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Sent to jail for help, teen killed

Two young men at a Pinellas juvenile detention center reportedly trade insults, then blows. A 17-year-old is killed.

LARGO - Diana Matthews felt her 17-year-old son slipping away. Daniel was inhaling paint and taking cold pills. He dropped out of school. He became increasingly violent.

Last week, she said, Daniel Matthews pushed her across a table and bruised her arm. She saw it as an opportunity. If she pressed charges, maybe her son would get the mental health and drug treatment he needed. Sheriff's deputies agreed.

Saturday night, Matthews was killed at the detention center during a fight with another inmate, 16-year-old Louis Lauro of Pinellas Park, sheriff's officials said. They said what sparked the fight is unclear but that it does not appear to be gang-related.

Matthews' death is the first fatal attack at the Pinellas County Juvenile Detention Center and the first in any of Florida's juvenile detention centers since at least 1999. The Pinellas center, a 120-bed jail used primarily for inmates under 18 years old who are facing juvenile charges, is in mid Pinellas near the county criminal justice complex on 49th Street N.

The Pinellas Sheriff's Office and the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office will determine whether Lauro should face criminal charges. The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice will review whether its staff acted properly.

"It's a tragic event," Florida Juvenile Justice Secretary Bill Bankhead said Sunday. "I'm a father and can feel the hurt of the parents, and my heart is out to them."

Matthews' mother said she wants answers.

"I finally had my son arrested so he could get help ... and now he's dead," she said as she cried Sunday afternoon. "I want to know why. I don't care what the kid did, there's no reason for this. There is no excuse for it."

Matthews and Lauro did not know each other before they met in the detention center last week, Pinellas Sheriff's spokeswoman Marianne Pasha said. She said they called each other "No. 14" and "No. 16," the numbers of their cells.

But a confrontation had been brewing all day Saturday. Matthews and Lauro repeatedly traded insults, Pasha said, each claiming to be tougher than the other.

The teens argued during the day as they gathered in a classroom with several other inmates to watch television. They argued at night from their separate cells.

Pasha said the fight began after 10 p.m. Saturday as Matthews' roommate arrived back at their room after making a phone call.

Lauro, who had been in the center for two days for violating probation on charges of battery, disorderly conduct and criminal mischief, was in his own cell. Somehow, he got out and confronted Matthews.

Pasha said Matthews apparently struck Lauro first, and Lauro allegedly responded by hitting Matthews in the jaw. Matthews reeled back, then came toward Lauro again.

"Lauro then allegedly struck Matthews on the side of the head," she said, and Matthews "staggered back to the wall and flipped to the floor."

Kenny Rutherford said Sunday that his 17-year-old son, who is being held at the detention center, told him that he heard Matthews and Lauro exchanging insults outside his room Saturday night. Rutherford said his son then heard a hard thump and another thud, which he believed was Matthews' temple hitting a door stop.

Matthews was taken by ambulance to Northside Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 11:19 p.m.

Pasha said investigators are trying to determine whether Matthews died from a blow or from hitting his head when he fell. She said it is also unclear how Lauro got out of his cell.

Justin Rust, a 17-year-old who was released Sunday from the center, said he was in the cell between Matthews and Lauro and witnessed part of the fight. He said an inmate called to an officer to open the doors to cells 14 and 16, and the officer did.

Through the window in his cell door, Rust said, he saw Lauro confront Matthews in the hallway just outside Matthews' cell.

Rust said rooms are locked at night but officers can unlock them by remote control. Officers sometimes unlock the doors so inmates can go to a drinking fountain, he said, because the faucets in some cells don't work.

Video cameras monitor nearly every square inch of the facility.

"I want to know how these people got to my son," Diana Matthews said. "My son was brutally murdered. None of them could give me answers."

Melba Zirkle, who is Lauro's grandmother and has raised him since he was 2, broke into tears Sunday night when a reporter told her about the incident.

"He's 16 years old, he's a good kid," she said.

She said he was brought to the center Tuesday after failing a urine test while on probation.

"I am outraged. I am sick," said Cathy Corry of Clearwater, who runs www.justice4kids.org a watchdog Web site about Florida's juvenile justice system. "They are understaffed to the point that they cannot intervene appropriately."

But Bankhead said "our juvenile detention officers are well-trained and more professional than they've ever been in the history of detention in Florida."

He said officers responded immediately to the fight.

Daniel Matthews was born Feb. 14, 1986, on Long Island, his mother said.

"Danny has such a good heart," Diana Matthews said. "I'm not saying that just because he's my son. I've had kids who royally needed a swift kick."

He got mostly A's in the special education classes he took in New York due to a reading disability. He also suffered from a muscular disease that left him in daily pain.

Not long after the family moved to Florida, Daniel started to change. One day, his mother found his face covered in paint that he had been huffing.

He began to abuse cold pills, she said. He attempted suicide. She said he was screaming for help.

Six months ago, Matthews gave up on school at Northeast High. His mother tried to get him into a program, but she said the family couldn't afford one.

Matthews, who worked part time as a cook, started getting violent five weeks ago, his mother said. He fought with his brothers and uncle, leading to a 21-day stint in the center. Then came the fight with his mother last week.

"I had to wait until he put a bruise on me to get him help," she said. "This is the help I got. This is the help my son got. He was supposed to be going to get drug and mental help and now he's dead."

The family sat around their mobile home north of St. Petersburg Sunday afternoon and reminisced about Daniel. He loved to sing the oldies, they said. He sang a rendition of Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On that sounded like the recording.

Daniel Matthews planned to move back to New York when he turned 18 to go into the carpentry business with a friend.

"He needed help," said Daniel's brother, Robert A. Matthews, 20. "He didn't need to get sent to jail and get beat down."