Five years ago, Anderson paid to have a monument of the Ten Commandments — which states at the bottom, “LOVE GOD AND KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS” — installed in front of the building, sparking a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union and continuing the dialogue about the separation of church and state.

To Anderson, who lives in Old Town, there is no debate: The country, he said, was founded on Christian principles, and the county has a right to display a monument to the commandments Christians observe.

He was preaching to the choir Sunday.

About 1,500 people gathered in this town with a population of 1,728 for an event that was part tent revival and part tea party meeting, as a pastor and attorneys talked about religious freedom with quotations from the Bible and America’s founding fathers, such as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

In July, a federal judge ordered the monument removed from the courthouse in 30 days.

The county — which is being represented by Liberty Counsel, an Orlando-based Christian nonprofit organization that defends groups in cases of “religious liberty, the sanctity of human life and the family” — was awarded a stay while it appeals the ruling to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.

One woman held a sign that read, “If you don’t like what our USA was built on ‘GET OUT.’”

Read the full article on The Gainesville Sun’s website.

Chandler, 65, was pronounced dead at 4:25 p.m. in the death chamber at Florida State Prison after a lethal dose of drugs was sent through his veins.

In the summer of 1989, Joan “Jo” Rogers, 36, and her daughters, Michelle, 17, and Christe, 14, were visiting Florida for their first family vacation. On June 1, prosecutors said, they met Chandler, who invited them onto his boat for a cruise around Tampa Bay.

Three days later, their half-nude bodies were found in the water. They had been tied with rope and weighted down with concrete blocks. They had apparently been sexually assaulted before they were thrown overboard still alive.

On Tuesday, at 4:08 p.m. at Florida State Prison, a prison official asked, “Inmate Chandler, do you have any last statement that you would like to make?”

“No,” Chandler said, uttering his last word.

Read the full article on The Gainesville Sun’s website.

A friend earlier had sent him a text message saying Osama bin Laden had been killed. He immediately called his parents in Orlando.

“As soon as I saw that, I had to call, especially after everything we’ve been through,” said McGahan, a University of Florida senior whose older brother, 2nd Lt. Mike McGahan, was killed in Afghanistan on June 6. “I guess you get a little solace out of (bin Laden’s) death, but you still have mixed emotions. It’s a thing to celebrate, but you realize all the sacrifices that have been made, not just by my brother, but by the thousands of service members who have been killed — and their relatives.”

News of the terrorist leader’s death was bittersweet for family members of soldiers killed in the war against terrorism that the U.S. has waged in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks bin Laden plotted. It was yet another reminder their loved ones were never coming home, but it also offered reassurance their deaths were not in vain.

Read the full article on The Gainesville Sun’s website.

His girlfriend, Diane James, said it looked like he was enjoying it.

“It’s the best thing on the whole plate,” he said.

“Be thankful,” she shot back.

“I am thankful.”

Whitfield and James, both 50, were among the more than 300 people — either homeless or hungry — who got a Thanksgiving meal at the St. Francis House soup kitchen and shelter on South Main Street on Thursday.

For 362 days a year, though, the doors close after the 130th person grabs a tray.

Per St. Francis House’s permit with the city of Gainesville, it can only serve 130 meals in a day, a point of contention with advocates for the homeless.

Whitfield said he has shown up right after No. 130.

“Right at the door,” he said. “Now that hurts, man.”

In June, the City Commission voted to lift the limit on three holidays — Thanksgiving, Christmas and another of the facility’s choosing — as advocates pushed to have the restriction waived altogether and business owners and residents lobbied for it stay put, arguing the concentration of the homeless population downtown created an undue burden there.

Read the full article on The Gainesville Sun’s website.

“Anybody bring a gun to shoot us?” Jones asked, eliciting a smattering of laughs.

But some posting comments on jihadist websites are not laughing, vowing revenge against his church, the Dove World Outreach Center, which had about 30 attendees at its worship service Sunday.

“Now, I wish to bomb myself in this church as revenge for the sake of Allah’s talk,” wrote one person who identified himself as Abu Dujanah, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

As area law enforcement form their response, the reporting of Jones’ plans has gone international – from Mumbai to Melbourne, with some media outlets, including the Journal, describing Dove World as a Gainesville “mega-church.”

While city officials are concerned about the effect on Gainesville’s image, they say the more pressing matter is the potential for trouble.

Read the full article on The Gainesville Sun’s website.

Three months ago, the city of Gainesville sent letters to the 115 alcohol-serving establishments in the city limits informing owners that so-called ladies night drink specials would, from that point on, be considered a violation of the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance.

The Minnesota Department of Human Rights reached a similar conclusion last month, declaring that five bars in the Minneapolis area violated the state’s discrimination law, The Star Tribune reported.

In a case in 1994, the practice had also been ruled illegal, but establishments continued anyway.

As was the case in Minnesota, a number of bars in Gainesville have carried on catering to women. Sort of.

At the Grog House and owner Rob Zeller’s other bars around town, Wednesday night is no longer ladies night – it’s shaved leg night.

At the Rue Bar downtown, Friday is high heel night.

Theoretically, men who have smooth legs or are wearing pumps can drink free, too.

Read the full article on The Gainesville Sun’s website.

At some point after April 1, Manuel, 64, will have to report to a federal prison to serve a 21-month term imposed after he pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from a developer, who was working undercover for the FBI.

The term would have been longer had he not already been living on borrowed time.

In 1998, eight years before being elected to the St. Johns County Commission, Manuel became one of some 24,000 Americans with a heart transplant, defense attorney Bill Sheppard said at the sentencing hearing.

Manuel has been battling complications ever since, and Sheppard said that for anyone with a transplant, “your survival rate plummets.”

“To incarcerate this man, quite frankly, I fear is a death sentence,” he said.

While U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Corrigan said he weighed Manuel’s illnesses when making his decision, he felt the sentence balanced the defendant’s medical needs and the need for justice.

“There is no intention on my part to adversely affect Mr. Manuel’s health in any way,” Corrigan said. “But that can’t be the only consideration here.”

The judge said the Federal Bureau of Prisons was equipped to handle Manuel’s ailments, suggesting the former commission chairman might serve his time at the prisons in Rochester, Minn., or Springfield, Mo., where there are more advanced medical facilities.

Sheppard said that in his research, he could not find an inmate in the federal prison system who has had a heart transplant.

“If I were a betting man, I’d bet they don’t,” he said.

Edmond Ross, a spokesman for the prisons bureau, said in a telephone interview Thursday that he was not sure of any inmates who had received transplants.

But, of the roughly 200,000 prisoners in the federal system, there are some on “pretty involved medical regimens, whether it’s for HIV or whatever,” Ross said.

Manuel takes 32 pills a day (at an annual cost between $18,000 and $20,000) and has been diagnosed with melanoma three times, Sheppard said. He carries around a face mask in case he encounters someone with a cold or has to go into a hospital.

On top of his existing conditions, Manuel was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after his arrest.

Sheppard said while he and his client listened to a tape recorded by the FBI informant, Manuel realized something was off.

“It was almost a look of realization on his face,” the attorney said.

Shortly afterward, a psychiatrist made the diagnoses that Manuel was bipolar.

“When you’re up here you’re the king of the hill,” Sheppard said, holding his hand in the air. “It sounds horrible and it is horrible and I’m not trying to explain it. I’m trying to give you a rationale.”

Manuel told the judge his moods have stabilized since he discovered his manic behavior.

But that doesn’t change the fact that the heart in his chest isn’t his own.

“Without beating a dead horse, his predication of his life expectancy is very low,” Sheppard said of Manuel.

A transplant recipient starts off with a 75-percent chance of survival, the attorney said, dropping 4 percent every subsequent year.

That would put Manuel’s chances of making it through this year at less than 50 percent.

Sheppard said after the surgery, his client retired to St. Augustine.

“As Tom told me, ‘I came here to die.’”

A version of this article was printed Jan. 29, 2010, on Page 1A of The St. Augustine Record.

In the courthouse hallway, Evans’ wife, Peggy, used her cell phone to call her husband, who hadn’t returned to court after lunch to hear the verdict.

“They found you not guilty,” she said. “Please, please don’t do anything.”

He never got the message.

Minutes before the jury came into the courtroom around 3:45 p.m., Peggy Evans stood alone in the hallway sobbing.

Then a few minutes later, the bailiff announced that the jury had reached a verdict in the case of Evans, 57, a lifelong St. Augustine resident charged with sexually abusing a girl nearly three decades ago.

Evans’ attorney, Curtis Fallgatter of Jacksonville, looked around the courtroom for his client, then called him to tell him to return to court.

About 20 minutes passed before Circuit Judge J. Michael Traynor decided to bring the jury into the courtroom to announce its verdict without Evans.

The jury forewoman passed the decision to the bailiff, who then passed it to judge, who gave it to the clerk.

She read through the case number, the charge, then the verdict: “Not guilty.”

***

The case came down to not whether Evans had sexually abused the victim, but when.

Under the law, there is no statute of limitations on sexual battery on a victim younger than 12.

Specifically, Evans was charged with sexual battery between the summer of 1980 and Jan. 14, 1983, the day before his accuser turned 12.

If the victim had been 12 or older at the time, the charge would have been lewd and lascivious behavior. And for that offense, the statute of limitations had expired.

The victim, now 38 and living in Virginia, testified that she was in the second grade when she was first abused.

But the defense argued that she told investigators she remembered it starting around the time her mother had breast-implant surgery in November 1984, when she was 13.

The jury found that there was not enough compelling evidence of her age at the time of the abuse and found Evans not guilty.

The victim’s mouth dropped as she heard verdict, she turned to her husband and asked, “Not guilty?”

***

After the jury gave its verdict, the judge thanked them for their service and dismissed them. Shortly afterward, a deputy accompanied them to the elevators when a woman, a friend of the victim, walked by in the opposite direction and said to the jurors, “You’re next.”

The deputy yelled at her and the woman walked away.

***

After the ruling, Peggy Evans passed by the victim, seated with a victim advocate, the victim’s husband and a childhood friend.

Evans tilted her head and gave the four a mocking smile. The four looked at each other, and the victim asked them, “Did you see that?”

Evans walked out of the courtroom, then returned seconds later to hear the judge order deputies to find Evans and bring him to court.

A couple of minutes later, a bailiff told the judge that Evans’ truck was at his house but there was no answer at the door.

Traynor said they could force entry if need be.

“Can you tell them to not let my dog out?” Peggy Evans asked half-jokingly before leaving the courtroom.

About 10 minutes passed, during which the judge said he was considering holding the defendant in contempt of court, when a group of bailiffs barged in and approached the bench.

“Dead body,” one said.

“Dead body?” the judge asked.

***

Deputies arrived at the Evans’ home on Stokes Landing Road at 3:55 p.m., just as a 911 call came in from the residence.

Relatives had gone to the house to tell Evans he needed to go back to the courthouse. Instead, they found him dead at the rear of the house.

Fallgatter, the attorney, and family members stood around the yard along with scores of deputies and investigators.

Teary-eyed, the attorney said he had eaten lunch with Evans at the cafeteria in the Tax Collector’s Office after the court recessed for deliberation.

Evans made no indication he was going to kill himself, Fallgatter said.

But, he said, the five-year process had beaten his client down and he couldn’t handle spending the rest of life in prison, the rest of his life away from Peggy Evans.

***

St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Chuck Mulligan said at the scene that Evans died from a gunshot wound that was apparently self-inflicted.

Mulligan said he did not know what kind of gun was used or whether Evans left any indication he was going to shoot himself.

The prosecutor, Assistant State Attorney Dennis Craig, declined to comment.

A statement from Assistant State Attorney Christopher Kelly said: “Regarding the events surrounding the trial of William Evans, we believe it is paramount to respect the privacy of the family at the present time. The events surrounding the trial and today had a profound effect on all involved. The facts of today’s events are still being gathered and it would be premature to comment further.”

***

Prosecutor Craig had the last word in the trial, and his rebuttal left the five women and one man on the jury with the centerpiece of his case: Evans’ “apology letter” that he had apparently written to the victim as part of counseling, eight years before he was charged.

Evans’ wife, daughter, son-in-law, sister and brother sat on the defense side of the courtroom and listened to Craig read the lurid details.

Peggy Evans hung her head.

The victim cried.

Evans took notes, as he had done most of the trial.

The letter, dated April 10, 1996, described how he was “overcome with selfish desires” when he first touched her.

After several years of taking advantage of her nightly fear of what might happen and her youthful ignorance about sex, he promised to stop.

“For a while, I kept my promise.”

Record staff writer Daron Dean contributed to this report. A version of this article was printed Aug. 28, 2009, on Page 1A of both The Florida Times-Union and The St. Augustine Record.

A father wasn’t aware that his 23-month-old daughter was in the back seat of his car when he got home from dropping off his girlfriend, the girl’s mother, at work? It didn’t dawn on him to check her crib? He could doze off without knowing where his baby was?

While investigators are still scrutinizing the facts in Long’s case, his story at face value is a tough sell to anyone who hasn’t been in his spot.

But the unfathomable act — accident or not — of leaving a child in a car to suffer a sweltering death happens more these days than most would care to believe. Still, prosecutors and cops, and at times judges and juries, are left to answer a simple question: Mustn’t someone pay?

***

Between Jan. 1 and July 1 of this year, 13 other children died the same way Arianna Long died — from a 4-month-old in Milwaukee to a 3-year-old in Warwick, R.I.

There are differences in the details — the temperatures outside, the makes and models of the vehicles, the socioeconomic status of their parents. Yet they all died the same tragic death: overheating in a car because an adult forgot them.

Vehicular hyperthermia is a relatively new phenomenon, said Janette Fennell, the founder and president of Kids and Cars, a Kansas-based nonprofit organization that tracks automobile-related pediatric deaths and injuries.

Parents’ attention spans are increasingly divided, Fennell said.

And, ironically, for safety reasons, young children nowadays most always ride in the back seat, where they’re more likely to be overlooked.

She only knows Long’s case from what she has read. She knows he’s been charged in his child’s death, but she hasn’t drawn any conclusions.

In general, she says, these cases come down to an absent-minded, otherwise-loving parent who made a horrible mistake.

“Every situation has to stand on its own facts, and every case is different,” she said. “I think for me the big turning point is: Was this intentional or was this unintentional?”

***

On Saturday, Long’s girlfriend, parents, sisters, stepbrother, friends, ex-wife and former mother-in-law, among others, stood near the corner of state roads 207 and 312, holding signs supporting Omar and asking for his release.

William Montgomery, Long’s stepfather and the pastor of Deliverance Time Ministries in Jacksonville, said Omar, 30, is a caring and careful parent. Long calls Montgomery every time he is with one of Omar’s children, just to make sure everything’s OK.

“That’s the type of person he was,” Montgomery said.

“He is,” Long’s mother and his wife, Yvette Montgomery, quickly interjected.

“That he is,” her husband said.

Sonya Mackey, of Hastings, and Long were married for a few years, and the couple had a daughter, Jasmine. Now 11, Jasmine stood with Long’s family Saturday as her mother held her sign that read, “My Dad is a good Dad.”

Mackey said that though as a couple they didn’t work out, he was a good father.

“He was the best dad anybody could have,” she said. “He’s a good person.”

***

Lashondia Anderson, Long’s 22-year-old girlfriend and the mother of Arianna and 5-year-old Omar Long Jr., was subdued, quietly holding a sign that read, “I’m Arianna’s mom and I know he loved her!”

Anderson said Long had worked at Harry’s, a downtown seafood restaurant, until the early hours of June 14. He then spent several hours with friends before coming home.

At about 6 a.m. she carried Arianna out to Long’s 2006 Dodge Charger. Like he had many times before, Long drove her to work at Flagler Hospital.

She recalled that during the drive from their St. Augustine South home — only about a mile and a half — Long dozed off at a stoplight. The beeping from his radar detector woke him, and he drove on.

At the hospital, Anderson got out, opened the rear passenger-side door and gave Arianna a kiss.

At about noon, Seritia Montgomery woke up to a quiet house.

She and her husband, William Montgomery Jr., live with Long, her husband’s stepbrother, so she was accustomed to being woken early by the two children.

But she had been able to sleep in that morning. She told police that was unusual, so she went looking for Arianna.
She looked in her crib and around the house. She saw Long asleep on the couch but could not find the child.

She went outside and saw the Charger parked in the driveway with the engine running, according to a police report.

Arianna was sitting atop the center armrest in the back seat, but the doors were locked. She went inside yelling for Long. He ran out and ran back in to get a spare key, she told police.

It was too late. Arianna was blue. She wasn’t breathing.

***

On June 26, Long, with his attorney, walked into the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office to meet with detectives.

That night he was charged with manslaughter and child neglect, both second-degree felonies punishable by 15 years in prison. He was also charged with probation violation.

As of Saturday night, he remained at the county jail on $500,000 bond. (Even if the bond wasn’t set so high, he wouldn’t be able to get out before July 13, when he is scheduled for an arraignment on the probation violation charge.)

So far this year, five children in Florida have died after they were left in cars.

Of those, only two people have been charged: Long and Elizabeth Cuesta, a 39-year-old Miami woman who unintentionally left her 18-month-old son in her truck when she went to work. Cuesta was charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child, a first-degree felony, and was released on $10,000 bond.

In the three other cases, the State Attorney’s Office and detectives are coordinating to determine whether to file charges.

R.J. Larizza, the state attorney for Flagler, Putnam, St. Johns and Volusia counties, said he didn’t have much comment about the case.

He acknowledged that it didn’t appear Long intended to harm his daughter.

“It’s not like someone went out and intentionally shot somebody,” Larizza said. “It’s a terrible tragedy anytime a child dies, and, especially under those types of circumstances, it could have been avoided.”

***

After Long was arrested, a number of comments were posted to the subsequent stories on The Record’s Web site.

One reader wrote: “This man should be locked into a car, and left for as long as it takes for him to die…there is NO EXCUSE for this!!! Even if he is the father, and regrets and mourns his daughter, how could he have not known she was in that car? He should die in exactly the same manner as that poor child did.”

Most comments weren’t so extreme, but many implied Long should be punished.

Fennell, from the Kids and Cars organization, said the lack of empathy is understandable.

“It is so horrific, it’s so unthinkable, that the people that make those comments are trying to distance themselves from thinking this could ever happen to them,” she said. “That is the biggest mistake that people make. Anyone that thinks this can’t happen to them is at the most danger.”

***

The number of hyperthermia cases rose steadily since the mid-1990s, when parents increasingly began putting their children in back seats in response to the spike in air bag-related deaths. According to an Associated Press analysis of more than 300 such cases between 1998 and 2007, charges were filed 49 percent of the time.

Half of those charges had resulted in jail time at the time of the study, but sentences varied depending on who was responsible.

Paid caregivers were charged 84 percent of the time, and 96 percent of those were convicted.

The median sentence was 12 months.

Parents were slightly less likely to be charged than the caregivers, the study found, but the median sentence was considerably higher: 4.5 years.

It also depended on which parent was charged.

Mothers were jailed in 59 percent of cases, while 47 percent of fathers were. Also, the median sentence for mothers was five years but three for dads.

“We follow the whole country,” Fennell said, “and it’s amazing how differently these cases are treated. You can even call it day and night.”

***

Yvette Montgomery, Long’s mother who also is a minister with Deliverance Time, said even some among her family blame her son and want to see him punished.

Tension had been so high that police officers were standing by at Arianna’s funeral.

On the street in front of The Record building Saturday, the family was hoping to get both media attention and the attention of passers-by to tell everyone they could that their boyfriend, brother, son, ex-husband and friend was a good man and a doting father who made a mistake that he will never stop paying for.

“I’m hoping to get to where he’s hearing things other than that he’s just a murderer,” Montgomery said.

As they stood on the side of the road, a man stuck his upper torso out of the passenger-side window of a passing car, held out his fist and yelled, “That’s what I’m talking about,” responding to the dozen or so people holding signs supporting Long.

Montgomery didn’t recognize the man, and she gave a little chuckle at the man’s inflection and demeanor. Still, the support, any support, meant the world.

A version of this article was printed July 5, 2009, on Page 1A of The St. Augustine Record.

His remains are in a box placed in the Medical Examiner’s Office.

There have been no grieving family members, no flowers, no wakes. Nothing.

Even if there were a grave and a proper burial, the tombstone would be blank, and the clergyman wouldn’t know whose soul he was blessing.

After more than eight months since a fellow transient came upon the man’s skeleton, investigators still haven’t come up with a name.

The man’s lonesome death is a sobering symbol of just how vulnerable — emotionally and physically — homeless people are.

“We’ve done everything we can possibly think of to identify him,” Kevin Roberts, a St. Johns County sheriff’s detective, said recently.

Detectives interviewed members of the homeless community, an autopsy was conducted, and the man’s bones were sent to the University of Florida for an anthropologist to study.

Transients gave a few names of people who might be missing, the autopsy revealed the man’s death was natural, and the anthropologist narrowed it down to a Hispanic male between the ages of 25 and 35. None of the names panned out, and no one with a similar description has been reported missing.

Usually homeless people carry some form of identification or their fingerprints are in some sort of database, and thus they can usually be identified in a matter of weeks or even days. But to be eight months along and out of options is as distressing as it is perplexing.

“We can’t give them a proper burial; we can’t notify the family,” Roberts said. “We can’t tell them now because we don’t know ourselves.”

‘Scattered about’
In the muggy afternoon of June 24, David Worley was walking along a pathway through a patch of woods east of The St. Augustine Record building on State Road 312. Worley, now 51, was looking for aluminum cans to cash in when an odor struck him. He looked down, saw a smattering of bones and went to get a police officer.

The body was about 50 yards into the woods, just off the pathway that leads to a transient camp. A pair of gray tennis shoes and a Wal-Mart bag containing Bic razor blades and toothpaste were nearby.

The body had been there for several weeks and had become so badly decomposed in the Florida summer that detectives couldn’t tell the sex of the deceased. Maggots were crawling through a hand.

“There were large black feathers from a bird scattered around the remains as if a bird had been feeding on the remains,” a deputy wrote in a police report. “It appeared a large animal also fed on the remains, as they were not intact and were scattered about.”

During the autopsy, the medical examiner found a pin in the man’s left hip. The UF anthropologist examined it and found that it didn’t have a serial number, meaning it was likely inserted before the early 1990s, when prosthetics were first required to carry serial numbers.

Everyday struggle
Renee’ Morris, the executive director of the St. Francis House in Lincolnville, said she has thought about the John Doe every day since he was found in the woods.

Morris said it is difficult to cope with the thought that the organization could have helped him.

She knows “little, tiny St. Francis House cannot solve the homeless problem” and cannot save every homeless person who comes through St. Johns County. Still, John Doe’s death is a reminder to her that, for the county’s homeless, there are a lot of vital programs and services that they can’t access.

For starters, she said, a detoxification clinic would help get them sober.

“That’s a big beginning for a lot of people,” she said.

Morris, who has been planning to build a bigger, one-stop center to service the homeless population, said there is also a need for more housing and more general medical care.

“That’s what we’re moving toward,” she said, “so that man doesn’t have to die in the woods by himself.”

Some detractors have said the center could serve as a magnet, bringing more homeless to the county.

“People say, ‘Build it and they will come,’” she said. “Well, honey, they’re already here.”

The 2008 homelessness study from the Florida Department of Children and Families estimated there were 1,238 homeless people in St. Johns County, roughly half of the homeless population in Duval County.

In the meantime, Morris said, “You wonder who’s going to be next.”

‘Nobody to miss ‘em’
The man’s clothes were gathered up along with his bones and were submitted as evidence.

The medical examiner cataloged what he had on: Puritan brand shorts, possibly gray or tan, size small; red plaid boxer shorts, size medium; and a T-shirt, size unknown, with “COLLEGE” across the chest, similar to the sweater John Belushi wore in the 1978 film “Animal House.”

Like the man’s bones at the Medical Examiner’s Office, the clothes are undisturbed in an evidence room at the Sheriff’s Office.

Roberts and his fellow detectives have changed the man’s case to “inactive.” He said there’s little else they can do but wait and hope someone will realize the man is missing and set out to find him. Until then, it’s almost like he never existed.

“It’s a tough life, for a lack of better way of putting it — then ultimately to pass and nobody to miss ‘em.”

A version of this article was printed March 11, 2009, on Page 1A of The St. Augustine Record.