Inside:
Volume 22 Issue 11
See Neighborhood Magazine!
May 24, 2014
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The Direct - Mail News Magazines Serving New Tampa & Wesley Chapel Since 1993! THIS INDEPENDENT COMMUNITY NEWS MAGAZINE IS DIRECTLY MAILED TO: NEW TAMPA: Arbor Greene • Cory Lake Isles • Cross Creek • Easton Park • Grand Hampton • Heritage Isles • Hunter’s Green • Hunter’s Key • K-Bar Ranch Lake Forest • Live Oak Preserve • Pebble Creek • Richmond Place • Tampa Palms • The Hammocks • West Meadows WESLEY CHAPEL: Aberdeen • Belle Chase • Bridgewater • Brookside • Chapel Pines • Country Walk • Lexington Oaks • Meadow Pointe • New River • Northwood • Pinewalk • Pine Ridge Saddlebrook • Saddleridge Estates • Saddlewood • Seven Oaks • The Lakes at Northwood • The Villages of Wesley Chapel • Watergrass • Wesley Pointe • Westbrook Estates • Williamsburg
Julie Schenecker Sentenced To Life For Murdering Her Children during the past three years, the most important thing in all of this is Calyx and Beau, my lovely children. My smart, beautiful, loved and missed daughter and son.” Parker also thanked the students, faculty and staff of both King High and Liberty Middle School (in Tampa Palms), where Calyx and Beau were students. “While this decision doesn’t bring my children back, it does give our family an opportunity to move forward and honor their memory through the work that we’ve been doing with the Calyx & Beau (Schenecker) Memorial Fund and remembering how they lived,” Parker said. Parker was twice called as a witness in the trial, first on the second day of testimony, during which he was questioned about his travel while serving in the U.S. Army and the time leading up to his deployment in January 2011. He told of the “strained relationship” between 16-year-old Calyx and Julie (who long has struggled with bipolar-1 disorder with psychotic features and depression) and how the two rarely got along that last year due to Julie’s severe depression and mental state. Parker said that when he asked Julie if she’d be able to handle caring for the kids in his absence, she looked him in the eye and said, “I got this.” It was during his deployment that she drove to the Lock N’ Load gun store in Oldsmar to purchase the gun she used to shoot her 13-year-old son in the head and mouth
on the way to soccer practice in the family’s van, before shooting Calyx the same way as she sat in front of a computer in the family’s Ashington Reserve home doing homework. She left Beau in the van, but moved Calyx to her bed, covering both in blankets. Julie wrote about her actions explicitly in her journal, which was referenced throughout the case, especially by expert witness psychiatrists and psychologists who had worked with her in the past and knew about her struggle with severe mental illness. It was up to the defense to prove that she did not know what she was doing or that she did not know the difference between right and wrong at the time the crimes occurred to successfully prove insanity. Schenecker’s actions, records of her actions and taped interviews with detectives following her arrest made that job extremely difficult. “When someone is depressed, they see the world through those depressed eyes,” said Schenecker’s public defender Jennifer Spradley during her closing argument on May 15. “Her mind is clouded. She didn’t choose this disease.” Throughout the trial, the defense leaned heavily on Schenecker’s history of mental health, multiple anti-psychotic medications and stints in mental health facilities and rehabilitation programs, including participation in a nine-month study at the National Institute of Mental Health in Rockville, MD. At one point, psychiatrist Dr. Michael Maher
By Matt Wiley more than 40 people who wanted to give
for a dog park, playground area and even no development at all. Several of the speakers expressed other concerns about the development process itself. Several projects have been proposed for the land over the past ten years, but Hillsborough commissioner Ken Hagan (who was unable to attend the May 5 meeting) has said for some time that he hopes to bring some sort of a “passive park” (similar to Flatwoods Park just south of Hunter’s Green) to the area, which could include a dog park and biking/hiking trails, as well as a cultural center, but the meeting on May 5 was held to give county officials a better understanding of what the public would like to see developed at the site. “Today is the beginning of a fact-finding mission,” Dist. 2 Comm. Victor Crist — who lives in New Tampa — told the crowd. “Nothing is in concrete.” Crist explained that both he and
By Matt Wiley Following a nearly three-week-long trial, the verdict is in: Julie Schenecker is guilty in the first-degree murder of her children Calyx and Beau in their Tampa Palms home on January 27, 2011. Around 8 p.m. on May 15, Hillsborough Circuit Judge Emmett L. Battles read the guilty verdict to the courtroom. The jury found Schenecker, 53, guilty of both counts of first-degree murder after barely two hours of deliberation. A few minutes after reading the verdict, Battles commenced sentencing, but allowed Schenecker, who pleaded not guilty under an insanity defense, a chance to make a statement. “I apologize for what happened, what I did,” Schenecker said through tears. “I take responsibility. I was there. I know. I know I shot my son and daughter. I don’t know why, but have time to try to understand it.” She added that she hopes everyone whose lives she knows she either destroyed or affected can take comfort in knowing that the children are in heaven and not in pain. “It’s almost too much for most to comprehend, what brings us here,” Judge Battles said, before reading Schenecker’s sentence of life in prison for both murders. “Today’s decision, for many reasons, gives my family a great sense of relief,” said U.S. Army Col. Parker Schenecker outside the courtroom, following the verdict and sentencing. “As I’ve consistently mentioned
Julie Schenecker (right) closes her eyes as the guilty verdict is read on May 15, confirming that she will spend the rest of her life in prison for the 2011 murder of her two children. told the court that she was prescribed up to ten medications at a time, including antidepressants, anti-psychotic, anti-anxiety and mood-stabilizing pills. Although Maher declared that he thought Schenecker was insane at the time of the murders, he said that she told him during an interview in February 2011 that she bought the gun to kill herself and the kids. Schenecker overdosed on a toxic dose of lithium, which she mixed with alcohol after shooting the children. She reportedly passed out before she could kill herself and was found by police on the back patio of the home unconscious in a bloodstained bathrobe on January 28. Just more than three years later, she officially will spend the rest of her life behind bars. She has 30 days to appeal.
Locals Sound Off On Plan For Land Across From Hunter’s Green
The future development of the land owned by Hillsborough County across Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. from Hunter’s Green is in the hands of New Tampa residents. At least, that’s what county representatives repeatedly told attendees at a recent public meeting held at the New Tampa Regional Library on Cross Creek Blvd. The meeting, held on May 5, attracted
county officials their input about what should be done with the 13.4 vacant (and buildable) acres of about 80 acres of land the county purchased years ago to create the large retention pond now handling the drainage for the now-completed widening of BBD in that area. Several attendees showed interest in the creation of a cultural center at the county-run meeting and requests also were heard
News, Business, Sports & Education Updates
Neighborhood Magazine
Also Inside This Issue!
S.R. 54/56 Elevated Toll Road Plan Nixed, Cross Creek Blvd. Widening Begins, Site Plan Received For Wesley Chapel Outlet Mall; Plus Lots Of Local Business Features & More!
Our Summer Movie Preview, SukhoThai Brings The Heat, A Rave Review For The New O.T.B. Café; Plus, More Neighborhood Nibbles & Business Bytes!
Pages 1-42
Pages 43-64
Hagan share interest in developing the site and want to put together a private-public partnership (also known as a P3) to develop the useable acres of land. “The county’s interest up here (in the New Tampa area) has fallen short, and we recognize that,” Crist said. For the past several years, the New Tampa Players (NTP) theatre troupe has been trying to find a permanent home and has been actively pushing a deal with the county for the land in question to build a community theater. NTP president Doug Wall said during the meeting that the problem is not that NTP couldn’t raise the funds for a theater, but that there were additional See “Land” on page 12.