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© St. Petersburg Times, published October 17, 2002
Citrus among counties added to West Nile list
TALLAHASSEE -- Ten more counties were added to those under a medical alert for West Nile virus on Wednesday, putting more than half the state on the list.
Health Secretary John Agwunobi said the 10 counties were added because of increasing detection of the potentially fatal mosquito-borne disease in birds and other animals.
Citrus, Collier, DeSoto, Glades, Hardee, Hendry, Highlands, Martin, Okeechobee and St. Lucie counties were added to the medical alert list, bringing to 34 the number of counties where the disease has been found.
WEST PALM BEACH -- State officials urged residents to cooperate with them in the fight against citrus canker after crews discovered 40 infected trees during backyard searches.
In an area where residents and local governments are challenging the state's rules on removing citrus trees, agriculture officials say they are struggling to beat the disease.
A judge has restricted tree eradication, forcing state workers to get individual search warrants for every yard they inspect.
Agriculture Department officials are appealing to property owners to let them inspect and destroy infected trees and those that grow nearby.
WEST PALM BEACH -- Police said a Guatemalan teenager accused of killing her newborn may not understand the charges against her because no one could translate in her native Mayan dialect.
Eulalia Miguel, 16, was denied bail Tuesday on a first-degree murder charge. She has been in the Palm Beach County Jail since Friday night after Lake Worth police found her bleeding and her baby's body left in a trash can.
Miguel speaks Kanjobal, an unwritten Mayan dialect, said Rick Hussey, manager of court interpreting. Miguel's first court hearing was postponed Friday until Hussey could locate a Kanjobal interpreter.
FLORIDA CITY -- Two people were killed Wednesday in a collision that closed the main route into and out of the Florida Keys for about five hours, state troopers said.
The head-on between two pickup trucks was reported at 7:22 a.m. on U.S. 1 just south of Florida City, near the entrance to a Florida Rock and Sand Co. limestone mining operation.
Traffic was diverted to Card Sound Road, which connects Florida City with North Key Largo and the rest of the Florida Keys. The highway reopened shortly after noon.
ATLANTA -- Testimony began Tuesday in the trial of Timothy Carl Dawson, who is charged with murdering three men in a downtown Atlanta hotel in 1998 and another man at a College Park inn.
Dawson, 42, was stopped for speeding in Memphis, Tenn., 13 days after the Oct. 18 killings at the Atlanta Hilton & Towers Hotel. In Dawson's car, the deputy found a .45-caliber pistol and 60 belongings -- including pieces of identification -- from the victims.
Prosecutor Clint Rucker told jurors that tests tied the gun to bullets used to kill Ronald Gutkowski, 51, of Leesburg, Phillip Dover, 31, of Gainesville, Ga., and Gerrold Shropshire, 50, of Altamonte Springs, who were in Atlanta to attend an Atlanta Falcons game.
The same gun killed LaDarius Hawkins, 19, in a room at a Days Inn a few days earlier. All four men were shot in the head while lying on the floor, Rucker said.
Defense attorney Tom West said the evidence points to a frame-up.