Chad Stephen Smith

Published February 22, 2009, in The St. Augustine Record

In confession, man details killing his wife and putting her body out to sea

Benjamin Colenn Lightsey dragged his wife, Melissa, out of the back seat of his truck on Nov. 8 and put her down on the pavement of their driveway.

He punched her in the face two or three times, knocking her out, then choked her until he heard a “pop” in her throat. Then he let go.

“I had no control and when I was — when I was swinging, it was not me, it was — it’s not the Ben I’ve ever known, it was not me,” he said, according to the 121-page transcript of Lightsey’s confession that was released Friday. “It’s not the Ben that my wife knew, it’s not the Ben anybody in this world knows, because I’ve never seen him before.”

He checked her pulse and found nothing. He stood, looked around and made sure no one had seen what he had done.

Published February 13, 2009, in The St. Augustine Record

Media pour into missing girl’s small hometown

SATSUMA, Fla. — Crystal Sheffield stood up from her chair after an interview in front of a Fox News camera.

A producer removed the earpiece from Sheffield’s ear, and then she broke down into her sister’s arms.

She seemed to say the words, “Where is she?” If she didn’t say them, they were undoubtedly on her mind.

Published January 21, 2009, in The St. Augustine Record

Watching from afar, Obama’s inauguration hits home

A few dozen yards west of a market where, more than a century ago, slaves were sold at auction and a few dozen yards north of where, in the 1960s, black men and black women could not sit and eat at the Woolworth’s pharmacy, several hundred people gathered Tuesday to watch on television as Barack Obama was sworn in as president.

At noon a TV commentator chimed in over the sound of a cello and said of Obama: “He is now the president of the United States.” Obama had not yet taken the oath of office, but President George W. Bush’s term had ended, as per the 20th Amendment to the Constitution.

On the Plaza de la Constitucion the crowd erupted at the news.

Published December 27, 2008, in The St. Augustine Record

After confession, killer now back whence he came

Before the man who confessed to killing her mother was sentenced two weeks ago, Sandra Jordan said she would throw a party if the judge sent him back to Mississippi, where he had already been serving a 150-year sentence for rape, robbery and burglary.

On Friday, she started planning. The news that Mark Dean Aldridge had been sent back had been a long time coming for Jordan.

“We can finally say now that we have a little bit of closure,” she said. “As much as we could get.”

Published December 21, 2008, in The St. Augustine Record

A shot at redemption

Andrew Stanton should be dead.

His young life, mired in the St. Augustine drug scene and marred by drug addictions, should have ended on Oct. 3 at the Lil’ Champ gas station just south of the airport, when a U.S. marshal fired three rounds from his Glock 22 at him, hitting Stanton right below his right eye.

And Stanton would be dead had it not been for a freak coincidence from three years earlier, when he was jumped in Lincolnville, a few blocks from his home.

Published November 28, 2008, in The St. Augustine Record

Thanksgiving traditions: turkey, football and skewed history?

With her husband watching football, Robyn Gioia stood in the kitchen of her Jacksonville home on Thursday afternoon.

A pumpkin pie cooled near the oven and a turkey had been readied to go in next.

It was the prototypical Thanksgiving Day household, save for the fact that, for Gioia anyway, it wasn’t really Thanksgiving.

Published November 4, 2008, in The St. Augustine Record

On Election Day eve, Obama stops in Jacksonville

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Barack Obama took to the arena stage here at 11:15 a.m. Monday, 37 hours and 45 minutes before the last polls close on his nearly two-year campaign for the presidency.

Obama was far, by just about any measure, from where he was when the first gun sounded on the primary season: an underdog junior senator trying to become the first black presidential candidate.

The Democrat from Illinois is still a junior senator, but that is about the only holdover from the first campaign stops in Iowa.

He now is the first black presidential candidate and is hardly an underdog going into Election Day.

Published October 5, 2008, in The St. Augustine Record

Decades after their school closed, alumni gather for reunion

HASTINGS, Fla. — Back then they were football players or grocery store clerks or girls so pretty their boyfriends — now their husbands — are still at their sides.

On Saturday a few hundred graduates of Hastings High School were back, looking over their old school and looking for old friends.

Scores of people, some with the aid of canes or wheelchairs, came through the double doors of Hastings High and into the blue-and-white decorated auditorium for a school reunion.

Published September 14, 2008, in The St. Augustine Record

Fallen soldier honored by VFW, mourned by family

As a congressman extolled his father’s courage and honor in the parking lot of a Veterans of Foreign Wars lodge, 16-month-old Gareth Tutten sat in his grandfather’s arms, content playing with his mustached face and rimmed glasses.

Four-year-old Catherine Tutten also seemed to have few cares, other than her stuffed puppy dog. She spun about in a yellow sundress, waving to the old people around her with a bright smile.

Their mother, though, knew what they didn’t: Daddy’s not coming home.

Published July 20, 2008, in The St. Augustine Record

No easy answers in crash

For two families, there are still no answers to a question that is, in the same breath, so simple yet so life-shattering: Why?

Why was Rachel Higgins, a 33-year-old mother working two jobs so she could afford to do mission work in the Philippines, driving the wrong way on Interstate 95 early Thursday morning?

Why didn’t she see the “Do not enter” signs on the exit ramp? Or, if she turned around in the median, why would she do that?

Why was no one involved in the crash wearing a seat belt?