FORT PIERCE A 74-year-old man accused of beating another man with a wooden sword last month at a business was arrested Wednesday, according to records released Thursday.

The victim told St. Lucie County Sheriff’s investigators he went to Jose Pinera’s business behind Fred’s Grocery on June 23 to deliver some auto parts to Pinera, 74, who was there with two other men.

The victim said he saw a wooden sword and picked it up. The sword, he said, was hand carved and he was admiring the workmanship.

That’s when Pinera, of the 2300 block of Southeast Marseille Street in Port St. Lucie, reportedly got very upset and asked what the victim was doing with the sword.

Pinera snatched the sword from the victim and hit him with it in the left shoulder, police said.

An investigator noted a large yellow-and-purple bruise on the victim’s left shoulder six days later when the investigator spoke to him. The victim said he hadn’t seen a doctor because he couldn’t afford it.

The victim said he didn’t know why Pinera would hit him.

Pinera left after the victim said he was calling authorities, but was arrested Wednesday night on a battery charge at his home.

By Will Greenlee, TCPalm.com

Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 people in the Oklahoma City bombing

A jury has sentenced Ricardo Sanchez Jr. and Daniel Troya to death for killing the Escobedo family of four along Florida’s Turnpike in St. Lucie County.

The federal death penalty is different from the state of Florida’s death sentence in many ways.

Only 51 inmates are on federal Death Row in Terre Haute, Ind. Florida houses 392. Crimes punishable by the federal death penalty include genocide, killing witnesses, in a trial, terrorism and murder committed as part of a drug enterprise.

Florida has executed 67 men and women since the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976. The feds have executed three men since Congress reinstated it in 1988. Some of the more famous of those executed were Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, convicted of sabotage for selling atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.

Here’s some of those executed since 1927:

James Horace Alderman

1927: James Horace Alderman, known as “King of the Rumrunners,” was intercepted by a Coast Guard vessel 30 miles off Florida’s coast. His boat was laden with alcohol during the era of Prohibition. As Alderman boarded the vessel, he pulled out his pistol. When two Coast Guardsmen and a Secret Service agent rushed him, he shot them all dead. Later, his execution was scheduled for the Broward County Jail, but the county wanted it to occur on federal property. So a makeshift gallows was erected at the Coast Guard hangar.

“When this is read I will have passed over the brink of eternity into the Great Beyond. “I would like to state through the medium of The Miami Herald that I am feeling fine, physically, mentally and spiritually. With the wonderful comfort and strength that I received from Jesus Christ, I am assured that when tomorrow comes I will go with smiles of comfort on my face. … “As I sit here in my cell I can look back and see just what caused me to be where I am today. Drunkenness first starts a young man to gambling — and swearing grows on him — and from that step he becomes hardened in his heart in envy and hatred toward mankind. Then, as he grows up, he becomes what you would call educated to crime. Bootlegging and smuggling is the next step. And there are other angles of downfall that lead to the devil. “The money I made neither did me nor my dear family any good. We thought it did, but no. You can see what it has done — a death sentence by hanging — and a broken-hearted family.”

Read the 1929 Time magazine account of his hanging, here. (more…)

INDIANTOWN — A representative of the state Department of Transportation came to Indiantown to explain a proposed plan to improve almost 8 miles of Kanner Highway in western Martin County, but few residents attended the meeting.

The representative was left in a nearly empty room in Elisabeth Lahti Library with his maps and handouts, and a couple of consultants.

The project, which costs about $9.8 million in construction costs, will involve resurfacing the section of Kanner Highway that stretches from mile post 1.81, east of Port Mayaca, to mile post 9.77, west of State Road 710, said project manager Fernando Morales.

The project will also create a new right turn lane into Mayaca Cemetery, widen the shoulder length of the whole section to 5 feet and rehabilitate the storm water management systems.

Work on the road section, which has 26 properties on it and is used heavily in trucking, is scheduled to start in June 2011. Morales said that the sparse habitation of the road accounted for the lack of attendance at the meeting.

By Alex Tiegen, TCPalm.com

FORT PIERCE — Police are asking the public’s help to identify a man who doesn’t remember who he is after he was hit by a vehicle last month.

The ying and yang tattoo on the crash victim's shoulder.

The man was airlifted to Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne, where he is still receiving treatment, police spokeswoman Audria Moore said. He doesn’t know who he is and is unable to speak to police, she said. (more…)