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© St. Petersburg Times, published July 31, 2002
DCF visited child three days before fatal head battering
PENSACOLA -- A Department of Children and Families counselor visited a Crestview toddler three days before the child was found dead from a battering to the head, an agency official said.
It was a routine visit that gave no indication that 19-month-old Kayla Regine Mays or her four siblings had been harmed or were in danger, said Betty Hooper, spokeswoman for the department's district headquarters here.
The department was providing homemaker services and parenting classes for the mother, Tonya D. Mays, 21, and physical therapy for Kayla, who had complications from a premature birth and other problems, Hooper said.
Tonya Mays told Okaloosa County sheriff's deputies that while she was at work July 12, her live-in boyfriend, Arione Worlds, 28, put Kayla to bed. She was found dead the next morning.
An autopsy disclosed that the child's head had been struck with or hit against a blunt object several times. The death is under investigation as a homicide, sheriff's spokesman Rick Hord said.
Mays' other four children, including Kayla's twin brother, have been taken into DCF custody during the investigation, Hooper said.
MIAMI -- The U.S. Senate has confirmed Marcos Jimenez, a Miami law firm partner and brother of Gov. Jeb Bush's former deputy chief of staff, as the next U.S. attorney for South Florida.
Jimenez, 42, was nominated by President Bush in November. The Senate confirmed him late Monday.
Jimenez will take over for acting U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis, who has served as the top federal prosecutor since 2000. Lewis is a finalist for a federal judgeship.
Jimenez, who helped with President Bush's legal fight on the Florida presidential ballot, was a federal prosecutor for four years.
He is the brother of Frank Jimenez, one of Jeb Bush's former top aides who now serves as chief of staff to U.S. Housing Secretary Mel Martinez.
WINTER HAVEN -- A man was charged with first-degree murder Tuesday in the death of a toddler police say was beaten to death Saturday night.
Police say Maurice D. Spann, 25, beat 2-year-old Raffington Wayne Simon after the boy's mother, Latonga Rentz, Spann's girlfriend, went to Wal-Mart.
Rentz said she returned to find that her son wasn't breathing, was bruised and had blood in his ear, according to the police report. The boy died at a hospital of blunt trauma to the head.
Spann was being held without bail in the Polk County Jail.
MAITLAND -- The City Council apologized Monday to a performer who quit the Maitland Pops Orchestra and Chorus over a song she called racially insensitive.
Denise Beumer, one of two black members of the group, first asked the council last month to prohibit the chorus from singing Rock-a-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody at its July 21 patriotism-themed concert.
The song, made popular in 1918 by performer Al Jolson in blackface, contains "Old Black Joe" and "mammy" in its lyrics. Beumer argued that it had no place in a concert about American unity, but music director Dale Burke refused to take if off the program.
The council said the decision to keep the song was insensitive.
"I'd like to apologize on behalf of the city," Mayor Sascha Rizzo said. "This has not reflected well on the city."
FORT MYERS -- A nonprofit environmental law firm sued the South Florida Water Management District Tuesday, alleging it has done little to prevent Lake Okeechobee from being regularly polluted with pesticides, oil, grease and other contaminants.
Earthjustice said the water district is violating the federal Clean Water Act.
David Guest, managing attorney for Earthjustice's Tallahassee Office, said after heavy rains, water is pumped into the lake through drainage canals on the south and western edges. He said the water is filled with oil, grease, pesticides, herbicides and animal feces.
South Florida Water Management officials said the district has complied with all state and federal environmental rules and has made "significant progress" in reducing pollutants.
HAINES CITY -- An Amtrak passenger train hit a flatbed truck Tuesday outside this Polk County city, but no one was seriously hurt, officials said.
The truck entered a marked railroad crossing when it was hit by the Amtrak Silver Star at about 3:45 p.m., said John Cloum, a spokesman for the Lake Alfred fire department. The train's crew told officials it was traveling 70 mph.
About 160 passengers were on the train en route from Miami to New York, Amtrak spokeswoman Kathleen Cantillon said. None were hurt. All cars remained on the tracks. The engineer and the truck driver received minor scrapes.
The train was towed to Orlando, where its damaged locomotive was to be replaced to complete the trip.