JACKSONVILLE -- A package that exploded, killing a woman and critically injuring two relatives, was apparently intended to harm her family, police said Monday.

"We don't believe it was random. Our information is that it was directed to that particular house," said Lt. Rick Graham, chief of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office homicide division.

"We are classifying it as a murder."

Graham said authorities are talking to several people about the Saturday morning blast, which caused extensive damage and a fire in the one-story brick home at the end of a cul-de-sac. Among them, he said, are the dead woman's former husband, who has a history of domestic violence.

Investigators were told the woman found the package on the front steps of the house and took it into the bathroom, where it exploded, killing her. The injured victims -- a man who appeared to be in his 30s and a woman in her 60s -- were found by the front door. Both were in critical condition Monday with burns.

Graham refused to release the victims' names. "They are witnesses, and their lives could be in danger," he said.

Investigators with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the state Fire Marshal's Office, the FBI and the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office were going through debris from the house, using screens they had set up in the driveway of the home.

Scientist says nitrogen is destroying Keys reefs

KEY WEST -- The Florida Keys have lost 40 percent of their coral in the past five years and 60 percent of their algae species since the 1960s because of pollution, a leading marine scientist says.

Brian LaPointe, a senior scientist at Fort Pierce's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, said the coral and algae are dying because there is too much nitrogen in the water. It gets into the ocean from fertilizer runoff, sewage and power plant emissions.

"For 20 years now, our warnings to South Florida water managers that nitrogen was killing the reefs unfortunately weren't taken seriously," said LaPointe. "And now they've been irreparably harmed."

Reefs provide a home to fish and other marine life. Algae is at the bottom of the oceanic food chain and is eaten by small marine life that is eaten, in turn, by larger marine life.

The Florida reef tract is the most extensive living coral reef system in North American waters, stretching about 200 miles from Miami's Biscayne Bay down to the Dry Tortugas. It's the third-largest system in the world.

Richard Crotty is new Orange County chairman

TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Jeb Bush named Richard Crotty on Monday to replace Mel Martinez as chairman of Orange County.

President-elect George W. Bush has tapped Martinez as his nominee for secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Crotty's selection is pending Martinez's confirmation in that post by the U.S. Senate.

Crotty, 52, a former real estate broker, has been the property appraiser in Orange County since 1993. Before that, he served in the Florida House and Senate from 1978 to 1992.

The Orange County chairman serves as the executive of the county, similar to a mayor. The job pays $120,000 a year.

Back to State news

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright

Special Links

Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk