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By Times staff reports
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 9, 2001
Jury sworn in Monday; Bowie trial to begin today
NEW PORT RICHEY -- A jury was sworn in Monday to hear the high-profile case of a 25-year-old Holiday waitress charged with drunken driving in a 1998 incident that left a pedestrian dead.
Opening arguments in the DUI trial of Melanie Bowie are scheduled to begin this morning.
Bowie, who has two previous DUI convictions, is accused of driving drunk on Sept. 14, 1998, after leaving Brennan's Sports Pub in Holiday. She was driving north on Alt. U.S. 19 when she struck 27-year-old Louis Rapisarda as he walked along the edge of the road, killing him instantly.
Prosecutors said Bowie had a blood-alcohol level of 0.14 percent an hour after the crash. Florida law presumes impairment at a level of 0.08 percent or higher.
Prosecutors did not charge Bowie with DUI manslaughter because Rapisarda, who also had been drinking at Brennan's, was walking with his back to traffic, in violation of Florida law.
On Monday, Assistant State Attorney Heather Smith and Bowie's defense lawyer, Greg "Skip" Olney, agreed on a panel of six jurors and two alternates.
The trial is expected to wrap up this afternoon.
NEW PORT RICHEY -- Pasco-Pinellas Circuit Judge William Webb has ruled that there is sufficient evidence to support the first-degree murder indictment against Jim Curtis.
Curtis, 26, of New Port Richey is charged with wrapping 3-year-old Alex Boucher so tightly in a blanket on Sept. 25 that the boy died of asphyxiation.
At a hearing last week, Curtis' court-appointed attorney argued that prosecutors didn't have enough evidence to hold his client on murder charges.
To support the charges, prosecutors pointed to the autopsy report and a videotaped statement in which Curtis described to a detective how he had wrapped Alex in the blanket hours after the boy soiled himself.