MARTIN COUNTY — The Martin County Parks and Recreation Department is launching a new environmentally focused outdoor recreation program for all ages.

Veteran photographer, Kevin Boldenow is leading the newest eco-style adventure throughout Martin County’s most beautiful landscapes. The “eco photo tours” will be a serious of photography instruction at different locations throughout Martin County for both novice and experienced photographers, county officials said in a news release. (more…)

FORT PIERCE — After Julia Rolon-Estrada died of a gunshot wound to the artery in her leg on July 26, 2006, she was wrapped in a blue tarp and again in a green blanket before being buried in the yard of her Port St. Lucie home, near a rear sliding glass door.

A dog trained to find cadavers helped authorities locate the newly tilled grave, which was covered with a wooden pallet holding 20 mulch bags stacked on top.

Rolon-Estrada’s jailed husband, 43-year-old Albert Estrada, state prosecutors say, is the man guilty of killing his wife and high-school sweatheart, who had walked out on him the night before she died at age 39.
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Laurel wilt, a deadly and triumphant foe of millions of large redbay laurels, avocados and related trees, has arrived in St. Lucie and Martin counties, agricultural inspectors say.

Once a tree is infected, there is no cure and it dies in a matter of weeks, said the state’s leading expert, Bud Mayfield, an entomologist with the state Department of Agricultural and Consumer Affairs’ Division of Forestry. Prevention is considered nearly impossible, he said, because only one fungicide can treat it and the process is lengthy.

The disease, caused by a fungus carried on the ambrosia flying beetle that seeks out laurel and related species, entered the United States in 2003. It arrived from southeastern Asia at a Georgia port.

It leapfrogged its way south, reaching Indian River County in 2006.

In April, it was detected in St. Lucie County and confirmed in Martin County on June 30.

In Indian River county, Brian Combs, certified arborist and general manager of Bug Master in Vero Beach, said it took the disease about a year to kill 99 percent of the redbays and other trees susceptible to the wilt at Sebastian Inlet State Park. It has already spread to back yards. The cost to prevent it with fungicide runs about $250 and up per tree, he said. (more…)

FORT PIERCE — A Georgia man accused of walking naked along a beach about 100 yards from two children and their parents faces an exposure charge, according to a recently released arrest affidavit.

Kevin Francis Gallagher, 61, reportedly was spotted Tuesday afternoon by a St. Lucie County Sheriff’s deputy in a patrol boat. He also had a gun in a bag.

The deputy sighted Gallagher, of Snellville, Ga., about 100 yards north of where two children and their parents were swimming. The incident occurred in the 5500 block of South Ocean Drive.

“There was also a couple that told me they were walking down the beach towards the suspect and had to turn around and walk the opposite direction because the suspect was standing at the water edge,” the affidavit states.

Arrested on a misdemeanor charge of exposure of sexual organs, Gallagher was handcuffed and a gun was found in his carry bag.

The affidavit does not specify why Gallagher, listed as unemployed, was walking naked.

By Will Greenlee, TCPalm.com

A Fort Pierce woman that was arrested and charged with numerous counts of animal cruelty may have stabbed one of her dead dogs.

St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Deputies found a sick home full of animals, some dead and starving, with an odor of death reeking from it when they arrived on the scene Monday.

Deputies arrived at the home on North Kings Highway after the landlord of the home noticed a foul smell coming from it. The landlord also said he hadn’t seen his tenant, Michele Nunziata, in several days.

Deputies on scene said they were met with “an overwhelming foul odor of decomposition.” They also said they could hear several dogs barking from inside the home.

As deputies tried to get Nunziata to come back to the home and allow them inside, she repeatedly told deputies over the phone that she was “too busy.” When she did arrive home and let deputies inside she admitted to burying dogs in her front yard, though deputies could not find grave sites.

When Animal Control Officers arrived they took inventory of the home and found:

3 very slim Pit Bulls

A Blood Hound suffering from malnutrition

2 Cockatiels without food or water

2 ferrets without food or water

1 Black Wolf and 1 Doberman Pincher locked in a kennel laying in feces with no food or water, suffering from malnutrition

3 dead dogs locked in a kennel, decaying

Deputies and Animal Control Officers also found rabbits caged without food or water and a goose.

Nunziata has been charged with 6 felony accounts of animal cruelty as well as 11 Misdemeanors.

In a follow-up report, Animal Care and Control Officers say it appeared one of the deceased dogs left to rot in a cage had been stabbed in it’s armpit.

Officers said it appeared that most of the dead animals died of neglect.

Nunziata told officers she never neglected her animals and “would get them all back.”

Marianne Wellendorf
WPEC Channel 12

Michele Nunziata

So on Monday night, Michele Nunziata’s landlord called the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office and reported his concerns.

When investigators showed up at the home in the 900 block of North Kings Highway, they found a grim scene.

Three dead dogs locked up in kennels. A black wolf locked up in feces and starving. A Doberman pinscher in the same condition.

There were other animals. Three skinny pit bulls running loose in the house. A bloodhound reported to be malnourished, two cockatiels and two ferrets – all without sufficient food – and a chinchilla with food and water.

Investigators also found veterinary medicine and piles of feces scattered on the dining room floor.

Nunziata, 40, was booked into the St. Lucie County jail on Monday and is being detained in lieu of $42,500 bail. She faces 16 counts of animal abuse charges and one charge of having the wolf without a permit.

Nunziata told investigators that she had put down the dogs on Saturday and had been too distraught to remove their bodies.

The malnurished bloodhound reportedly removed from Nunziata's home.

She said she had received the euthanasia from her landlord, who had called to tell her that the syringes where in her mailbox ready for use by saying in code, “The snowman had arrived.” (more…)

FORT PIERCE — Raybin J. Williams said he had to do what he had to do for gas money to make it back home.

That, police said, apparently included robbing a Waffle House with another man Monday and taking a couple of shots at someone who fired at him.

In the end, Williams, 24, and 22-year-old Corey Cooper, were arrested following the 3:10 a.m. stick-up of the Okeechobee Road eatery, according to records and a police spokeswoman.
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HUTCHINSON ISLAND — Ever since Steve Weaver built his three-story, 5,772-square-foot waterfront home on Thumb Point Drive in Fort Pierce, neighbors have balked at its size.

Now several of Weaver’s neighbors want city officials to revise the South Beach Overlay District to restrict anyone else from being able to build a three-story house in low-density residential zones on the beach.

“It’s really a problem of three-story houses in a one- and two-story neighborhood,” said Thumb Point resident John Wolsiefer, who lives two doors down from Weaver. “Three-story houses overwhelm the neighborhood.”
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JENSEN BEACH — The downtown Jensen Beach bar scene has been a little quieter than usual lately.

A rule limiting noise at entertainment venues passed last month to give Martin County residents some peace and quiet. But it’s also giving a financial migraine to live music bars, specifically ones with outdoor entertainment such as Crawdaddy’s and JB Pip’s Tiki Bar and Grill in Jensen Beach.

“We just had our 10-year anniversary, and this is by far the biggest blow we’ve had,” Crawdaddy’s owner Mark Kren said. “It’s like a stake in my heart.”
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Posters of professional athletes line the walls of Demeterius Wells’ bedroom.

His bulky textbooks from Indian River State College are stacked near his computer, and a bookshelf displays his Vero Beach High School diploma next to trophies he won on the track and field team.

His grandmother Patricia Chambers, who raised him after his mother died from ovarian cancer complications when he was 8, broke down in tears Sunday after describing the untimely death of her 18-year-old grandson early Saturday morning.

The Fort Pierce Police Department said Wells was shot several times on the 1300 block of North 31st Street in Fort Pierce at about 1:50 a.m. Saturday. Family members said he was dropping off a friend when the shooting occurred. (more…)