Suspect caught after 45-minute chase
Polk authorities say when they finally caught up with a woman wanted in connection with 90 Hernando thefts, she fought, and even hit a police dog.
By JOE BLACK
Published July 8, 2004
Jacqueline Forcier said if she'd had only a few more days - a week at most - she could have proven she was not the mastermind behind more than 90 Hernando thefts and burglaries.
So when Polk County authorities attempted to pull her over Tuesday night, she said she had to flee. And flee she did, blazing through three toll booths at speeds exceeding 80 mph in a stolen car and running through the woods - with police dogs and helicopters in pursuit - to avoid arrest.
Forcier, who had been listed as one of Hernando County's most wanted criminals, was arrested after about a 45-minute pursuit Wednesday night on four charges, including resisting an officer with violence and attempting to bring methamphetamines into the Polk County Jail. She is expected to be brought to Hernando County to face burglary, theft and violation of probation charges.
She was being held without bail, Polk sheriff's officials said. Her alleged accomplice, Kimberly Brodasky, remains in the Hernando County Jail on 19 charges, including arson and grand theft.
Forcier had been released from the Hernando jail in May after being questioned and charged in the theft and burglary cases, many of them at construction sites. When deputies came to search her house for more evidence the next day, she fled.
"I had been hiding out (since May) until I could get paperwork together," Forcier said in an interview from jail on Wednesday. " . . . I almost had everything together and was going to talk with a lawyer."
She said she has taped conversations between her and friends, notes, videos - all that show she wasn't the ringleader and had little to do with most of the thefts deputies link to her.
All of her evidence was in the back of the 1999 Chevrolet Tahoe when deputies began following her Tuesday night, she said.
Forcier doesn't know what will happen to it all now. A Polk County sheriff's spokeswoman said the car was still being inventoried and that a list of what was in the vehicle was not available.
Hernando sheriff's spokeswoman Donna Black said Hernando authorities began working with Polk deputies after receiving a tip that Forcier was in Winter Haven.
"It was a good enough tip that they saw her driving down the road," Black said.
Polk deputies reported that they saw Forcier in a 1999 Chevrolet Tahoe near Auburndale, east of Lakeland, Tuesday night and attempted to pull her over.
After Deputy Kenneth Hill turned on his emergency lights, Forcier led him on a chase for about 20 minutes, reports state.
Hill wrote that Forcier drove through three toll booths staffed by attendants and was stopped after she ran over "stop sticks" that deflated the Tahoe's tires.
The sport utility vehicle came to rest in a pasture, and Forcier fled into the woods for about 25 minutes before detectives found her by using an air unit and police dogs, reports state.
Forcier would not show her hands to Hill after he found her lying under some thick brush, he stated. Hill reported that he attempted to apprehend her, but she fought back and also hit one of the dogs. The struggle ended after the dog bit her, Hill stated.
Charges were added after deputies said she brought a clear tube, with powdery methamphetamine lining it, into the jail in her clenched fist.
On the day in May when Hernando sheriff's deputies showed up at Forcier's house and she fled, they began finding items that had been reported stolen. Forcier said that when she heard the officers indicate that they were going to arrest her again, she fled out the back door.
According to reports, Forcier's house was filled with items stolen from homes, construction sites and businesses. Some paintings, labeled with the owners' last name, hung on the wall, and other ornaments were strewn about. Forcier said Wednesday she had no idea those paintings were stolen, but thought that a woman had given them to her brother.
Detectives said the items were waiting to be pawned or sold on the streets so Forcier and Brodasky could feed their drug habits.
In the days after she fled her house, Forcier said, she stayed with her brother in St. Petersburg and then with some friends. She said she had to keep leaving the friends' places because they would profess love for her, and she couldn't deal with those emotions while being pursued by authorities.
Finally, she went to Winter Haven this week to meet up with a friend whose mother had just died, she said. She said she stole the Tahoe from her "very best friend," Keith Patton of Spring Hill.
Forcier said Patton is taking care of her son. Patton could not be reached for comment.
While Forcier was making her way across the state, deputies continued to question Brodasky.
Brodasky and sheriff's deputies weave almost a completely different tale than Forcier of what happened in the weeks leading up to Forcier fleeing.
Brodasky said the two were close friends who jointly decided to commit the robberies to support drug habits after being released from jail, where the two had met. She said there was never a huge amount of planning - that decisions were made at random. But Brodasky's description of the robberies almost always includes the word "we."
Detectives said Brodasky has been cooperative in helping figure out which places the two broke into.
Forcier pins almost all of the blame on Brodasky. She said she took part in "maybe about 15 percent" of the burglaries. But, those were only vacant construction sites; she said she never went into a house to steal.
"(Brodasky) went on a spree, and she involved me in all this," Forcier said.
- Staff writer Duane Bourne and researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report. Joe Black can be reached at 352 754-6117 or jblack@sptimes.com