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.

VERO BEACH — New Orleans resident Lionel Sims broke a hole in his roof to be rescued from Hurricane Katrina’s devastating flood waters in August 2005, but he had to leave behind a best friend, his dog Peanut.

Rescuers said they couldn’t take the dog.

Sims didn’t know if Peanut was dead or alive for about two months, until an American Red Cross volunteer tracked it to the Humane Society of Indian River County and Vero Beach.

And the two were reunited.
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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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Brandon Wester

He is being held at the St. Lucie County jail on a sexual battery charge in lieu of $150,000 bail.

The woman told police she was at a bar at the Sandpiper resort on Wednesday night. She had ordered a Mai Tai, danced with two Club Med employees, and then received another cocktail she hadn’t ordered before talking with two golf maintenance workers. When she asked who had ordered her the drink, no one answered her, she said.

The next morning her son woke her up and she realized she wasn’t feeling well. After she noticed she was bleeding, she began to remember small snippets of the previous night, she told police. (more…)

Mario Andres

Oscar Jimenez

Witnesses reported seeing the two men breaking into the Heritage Ridge Pro Shop in the Heritage Ridge Golf Club in Hobe Sound on Friday night.

Oscar F. Jimenez, 18, grabbed two bank bags from behind the counter, according to a Martin County Sheriff’s report.

Mario J. Andres, 24, told investigators he took clothes that he “really liked.”

Nearly two hours after the theft, Jimenez was spotted walking on U.S. 1. Sheriff’s deputies handcuffed him and found the cash inside his jean pockets and wallet, the report states. He was shocked twice with a Taser as deputies tried to restrain him, investigators said.

Andres, a former employee of the golf club, was stopped by two golfers as he ran from the shop.

Deputies said $595 was taken from the shop.

Both men face charges of burglary and grand theft.

PORT ST. LUCIE — Hundreds of Tesoro property owners aren’t waiting around while their subdivision’s developer grinds through bankruptcy court: They’re filing their own lawsuits against Ginn Resorts and its affiliates.

Property owners are charging Ginn with a host of wrongdoings, including selling lots through Ponzi schemes, fraudulently inflating property values, lying to and duping clients, failing to account for hundreds of thousands of dollars in membership dues and missing escrow accounts and backing out on promises to build amenities.

Timothy Vetrano, 72, a retiree from Manhasset, N.Y., who lives at Tesoro with his wife Marilyn, said his experience falls under “buyer beware.”
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VERO BEACH — The former Dodgertown Golf Course, with roots deep in the history of baseball, could be restored, possibly with the assistance of Minor League Baseball.

Tough economic conditions, however, are likely to delay any possible restoration for at least of couple of years.

The city of Vero Beach now controls the former golf course and maintains mowing the land once roamed by Los Angeles Dodgers Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson.
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The Wellington investor who bought Port St. Lucie’s upscale Tesoro development out of bankruptcy has grand visions for the community — and they don’t center on golf.

Glenn Straub, a polo magnate in Palm Beach County, hopes to bring a giant equestrian complex to Tesoro at the southern edge of St. Lucie County.

He wants to build barns, show rings, training rings — and everything else needed for the high-end horse crowd.

“It will be a satellite to Wellington, and we’ll have shows once a week,” said Straub, who owns Palm Beach Polo Golf & Country Club in Wellington.

To accommodate the Port St. Lucie complex, he’s in talks to buy more property just east of Tesoro, which sits north of Becker Road. He hasn’t decided how many acres, he said.

The goal is to have the equestrian digs up and running in time for season next year. (more…)

A local contractor is making plans to build an eco-friendly office building atop a former dump in Stuart.

Ocean Gate General Contractors is finalizing negotiations to lease about 3 acres of the old city landfill property on Monterey Road, the site of the out-of-business Monterey Pointe Golf and Practice Center.

The Stuart-based company hopes to build a 20,000-square-foot, gold-rated LEED building at the site, incorporating energy-saving features to earn the designation from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program, company President Mark MacDonald said. (more…)

ST. LUCIE COUNTY — Tourism leaders from Grand Bahama Island will meet with local officials this week and get a first-hand feel for St. Lucie County in an effort to build a business and tourism partnership.

Grand Bahamian and St. Lucie County officials hope the visit, which will include tours of Fort Pierce and Port St. Lucie, will help solidify a non-binding agreement the two groups entered into in December with the goal of boosting tourism in both locations. One of the main ideas behind the agreement is to work together to market both areas, such as offering vacation packages between the two locations. (more…)