By LEANORA MINAI, CURTIS KRUEGER, WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE and JAMIE JONES
Published February 7, 2004
[Times photo: Dirk Shadd]
Family members and friends gather Friday inside the crime tape near where the 11-year-old girl's body was found at a church. Stepfather Steven Kansler is in sunglasses.
[Times photo: Dirk Shadd]
Joe Brucia laments lost time with his daughter, whom he saw twice a year because he lives in New York.
[Times photo: Michael Rondou]
The home of Carlie Brucia is covered Friday with plastic sheeting and a sign asking media to respect the family's privacy. In front are gifts and flowers people have brought as a memorial to Carlie.
[Times photo: Dirk Shadd]
Investigators carry the body of Carlie Brucia from the brush at the Central Church of Christ in Sarasota on Friday morning.
Timeline SUNDAY Carlie Brucia, 11, is abducted about 6:20 p.m. outside a car wash while walking home from a friend's house. MONDAY Authorities issue statewide "Amber Alert" for the girl and release images of abduction taken from surveillance camera. TUESDAY Telephone tip leads investigators to Joseph P. Smith, an unemployed auto mechanic. He is arrested and held on probation violation. WEDNESDAY Officials announce Smith is a suspect. The home where he recently lived is cordoned off with yellow police tape. Investigators search a Buick Century station wagon for clues. THURSDAY Investigators say Smith is uncooperative but "strong evidence" links him to the abduction. FRIDAY Shortly before 1 a.m., Carlie's body is found outside Central Church of Christ after negotiations with Smith. Smith is charged with murder and kidnapping.
At 7:10 a.m., Sarasota County Sheriff Bill Balkwill speaks live on national television from the car wash: "The body of a beautiful 11-year-old girl, Carlie Brucia, has been found. Joseph Smith is under arrest for the abduction and murder of Carlie."
TODAY'S COVERAGE: Desperate search ends outside Sarasota church Popular sixth-grader was 'all-American girl' Carlie Brucia Memorial Fund More and more, we're on camera Latest from the Associated Press WEB EXTRAS: Guestbook: Share your thoughts The search for Carlie: The week in pictures Previous Times coverage Surveillance video
FROM TAMPA BAY'S 10 NEWS: Carlie's mother, Susan Schorpen, sits down and speaks to 10 News: (56k
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Remembering Carlie Brucia: (56k
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Sarasota Judge and Department of Probation point fingers over accused murderer: (56k
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Sarasota citizens changed by murder: (56k
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Judge says he did not make a mistake to refuse to send accused killer to jail: (56k
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SARASOTA - Holding hands, singing songs, offering one another support, hundreds of people arrived Friday night outside Community Bible Chapel, lifting candles to the sky as a stricken community began to grieve the loss of Carlie Brucia.
"Take someone tonight and just hug them. Just hug them," implored pastor Larry Woomert. "Just tell them that you love them. Someone close to you needs to hear these words."
The search for 11-year-old Carlie ended early Friday when investigators found her body beneath a pile of brush at a Sarasota church.
Investigators said the man held in her murder, 37-year-old mechanic Joseph P. Smith, told an unidentified witness at the jail that he had abducted and murdered Carlie, and the witness helped investigators locate her body.
The discovery renewed questions about why Smith, with a long criminal record, was on the street.
"I really find the decisions made by some of these judges very questionable," Carlie's father, Joe Brucia, said Friday.
Sarasota Circuit Judge Harry Rapkin, who has been handling Smith's recent probation case, said he's getting hate calls.
"People want to shoot me. Kill me," said Rapkin, who maintained he did nothing wrong. "I haven't slept all night."
A day that began with a horrifying discovery ended with a community united in mourning, and seeking answers.
Carlie's body was found about 1 a.m. at Central Church of Christ, fewer than 3 miles from the car wash where she was kidnapped while walking home Sunday.
Crime scene technicians wearing white coveralls retrieved her body, placed it on a stretcher and carried it to a white van. Detectives said only that she died of "homicidal violence."
Smith was arrested Tuesday on a probation violation. While in custody, he told detectives that he was not near Evie's Car Wash on Sunday evening.
But detectives said surveillance cameras captured a yellow station wagon in the parking lot about three minutes before Carlie's abduction. Smith had been driving that car, detectives said.
They say Smith acted alone, forced Carlie into his car and drove away.
"He will pay the ultimate price for what he did to her," said Sarasota Capt. Jeff Bell.
Smith, charged with kidnapping and first-degree murder, was transferred to a Manatee County jail on Friday morning, held without bail and isolated from the general population, authorities said. He could be sentenced to death if convicted of the murder charge.
Smith's former business partner, Ed Dinyes, 47, said Smith apparently snapped after his wife, Luz Castrillon, told him their marriage was over.
"It was only a week ago he was all excited because he thought they might be getting back together," said Dinyes, who co-owned Saurus Auto with Smith. "Lucy told him that Sunday that it wasn't going to happen."
Dinyes said he believes authorities should have locked up Smith long ago and said they should take a share of the blame.
"The system failed Joe, and it failed that little girl," Dinyes said. "Maybe he deserves to die for what he's done, but the state should have to pay a price, too."
During the past decade, Smith had many second chances.
He has been arrested at least 13 times since 1993, mostly for drug-related charges. In 1998, he was acquitted of trying to abduct a woman in Manatee County.
For all his arrests, Smith avoided prison, except for a 16-month sentence in November 2001 for prescription fraud and probation violations.
After his release in January 2003, Smith was arrested within days for cocaine possession and placed on drug-offender probation after pleading no contest.
He was supervised by probation officials in Sarasota who, since August, had sent the judge two notices that Smith was violating his probation.
The first occurred after Smith tested positive for cocaine in August of 2003. But by the time the test was confirmed, Smith was already in treatment, so he wasn't jailed, Department of Corrections officials say.
Smith's most fateful break came in December.
* * *
Corrections officials asked a judge to sign a warrant for Smith's arrest after he failed to pay $170 in costs that were a condition of his probation.
Judge Rapkin attached a note to Smith's file saying, "I need evidence that this was willful! Did he have the ability to pay."
Joe Papy, a Tampa-based regional director of the DOC, said the judge should have held a hearing to determine whether Smith could pay, holding him in jail until then.
"It's the court's responsibility to act," Papy said.
Rapkin said Smith's probation officer never got back to him after that note was put in the file. Now, many blame Rapkin that Smith was free.
"If I thought that not signing a warrant caused this girl's death, I'd quit," Rapkin said. "I couldn't live with myself. But that didn't happen. I did my job."
Rapkin said he was bound by law to issue a warrant only if there was proof that Smith had the money to pay the fees but willfully neglected his obligation.
"You can't incarcerate somebody for not having money," Rapkin said. "That would be creating debtors' prisons."
Papy responded, "You don't blame probation officers for what a circuit judge should have done."
DOC Secretary Jim Crosby was troubled by the case.
"The first thing you do is you say, "Could we have done more? Can we do more? What should we do? How do we make sure this doesn't happen again? What roles can we play?"' Crosby said.
Crosby said his agency properly supervised Smith.
Crosby said DOC would look at Florida law and decide if it's worth recommending changes to lawmakers, perhaps requiring judges to hold a hearing when a probation violation is reported.
"That may be a way of tightening it up," he said.
But Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender Bob Dillinger, whose office is not involved in the case, defended Judge Rapkin, saying no one can anticipate a person's homicidal behavior.
"The judge did what the law required," Dillinger said. "These awful things happen, and it's not the judge's fault."
* * *
Sarasota residents are struggling to deal with the truth.
Col. Terry Lewis has been wearing a light purple ribbon bearing Carlie's name. Friday morning, after Carlie's body was discovered, he unfastened the ribbon from his green uniform.
He held it between his fingers most of the morning. He's going to give it to his son, Dan, a freshman at the University of Florida.
"Just to remind him," Lewis said, pausing, "of life."
Sheriff Bill Balkwill, 52, worked 14 years as a school resource officer. His wife, Gail, teaches at Carlie's school. At press briefings this week, the sheriff shed the trademark law enforcement composure and choked back tears, walking away from the media glare to hug detectives.
During the gathering Friday night, the crowd was filled with friends and strangers, their tearful faces captured on live television news broadcasts. People vowed that they would never forget the vivacious, blue-eyed girl.
Pastor Woomert warned them that no one would ever be able to make sense of Carlie's death.
He urged the mourners to hope, instead, for a peace that requires no understanding.
- Staff writers Christopher Goffard and Alisa Ulferts, and the Miami Herald, contributed to this report.
A rare crime
According to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 58,200 children in the United States were abducted by nonrelatives in 1999, the most recent data available. In the vast majority of cases, the children were released unharmed. Only 115 abductions were classified as the most dangerous kind, where the child was kept overnight, held for ransom or killed. In those instances, 69 children were returned safety, and 46 were killed.
