PORT ST. LUCIE — Kyle Wahl, 5, Tuesday night lost his battle with medullohblastoma, a type of brain cancer.

Kyle is the son of Chris Wahl, 33, and mother Sasha, 30, of Port St. Lucie, and was featured in Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers by columnist Geoff Oldfather.

Kyle Wahl, 5, break dances during a holiday party in Dec. 2008. Photo by Damien Higgins.

STUART — A Boy Scouts employee accused of illegally dumping a motorboat in a lake at the Tequesta camp where he works will serve one more day in jail after pleading guilty to a felony littering charge.

At a brief hearing Monday, Circuit Judge Steve Levin sentenced Harlan Pierce, 62, of Tequesta to two days in jail, with credit for one day already served. Pierce told Levin he will serve his day on Feb. 17. If Pierce reports to the Martin County jail by 6 a.m., he will be released by 9 p.m., Levin told him. (more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — A woman got a notice to appear in court after her 8-year-old son found part of her suspected marijuana blunt and her cigarette pack in his backpack and told a bus driver, according to a police report released Monday.

The bus driver on Friday told an officer that the boy indicated he found a pack of Newport cigarettes in his book bag. In the pack, the officer spied an apparent “used marijuana cigarette blunt roach,” the report states. “Blunt” is usually used to describe a cigar or cigarette in which the tobacco is replaced by marijuana. (more…)

STUART — For the kids at the East 10th Street Recreation Center, shooting hoops or playing football for the Stuart Hornets is all a part of growing up.

Taking a few swings with the bat or playing soft toss on the diamond is not, a reflection of baseball’s diminished grasp in some areas of the country especially those populated by black youth. (more…)

Opening arguments are expected to begin today in the federal death penalty trial surrounding the 2006 slayings of a young Greenacres family of four along Florida’s Turnpike.

A panel of seven men and five women was picked Monday to decide the drug conspiracy case against Danny Varela, Liana Lee Lopez, Ricardo Sanchez and Daniel Troya. Jurors could impose death sentences against Sanchez and Troya, who are charged in the killings of the Escobedo family. (more…)

SEBASTIAN — A former Sebastian River High School teacher won’t face molestation charges after a Circuit Court judge accepted a settlement deal late Wednesday.

The Indian River County Sheriff’s Office in May charged Aaron Scott Fusselman, 26, of the 7900 block of 100th Avenue, Vero Lake Estates, with a lewd and lascivious act on a person between 12 and 16 years old. The charge followed the accusations of a 15-year-old female student, authorities said. (more…)

Tristan Allegra

PORT ST. LUCIE — Students and staff at Mariposa Elementary School remember Tristan Allegra, 8, “very kind and helpful, cool and funny,” according to a counselor who helped them cope with the third-grader’s Christmas Day death.

“Tristan was a popular kid, very well-liked,” said Robert O’Neill, a St. Lucie County School District psychologist, one of three counselors who went to the school Monday and Tuesday as classes resumed after the holiday break.

Sign Tristan’s guest book.

According to a Port St. Lucie Police Department arrest affidavit, Tristan died after his mother, Eryn Allegra, of the 2200 block of Southeast Bowie Street, smothered him in his sleep early Christmas morning in a hotel room. She is held without bond on a charge of first-degree murder.

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FORT PIERCE — An 11-year-old boy accused of hitting his mother in the head with a saw before offering her $5 not to call police is facing an aggravated battery charge, according to a St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office report released Thursday.

The altercation happened Wednesday morning in the 1700 block of Wyoming Avenue after the boy and his 41-year-old mother argued as she tried to get him to take his medication. Following the argument, the boy bicycled to the Wyoming Avenue address, where he apparently started hitting a tree with a saw.

The mother followed him but he still wouldn’t take the medicine. He raised the saw and hit his mother, who had a minor laceration, on top of her head.

“When he saw the blood coming from her head he threw down the saw and started to plead with the victim to not call the police,” the report states.

He reportedly offered a $5 bill to his mother if she didn’t notify authorities. (more…)