PORT ST. LUCIE — The acts that led to Melanie Henningsen’s death stemmed from “drug trafficking,” though police don’t know what, if any, involvement she had in the illegal activity, a spokesman said Tuesday.

Emergency officials were called early Sunday morning by Henningsen’s boyfriend, Jose Ortiz, who found Henningsen with a fatal gunshot wound at their home in the 6100 block of Northwest Duke Circle, said Officer Tom Nichols, police spokesman.

Those were among the new details in the case released Tuesday by police as their investigation of the city’s first homicide of the year continues. (more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — Police Chief Donald Shinnamon has decided not to make the parents of two boys who made a bogus report of a girl being abducted Wednesday morning pay the costs of the massive effort to find the non-existent girl.

Tom Nichols, the Port St. Lucie Police Department public information officer, confirmed the decision but declined to explain Shinnamon’s reasoning. (more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — Two men on Friday afternoon tried to lure a 4-year-old girl into a pickup near Northwest Prima Vista and Northwest Bayshore boulevards, police said.
About 5:30 p.m., the men pulled up to 452 Southwest Carmelite Drive in a gold Chevrolet Silverado truck and called out to the 4-year-old, according to a Port St. Lucie police statement circulated this morning.
The girl’s mother, who was in the garage, looked up and saw one of the men open the door and lean out of the cab.
“Baby girl, come here,” she heard him say, the statement said.
The woman yelled at her daughter and the truck drove off, heading south on Carmelite Drive.
Anyone with information can call detective Brinton Black at (772) 871-5000.

PORT ST. LUCIE — A 26-year-old man accused of hitting a woman with the driver’s side mirror of his pick-up truck in a Taco Bell parking lot faces charges, according to a recently released arrest affidavit.

Keith Ransford, of the 2300 block of Southeast Seafury Lane, was arrested on charges including aggravated battery, criminal mischief and resisting arrest without violence following the late Friday night incidents.

The affidavit gave this account:
(more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — A man and a woman went to the hospital after their car struck a tree Monday night, the St. Lucie County Fire District reported Tuesday.

Fire District crews were called about 9:10 p.m. to the incident in the 2200 block of Southeast Midport Road.

The driver, a woman in her early 20s, was taken to a local provisional trauma center in serious but stable condition,
(more…)

Dexter Thompson

Dexter Thompson, 41, was arrested Tuesday and is being held in St. Lucie County jail in lieu of $550,000 bail.

The wife told police she, her two children and their two cousins were leaving her parents’ home in the 10000 block of Southwest Stonegate Drive on Wednesday night when Thompson confronted her.

He had a gun and fired twice at her, grazing her head. The found children ran inside the home when they realized Thompson was armed, they told police. Thompson then fled.

Thompson faces multiple charges, including attempted murder, aggravated battery with a weapon and aggravated assault.

Irvin Parks

Police were doing a traffic enforcement patrol along Becker Road when they stopped Irvin V. Parks at about 9 a.m. on Wednesday for driving with windows possibly tinted too dark, Officer Gerry Harrington said.

Parks had his 5- and 9-year-old children in the car when he was pulled over, Harrington said.

Police found about seven grams of marijuana hidden inside Parks’s pants, and another eight to nine grams in the trunk, where officers also found a loaded AK-47-style rifle, they said.

AK-47s are typically “the most powerful rifle you’ll see on the streets outside the military,” Harrington said. (more…)

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…)

Xavier Davis

An employee at the restaurant in the 200 block of Port St. Lucie Boulevard called Port St. Lucie police after another worker said he saw a man enter with what looked like a firearm by his side, police said.

The caller told police that the man wore all black was openly carrying the firearm.

Police surrounded the restaurant where they found 25-year-old Xavier Davis sitting at a table with a long gun placed in the seat in front of him, according to a police report.

Davis was directed to the floor and handcuffed before officers determined that the firearm was actually a paintball gun, the report states.

According to police, the gun looked like a real semi-automatic rifle.

Paintball gun seized by police.

Davis was arrested on a charge of openly carrying a weapon. He was released from the St. Lucie County jail on Friday after posting $250 bond.

Matthew Beider

The 56-year-old woman told police that she first used the taser on her 23-year-old son, Matthew A. Beider, after he came after her.

He had been drinking and became belligerent, she said. She said the electronic was her personal taser.

Beider then wrestled the taser away from her, she said, and he tasered her in the her left elbow.

The woman said she then fell to the ground and Beider kicked her four times.

Beider was arrested at his Port St. Lucie home on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery and obstruction of justice.

He is being held at the St. Lucie County jail without bond.