A lawyer for hit-and-run crash victims fears strangers collected money in the family's names, then kept it for themselves.
By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER
Published April 16, 2004
[Times photo: Thomas Goethe]
A driver gives money for Lisa Wilkins' family after two of her children were killed and two injured in a hit-and-run. Wilkins' lawyer fears that some roadside collections have kept the money. Hit-run victim awaits return to normalcy Hit-run continuing coverage 10 news video: New parents group springs from hit-and-run
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TAMPA - Less than 24 hours after brothers Bryant Wilkins and Durontae Caldwell died trying to cross 22nd Street, the push for donations began.
Jars and buckets in hand, people calling themselves neighbors and sympathetic strangers paced the heavily traveled stretch between Fletcher and Bearss avenues.
Holding up the boys' pictures, they asked drivers to slow down and donate whatever they could.
They said the money would help mother Lisa Wilkins bury two children and heal two others injured in a hit-and-run crash.
Driver after driver obliged, some with tears streaming down their faces. A few handed over fistfuls of cash. One solicitor said she had collected more than $3,000 in just a few hours.
But more than two weeks after the crash, it's unclear whether all the roadside charity made it to Wilkins, 29, or to two trust funds set up on the family's behalf.
Hillsborough Sheriff's deputies aren't looking for crooks amid the kind-hearted, so it's up to the mother and her support network to track the cash.
Wilkins said Thursday that she's too busy grieving for Bryant and Durontae and caring for 2-year-old LaJuan Davis and 8-year-old Aquina Wilkins, both injured, to ask how much has been collected.
"I am so thankful for the community's help, but this is not about money," she said.
Yet amid the outpouring of support, Wilkins' lawyer and others see potential for fraud.
"Anybody can saw off a milk jug and go stand on the corner," said her lawyer, Thomas Parnell. "I went over there one day and started confronting people, asking them how they knew the family and why they were collecting money."
Some of the answers didn't measure up, he said.
Sen. Victor Crist, a longtime advocate for Wilkins' University Area neighborhood, said he hasn't seen any of the street money come back to a trust fund set up through the University Area Community Development Corp., for which he serves as CEO. That fund peaked at about $3,000, he said.
"I haven't seen a dime from any of those panhandlers," Crist said.
The second trust fund, set up by a family friend at the Suncoast Schools Federal Credit Union, might have amassed as much as $20,000, Parnell said. He was unsure. Like others, he has had trouble nailing down exact figures.
The credit union would not discuss the account with the Times or say whether any of the money came from street solicitations.
Family spokeswoman Michelle Patty, a community activist with a radio show on WTMP 1150-AM, has warned listeners to "be aware of the jugs on the street, because we don't know who these people are."
"I encouraged them to give their donations directly to the trust fund, so that the money goes where it needs to go," she said.
Crist and Parnell say the families' efforts to raise money have been disorganized, hampered by too much help too fast.
"I've got a concern right now that there's too many cooks in the kitchen," Crist said. "There's too many people out there raising money for a good cause. It's getting difficult to keep track of who's getting paid, who's already been paid."
Crist said the CDC trust fund has paid miscellaneous expenses related to funerals for the two children - including printed programs and fees for ministers, musicians, food, security and flowers.
The actual burial cost, about $9,000, was paid from the $10,000 that Tampa City Council member Kevin White collected from car dealerships and other local businesses.
Patty said County Commission chairman Tom Scott also dropped off $500 to cover last-minute expenses.
White said businesses were more than willing to donate when he asked. He said he took extra care to make sure the money went to its intended destination.
"I took no cash, and any checks made were made out directly to the funeral home. I didn't want it even made out to the family, because then you still have the risk of misappropriation."
Keeping track of so much money is an unfamiliar situation for Wilkins - a single mother with four remaining children, a fifth on the way and a history of being strapped for cash.
Until the accident, she lived on $1,069 a month in Social Security and food stamps, according to a financial statement she filed in September for a pending paternity case.
She and her children lost homes five times in the past seven years, unable to pay rent that ranged from $400 to $595 a month, according to county records.
Early this year it nearly happened again before she managed to catch up on rent.
Wilkins said she'll use the donations to give her children a good life.
"I have rent, I have lights, I have the phone," she said. "And now I have medical bills."
Patty said Wilkins never could have afforded to bury Bryant and Durontae, much less get them marker headstones, without help from both friends and strangers.
"There was no expense spared for the funeral," Patty said. "That money was spent where it needed to go.
"But the money that people had in the cups, there's no way to know what happened to that."
- Staff writer Saundra Amrhein contributed to this report. Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler can be reached at 813 226-3373 or svansickler@sptimes.com
HOW TO HELP
To contribute to the Lisa Wilkins family, call the University Area CDC at (813) 558-5212 or the Suncoast Schools Federal Credit Union at (813) 621-7511 and specify the Malissa Wilkins Children's Trust Fund.
