Port St. Lucie’s next biotech institute is one step closer to reality.

Oregon Health & Science University’s Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute signed a deal this month to design and build its new $30 million laboratory in the Tradition development west of Interstate 95.

The institute tapped Baltimore-based Whiting Turner Contracting Co. to oversee construction of the 105,000 square feet of laboratories and offices. The building is on target to be completed in May 2011, said Andrew Favata, vice president for Tradition’s developer, Core Communities LLC.

VGTI Florida, as the local campus has been dubbed, will be built on eight acres at Core Communities’ Florida Center for Innovation at Tradition, a fledgling research park that’s now home to another biotech outfit, the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies. (more…)

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…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — A Port St. Lucie woman is facing a felony charge of aggravated domestic assault after being accused of threatening her brother with a sword during an argument Saturday, according to an arrest affidavit from the Port St. Lucie Police Department.

The brother told investigators his sister, Vishma Maharaj, of the 4500 block of Southwest Yamada Road, pulled out a sword and said “she was going to cut him” while they were arguing, the report said.

Family in the house supported the brother’s statement, the affidavit said. According to the report, the brother said he was in fear for his well being.

The affidavit said Maharaj previously had threatened people with swords.

Maharaj was transported to the St. Lucie County Jail and later released on $5,000 bond.

By Staff reports, TCPalm.com

SEBASTIAN — Police said they have found the mummified remains of a woman who had been missing for as much as six years in a home where neighbors complained of a foul smell.

Penelope Jordan, 61, of the 500 block of Wimbrow Drive, was charged Monday with fraud and theft by the Sebastian Police Department. Investigators are still looking into the circumstances of the death of Jordan’s mother, Timmie Jordan, who was born in 1913. Police said Penelope Jordan had been cashing her Social Security checks for the past six years.

Code enforcement had been called to the home Friday for complaints of bad odor, poor living conditions and numerous cats, said police spokesman Steve Marcinik.
(more…)

Aaron W. Benson

Last Wednesday Michael Williams reported to Martin County Sheriff’s deputies that someone had burglarized his Hobe Sound mobile home when he was out at work. When he returned, Williams said he found a safe, money, jewelry and blank checks were missing.

Michael B. Williams