Lack of indictment shocks dead boy's mother, family

By CURTIS KRUEGER

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 24, 2000

ANTHONY -- As she stood on the front porch of her small, white house, overlooking the yard where her 12-year-old had loved to play baseball, Linda Ibarra remembered one of the last conversations she had with him.

She said Michael Wiltsie had called her from Camp E-Kel-Etu near Silver Springs and explained that he recently had been restrained by a counselor.

"He called me and said, "Momma, I was so scared. He had me on the ground. I was so scared. I'm never getting in trouble again, Momma,' " Ibarra said.

Ibarra and other family members seemed shocked by the Marion County grand jury's decision Wednesday not to indict Eckerd Youth Alternatives counselor Joseph C. Cooley in the death of her son.

She said the grand jury's report provided her with new information about the events leading up to her son's death.

"I didn't know he (Cooley) straddled him like a horse," she said. "If I as a mother did what this man did, I'd be in jail, wouldn't I? My Mikey weighed 65 pounds."

Ibarra declined to say whether she planned to file a lawsuit stemming from her son's death, but said, "A lot of people let Mikey down. I took Mikey to a lot of doctors. All these people now have to answer."

She described her son as "200 percent boy," someone who loved baseball and wanted to grow up to be an electrician.

"You missed out if you never met him, because he would have made you laugh," Ibarra said. "He is gone but not forgotten. I am my son's voice."

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