The Georgia resident will spend at least five years in prison for grabbing a girl, 15, in Hudson.
By COLLEEN JENKINS
Published October 15, 2004
NEW PORT RICHEY - In the end, jurors said it was the red mark on Ashley Schuering's left arm that convinced a jury Harold H. Carroll was guilty.
But late Thursday afternoon, jurors decided the 56-year-old Georgia resident's guilt didn't rise to the level of his charge - kidnapping. They found him guilty instead of attempting to kidnap the 15-year-old Schuering as she waited on her bicycle to cross Sea Ranch Drive in Hudson on March 15.
The verdict guarantees prison time for Carroll, though how much was not certain Thursday. Prosecutors told Circuit Judge Michael Andrews that Carroll was on probation in Georgia for aggravated stalking at the time of his latest crime and had fled an arrest warrant issued for violating that probation.
Andrews set an Oct. 28 sentencing date.
Jurors reached their verdict after hearing two versions of events during closing arguments Thursday.
Prosecutors portrayed Schuering as a teenage girl who was traumatized when a stranger with bug eyes, a scruffy face and the smell of alcohol on his breath grabbed her from behind off her bicycle.
He told her that she had nice legs and said he wanted to bring her to his boat at Hudson Beach, according to Schuering.
Prosecutors said that wasn't all he intended.
"His intent that day was to kidnap her, sexually batter her, terrorize her," Assistant State Attorney Mary Handsel said.
But the defense framed Schuering's story as an exaggeration, a panicked response to a situation that in her mind mirrored the abduction and killing of Sarasota teen Carlie Brucia the month before.
Defense attorney Hans Grieble scoffed at the suggestion that 56-year-old Carroll could have dragged Schuering, an athletic young woman, some 27 feet to his car using only one hand, as she described.
He argued that Carroll was visiting the area and was in the middle of buying a personal watercraft that afternoon. He spoke to Schuering from inside his blue Mercury Topaz, but only asked her if she wanted to go out on his boat and ride his personal watercraft, Grieble said.
The car, he said, was so full of household supplies from Dollar General that no one else could have fit inside.
"There's no way that he could have put Ashley into the car," Grieble said. "He never got out of the car."
Jurors felt Carroll had at least strong-armed the girl because of the red handprint authorities viewed on her arm, but they were unsure of exactly how it happened, they said after court adjourned. After going over the evidence again and again, they decided it didn't muster the most severe charge.
Thus, they went with a lesser charge.
"All that we could determine was that he had grabbed her," said juror Fred Higginbotham, 32, of New Port Richey.
Because of his prior criminal record, Carroll faces at least five years in prison.
Prosecutors and the defense disputed the maximum sentence; the state said it would be 30 years, the defense said 15.
Schuering, who turns 16 on Saturday, was just glad her would-be abductor won't have the chance to repeat his offense any time soon. "I was one of the lucky ones," she said to reporters. "I got to come home."
Colleen Jenkins covers courts in west Pasco County. She can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6236 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6236. Her e-mail address is cjenkins@sptimes.com
