Coralrose Fullwood, Quality of Life and the NOPOPO

I’ve been stewing about this post all day….really it started yesterday. I’ve been trying to get my thoughts in order so that it can be a good post….I’ve finally decided that if I sit here and wait for it to be perfect, I’ll never write it. So, here goes.

In the last two days, there’s been two articles in our local paper that have really gotten my attention. Interestingly enough, they were both written by the same reporter, George McGinn. I’m starting to believe that this guy may be the most educated (and certainly the most in-touch) reporter that the Charlotte Sun has working for them.

Ok, let’s start with article number one. Anyone who reads me on a regular basis knows that I’ve been closely following the story of Coralrose Fullwood, a local child (just 6 years old) who was abducted from her home in the middle of the night, sexually assaulted, murdered, and left abandoned at a construction site just a couple of blocks from her home. Now, being a mom of a preteen and a teenage daughter, I tend to pay attention to these stories anyway…if I’m known for having any type of “crusade”, it would be to protect and draw attention to missing and exploited children (yeah, I know, I don’t make a very good political blogger, unlike most of my Cotillion sisters – hey, we all have our niche, right?). But this one really hit home, due to the fact that it took place very close to where we used to live. About three months after Coralrose’s murder, we moved back to the same neighborhood, which just made it hit even closer to home.

This happened in September…so it’s been 5 months now. All kinds of weird stuff has come out about the Fullwood family and their living conditions, etc. But what hasn’t happened has been any kind of arrest. At all. Basically, there has been no information, except that no one, including family members, have been “ruled out” as a suspect, and that apparently from time to time, the North Port Police once again canvas the neighborhood (and not very well, at that, as I live less than a mile away and I have yet to see anyone canvasing on our street). What are they doing, you might ask? They’re collecting “voluntary” DNA samples. What happens if you don’t want to give your DNA? Who knows. No one has bothered to say. They’ve started a “hotline”…which apparently isn’t taken very seriously, from what I’ve been able to observe.

Yesterday, Mr. McGinn published a story regarding the “quality of life” in the neighborhood that Coralrose lived in…a neighborhood that by all intense purposes, I call my own. What he learned was discouraging, to say the least.

02/18/07

Neighbors where Coralrose Fullwood was killed say it’s not the same anymore

Residents: quality of life suffering

* Residents where 6-year-old Coralrose Fullwood was found slain say the quality of life in their neighborhood has dropped, and they are blaming the police for it.

NORTH PORT — Residents living near the Calabash Lane home of 6-year-old Coralrose Fullwood say their quality of life has dropped since the girl’s Sept. 17 murder, and blame the police.

“We just don’t feel safe,” said Cheryl Justice, 33, who lives only blocks from where Coralrose’s body was found.

“We don’t see any police cars. Used to see them all the time,” said Anthony Justice, 41.

David and Heather DeFiore moved to their home from the Riley Chase Apartments in November, two months after police found Coralrose. One lot separates them from the crime scene.

“There is a trail from our backyard that leads directly onto the lot where (Coralrose) was found,” David said. “My children will not play in the backyard.”

When Heather, 30, called the North Port Police Department, she said the woman on the phone was nasty to her.

“She said ‘You know, you do not live in a safe neighborhood,’ and told me to watch my children,” Heather said. “The woman said the neighborhood is highly patrolled, but I have yet to see a police car drive down my street. She did nothing to make me feel safe.”

The woman at NOPOPO told her that it wasn’t a “safe neighborhood”?! Ok, that makes me feel great. All along, the NOPOPO has pretty much let everyone believe that Dale Fullwood, Coralrose’s dad, probably at the least had something to do with her murder….hell, I think most of us has decided that he had probably done it. But a comment like that coming out of the North Port Police Department tends to make you wonder. To me it basically says that whoever did this horrific thing is still out wandering the streets, and perhaps resides right in the neighborhood. What a wonderful feeling! And the neighborhood is highly patrolled?! I’ve seen pretty much zero police presence in my neighborhood…again, not exactly where Coralrose lived, but close enough that it should be getting some protection, if we (as it seems) have a child sexual predator/murderer on the lose. And you’ll love the NOPOPO’s response to this.

“We are getting steady leads,” Lewis said. “And patrols have been very heavy there. The neighborhood has not been abandoned.”

Lewis said they are mixing up marked and unmarked patrols in the area.

I hate to break it to them, but most of us are quite familiar with the “unmarked” cars….they use them to make traffic stops with around here (another thing I don’t exactly like…I’m not terribly comfortable pulling over for a car that you don’t know for sure is a police car. That’s how woman have gotten raped and murdered in other states).

Then there’s the people who called the so-called “hotline”….and got no response at all.

Anthony Oliveri, who lives about four blocks on the other side of Calabash Lane, said he had a tenant who moved into a house he owns near the crime scene several months before the murder, and three weeks later “hastily” moved out.

“I left four messages and my name and number on the hotline number,” Oliveri said. “They (North Port Police) never called me back.”

Cheryl said she noticed her 11-year-old stepson, who is usually quiet and keeps to himself, dramatically changed after Coralrose’s murder.

“I called the police, and told them everything I noticed, his change of behavior and attitude. And (I) have not heard anything back,” she said. “After the murder, he couldn’t wait to move back to Texas.”

The boy moved back to Texas to live with his mother. Anthony said his son and ex-wife reported no one from the North Port Police Department ever followed up with them.

The first guy quoted left FOUR messages…none of which were returned. The second person quoted had a child who sounds for all the world like he may have been abused himself, and no one bothered to follow up. Why not?

Maybe it’s because they’re busy trying to bury some of their own messes. Could that be? Well, that takes us to article number two, published today.

02/19/07

Officer sends two to hospital after causing a four-car wreck

* A North Port Police officer was involved in a four-car crash Oct 12, 2006, sending two to the hospital. No incident reports were filled out by any of the officers responding, and the officer was not drug-tested as per city policy. The accident came to light after the city commissioners received a letter Feb. 12 of intent to sue by one of the injured parties. The police department has yet to investigate the crash.

This occurred back in October, and the story is just hitting the news.

NORTH PORT — An Oct. 12 police-officer-involved crash that caused a four-car wreck and sent two people to the hospital was never disclosed by the department.

And had it not been for a letter of intent to sue by one of the injured parties, the public would have never known about it.

The letter, from the law firm of Wilkins Frohlich of Port Charlotte, claims that “(Sgt.) Patrick Sachkar negligently failed to appreciate traffic conditions and bring his vehicle to a stop in traffic.” Attorney James Gordon wrote that his clients, longtime Road and Drainage employee Vernon Albright and his wife Katherine, suffered “serious bodily injuries” as a result of the crash.

Sgt. Patrick Sachkar was driving north on U.S. 41 in his unmarked city-issued police car about 8:30 p.m. when he hit a car driven by Vernon, 62, who had his wife, Katherine, 62, as a passenger.

According to a recently obtained accident report from the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office, Sachkar was traveling north in the right-hand lane approaching the traffic light at Home Depot. Three cars were stopped as the light was red. The report said Sachkar was going 40 mph when he hit Vernon’s car. A chain-reaction crash occurred and two other vehicles were damaged.

According to the report, Sachkar caused the accident but did not receive a ticket.

Check out the last sentence there. He didn’t even get a TICKET!

You tell me…should I wonder just what the police department in this town are up to?