Posted May 18, 2010 at 10:11 a.m. , updated May 18, 2010 at 1:18 p.m.
By WILL GREENLEE

John Wilson

“That woman deserved to die a long time ago,” Wilson told Port St. Lucie police. The 29-year-old man said the best stab was “the stab where she stopped breathing.”

Those were among the details in Wilson’s arrest affidavit, released Tuesday, on a first degree murder charge in connection with the Monday slaying of his 56-year-old mother, Patricia.

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OKEECHOBEE COUNTY— Deputy Sarah Green is a mother and grandmother, so she’ll never forget April 21.

Green was sent to do a welfare check on 2-year-old Lilly Harden. Someone opened the manufactured home door on Highway 98 and told Green the little girl and her mother weren’t home.

The deputy went inside anyway and noticed a closed bedroom door.

Lilly Harden was in that bedroom. Deputies think she’d been left there to die.

“Her head was hanging back because she couldn’t support,” Green said. “She was lifeless, limp, just nonresponsive.”

Lilly is now slowly recovering at St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach. Doctors say she’s suffering from Shaken Baby Syndrome.

“This is a beautiful little 2-year-old girl, small for her size, about 20 pounds maybe,” said Green. “And right now, she’s being deprived of the right to be a normal little girl. To skip, to jump, to use her imagination.”

Lilly’s mother’s live-in boyfriend, 26-year old John Coleman, is charged with aggravated child abuse and child neglect.

The arrest affidavit details the abuse.

Coleman told detectives he paddled Lilly on several occasions, using a belt or makeshift paddle. Coleman said he would also force the little girl to stand in the corner on one foot as punishment, according to the affidavit.

The report continues, stating Coleman would smear dirty diapers in Lilly’s face as punishment for not using the bathroom.

Coleman told deputies that, on the night of April 21, he was tossing Lilly in the air. He threw her up so high, she hit her head on a wooden beam and was knocked unconscious.

Coleman put Lilly in her bed and later tried to wake her up by shaking her, the affidavit stated.

Investigators say Lilly’s mother, 28-year old Amanda Ashby-Harden, never reported the abuse. She’s charged with child neglect.

Detective Ted Van Deman choked up when describing the case.

“She had significant abuse, significant,” he said. “This is the worst I’ve seen.”

Van Deman said doctors aren’t sure if she’ll ever fully recover.

Lilly’s grandmother said she showed significant improvement Wednesday. The little girl woke up and started talking for the first time since April 21.

Her family said in a statement, “Lilly is improving on a daily basis. She has a long recovery ahead of her. At this time she is awake, has limited control of all extremities and is unable to see. It is unknown at this time if and how much vision will return.

“Her recovery is measured in baby steps and we have a lot of baby steps to go.”

The family has set up a trust fund to help pay for Lilly’s medical expenses.

Donations can be made to the Fraternal Order of Police Officer Assistance Fund at any Seacoast National Bank.

Donations also can be sent to 4351 Hwy 441N, Okeechobee, Fla., 34972. Make checks payable to the Fraternal Order of Police Officer Assistance Fund.

Motorists who use portions of South U.S. 1 and Prima Vista Boulevard as a racetrack might want to reign in their driving Wednesday during the afternoon commute and into the evening.

The St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office for four hours beginning at 4 p.m. will resume “Operation Sundown,” an intensified traffic enforcement focus. The effort’s first phase, which involved representatives of the Port St. Lucie Police Department and Florida Highway Patrol, happened two weeks ago. (more…)

FORT PIERCE — A St. Lucie County Sheriff’s deputy is under investigation for possible jury misconduct after a mistrial was ordered Thursday in the felony case of a Fort Pierce man when jurors revealed they discussed the case with the bailiff during deliberations, according to court records and sheriff’s officials.

Deputy George King, who joined the court security unit in 2001, was accused Thursday of interacting with jurors during a smoke break, which included using a pen to demonstrate a point, St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Garry Wilson confirmed this week.

“It’s too early for us now to know what steps will be taken,” Wilson said, “but we are looking into it … to try and get to the bottom to all the circumstances that were involved in this situation.” (more…)

STUART — Authorities are looking for a man who stole more than $6,000 in cash and checks from a convenience store Friday.

Employees at the Stuckey Shell station in the 8000 block of Southwest Jack James Drive, Stuart, called deputies about 11 a.m. Friday after the theft. An employee said she had been counting cash and preparing to load an ATM machine when she left a rear office at the store for a few minutes. When she returned, a plastic bag with the cash was missing, according to the incident report.
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A Sebastian woman remained in custody Tuesday in Brevard County after she roughed up and robbed someone she was partying with and threatened to arrest him, though she is not a law enforcement officer, according to an incident report.

Dawn Leigh Kravis, 31, of the 1000 block of Roseland Road, Sebastian, was charged with robbery with no weapon, kidnapping and false imprisonment of an adult and fraudulently impersonating a law enforcement officer in the commission of a felony. She was being held at the Brevard County Detention Center in lieu of $48,000 bail.

A 53-year-old man who lives in the 9100 block of U.S. 1, Micco, called the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office about 6 a.m. Saturday and said Kravis had robbed him, the report said. He told deputies he had been partying most of Friday and early Saturday with Kravis and another woman, the report said.
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INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — A year after Sheriff’s Office employees got a $1,000 bonus in lieu of raises from retiring Sheriff Roy Raymond, current Sheriff Deryl Loar is expected to give at least some of them a bigger bonus, as much as $1,600 each.

It’s the product of an unusual situation, sheriff’s Comptroller Harry Hall said Monday. He said he expects to have $747,000 unspent at the end of the month.

Some of the savings, he said, came from budgeting $3.48 per gallon last fall for patrol cars’ gasoline and seeing prices drop to $1 less. And there haven’t been as many jail inmates hospitalized, he added.

“It’s like the planets all lined up,” Hall said. “It’s unrealistic to think this can continue (in future years).”
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ST. LUCIE COUNTY — After weeks of police officer training in a classroom, Indian River State College students move on to a small platform that provides a high-tech simulation of how they react in a real-life situation.

They’re given a weapon that only emits lasers and equipped with a belt that zaps them if they put themselves in danger.

“It teaches consequences if they make bad decisions,” Stephen Huntsberger, associate dean of Public Service Education for IRSC, said of the VirTra Systems simulator at the complex.

The simulator is one of the planned demonstrations at Friday’s public open house at the new Indian River State College Public Safety Complex.
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STUART — It was “bizarre” for Martin County Sheriff Robert Crowder to repeatedly pat the short, spiky haircut of Detective Jennifer Heard, her lawyer said, and he expects Heard’s sexual harassment complaint to lead to a federal discrimination suit.

“We fully expect to file a lawsuit and just litigate the matter,” said Justus Reid, a lawyer representing Heard. “The overall theme will be gender discrimination and, in effect, sexual harassment that went on in the department.”

Heard filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in May alleging the sexual harassment against her began shortly after she was hired in September 1996 and continued for the next 12 years in the form of sexual advances, catcalls and a suggestive nickname. She also accused Crowder of belittling her by patting her on the head.
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FORT PIERCE — A St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office deputy was arrested Sunday on a DUI charge after she reportedly was seen weaving in traffic and stumbling when she exited her sport utility vehicle, according to an affidavit released Monday.

Two breath tests measured 49-year-old Consuela Hall Curtis’s blood-alcohol level as 0.144 and 0.153 percent — greater than the legal limit of 0.08 percent. Curtis is a court security deputy who joined the Sheriff’s Office in 2003, according to the Sheriff’s Office. She was off duty in her personal vehicle at the time.

An off-duty sheriff’s sergeant saw Curtis driving west Sunday afternoon on Okeechobee Road from Interstate 95, noting her GMC SUV was weaving and cutting across all lanes of traffic.
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