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Report: Teens cheered each other on in beating

The teens accused of beating a homeless man to death drove around looking for victims, a fourth teen says.

FORT LAUDERDALE - One teenager cheered on another while they beat a homeless man to death, on a night when two other homeless men were attacked and injured, according to witness statements.

"He was like, if you're at a bar and your friend's about to chug a beer and you go, "Go, go, go,"' Anthony Clarke, 33, said of the attack at a park that killed Norris Gaynor.

Clarke's statement was among 450 pages of investigative documents released Wednesday by Broward County prosecutors in the case against three teenagers accused of murder and attempted murder in the Jan. 12 attacks, one of which was caught on videotape.

Clarke said he did not try to intervene as Gaynor was attacked.

Brian Hooks and William Ammons, both 18, could receive the death penalty. Thomas Daugherty, 17, is being tried as an adult but faces a maximum sentence of life in prison because of his age. All have pleaded not guilty and are being held without bail.

Much of the prosecution's case appears to rest on the statements of a 16-year-old who was with the alleged attackers but did not participate in the beatings.

That teen told police that Daugherty and Hooks took the antianxiety medication Xanax and drank alcohol and "seemed kind of messed up" the night of the attacks. But he said they appeared to know what they were doing.

The 16-year-old said the group was riding in Ammons' Chevrolet Blazer when Ammons pulled up to Florida Atlantic University's campus where Jacques Pierre, 58, was resting. They started hitting him with a bat, the teen said. After the attack on Pierre - the one captured by a security camera - the group drove to a park, where Hooks and Daugherty looked for another victim, the teenager said. They found Gaynor, 45, who later died from his injuries.

The four then went back to Ammons' house and the 16-year-old said he went to his home. Hours later, the third homeless man, Raymond Perez, 49, was beaten outside a church. Dozens of people, including the suspects' friends, school officials and co-workers, helped police find the perpetrators, the documents show. Many identified Hooks and Daugherty from the videotape.

[Last modified March 24, 2006, 02:15:43]