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…)

PORT CANAVERAL — Martha Jackson was watching a wedding video with her nephew when she heard the splash.

Soon after, the Nashville, Tenn., woman heard a man yelling.

“You could hear him hollering for help,” said Jackson, who was on the last night of a four-night cruise to the Bahamas.

Authorities have not released the name of the 34-year-old Philadelphia man who jumped from his sixth-deck suite aboard the Carnival Sensation late Wednesday. The man, who was on the cruise celebrating his wedding anniversary, was rescued 1 1/2 hours later by the Disney cruise ship Wonder off the coast of southern St. Lucie County. (more…)

A six-member jury took only two hours to find Indian River County Administrator Joe Baird not guilty of DUI late Wednesday afternoon.

Baird, noticeably jubilant, sat with his attorney Bobby Guttridge as the court clerk read the verdict at 3:57 p.m. Baird then hugged his girlfriend and deferred comments to his attorney, before leaving the courthouse. (more…)

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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VERO BEACH — The DUI trial of County Administrator Joe Baird continues today with more defense witnesses testifying about his physical condition before his arrest at 10:25 p.m. May 16 in Vero Beach.

Baird “appeared perfectly normal to me” around 10 p.m., Baird’s long-time friend John Binkley testified Tuesday at the end of trial testimony for the day.

Testimony is expected to end today, possibly in time for the case to go to jurors for a decision.
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VERO BEACH — Jury selection begins Monday in the DUI trial of Indian River County Administrator Joe Baird and prosecutors will get to use key evidence the defense wanted excluded.

County Judge David Morgan refused defense attorney Bobby Guttridge’s request Wednesday to toss out the May 16 arrest, which the attorney said was based on an invalid stop. (more…)

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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A young man was found shot to death face down on the sidewalk leading to his Stuart apartment overnight.

Stuart police report they were called at about 12:03 a.m. to 931 Nassau Ave. for reports of shots fired in the area. They found 24-year-old Jerome Hutchinson sprawled on the sidewalk with a gunshot to the chest. He died there, police report.

Witnesses said they heard three gun shots and saw three or four men run from the scene. Those witnesses said they men then jumped into a silver Ford Escort with tinted windows and “some type of black stripe designs down the sides of the car” and sped away, police reported.

Anyone with information is asked to call Det. Mike Gerwan at 772-220-3918 or Treasure Coast Crime Stoppers at 1-800-273-8477.

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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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STUART — Elise Schifano adopted 3-year-old Rudy in January and says the miniature collie has been part of the family ever since.

Sixteen days ago, though, when Schifano was taking Rudy to the vet, she opened the car door and he made his get-away.

He has been missing ever since.
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