Nilima Vyas

Wyn Loucke

Arrests were made at two local stores: Mapp Road Texaco in Palm City, where 50-year-old clerk Wyn Loucke sold alcohol to a 17-year-old resident, and A-1 Discount Beverage on Monterey Road in Stuart, where clerk Nilima Vyas sold beer to a teen, according to investigators.

No sales were made at the other locations to the concerned citizen volunteer that worked with detectives.

These operations continue year-round.

PORT SALERNO — Ann Gunsolus can’t bear the thought of losing her home, even though it’s a makeshift campsite in a privately owned woods a stone’s throw from U.S. 1.

“Cry: That’s what I do so far is cry,” Gunsolus said, while thinking about where she will go when the authorities evict the homeless people from the woods. “When you have nothing, there’s not much you can do.”

Gunsolus and more than a dozen other homeless men and women fear sheriff’s deputies will roust them as soon as Thursday from the patchwork of tents and tarps they call home. (more…)

INDIANTOWN — A 15-year-old boy was stabbed during a fight that broke out during a party over the weekend.

Shortly before midnight on Saturday, Martin County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a home on 172nd Avenue where they found 15-year-old Andres Felix stabbed in the back.

The teen was transported to St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach for treatment.

Witnesses told investigators that there had been a party at another home a few blocks away when several people who hadn’t been invited showed up.

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Jessica Spurgeon

Hobe Sound resident Jessica Spurgeon, 37, faces a grand theft charge after McAdams told Martin County Sheriff’s deputies that she spotted Spurgeon wearing her missing Philip Stein watch in one of the woman’s Facebook photos.

McAdams told investigators that Spurgeon was one of her guests when she hosted a dinner party in February 2007.

The next day, McAdams noticed the $1,116 watch — double faced with mother-of-pearl and encircled by diamonds — was missing. She told deputies she searched the house for it but couldn’t find it.

Two weeks ago McAdams went on the social networking site Facebook, where she spotted her watch on Spurgeon’s wrist, according to sheriff’s reports.

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Derick Culberson

Derick Culberson, 22, called 911 on Friday to report that he had been robbed at Jock Leighton Park by two men wearing black shirts who fled in a Chevy Impala, according to a Martin County Sheriff’s report. Twelve units – including supervisors, road patrol and K-9 – rushed to look for the suspects.

When Culberson was found, he was sitting on the ground by his pick-up, his hands and feet bound with zip ties, deputies said.

Inside his truck, investigators found a bundle of the same zip ties that had been on Culberson, the report states.

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PALM CITY – The other two times that someone broke into the house on Crossing Circle, nobody was home.

But Thursday was different. Linda Schultz was there, and so was her handgun.

Schultz called 911 shortly before 9 a.m. to report that a man had broken into her home in the 1500 block of Southwest Crossing Circle. She told them she thought she shot him, Martin County Sheriff’s officials said.

Christopher Reber

When Lake Village resident Linda Smyth rushed over to her neighbor after hearing gunshots, Schultz was bleeding from the neck, dialing 911.

“I’m proud of her,” Smyth said hours later. “I think it takes a lot of wherewithal to be able to be aware of your circumstances and fight back like that. A lot of people would be afraid to defend themselves.”

Schultz, 47, was transported to St. Mary’s Medical Center for her injuries. So was robbery suspect Christopher B. Reber, 23, who was in serious condition, sheriff’s spokeswoman Rhonda Irons said.

Charges against Reber are pending, Irons said. In the meantime, he is under custody on a St. Lucie County warrant regarding a forgery case.

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Martin County Sheriff's deputy Joseph Angelico gets a platter of two entrees from Red Lobster waitress CJ Biegner during last year's event. Photo by David Spencer.

The annual Tip-A-Cop fundraising event to benefit Special Olympics Florida is scheduled for today. Members of the Martin County Sheriff’s Office, Stuart Police Department, the Florida Highway Patrol and other local law enforcement agencies will be volunteering at Red Lobster in Jensen Beach from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. until 10 p.m. assisting the dining room staff.

Gratuities from patrons during those times will benefit Special Olympics Florida as part of the local fundraising effort for the 2009 Law enforcement Torch Run.

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Juan Gaspar-Montijo

While out on patrol just before 3 a.m. on Sunday, a Martin County Sheriff’s deputy found Juan Gaspar-Montijo, 21, talking on his cell phone with a distraught look on his face.

When the deputy asked if he needed help, Gaspar-Montijo didn’t respond, according to a sheriff’s report.

The deputy called 911 and a dispatcher told him Gaspar-Montijo was looking for a ride from the 14700 block of Southwest Martin Luther King Boulevard to his home in the 16500 block of Southwest Indian Mound Drive — about three miles away.

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Samantha Negrych

Samantha N. Negrych, 23, faces misdemeanor charges of unlawful storage of human remains and failure to report a death following Wednesday’s arrest.

On Jan. 28, Martin County paramedics and sheriff’s deputies were called to Negrych’s apartment in the 2200 block of Northeast Dixie Highway. Negrych had told a friend she had miscarried and the woman called 911 despite Negrych’s objections, according to a sheriff’s report.

She later told investigators she didn’t want to report the miscarriage because she had snorted Roxicodone, a brand name for oxycodone, days before and was afraid of getting into trouble if drugs were found in the baby’s system. The baby had oxycodone in her liver, according to the medical examiner, but a cause of death could not be determined.

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Tim Orman

Jensen Beach resident Tim Orman was arrested at his home by officers with the state Attorney General’s cybercrime unit, the FBI and the Martin County Sheriff’s Office.

According to a news release from the attorney general’s office, Orman’s possession of child pornography was discovered when cybercrime investigators located images of child pornography during a routine undercover investigation and traced the images back to Orman’s computer.

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