorneys have spent time out of court considering motions, case law and making rulings.

"I can just tell you it's expensive," Kellum said. "It's probably in the six figures if not the seven figures."

But, Kellum said, the judiciary has the difficult task of ensuring fairness and justice while trying to be economically prudent. That can be frustrating, he said.

"The objectives involved in a justice system - everybody's to get a fair and equal process," he said. "Those objectives are not always compatible with saving money. That makes it tough."

Death penalty attorneys in Fort Myers charge between $250 and $300 per hour, although the rate for court-appointed attorneys is $100 per hour. The state also sets spending limits for services such as investigation and doctors.

One of Grodin's two attorneys, J.L. "Ray" LeGrande, said Grodin's defense in the private world would have cost three- or four-times as much.

"He's getting the Chevy instead of the Cadillac," he said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Killer bleeds to death on Death Row

PRISON WILLIAM CODAY CASE

A Fort Lauderdale librarian notorious for brutally killing two former girlfriends died, apparently by his own hand, on Florida's Death Row last week.

Posted on Sun, May. 04, 2008

BY JENNIFER MOONEY PIEDRA
jmooney@MiamiHerald.com
William Coday was said to be a likable guy.

The law school graduate turned librarian made friends easily, wooing women with his penchant for literature and foreign languages.

But the Fort Lauderdale man was also a killer.

Coday, who horrifically murdered two of his ex-girlfriends by repeatedly bludgeoning them with a hammer, died Monday in a Central Florida prison cell.

It is believed the 51-year-old Death Row inmate committed suicide, though autopsy results have not been released.

''I heard that he cut himself in his cell and bled to death,'' said Coday's former attorney, George Reres.

His father, William Coday Sr., had little to say about his son's unexpected death.

''I don't want to discuss that,'' he said Wednesday from his Missouri home before hanging up the phone.

Coday first made headlines in July 1997 when the body of his ex-girlfriend, Gloria Gomez, was found in his Victoria Park apartment.

Gomez, 29, had been brutally murdered -- struck with a hammer 144 times and stabbed 41 times. Her arms, neck, torso and legs were wrapped by a telephone cord.

Coday, who lured her to his apartment by saying he was dying of cancer, left clues for police. Among them: bloody fingerprints at the crime scene, Gomez's abandoned car at Miami International Airport and a trail of credit card charges and airline tickets.

Police began a massive manhunt for Coday, supervisor of the international language section of the Broward County Main Library in downtown Fort Lauderdale.

For three months he hid out in Europe, eluding authorities.

But police got a break in October 1997, when he showed up at the New York apartment where his ex-wife, Tooska Amiri, lived.

Amiri told Coday he needed to surrender. And a day later, he was arrested.

Talking about what happened -- and Coday's recent death -- is not easy for Amiri, Coday's second wife.

''I went through hell,'' she said Wednesday. ``It was very painful and I want to forget about it.''

In 2002, five years after Gomez's death, Coday went to trial on first-degree murder charges.

There was little doubt that Coday killed Gomez.

He wrote a detailed confession, saying he broke into a ''demonic rage'' because she didn't love him.

He also penned a 206-page novel about the obsessive relationship that he had with Gomez, a native of Colombia.

Jurors convicted Coday and Broward Circuit Judge Alfred J. Horowitz sentenced him to death.

It wasn't until the sentencing that jurors learned that Coday had killed before -- while studying in Germany in 1978.

Coday murdered his ex-girlfriend from college, Lisa Hullinger, by bludgeoning her with a sledgehammer. She was 19.

He served a year and a half in a German prison before he was released and returned to the United States.

Details about that killing were intentionally kept from jurors to assure that Coday would get a fair trial.

Coday's death sentence was overturned by the Florida Supreme Court in October 2006, but a judge sentenced him to die again in May 2007. He died before the state of Florida planned.

Those who knew Coday said he had a history of suicidal behavior and tried killing himself at least twice before.

At 2:45 a.m. April 28, prison guards found Coday unresponsive in his cell at the Union Correctional Institute in Raiford.

He appeared to have a self-inflicted wound and died soon after, said Gretl Plessinger, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Corrections.

The medical examiner's office in Gainesville conducted an autopsy, but those results will not be available for three months.

Hilton ordered to Florida for trial

Posted: 4:51 PM May 2, 2008
Last Updated: 4:51 PM May 2, 2008
Reporter: STAFF


May 2, 2008

JACKSON, Ga.---Gary Hilton has admitted killing Georgia hiker Meredith Emerson and is now serving a life sentence in a Butts County prison.


At a court hearing Friday, Hilton represented himself in a bid not to be sent to Leon County, Florida to face trial for the killing of another hiker in that area. The Judge ruled against him.

However, Hilton has 30 days to appeal the judge's order.

Florida officials have not said yet if they will seek the death penalty against the drifter for that crime last year.

Hilton is also a suspect in the killings of an elderly North Carolina couple.

Neighbor guilty of strangling, robbing woman

A neighbor charged with strangling a Jacksonville woman in her apartment in 2006 was convicted Friday of first-degree murder and faces a mandatory life prison sentence.

BlizzardAdam Marshall Blizzard, 30, lived next door to Catherine Mosier, 48, who was found murdered in her Confederate Point apartment in November 2006. Police used DNA and cell phone evidence to link him to the crime.

Jurors found that Blizzard stole jewelry from Mosier’s apartment and found him guilty of both premeditated and felony murder, said Assistant State Attorney Pam Hazel.

Senior Circuit Judge A.C. Soud Jr. scheduled sentencing June 6. Prosecutors didn’t seek the death penalty.

Paul Pinkham

Jacksonville man found guilty in shooting death of Minnesota tourist

Former Navy sailor Matthew Castro was sentenced to life in prison for murdering an 18-year-old Lance Ulland. He is shown here at his first court appearance in March 2007. (BARBARA V. PEREZ, ORLANDO SENTINEL / March 19, 2007)

Ludmilla Lelis

Sentinel Staff Writer

May 3, 2008

DeLAND

Matthew Castro, a 29-year-old former Navy sailor, was sent to prison for the rest of life Friday for hunting down a drug dealer who wronged him, but murdering an innocent 18-year-old Spring Break visitor instead.

The Jacksonville man was found guilty of last year's killing of Lance Ulland, a Minnesota man who died after answering Castro's knock on his Daytona Beach motel door.

A Volusia jury took just an hour to convict Castro of first-degree premeditated murder, which carries the mandatory penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Circuit Judge Frank Marriott sentenced Castro shortly after the jurors left, a few of whom cried and hugged Ulland's cousins as they walked out of the courtroom.

Afterward, Ulland's and Castro's families met outside, crying and hugging, for a moment of healing.

"We sympathize with his family," said Ulland's cousin, Stevi Smith, formerly of Orlando. "We have nothing against them at all."

Castro's family didn't speak to reporters, but Assistant Public Defender Jim Valerino said he was shocked at the verdict.

"We're very disappointed," Valerino said. "I don't believe my client intended to kill anybody."

Castro took the stand during his weeklong trial and admitted to the shooting, but said it was an accident that Ulland died at the Atlantic Economy Inn on State Road A1A on March 18, 2007.

Ulland had been in Florida for less than a day before heading to Daytona's Spring Break with Smith, her brother and other friends. It was his first time seeing the Atlantic Ocean and Ulland's group enjoyed the sights -- the Boardwalk, a car show and the beach.

That same weekend, Castro, who had recently finished a six-year stint with the Navy, spent Spring Break with his buddy. It was at the same motel where Ulland stayed that Castro met someone and bought a $50 bag of drugs, discovering later that the so-called cocaine was actually salt.

During closing arguments, Assistant State Attorney Leah Case said Castro's actions after the drug deal show he had a premeditated intent to kill.

She reminded jurors how Castro went back to his own room to get his .45-caliber gun. Then at 3:30 a.m., Castro knocked on several doors at the motel, trying to find the man who wronged him, she said.

Finally, Castro reached Ulland's room, where he asked Ulland whether he was the guy he met in the parking lot earlier, according to witnesses. Then Castro fired at Ulland.

"He's not two feet from the victim. He's not six inches. He's not 1 millimeter from the victim," Case said during closing arguments. "He has that gun pressed into the victim's face, into the victim's eye, when he fired that weapon."

Valerino tried to argue that the shooting was an accident. The defense's version was that as he faced Ulland and held the weapon, that there was an "involuntary muscle contraction" that caused Castro to fire.

Jurors apparently didn't think it was an accident and instead grappled with the fact that Ulland was not the intended target.

About 20 minutes into deliberations, they asked the judge about the definition of premeditated murder. The jury asked whether the intent to kill was enough to call it premeditated, or whether it had to involve a specific person.

That question made it clear to Valerino and Castro that the first-degree murder conviction was imminent.




Ludmilla Lelis can be reached at 386-253-0964 or llelis@orlandosentinel.com.

South Florida: Accused man in Joe Cool case blames co-defendant

May 3, 2008

One of the two men charged with murdering four people on the Joe Cool fishing vessel last year is blaming his co-defendant for the killings, according to court documents filed Thursday.

Guillermo Zarabozo, 20, of Miami, thought he was going with Kirby Archer, 36, of Strawberry, Ark., to Bimini for a private security job, according to papers filed by Zarabozo's attorneys. Zarabozo's defense is that he had no clue Archer intended on killing the crew.

Prosecutors have said the pair planned to take the vessel to Cuba and when the crew would not comply, Zarabozo and Archer executed them. Both men could face the death penalty.

Former librarian on death row likely killed himself

Associated Press

8:41 PM EDT, April 29, 2008

RAIFORD

A former Broward County librarian condemned for fatally beating his girlfriend with a hammer was found dead in his cell on Florida's death row from what appeared to be a self-inflicted injury, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections said Tuesday.

The body of William Coday, 51, convicted in the 1997 hammer slaying and stabbing of his girlfriend in Fort Lauderdale, was discovered by corrections officers about 2:30 a.m. Monday in his cell at Union Correctional Institution.

"It appeared to be a self-inflicted injury. The medical examiner will determine the exact cause of death," DOC spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said.

Coday had a history of suicidal behavior. He tried to kill himself while awaiting trial in 2000 at the Broward County Jail.

A Fort Lauderdale attorney who once represented Coday, Assistant Public Defender George Reres, said he learned the inmate's death was probably a suicide from a colleague who talked to department contacts. He said he heard the inmate bled to death from self-inflicted wounds.

"We knew he was suicidal," Reres said.

Coday confessed to planning for a month to kill Gloria Gomez in 1997 in Fort Lauderdale. She was struck 57 times with a hammer and suffered 87 stab wounds.

A jury convicted Coday of first-degree murder in 2002 and recommended a death sentence. The Florida Supreme Court overturned the death sentence in 2006, ruling that the judge shouldn't have disregarded testimony and evidence from six mental health experts who found Coday to be suffering from serious mental illnesses. The case went back to the same judge, who again in May 2007 sentenced Coday to die.

In 1978, Coday was convicted in Germany of fatally beating another woman with a hammer. He served 15 months in prison and was sent back to the U.S. to get psychiatric help.

An autopsy was performed at the medical examiner's office in Gainesville, but it refused to release a preliminary cause of death and said the autopsy report will not be available for three months.

Florida Supreme Court upholds death penalty for killers in Osceola, Polk

Woodel

LeBron

Susan Jacobson

Sentinel Staff Writer

May 2, 2008

The Florida Supreme Court moved two executions closer to reality Thursday when it upheld the sentences of killers in Osceola and Polk counties.

Jermaine "Bugsy" LeBron, 33, who was convicted of the Nov. 24, 1995, murder of Larry Neal Oliver Jr., 22, in a house near Kissimmee, had challenged his death sentence, but the court dismissed his claims.

Oliver of Belle Isle, known as Neal, was killed by a shotgun blast to the back of the head in a highly publicized case that involved strippers and Walt Disney World workers as accomplices and the theft of Oliver's customized red pickup.

Thomas Woodel, 38, also had challenged his death sentence. Woodel was convicted of stabbing to death his elderly neighbors, Bernice and Clifford Moody, Dec. 31, 1996, at Outdoor Resorts mobile-home park in the Polk County section of Four Corners.

Woodel, who confessed, was sentenced to life for Clifford Moody's killing. He received the death penalty for killing Bernice Moody, who was stabbed 56 times and beaten over the head with a ceramic toilet-tank lid, breaking her nasal bones.

Rebecca Oliver, Neal Oliver's mother, said she and her husband were ecstatic when they heard the news.

"Thank the Lord, no more trials," Rebecca Oliver said from her home in South Carolina, where she and her husband, Larry Neal Oliver Sr., moved several years ago.




Susan Jacobson can be reached at sjacobson@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5411.

Letter slams internal Orlando police probe

May 2, 2008

ORLANDO

The FBI is trying to determine who sent a letter threatening and criticizing Orlando police for the department's handling of a complaint against an officer, authorities said Thursday.

Police officers are among those being questioned, said Jeff Williams, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 25.

The letter promised violence by April 18 and was critical of the discipline meted out to Officer Fernando Trinidad. He was docked eight hours of vacation for walking over a woman who fell down stairs a year ago at now-defunct Club Paris.

The woman contended that Trinidad pushed her. A videotape shows him extending his arm toward her just before she falls.

Elizabeth Maupin, Susan Jacobson, Bianca Prieto and Kate Santich of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

Man found guilty in double killing in Orlando

Sarah Lundy

Sentinel Staff Writer

12:28 PM EDT, May 2, 2008

An Orange County jury this morning found Kenneth Mitchell II guilty of two counts of first-degree murder.

Mitchell was charged in connection with the March 4, 2006, deaths of his friends Henry "Steve" Betts II and Christopher Yarber, both 23.

Mitchell was sentenced to life in prison.

A friend found the two dead the next day in Betts' Parramore home. Both had multiple gunshots to the head at close range.

Check back for updates.

Sailor sentenced to life for killing spring break visitor

Ludmilla Lelis

Sentinel Staff Writer

3:32 PM EDT, May 2, 2008

DeLAND

A 29-year-old former Navy sailor was sentenced to life in prison after a Volusia jury convicted him of shooting a Spring Break visitor to death last year.

Matthew Castro was found guilty of first-degree premeditated murder for the death of Lance Ulland, an 18-year-old from Minnesota, who was visiting Daytona Beach with his cousins.

Castro admitted to shooting Ulland, but tried to claim that the March 2007 shooting was an accident. He admitted that he was trying to track down someone who had sold him bad drugs earlier, but that Ulland was the wrong guy.

Ulland, his cousins, and their friends had checked into a motel room in Daytona Beach and during the early morning hours of March 18, Castro knocked on their door, according to witnesses.

Ulland answered and Castro asked a single question and shot him in the left eye, at point-blank range, according to evidence.

Ludmilla Lelis can be reached at llelis@orlandosentinel.com or 386-253-0964.

Dad to go on trial for young son's death

Richard Lamar Crawford, left, listens during his pretrial hearing to his attorney, James Tarquin. Crawford appeared before Judge Willard Pope at the Marion County Courthouse on Wednesday.

By Suevon Lee
STAR-BANNER

Published: Sunday, April 27, 2008 at 6:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, April 27, 2008 at 6:20 a.m.


OCALA —Several days before his death, Coreyon Graham came home from school with two carnations. It was Valentine's Day, his kindergarten class had just had a party, and the 5-year-old wanted to present his grandmother and father with those tokens of love.

This is one of the last memories Alnethia Coley has of Coreyon, a sweet-faced child whom the 47-year-old describes as a happy, mischievous kid who, like most young boys, loved football, pizza, soda and SpongeBob SquarePants.

It seems a fitting description of a boy shown beaming in a photo, his shoelaces untied, that was taken on his first day of school.

As Coreyon's maternal grandmother and primary custodian, Coley has sought counseling to cope with her grandson's death, which occurred two years ago, reportedly as the result of a violent beating at the hands of a family member.

The state alleges it was the boy's father, Richard Crawford, 33, who killed him after Coreyon went to his home to stay over for the night. Investigators later recovered exposed cocaine, bags of marijuana and loaded firearms in the house.

Due to the heinous nature of the crime, prosecutors may seek the death penalty against Crawford, who is charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse, when his trial begins this week.

"I don't know how to feel or what," Coley said in an interview Friday regarding the tragic event. "So many things have happened."

Coley, a state witness, said she has not spoken to Crawford since the day of the slaying but, given the chance, would ask him this: What occurred that day?

According to police reports, Coreyon was dropped off at his father's home in southwest Ocala the evening of Feb. 15, 2006, for an overnight visit.

Crawford, a convicted felon, had been stripped of custody of his seven children (he may have fathered 11 more, according to state child welfare reports) due to his convictions on charges of possessing and selling cocaine, and child battery. Nevertheless, he would occasionally dote on young Coreyon, according to Coley. He bought him clothes and a miniature motor scooter, and the two would play catch together.

The boy adored his father, and couldn't wait to show him the favorable report card he had just received in school, Coley said.

The following morning, Coreyon did not show up for kindergarten at Evergreen Elementary School. Tanisha Edwards, Coreyon's cousin staying over at the house that morning, told police how she had heard Crawford hitting Coreyon with a belt in another room of the house.

Crawford then left the home. Coreyon complained to Tanisha of feeling tired and ill; she told him to go lie down in another room. A couple of hours later, she found him cold to the touch and foaming at the mouth.

The 5th Circuit Medical Examiner later determined Coreyon suffered extensive bruising to his slight 45-pound frame, possibly from a belt, and that the blows to his upper torso were severe enough to knock his heart out of rhythm.

The state plans to introduce into evidence several belts recovered from Crawford's home, according to Assistant State Attorney Robin Arnold, who will be prosecuting the case this week along with Assistant State Attorney Janine Nixon.

"It's as serious as it gets," Arnold said of the case. "Anytime the death of a child is involved, it's serious."

The lawyers also plan to bring up Crawford's disappearance from Ocala shortly following the incident, which triggered a police manhunt that ended seven months later. Crawford was arrested in Newville, Pa., where he had been hiding out at the home of his half-brother.

A lengthy pretrial hearing before Circuit Judge Willard Pope last week demonstrated the swirl of circumstantial evidence potentially surrounding the case. Crawford's defense attorney James Tarquin argued against the state's motion to exclude from trial Coley's alleged history of hitting Coreyon and her other grandchildren when they were in her custody.

"This goes to the theory of our defense. There are two other causes [to Coreyon's death]: Ms. Edwards and Mrs. Coley," Tarquin said last Wednesday. Pope reserved ruling on the motion.

Coley, who works in the field of corrections, maintains she "very seldom" spanked her grandchildren, although she freely admits to having hit her own children when they were growing up. "I have learned different techniques," she said.

The Florida Department of Children and Families, nevertheless, stripped Coley of custody of her remaining grandchildren - then ages 12, 9, and 4 - three months after Coreyon's death. The children now live at her sister's home.

"What DCF said I did, I should have been in prison. It was just their word, no doctor statements, no pictures," said Coley, who now lives alone with her daughter, Bashema James, who was Coreyon's mother.

Coley said she will be present at the trial, to the extent the court will allow her to observe due to her role as a witness.

"I just want it over with," she said.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin on Monday.

Suevon Lee may be reached at suevon.lee@starbanner.com or 867-4065.

Lawyer: Death row inmate killed himself

Published: April 29, 2008 at 1:37 PM

TALLAHASSEE, Fla., April 29 (UPI) -- A former librarian sentenced to death for the murder of his ex-girlfriend killed himself on death row in Florida, his lawyer said Tuesday.

William Coday, 51, was found dead in his cell Monday at the state prison in Raiford, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.

The Florida Department of Corrections would say only that the death is under investigation. But lawyer George Reres said that Coday bled to death after cutting himself.

Coday was convicted of killing Gloria Gomez in 1997 after she broke up with him. She was savagely beaten with two hammers and stabbed.

In the 1970s, Coday served 15 months in Germany for a similar killing. His lawyer in that case used an insanity defense.

Coday met Gomez at the Broward County Library, where he was a foreign languages librarian. After she ended the relationship, he lured her to his apartment by claiming to have terminal cancer and attacked her.

Reres said that Coday had a history of suicide attempts.

"He did have a death wish," the lawyer said.

Compensation for wrongly jailed approved

BY NICOLE BARDO-COLON AND BREANNE GILPATRICK

nbardo-colon@MiamiHerald.com

Florida lawmakers, who once kept two men wrongfully sent to Death Row waiting 22 years for compensation, voted Tuesday to make the process automatic.
The measure, which passed the House unanimously Tuesday and went to the governor, would give wrongfully imprisoned inmates $50,000 for each year spent in prison, up to $2 million.

If signed by Gov. Charlie Crist, the measure will allow former inmates to receive that money simply by petitioning the court in which they were convicted, freeing those who have been unjustly imprisoned from having to navigate the bureaucratic maze of the Legislature for years. The bill passed the Senate on a 37-1 vote last week.

''It's more than half a loaf. This is a lot,'' said Sen. Arthenia Joyner, a Tampa Democrat and the bill's Senate sponsor. ``This is the Legislature understanding Florida has a responsibility to right the wrongs of the past.''

The development of DNA testing has pushed up the number of prison inmates who are innocent, with more than 200 inmates exonerated nationwide since 1989. The latest happened Tuesday, when a Dallas man was released after spending 27 years in a Texas prison for a murder DNA evidence showed he didn't commit.

Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia provide uniform ways of offering compensation for the wrongfully imprisoned, according to the national Innocence Project, a national organization that helps wrongfully incarcerated inmates win their freedom through DNA testing.

But in Florida, where wrongfully imprisoned inmates need to petition the Legislature for compensation, the road to repayment has been paved with red tape and success is often determined by factors like the compensation bill's sponsor and the whims of legislative leadership.

As a result, the nine former inmates who have been freed by DNA evidence in Florida and asked for compensation have spent years struggling to win the money. Only two have received compensation so far. And several lawmakers continue to vote against proposed compensation bills -- known as claims bills -- as a protest against the Byzantine process.

In the best-known compensation tie-up, it took 22 years for Freddie Pitts and Wilbert Lee to be compensated.

Pitts and Lee spent 12 years in prison for two 1963 murders they didn't commit before being pardoned. They then spent another 23 years trying to win compensation from the state. They were each finally paid $500,000 in 1998.

Last year, a bill to award $1.25 million to Alan Crozter, who spent almost 25 years in prison for two rapes he did not commit, died in a bureaucratic tangle. Lawmakers approved Crotzer's money this session and Crist signed the bill into law earlier this month.

Sen. Dave Aronberg, a Greenacres Democrat and Senate sponsor of the bill to compensate Crotzer, said the current process needs to change, adding he was fortunate that the governor, Senate president and House speaker made the bill a priority. ''The claims bill process is flawed because it depends on the whims of the Legislature and oftentimes on whether someone has a good lobbyist,'' Aronberg said.

But as part of an earlier compromise, the bill does exclude those with prior felony convictions, the so-called ''clean hands'' provision. They would still have to go through the legislative claims process.

Eric Ferrero, spokesman for the national Innocence Project, said the clean hands provision is a ''fatal flaw.'' He said that of the 23 states that have compensation laws for the wrongfully incarcerated, none disqualify people based on unrelated prior felony convictions.

''They have paid their debt to society for prior convictions but society has not paid its debt to them for a separate and unrelated wrongful conviction,'' Ferrero said.

Lawmakers pointed out that under the bill that passed Tuesday, Crozter would still have been required to ask the Legislature for compensation because he was convicted of holding up a store and stealing beer as a young man.

'The major problem with the bill was the `clean hands' portion,'' said Senate Democratic Leader Steve Geller of Cooper City. ``But it's a lot better than nothing.''

Miami Herald staff writer Marc Caputo contributed to this report.

Court Upholds Death Sentence for Woodel

TALLAHASSEE The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the death sentence for Thomas Woodel, who was convicted of the 1996 stabbing deaths of an elderly couple in the Four Corners area.

Woodel, 38, was convicted of the murders of Bernice and Clifford Moody, who were slain Dec. 31, 1996, at Outdoor Resorts of America in the Four Corners area, where the Illinois couple lived during the winter. He was sentenced to death for the murder of Bernice Moody and life in prison for the murder of her husband.

Woodel was working as a dishwasher at a pizza restaurant and lived in the Outdoor Resorts mobile home park with his pregnant girlfriend.

The couple was killed in a rental unit they owned next to their mobile home. According to Woodel's confession, he said he encountered Bernice Moody as he walked home after a night of beer drinking. He told investigators he stopped to ask her what time it was and she panicked and came at him with a knife.

Bernice Moody, 74, was stabbed 56 times and hit in the head twice with a ceramic toilet tank lid, so hard that the lid shattered. As Woodel was leaving, Clifford Moody, 79, tried to block his way, and Woodel stabbed him eight times.

Woodel was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, armed burglary and armed robbery.

Polk Circuit Judge Susan Roberts sentenced him to death in July 2005, the second time that Woodel received the death penalty for the crime. Circuit Judge Robert Pyle first sentenced him to death in 1998, after a jury recommendation of 7-5, and the Florida Supreme Court overturned the sentence.

The high court said Pyle's sentencing order failed to adequately evaluate each circumstance that favored life imprisonment. The case was sent back to Polk for resentencing, and a new jury recommended death by a 7-5 vote. Roberts followed that recommendation and imposed a death sentence.

At his sentencing hearing in Polk County, Woodel's lawyer urged the court to consider mitigating factors warranting a life sentence rather than the death penalty, including the fact that childhood was marked by rejection and instability, including two years spent in a children's home. The court was told Woodel was raised by two deaf parents and that his alcoholic mother neglected him and his sister.

Death penalty mulled at forum

Michael Radelet

May 02, 2008

Michael Radelet had Ted Bundy’s ashes in his closet for several months. A little weird, maybe, but all part of a day’s job for one of the nation’s leading death penalty experts and activists.

Radelet, chair of the Sociology Department at CU-Boulder, has made it his mission to ask Amerians: Is the bang worth the buck? Are there other ways we can achieve the goals of crime deterrence and punishment, other than lethal violence?

On Tuesday evening, Radelet was joined by Sister Maureen Fenlon, national coordinator of the Dead Man Walking School Theater Project, to lead a forum in Ouray on the death penalty.

“Something has to happen to the American soul to rethink how we handle punishment,” Fenlon told audience members. “Punishment is always done in the name of the people. Do we, the people, think this punishment is a good one?”

While Radelet and Fenlon are accustomed to speaking in front of much larger audiences (Radelet’s last speaking engagement drew 800 people), Ouray High School drama teacher Nancy Nixon, who organized the forum, said that both were pleased with the modest turnout at Tuesday’s forum.

“They thought our community was receptive, and asked great questions,” Nixon said. “I just thought it was incredible. A friend told me it was life-altering for her. It was such a mixture of fact and act — a testament to the power of activism.”

Nixon organized the forum as part of the Dead Man Walking Theater Project, which culminates with student performances of the play “Dead Man Walking,” this Thursday and Friday at the Ouray School.

Radelet had to return to his duties at CU earlier this week. But Fenlon (who lives in New Orleans) has stayed on in Ouray, speaking with students at Ouray School, and leading a discussion with audience and cast members following each performance of the play on Thursday and Friday nights. Her main message is one of “activism through the arts.”

“It is the only way to provoke a discourse,” she said. “Knowledge is not enough to move people, and change history. When the human heart comes face to face with suffering; you don’t argue with that suffering. People are changed by having their hearts moved.” This, she said, is the reason she is so deeply involved with the Dead Man Walking School Theatre Project.

Radelet was trained as a medical sociologist, but soon found that “...hanging out in prisons was much more interesting than hanging out in mental institutions.”

He has since made a career out of studying the history and merits of the death penalty in the U.S., and has spent extensive time with prisoners on death row, as well as with their families.

The United States is the only western, developed country in the world which has the death penalty, (and one of only a handful of countries worldwide which executes juveniles). According to Amnesty International, in the year 2007, 88% of all known executions took place in the following five countries: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the U.S.

“These are not countries we generally share human rights goals with,” Radelet noted.

In the United States, the estimated cost of each execution varies from state to state. In Florida, as an example, it is $3.2 million, compared to the $600,000 estimated cost of life imprisonment without parole.

The proportion of Americans who support the death penalty is currently split right down the middle, according to a recent Gallup poll. Statistics indicate that it is not an effective deterrent to violent crime; states without the death penalty have lower homicide rates.

Actor, author and director Tim Robbins wrote the stage play “Dead Man Walking” in 2002 at the suggestion of death row activist Sister Helen Prejean, with the idea of having it performed for one year at several school and universities. However, the power of the story to stir discussion in local communities resulted in creation of the Dead Man Walking School Theater Project and the play continues to be performed at selected schools.

Ouray’s production is directed by Nancy Nixon, assisted by Alyssa Preston.

Cast members are Raquel King, Stephen Baker, Lyndsie Mayfield, Kirsten Hitchcox, Hannah Hollenbeck, Rachel Mhoon, Arielle Baker, Heidi Duce, Jake Abell, Kaleb Sackman, Jacob Knowles, Jake Stone, Brian Whitlatch, Peter Felde, Forrest Ruby, Tommy Stovicek and Cody Geist. The production crew is Ian Hebert, Stephanie Hanshaw, Katherine Gillis, Forrest Ruby, Tommy Stovicek, Kelsey Winfrey, Neil Pieper, Carol Hendricks and Shauna Davis.

In Memory of WILLIAM CODAY - Florida death row suicide April 2008

A friend who died before his time.


~THEN I DIED~


Freedom taken

Life forsaken

Steel bars

Painful scars

Mental strains

Concrete walls

No one hears your calls

Nothing’s fair

Hard to bear

Mind games

Nicknames

Count bells

Stair wells

Masked strangers

Constant dangers

Jingling keys

Trembling knees

Lonely hours

Faith sours

Years wasted

Hope tasted

Questions Why

Then I died….






Florida death row April 28, 2008