VERO BEACH — A 26-year-old woman who was speeding and weaving out of traffic on Interstate 95 is guilty of vehicular homicide of two motorcyclists she hit along the roadway.

A jury deliberated for a hour Wednesday afternoon before finding Dominique Brice, of Miami, guilty of killing the motorcyclists parked along the northbound lanes on Feb. 29, 2008, near the juncture of Indian River and St. Lucie counties. (more…)

PALM CITY — A 64-year-old motorcyclist died after a Toyota Tundra collided with his bike Thursday on Martin Downs Boulevard near the Florida’s Turnpike entrance, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

Thomas M. Niebauer, of Palm City, was driving a 2005 Suzuki east on County Road 714 about 6:15 p.m. as Theresa M. Finnegan, 47, of Port St. Lucie, drove a 2008 Toyota Tundra west. (more…)

FORT PIERCE — After hugging friends and family as a panel was removed from the front door, Neha Patel nervously walked into A & M Discount Beverages at 9 a.m. Tuesday morning and took her place behind the counter, the same place where her husband, Parag C. Patel, was killed during a Sept. 4 armed robbery.

But the counter in the reopened store now is topped with thick, bullet-proof glass, one of the safety measures the Patel family installed at the suggestion of Fort Pierce police.

“I’m a little nervous,” Neha Patel said from behind the glass. “But I feel safe. There, for a while, I didn’t think I was going to make it; but I got so much support from my friends and family and customers that I decided to reopen the store.”
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FORT PIERCE — Shelitta Woods calls the past six months “miserable.”

“You got to understand, it’d been like 13, 14 years before I had another child,” Woods said. “It was just me and Lil’ Bo, just me and Lil’ Bo, everywhere I go, me and Lil’ Bo.”

Woods’ 16-year-old son, Torenda “Lil’ Bo” Youngblood Jr., was fatally shot at his bus stop March 9, two days after Demetrius Wells, 18, sustained fatal wounds in a drive-by shooting. Two men also were hit by gunfire during separate shootings between the homicides. (more…)

A former Jupiter Island Town Commissioner died Monday in Rhode Island in what police there are investigating as a possible suicide.

Finn Caspersen, 67, was found dead Monday at the Shelter Harbor Golf Club in Westerly, R.I. from what police believe is a self-inflicted gunshot wound, said Westerly police Capt. Edward St. Clair.
Caspersen a philanthropist, was first elected as town commissioner in Jupiter Island in 2005. He resigned on Aug. 4. Caspersen also had a home in the Shelter Harbor Golf Club where he died.

“As a public servant, policy-maker and overall gentleman, Finn Caspersen exceeded every standard of good measure,” said Jupiter Island Mayor Charles Falcone. “Stoic and soft-spoken, he did a lot of listening during town meetings before carefully weighing in with insight and informed expertise.”

An assistant reached at Knickerbocker, LLC said the family did not want to comment. No funeral information was available.

Caspersen served as the chief executive officer for the Beneficial Corp., a major financial holding company, from 1976 to 1998. More recently he was serving as the chairman of Knickerbocker, a private management company that oversaw numerous trusts and foundations. Caspersen personally donated money to Harvard Law School in Massachusetts as well as the Morristown Memorial Hospital, and schools such as the Peddie School and the Drew University Caspersen School of Graduate Studies, all in New Jersey

Longtime friend Tom McNicholas described Caspersen as “approachable and genuine” and said: “Each time I would refer to him as Mr. Caspersen he would peer over his glasses, softly chuckle and say, ‘Call me Finn.’ He was a friend and always fair to everyone.”

As a town commissioner, Caspersen was pushed for a town referendum on whether to bury power lines on the island underground. He also got involved in Martin County’s contentious debate over real estate development, paying $17,000 out of his own pocket in 2006 to bankroll a phone survey of 500 Martin County residents about their views of population growth. He also created a political action committee, Keep Martin green, that ran advertisements opposing rapid growth in the county.

“Finn had strong convictions towards protecting our environment and he invested a lot of his own money and time to support local causes like Keep Martin Green which focused on smart growth and environmental protection,” McNicholas said.

This is the second longtime Jupiter Island official to die in recent months. Town Manager Joe Connolly, a friend of Caspersen, died of Lou Gehrig’s disease just days after Caspersen resigned from the town commission in August. Deputy Town Manager Gene Rauth said the town is considering a memorial to Caspersen.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

ST. LUCIE COUNTY — St. Lucie County Health Department officials confirmed Thursday the county’s first death from H1N1 flu, commonly called the swine flu.

Jason Christopher Schenck, 23, of Port St. Lucie, died Tuesday at St. Lucie Medical Center from the H1N1 virus, his family said.

“He had more friends than I knew he had, and he was just a good kid. He was a good all around kid. He was very polite,” father Clifford Schenck said. “They’re (Jason’s friends) calling me and telling me that Jason was the only one they could talk to and they know he would listen.”

Schenck suffered from asthma his entire life, Clifford Schenck said. And that condition along with several bouts of pneumonia left scars on the young man’s lungs and made him susceptible to the virus, his father said.

Clifford Schenck said his son, who had been in the hospital since Aug. 15, became ill after attending a concert with friends in West Palm Beach. None of his friends have reported feeling sick, his father said.

“When we took him in on the 15th, when he got admitted, his fingers were turning purple and his toes from lack of oxygen,” Clifford Schenck said. “I don’t care if you’re 23 or 70 years old, you don’t need to go out with this because it eats you up.”

The public shouldn’t panic with the county’s first death from the swine flu but practice good hygiene skills, said Arlease Hall, St. Lucie County Health Department spokeswoman.

“It’s imperative that if you sneeze or cough, to do so in your sleeve and not in your hands,” she said. “Wash your hands, and if you are sick, please, just stay home.”

Known as swine flu, H1N1 is a unique strain of the influenza virus that emerged this spring first in Mexico and now is widespread throughout the United States.

“I can tell you, if someone has flu symptoms, it is almost certainly H1N1,” said Karlette Peck, epidemiologist for the St. Lucie County Health Department.

Symptoms include fever, chills, aches, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and fatigue.

People most at-risk: pregnant women, infants and children and those with chronic health conditions, including morbid obesity.

People born before 1957 seem to have some immunity to the H1N1 strain.

Like any flu virus, H1N1 is spread person-to-person through droplets.

Staff writer Hillary Copsey and WPTV contributed to this report.

By Keona Gardner, TCPalm.com

STUART — Described as a loving father and caring person, Jerome Hutchinson was found early Monday morning face down on the sidewalk leading to his East Stuart residence.

The 24-year-old man had been shot in the chest, the second to die in an exceptionally violent weekend in Stuart. The first was Michael Morrison, 43, found early Saturday morning on his back next to his Jeep at The Crossings at Indian Run Apartments less than four miles away.

Morrison also had been shot in the chest, but police haven’t found a nexus between the two killings, police spokesman Sgt. Marty Jacobson said Monday.
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VERO BEACH — Officials said they’re still investigating the cause of death of a Hialeah man found Saturday in the pool at a resort hotel owned by pop star Gloria Estefan and her husband, Emilio.

Enrique Perez, 69, was vacationing with family at Costa D’Este in the 3200 block of Ocean Drive, police spokesman Officer John Morrison said.

About 2 p.m. Saturday, Kelly Wakeman, 24, of Tallahassee said she was sitting at the side of the pool when she and others noticed Perez submerged, face down and not moving in the 6-feet, 6-inch depth area of the pool.
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FORT PIERCE — After Julia Rolon-Estrada died of a gunshot wound to the artery in her leg on July 26, 2006, she was wrapped in a blue tarp and again in a green blanket before being buried in the yard of her Port St. Lucie home, near a rear sliding glass door.

A dog trained to find cadavers helped authorities locate the newly tilled grave, which was covered with a wooden pallet holding 20 mulch bags stacked on top.

Rolon-Estrada’s jailed husband, 43-year-old Albert Estrada, state prosecutors say, is the man guilty of killing his wife and high-school sweatheart, who had walked out on him the night before she died at age 39.
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A young man was found shot to death face down on the sidewalk leading to his Stuart apartment overnight.

Stuart police report they were called at about 12:03 a.m. to 931 Nassau Ave. for reports of shots fired in the area. They found 24-year-old Jerome Hutchinson sprawled on the sidewalk with a gunshot to the chest. He died there, police report.

Witnesses said they heard three gun shots and saw three or four men run from the scene. Those witnesses said they men then jumped into a silver Ford Escort with tinted windows and “some type of black stripe designs down the sides of the car” and sped away, police reported.

Anyone with information is asked to call Det. Mike Gerwan at 772-220-3918 or Treasure Coast Crime Stoppers at 1-800-273-8477.