By CURTIS KRUEGER and CARRIE JOHNSON
Published February 7, 2004
[Times photo: Dirk Shadd]
Jaclyn Scattolini, left, and Mikelle Hunter, both 11, attend a vigil for their friend Carlie Brucia on Friday in Sarasota.
Memorial fund A memorial fund in Carlie's name was set up Friday at 1st Kensington Bank in New Tampa. Those wishing to make a contribution can mail a check to the Carlie Brucia Memorial Fund, care of 1st Kensington Bank, 1932 Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, Wesley Chapel, 33543.
SARASOTA - Carlie Brucia was no shrinking violet. At age 11, she was wise beyond her years and unlikely to trust a stranger.
So those who knew her best said there must be a good reason why she didn't appear to struggle as her abductor led her out of the parking lot of a Sarasota car wash Sunday evening.
"You never know what he said to her," said Caydance Stauffer, 11, Carlie's classmate. "For all you know, he could have had a gun and threatened to kill her."
It was just one of many unanswered questions friends and relatives were left to grapple Friday after Carlie's body was found near a church parking lot after a five-day search.
At her school, outside her home, at a candlelight vigil at another local church, the community mourned the sixth-grader, a vivacious little girl who loved pizza, Jennifer Lopez and singing in the McIntosh Middle School chorus.
"She was the all-American girl," said Bob Hagemann, principal of McIntosh. "The type of daughter any family wants to have."
* * *
By all accounts, Carlie was one of the most popular girls in her class. Samantha Reilly, 12, called Carlie "hug buddy" because she was always ready with a hug.
Carlie also knew how to keep her girlfriends laughing. She nicknamed Samantha "Sam-I-Am." She called classmate Kerrie Faber "Care Bear." A friend named Joseph became "Mojo Jo-Jo."
Carlie was a Renaissance student at McIntosh Middle, which means she had a grade point average of 3.0 or above. She completed Brentwood Elementary School in Sarasota last year.
When her mood changed, so did her clothes.
"She was very versatile," said Teresa Bakara, 37, a family friend. "If she wanted to be a little Gothic one day she'd wear black. Next day she would be in little pigtails and capris."
She was a friend to all, even the younger kids who others her age might have ignored. And in the middle school's gossip-crazy halls, she was never heard to bad-mouth anyone.
"My 7-year-old idolized her," Bakara said.
Bakara's 12-year-old daughter, Sierra, loved Carlie, too. She postponed her 12th birthday party to wait until Carlie came home. Now she has canceled it.
Like most girls, Carlie dreamed about her future.
"On Friday, we talked about Sweet 16 and what we're going to do for that," Samantha Reilly recalled Thursday, the day before Carlie's death was announced. "Last night I was upset because I thought, it popped in my mind that she might not be here."
* * *
Even at her young age, Carlie had experienced some hardships.
She was born on March 16, 1992, and apparently spent the first years of her life in New York. Carlie's parents divorced in New York in 1995, according to records. She lived with her mother, Susan Schorpen.
Schorpen moved to Florida sometime in the mid 1990s, records show. Carlie's mother married Steven Kansler in 1998, records show. Carlie also had a 6-year-old half brother, a 10-year-old stepbrother and a cat named Charlie.
Her father, Joe Brucia, still resides in New York.
Brucia said Friday he only saw his daughter twice a year.
During a press conference, he lamented the lost time.
"There's only one thing I can do now," Brucia said. "That's to try to make her proud of me and be a better man."
Carlie was unhappy Sunday morning, the last day friends and family saw her alive. While eating breakfast at McDonald's with Ron Choquette, a family friend, Carlie became upset because some men were looking at her.
"I was talking fatherlike to her and I told her not to let it bother her," said Choquette. "I told her, they're going to do that.
"She was telling me that boys were always doing that to her."
Carlie had spent Saturday night at a slumber party at the house Choquette shared with his friend, Connie Arnold.
Around 6 p.m., Carlie called her family and said she was walking home from Arnold's. Not wanting her to walk the whole mile, her stepfather drove up Bee Ridge Road looking for her.
When he couldn't find her, the family called police. The next day, staff at Evie's Car Wash found Carlie's picture taken by a surveillance camera along her route home.
The widely aired video caused a nationwide stir and hundreds of people called a tip line set up by law enforcement. Police set up an "Amber Alert."
On Wednesday, Joseph P. Smith was named as the prime suspect in the investigation. He had been arrested Tuesday on a probation violation charge.
But there was no Carlie. Smith, a mechanic with a lengthy criminal history, asked for a lawyer and wouldn't speak to police.
Meanwhile, friends of Carlie's family sat vigil with her mother.
"It's so hard," said Tracy Bisel, Carlie's neighbor."Right now I'm fine. Ten minutes from now, who knows? The whole thing is such an emotional roller coaster."
* * *
The waiting came to an end before dawn Friday, after authorities notified the family they had found a body believed to be Carlie's near the Central Church of Christ, fewer than three miles from the spot she was abducted.
Carlie's house on McIntosh Road became a shrine, festooned with flowers, stuffed animals and banners. Motorists slowed as they passed by, causing a traffic backup.
More than 30 counselors were at McIntosh Middle on Friday to comfort grieving students. Parents held their children a little closer.
"I just started crying when I heard the news," said Charlene Parish, who was dropping off her eighth-grade daughter. "I told her if anything like that ever happens, she has to fight and kick and yell and do whatever she has to do."
But Carlie won't be forgotten.
Earlier this week, the sixth-grade chorus students at McIntosh gathered for their yearbook photo.
"We left a gap for her," said classmate Samantha Reilly.
A computerized photo will be filled in later, a reminder of the friend who is no longer there.
- Information from the Associated Press and New York Daily News was used in this report.
