From Sentinel staff reports Posted December 19, 2004
BUSHNELL -- Two people died Saturday when a sport
utility vehicle swerved off the road and overturned near this Sumter
County community, the Florida Highway Patrol said.
Jennifer
L. Crawford, 36, of Indiana, was driving south on Interstate 75
about 8:30 a.m. Saturday in a Toyota SUV. Troopers said the vehicle
drifted across the road and then swerved onto the center grassy
median. The SUV then spun, overturned 2 1/2 times and landed on its
roof.
Crawford was pronounced dead at the crash. Rick J.
Crawford Sr., 52, who was in the SUV, also was killed. Levi
Crawford, 12, was taken to Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children &
Women, where he remained Saturday evening in stable
condition.
Orlando
Death-row inmate gets
help
Supporters of Florida death-row inmate William
Thomas Zeigler have a pair of events planned around his scheduled
court hearing Monday and Tuesday.
Zeigler was convicted of
the 1975 murders of his wife, his in-laws and a customer on
Christmas Eve in Winter Garden. Zeigler has long maintained that he
is innocent. His case has attracted international
attention.
On Monday and Tuesday, an Orange Circuit Court
judge will determine whether new DNA and blood evidence is strong
enough to grant Zeigler, 59, a new trial. The hearing is seen as
Zeigler's last chance to avoid execution.
Supporters today
will have a film screening and a case update from 7:15 to 9:30 p.m.
at St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church in Winter Park. The program
will include a screening of A Matter of Life & Death,
which details the Zeigler case. Also, one of Zeigler's original
trial lawyers, Vernon Davids, and others will give a case
update.
At 9 a.m. Monday, Zeigler's supporters will rally
outside the Orange County Courthouse. Zeigler's hearing is scheduled
to start at 10 a.m.
Clermont
Downtown
library promoted
The city is stepping up efforts to keep
a library downtown.
Since extensive mold damage forced Lake
County to close Cooper Memorial Library in May, residents have used
other facilities in Groveland and Four Corners.
Lake is
renovating a nearby warehouse for an interim library, but the
location of a permanent facility has yet to be decided. Clermont
officials want it downtown.
They reaffirmed that position
last week by offering the longtime Cooper library site on Montrose
Street for its location.
Cooper Memorial was Lake's busiest
library branch, with 22,000 patrons. The county operated the
facility, but the city owns the building and property.
New
Smyrna Beach
School district sale in
doubt
The Volusia County school district may not be able
to sell the land where this city's only high school sits once a new
one is built in 2006.
District officials had hoped to sell
the land -- 33 acres of waterfront property -- and generate more
than $8 million that would fund school construction or similar
projects. But as they prepared to take bids several months ago,
administrators said they learned about a clause in the land's deeds
keeping the most valuable 22 acres from being sold and, possibly,
reverting to the state.
The state sold the district two
parcels totaling 22 acres in 1961 on two conditions: The land cannot
be sold or leased to a private agency and it can be used only for
public-school purposes, according to property deeds.
Saralee
Morrissey, the district's director of site acquisition, said the an
attorney has been hired to help negotiate with the
state.
Amy C. Rippel, Anthony Colarossi, Robert Sargent
and Denise-Marie Balona of the Sentinel staff contributed to this
report.
