VERO BEACH — New Orleans resident Lionel Sims broke a hole in his roof to be rescued from Hurricane Katrina’s devastating flood waters in August 2005, but he had to leave behind a best friend, his dog Peanut.

Rescuers said they couldn’t take the dog.

Sims didn’t know if Peanut was dead or alive for about two months, until an American Red Cross volunteer tracked it to the Humane Society of Indian River County and Vero Beach.

And the two were reunited.
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STUART — Elise Schifano adopted 3-year-old Rudy in January and says the miniature collie has been part of the family ever since.

Sixteen days ago, though, when Schifano was taking Rudy to the vet, she opened the car door and he made his get-away.

He has been missing ever since.
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John Christopher Woods is hoping his photos and additional information about his birth parents he has been able to extract from the Florida Department of Children and Families will trigger memories in someone on the Treasure Coast, maybe even his mother or siblings.

Woods, born Jan. 16, 1961, at Martin Memorial Hospital, said he feels he is creeping closer to identifying and perhaps meeting his birth mother, but her name and location are still elusive. His mother was 24 when she gave birth to him and then gave him up for adoption. (more…)

HUTCHINSON ISLAND — Ever since Steve Weaver built his three-story, 5,772-square-foot waterfront home on Thumb Point Drive in Fort Pierce, neighbors have balked at its size.

Now several of Weaver’s neighbors want city officials to revise the South Beach Overlay District to restrict anyone else from being able to build a three-story house in low-density residential zones on the beach.

“It’s really a problem of three-story houses in a one- and two-story neighborhood,” said Thumb Point resident John Wolsiefer, who lives two doors down from Weaver. “Three-story houses overwhelm the neighborhood.”
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Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 people in the Oklahoma City bombing

A jury has sentenced Ricardo Sanchez Jr. and Daniel Troya to death for killing the Escobedo family of four along Florida’s Turnpike in St. Lucie County.

The federal death penalty is different from the state of Florida’s death sentence in many ways.

Only 51 inmates are on federal Death Row in Terre Haute, Ind. Florida houses 392. Crimes punishable by the federal death penalty include genocide, killing witnesses, in a trial, terrorism and murder committed as part of a drug enterprise.

Florida has executed 67 men and women since the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976. The feds have executed three men since Congress reinstated it in 1988. Some of the more famous of those executed were Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, convicted of sabotage for selling atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.

Here’s some of those executed since 1927:

James Horace Alderman

1927: James Horace Alderman, known as “King of the Rumrunners,” was intercepted by a Coast Guard vessel 30 miles off Florida’s coast. His boat was laden with alcohol during the era of Prohibition. As Alderman boarded the vessel, he pulled out his pistol. When two Coast Guardsmen and a Secret Service agent rushed him, he shot them all dead. Later, his execution was scheduled for the Broward County Jail, but the county wanted it to occur on federal property. So a makeshift gallows was erected at the Coast Guard hangar.

“When this is read I will have passed over the brink of eternity into the Great Beyond. “I would like to state through the medium of The Miami Herald that I am feeling fine, physically, mentally and spiritually. With the wonderful comfort and strength that I received from Jesus Christ, I am assured that when tomorrow comes I will go with smiles of comfort on my face. … “As I sit here in my cell I can look back and see just what caused me to be where I am today. Drunkenness first starts a young man to gambling — and swearing grows on him — and from that step he becomes hardened in his heart in envy and hatred toward mankind. Then, as he grows up, he becomes what you would call educated to crime. Bootlegging and smuggling is the next step. And there are other angles of downfall that lead to the devil. “The money I made neither did me nor my dear family any good. We thought it did, but no. You can see what it has done — a death sentence by hanging — and a broken-hearted family.”

Read the 1929 Time magazine account of his hanging, here. (more…)

FORT PIERCE — A Port St. Lucie woman who forced her adopted children and young adults to sleep on a storage room floor, will spend most, if not all, of the next 20 years in prison, according to TCPalm.com.

Judith Leekin, 63, pleaded no contest late Wednesday afternoon to four counts of aggravated child abuse and four counts of aggravated abuse of disabled adults — some which have mental and physical disabilities.



Circuit Judge Robert Belanger, calling Leekin’s actions “reprehensible,” sentenced her to 20 years in prison, the maximum term called for under a negotiated plea.

Florida law requires Leekin to serve at least 85 percent of her 20-year term.

Belanger allowed roughly the first half of Leekin’s sentence to run concurrently with a 10-year, 10-month term she received in New York City last year for defrauding that state’s adoption system out of $1.68 million that was supposed to go toward taking care of the adoptees.

For more on this story, see www.tcpalm.com