Sarasota Speaks

I’m going to be lazy and just post the article from today’s Sun Editorial section…..but I do want to say a special thanks to North Port Police Chief Terry Lewis. He’s been there every step of the way in the long road towards an arrest in the murder of 6 year old Coralrose Fullwood. Even when I was convinced that the NoPoPo was doing a whole lot of nothing, clearly, he and his men were working away on this case. No, it doesn’t bring Coralrose back….but at least the person who committed this awful crime will pay for what he did. Not only did they solve this crime, but Chief Lewis has the grace to thank the lawmakers who passed a law that made it possible. For this, Chief Lewis, and all of the officers of the North Port Police Department, deserve to be recognized and thanked.11/19/08Chief thanks state legislators who passed DNA lawOUR POSITION: North Port Police Chief Terry Lewis’ investigative team continues to search for a second person in Coralrose murder case as he thanks lawmakers.North Port Police Chief Terry Lewis will drive across the state to personally thank lawmakers living in Stuart and Miami for their role in supporting Florida’s DNA law.Lewis has already met with one legislator in Orlando who played a key role in passing the law that helped North Port track down, arrest and charge 27-year-old Patrick D. Murphy for the murder of 6-year-old Coralrose Fullwood.The law requires officials to collect DNA samples from individuals arrested for crimes such as burglary and theft for a database. Lewis reports a study indicates about half of the sexual crimes that have been solved were committed by people arrested earlier for burglary and other crimes. Without the Florida DNA law, Murphy would not be incarcerated in the Sarasota County jail.Murphy has no record or history of being a sexual offender or pedophile. Yet Lewis says Murphy’s DNA had been found by medical examiners at the Coralrose crime scene. Murphy is expected to be tried for the crime in late summer or early fall of 2009.More than two years later there still are two to 10 investigators working daily on the Coralrose case. Two additional people also are assembling evidence and filing documents for assistant state attorney Lon Arend.Murphy has been talking to the North Port officers investigating the case. Lewis will not disclose if Murphy has confessed, or if he has implicated anyone else in the crime.Lewis says his investigative team continues to believe their evidence indicates at least one additional person was involved in the little girl’s death. Police are still interviewing people about Coralrose’s father, Dale Fullwood, although he has not been arrested or charged in his daughter’s death.Except for the killer, Dale Fullwood is said to have been the last person to see Coralrose alive, after he returned home from his bartending job in Fort Myers at about 2 a.m. on Sept. 16, 2006.Later, police found child pornography on Fullwood’s computers but they produced no evidence he was involved in this case. Because of his child pornography violation, Fullwood served much of a year behind bars. He later was arrested for violating probation when he visited a niece who has a child and touch the child’s hand. Fullwood is now serving three years for probation violation.Meanwhile, investigators continue to talk to Fullwood’s friends, relatives and acquaintances. Among other places, police have checked on the MotorSports Cafe in Fort Myers, where Fullwood was bar manager at the time of the crime.Cafe owner Frank Lesicko of Cape Coral drove to North Port to complain to Lewis about the aggressiveness of North Port’s investigators. Lesicko and several others have agreed to take polygraph tests, but Lewis will not reveal what the police have learned, if anything.Chief Lewis, who is now roughly two years from retirement, says he is determined to identify the second suspect and close the Coralrose case before he completes his long his law enforcement career. With the patience and diligence he has shown, and a little luck, he will achieve that goal.