VERO BEACH — A Stuart man was killed early Saturday morning in a two-vehicle accident at the intersection of Eighth Avenue and 21st Street, according to Vero Beach police.

A preliminary investigation into the 12:44 a.m. accident indicates Joshua Mulhern, 26, of Port St., Lucie, was northbound on Eighth Avenue in a 2002 Kia and failed to yield the right of way to a 2002 Chevrolet truck driven by Jason Hatley of Sebastian that was westbound on 21st Street, according to a police news release.

The truck hit the side of Mulhern’s vehicle, instantly killing the passenger, Geoffrey Robbins, 28, of Stuart, police said.
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FORT PIERCE — Two men arguing while on Okeechobee Road in Fort Pierce Saturday night died after being hit by a vehicle, according to a Florida Highway Patrol report.

The Fort Myers News-Press is reporting Monday morning that the men were soldiers traveling to Southwest Florida to surprise their families before being deployed by the U.S. Army to Iraq.

Joshua Thomas Baker, 24, of North Fort Myers, and Jonathan Wendell Peterson, 21, of Fort Myers, were in the inside lane when the front of a westbound vehicle struck them, according to the report. Baker was thrown into the inside lane and Peterson was thrown into the grass median.
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ST. LUCIE COUNTY — A 25-year-old Fort Pierce resident was killed Saturday night in a three-vehicle accident in northern St. Lucie County, according to a Florida Highway Patrol report.

Juan Alberto Lopez was northbound on King’s Highway just before 10 p.m. when he lost control of his vehicle about 500 feet south of Palomar Parkway and crossed into the southbound lane into the path of two vehicles, according to the report.

The first vehicle, driven by Port St. Lucie resident Lacy Catherine Mahon, 17, swerved and hit the left front of Lopez’ vehicle. Mahon and her passenger, Fort Pierce resident Taryn M. Horvath, also 17, sustained minor injuries.
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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…)

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Theresa Caputo of Stuart, in black, hugs another woman Wednesday at the scene of a memorial that was built along Cove Road near Stuart. Caputo, a mother of three, said her children all knew and grew up with those killed. (DEBORAH SILVER/Treasure Coast Newspapers)

A few teenagers in board shorts and T-shirts lifted their sunglasses just long enough to wipe away their tears and hug one another in the grass along Cove Road Wednesday afternoon as they stood above a swelling memorial site.

Amid her tears, a mother bent down, reached through the letters, flowers and mementos and clutched a golf ball in her hand.

Angela Coady said she knew one of her son Nick’s friends had put it there intending for it to stay, but when she saw it she decided she had to take it with her.

“The last time I saw him he was going to play golf. He was happy as a lark,” she said. “The next time I saw him, he was dead.”

Nick Coady, 18, and his friends — Christopher Harold Briglio, 18, and Connor William Graver, 16, — were all killed early Tuesday when the Jeep Grand Cherokee that Coady was driving slammed into the back of a John Deere truck and overturned.

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FORT PIERCE — A 74-year-old man reportedly walked onto the campus of Dan McCarty School Tuesday evening and fatally shot himself near the school’s bus pick-up area.

The 1201 Mississippi Avenue campus was empty of students and faculty when the incident occurred, according to Dave Morris, director of security for St. Lucie County schools. The man’s identity was not immediately released, pending notification of next of kin.
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Before incoming seventh-graders step into their first classes this fall, they must brave the sting of a newly required vaccine against whooping cough and two other diseases.

Local health departments are offering the Tdap vaccination against tetanus, diphtheria and acellular pertussis (whooping cough) this summer at health clinics or at residents’ request so students can be prepared for the start of school.

The new state requirement for students to take the vaccine before entering the seventh grade stems from concerns that adolescents and adults immunized against whooping cough in infancy are contracting the disease when they’re older. Before this year, the vaccine for adolescents, licensed in 2005, was suggested but not required. Counties have offered the vaccine every year.
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VERO BEACH — The private defense attorney for Indian River County Administrator Joe Baird said Thursday he plans to enter a not-guilty plea to the driving while intoxicated charge Baird was arrested on Saturday night in Vero Beach.

Baird was driving from a Youth Guidance Volunteer Program fundraiser near Wabasso and “many people who saw him there say they don’t believe he was impaired at all,” said attorney Bobby Guttridge. “They spoke with him and interacted with him.”

Vero Beach Police allege Baird was speeding — doing 43 mph in a 30 mph zone — in his private car and crossed a centerline before an officer stopped him at 10:26 p.m. on 21st Street, according to police reports.
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STUART — A Martin County grand jury on Wednesday returned first-degree murder and robbery indictments against two Stuart residents accused in the April 5 beating death of Keith A. Hall, who died three days after being attacked.

Charged are James Louis LaForteza, 29, and Kobi Anderson, 15, who authorities say beat Hall into unconsciousness to steal $40 he’d shown the man and teen in an attempt to buy drugs. (more…)

A second Beagle, suffering from Parvo, was found staggering in traffic in Lake Park, very close to the location where a mother Beagle and her puppies were found April 17.

Kay-Lynette Roca, executive director of Safe Harbor Animal Sanctuary & Hospital, said Tuesday that the male Beagle brought to Safe Harbor and the female Beagle that was found last week have matching collars and seem to know each other.

“Parker, the male Beagle dog that was found in traffic in Lake Park, looks very similar to the Beagle mom who is now fighting for her life. I’m afraid there may be a backyard breeder in the Lake Park area who is neglecting these dogs and tossing them out.”
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