More than 350 guests attended the Aid to Victims of Domestic Abuse’s eighth-annual fete, featuring keynote speaker Taylor Armstrong of ‘The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,’ who also is a domestic-violence survivor and advocate. Armstrong delivered a heartfelt, personal talk that touched many in the audience. Two organizations were honored that afternoon – the Junior League of Boca Raton and Airamid Healthcare Services / Kane Financial Services – for their work in the community. PHOTO: Kirsten Stanley, president-elect of the Junior League of Boca Raton, Armstrong and League President Andrea Garcia. Photo provided

More than 250 guests attended the organization’s anniversary event, including the center’s staff members, supporters and donors from around South Florida. Proceeds from the evening will benefit the thousands of patients it serves annually. PHOTO: Committee members Gary and Penny Kosinski, Sanjiv Sharma, Nadine Allen and Sugar McCauley.
Photo provided

After five decades of educating thousands of students, Unity School families had thousands of reasons to celebrate. More than 300 supporters – including Don and MaryAnne Shula – gathered and raised a record $200,000. ‘We are blessed to have such fantastic teachers and family support,’ Head of School Louis St-Laurent said. ‘We look forward to many more decades of academic success and community leadership.’ ABOVE: The Shulas, grandparent chairs. Photo provided

John Sharp (seated, center left) celebrates his 100th birthday at the Colonial Ridge Club Clubhouse in Ocean Ridge on St. Patrick’s Day, Sharp’s favorite holiday. Pictured behind him are his two daughters, Pat Duignan (left) and Nora Furey (with polka dots at right). Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

School officials and students kicked off construction of a soon-to-be-built open-air pavilion that will serve as the school’s gymnasium and house home games for the first time in the institution’s history. ABOVE: Barbara Messier, Adriana Smigiel, Quesnel Delvard, Frankie Stevens, Richard Schmeelk and William Finneran. Photo provided

Author Kate DiCamillo made the crowd laugh, reflect and think at this year’s event, which raised $200,000 and drew more than 600 attendees to support the coalition’s programs, including Adult Literacy, After School Reads, Glades Family Education, Read Together Palm Beach County and Turning Bullies into Buddies. ABOVE: Luncheon Chairwoman Bettina Young, with author and luncheon speaker DiCamillo.
Photo provided

One of the oldest galas in Palm Beach County celebrated its 60th anniversary with 400-plus in attendance. The black-tie evening sparkled with crystals and candlelight and raised more than $1 million to benefit Bethesda Memorial Hospital’s Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
LEFT: Sponsors Peter Blum and Dan and Michele Burns.  Photo provided by Downtown Photos

More than 150 art lovers attended the opening reception of an exhibition by Deborah Bigeleisen, whose two dozen flower-inspired paintings will hang through April 30. The vibrant artwork traces the path of Bigeleisen’s focus from creating portraits of white roses to her more contemporary and evocative views. ABOVE: Serena Hodes, with George Aprile.
Photo provided by Michiko Kurisu

The Delray Beach Public Library sponsored its 16th-annual event with 55 volunteers who were honored for their service to the library this season. Volunteers, who range in age from 40 to 90 – including eight couples – received lunch and thank-you gifts. ABOVE: Barbara and Barry Lavinson, with Fran and Leon Sachs. Photo provided

Women’s Circle raised $160,000 during its 11th-annual fundraising event, which included dinner, dancing and a silent auction for 200 guests. Proceeds will enable the organization to provide employment tools to disadvantaged women in the area, including and computer and literacy classes, support groups and assistance with interviews and resumes. ABOVE: Jane Robinson, Catherine Jacobus, Barbara Whittaker and Joan Weidenfeld. Photo provided by Barbara McCormick

Burt Reynolds (left) gives a peck to the Burt Reynolds Scholarship winner, Lauryn Eisenstein, at Palm Beach International Film Festival’s Student Showcase of Films. Photo provided

By Thom Smith

"The health of Hollywood legend Burt Reynolds has deteriorated severely, and pals fear he’s facing his final days!”
    That’s from our favorite old rag The National Enquirer … three years ago. But while he’s not nearly as quick on the gas as he was in those “Bandit” movies or as fluid on the Chattooga rapids of Deliverance, old Burt, at 79, is hanging in there.
    Walking with the aid of a cane when he arrived at Lynn University in Boca Raton to present scholarship awards at the Palm Beach International Film Festival’s Student Showcase of Film, he appeared frail and a bit disoriented.
    That all changed when his name was announced and he walked onto the stage with a sure, if short gait, and hoisted himself upon a stool to engage in some banter with film producer and one-time Burt Reynolds Institute apprentice Suzanne Niedland before making their presentations.
    “I tried for a long, long time to make movies here,” Reynolds noted, “and didn’t get a lot of cooperation from a lot of people …  a lot of governors who shall go nameless, and I think they are nameless now. But I also had some very wonderful people who tried very hard to make some things happen. I did a series down here that did very well.” (B.L. Stryker, which in one episode featured an unknown child actor named Neil Patrick Harris.)
    The quips were quick, and each winner was greeted with the appropriate handshake or hug. When Niedland mentioned the Smoky and the Bandit features, Reynolds said he lost track of the number he made. “I’m now down to pedaling the car. … The first two were wonderful because I was driving the car and falling in love with Sally Field. Not bad. I can’t remember which I liked better.
    “But,” he added sincerely, “the best part of my life has always been here.”
    Following Reynolds wasn’t easy, but then Rob Van Winkle doesn’t seem to do anything easy these days. Van Winkle, better known as Vanilla Ice, stuck to the script as he presented awards to the winners for features and shorts in the collegiate division.
    The star of Vanilla Ice Project, a home renovation show on DIY Network, made no mention of charges that he had members of his crew remove furnishings from an unoccupied home two lots away from his “project” on Hypoluxo Island in Lantana and take them to a home he owns in suburban Lake Worth.   
    The pilfered items: an iron table with glass top valued at $450, patio chairs ($1,000), sofa ($1,000), two bicycles ($400), large mirror ($500), and a pool heater ($3,000). Van Winkle first told Lantana police he owned the property and claimed he thought some of it was at the curb and thus fair game. However, the Iceman’s foreman said his boss also told him he owned the place and told his crew to enter the house and remove specific items.
    After posting bail and being released from Palm Beach County Jail, Van Winkle said it was all a misunderstanding and would soon be resolved. He’s due in court April 9 and has hired Brad Cohen, a frequent legal commentator on CNN, NBC and FOX and former contestant on Donald Trump’s The Apprentice.
    Meanwhile, DIY Network is waiting, but don’t look for a new show called Jailhouse Makeover.
                                 ***
    Thirty years ago, in the spring of 1985, construction began on Mission Bay, a $200 million, 565-acre residential development on Glades Road west of State Road 7. It would offer 1,500 homes, a tennis center, a shopping center, a school site and office park.
But instead of the usual golf course it would feature an international training aquatic complex — three pools, a diving tower and 4,000-seat stadium — and would be staffed by the world’s top coaches and attract Olympians.
    And for five years, Greg Louganis, the greatest diver in history, electrified spectators and competitors alike, training and winning national titles at Mission Bay while pursuing an unprecedented second double gold performance at the 1988 Olympics.
    Then Mission Bay ran out of money. On April Fool’s Day 1991, it closed. Eventually it became Boca Raton Preparatory School. The pools were filled with dirt, the dive tower demolished.
    “I haven’t been back,” Louganis said before speaking recently at the 30th anniversary luncheon for the Comprehensive AIDS Program at Embassy Suites in West Palm Beach. “I’ve seen pictures, but I couldn’t bear to look at it in person.”
    Louganis, now 55, lives in California, acting, giving motivational speeches and grooming dogs. He has returned to South Florida several times, but his March 6 visit was special: He was diagnosed with HIV while training here and he planned  to talk about living with HIV. Thanks to a strict regimen of drugs, a special diet and physical training, he has remained healthy.
    “I don’t like to use the word survivor. I’m pretty much living my life,” he told the audience.  “Sure I take my meds in the morning. Sure I take my meds in the evening. But the rest of the time I go about the business of living. And that is something that is truly, truly a blessing. I’m living my life, doing what I do.”
                                 ***
    Rita Hayworth. Star. Over a 37-year career, she appeared in 61 films and was rated among the 25 top female movie stars of all time. But at 68, an age when most stars were basking in the accolades, her world was crumbling and she was powerless to do anything about it. She was alcoholic, even psychotic, critics charged.
 In her last film, The Wrath of God, released in 1972, her lines were written on cue cards; off camera a crewmember speaks the lines for her to repeat. Not until 1980 was she diagnosed: Alzheimer’s, a disease hardly understood then and treatments, much less a cure, still remain in the distance.
    Yasmin Aga Khan cared for her mother until she died in 1987, but her mission was only beginning. On March 5 at The Colony hotel in Palm Beach, she and old friend Carlton Varney headlined a Rita Hayworth luncheon to raise money for Alzheimer’s research and care.
    “We are not contributors, we are not supporters,” said Varney, who recently completed a major renovation of the venerable hotel, “we are all partners.”
    Khan spoke lovingly of her mother and of the burden of care required for 5 million Americans and another 35 million worldwide. Then she let the disease speak.
    Bill Dugan stands ramrod tall, alert, courteous — a physical specimen at 72 years. A businessman and inventor, he holds several patents, including one for movable cement. Three decades ago he served as tour manager for several acts, including Fleetwood Mac.    
    “I believe my memory of events from the past is still good. But if you were to ask me what I ate for breakfast this morning or what day this is or if there was traffic on the road getting here, I could not tell you,” said Dugan, who must read from notes because he cannot remember what he wants to say. “While I do not have a choice in what’s happening to my brain, I still have choices to do things that make me feel alive.”

***
                                 
    The local craft beer community is feeling a lot more bubbly these days. Brewmaster Matt Cox and friends have begun brewing at Copperpoint Brewery in Boynton Beach, just a couple blocks north of Due South off High Ridge Road. The gleaming tasting room is only days away.
    Meanwhile, even though craft beers account for less than 10 percent of the market, the mega-breweries don’t like competition. Most recently they seem to have adopted a two-pronged strategy that includes fighting the little guys through legislation and acquisition.
    Despite dogged attempts by the Goliaths, such as InBev, that have poured lots of cash into lobbying the legislature, the crafty Davids seem to be winning the lawmakers’ hearts and minds — and palates. Just before St. Patrick’s Day, the Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee raised a glass to SB 186, which, among other things would allow craft brewers to sell growlers (refillable containers) up to 64 ounces. In this instance the party lines were social, not political — the vote was unanimous.
    With an earlier nod from the Regulated Industries panel, the bill must be OK’d by the Fiscal Policy committee before heading to the Senate floor. Still at issue are the sizes of tasting samples, regulation of public beer tastings and respecting local zoning restrictions.
    Fitting right in with the new craft beer movement is Brew Bus South Florida, which began rolling in February. Based at the Funky Buddah brewery in Oakland Park, the bus makes weekly trips to local beer haunts, of which the South Palm Beach County trip is one of the most popular. Customers pay $50 for a three-hour tour that includes two 4-ounce samples at each stop, or $60 for a 5½-hour trip that includes a pint at each location. Additional samples are offered aboard the 22-passenger bus and riders leave the driving to someone else. The bus is available for charter. Visit brewbususa.com.
                                 ***
    It’s an unusual twist: a book festival at an art museum. But at the Norton Museum of Art, art is a broad term. Instead of using paint and charcoal, the participants in the inaugural Palm Beach Book Festival create images with words.
    The one-day event will be short and sweet, running from 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. April 11. First on the bill is a panel on women’s lit featuring Jacqueline Mitchard, Lee Woodfull and Carrie Feron, with James Wolcott moderating. At 11:45, actor Alan Cumming will take the stage to discuss his memoir, Not My Father’s Son, with Christopher Bonanos. After a lunch break, West Palm Beach-based author/biographer Scott Eyman will moderate a 2 p.m. panel discussion on mysteries, thrillers and crime novels with Linda Fairstein, Andrew Gross and James Grippando. For a look at the business side — “The world of publishing” — Time magazine’s Joe Klein will moderate a discussion with Lisa Sharkey from Harper Collins and Doris Downes, wife of art critic Robert Hughes.
    Then it’s time to revel as the festival retires to The Colony hotel in Palm Beach for a wrap party (6:30-8:30 p.m.) and a Klein interview with the “mysterious” James Patterson about the importance of reading and literacy.
    Festival organizer Lois Cahall offers an impressive résumé as well — author of three books, creator of “The Screen Queen” syndicated film column and budding mixologist. She teamed with Colony beverage manager Marlene Cruz to concoct two festival cocktails — Gin Eyre and Tequila Mockingbird. Tickets for the Norton event and accompanying book signings are $75; for the party, $150.   
                                ***
    A writer of a different ilk will stop by Delray Beach Public Library on April 30. Flogging his new book Live Right and Find Happiness (Although Beer is Much Faster), will be syndicated columnist, humorist, Pulitzer Prize winner and unabashed soccer fan Dave Barry. The party begins at 6 p.m. and will include a Q&A, reception, book sale and signing. Tickets are $35 at delraylibrary.org or 266-0799.

Jenifer Fannin of Stuart takes a nap at the new Chick-fil-A drive-in at Linton Boulvard and Federal Highway. Dozens camped out in anticipation of the March 26 opening. The first 100 at the opening received one Chick-fil-A Sandwich Meal per week for a year. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

                                 ***
    For more than two decades in newspapers, magazines and books, Mark Spivak has regaled readers with his knowledge of food and wine.  A few years ago, however, he discovered the hard stuff. Iconic Spirits: An Intoxicating History hit bookshelves in 2012.
    The logical sequel is Moonshine Nation: The Art of Creating Cornbread in a Bottle.  Put simply, he’s been hooked … by the “dark side.”
    Spivak likes to set up events at bars and taverns, such as 50 Ocean, upstairs from Boston’s on the Beach in Delray. Patrons pay 30 bucks for a signed copy, sample moonshine — legal, commercial products (comparable to craft beer), a portion of the proceeds go to a worthy cause (the Delray Beach Historical Society) and he tells stories.
     Spivak discovered a wellspring of information in North Carolina, particularly Wilkes County, which is famous for moonshine and stock car drivers — hardly a coincidence. In the early days of NASCAR, many of the best drivers were bootleggers and the best of all was Junior Johnson. He’s not racing but he’s still making ’shine — ’cept now Junior Johnson’s Midnight Moon is legal. During a tour of the NASCAR Hall of Fame and his favorite back roads — in a Mercedes! — Johnson revealed the secret to his success:
    “Remember that I was doin’ the racin’ with my moonshine cars. I had to have those things strong enough to haul 22 six-gallon cases that weighed 1,200 or 1,400 pounds, and you had to outrun the law carryin’ that. You had to put on big tires, big wheels, two shocks on every wheel, and you had to be fast enough to get away from ’em every time.”
                                 ***
    Together again. Taste of the Nation, the restaurant community’s annual fundraiser to fight childhood hunger comes to the Kravis Center on April 23 with some familiar faces under the toques.
    Returning as chairmen are Clay Conley from Buccan and Imoto; Tim Lipman, at Coolinary Cafe in Jupiter: Zach Bell, who left Cafe Boulud in Palm Beach for clubby Addison Reserve in Delray Beach; and Lindsey Autry, formerly at Palm Beach’s Omphoy and Delray’s Sundy House and now exec chef at Firefly on DuPont Circle in D.C.
    Among participating restaurants: Eau Palm Beach, Casa D’Angelo, Chops Lobster Bar, Citrus Grillhouse, City Fish Market, Dada, The Sugar Monkey. Sommelier extraordinaire Virginia Philip will handle the vino.
    VIP tickets, which include a special lounge and a 6:30 p.m. head start, run $150; general admission (7 p.m. start) is $100.  Purchase at ce.strength.org/palmbeach.
                                 ***
    One face you won’t see at Taste of the Nation is that of Darryl Moiles, who has hit the road, literally. After nearly eight years at The Four Seasons Palm Beach and 19 with its parent company, he’s now traveling with Robert Irvine for his Restaurant: Impossible show on Food Network. Such is the crazy world of cheffing: By leaving a constantly demanding hotel kitchen for periodic road trips, Moiles will be able to spend more time with his children.
    For a replacement, management went about as far as it could and still stay in North America, pulling Tory Martindale from Whistler, British Columbia. A downhill skiier in his youth, Martindale, 42, has worked in kitchens from Vancouver to Dublin to Santa Barbara; but with a stint also on the West Indian island of Nevis, he should be able to adapt to water skiing in the Palm Beaches.    
                                 ***
    Music and more music. The Symphonia Boca Raton celebrates its 10th anniversary April 18 with a monster party at JAZZIZ featuring a cocktail party, award presentation, cocktails, concert, dancing, wine and hors d’oeuvres, and more party. Specifically, The Symphonia will honor founding benefactors Edith and Martin Stein for their decade of support; it will present its first Apollo Awards for songwriting that offers universal appeal; Tony Orlando will sing. Only one songwriter will be present: Dennis Lambert, who lives in Boca Raton. For tickets, $250 and up, call 376-3848.   
                                 ***
    A week later, 10-time Grammy winner George Benson headlines the 2015 Generations Concert for the Boca-based Nat King Cole Generation Hope at the Seminole Casino Coconut Creek. The evening begins at 6:30 with a reception and silent auction, followed by Benson at 8 and a VIP meet-and-greet and dessert reception at 10. Tickets range from $75 to $250 for choice seats, all events and a meet and greet. Call 213-8209 or natkingcolegenhope.org.  
    
                              
Contact Thom Smith at thomsmith@ymail.com.

George de Mohrenschildt relaxes with a dog in this undated photograph. Photos provided

By Thom Smith

    “What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times … and you were there.”
    Although the original version of You Are There was last broadcast in 1958, many viewers still remember the memorable sign-off that first made Walter Cronkite a household favorite. Had the show continued for another two decades, Cronkite might have begun an episode like this:
    “We take you now to March 29, 1977, to the usually placid Florida beachside hamlet of Manalapan … home to the Vanderbilts … where a mysterious death has renewed interest in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. … We go now to our correspondent, Bill O’Reilly. Bill … Bill … Are you there? … Were you there? … It seems we are having some technical difficulties …”
    The dead man was George de Mohrenschildt, 65, a Russia-born geologist. He had been visiting his daughter, Alexandra, who was staying with Nancy Tilton, an old family friend. Tilton’s grandparents Romeyn and Leila Pierson were early developers on the island. They gave it the name Manalapan Estates.
    Tilton, who was not married, kept a 20-gauge double barrel shotgun in her upstairs bedroom, a box of shells in the nightstand by her bed. Investigators for Sheriff Richard Wille and the county medical examiner both concluded de Mohrenschildt had taken the gun to an alcove off his second-floor bedroom, placed his mouth over the muzzle and fired one round. Returning from shopping a few minutes later, Alexandra found his body slumped in a chair.  
    Investigators were able to pinpoint the time of death at 2:21 p.m., because the housekeeper had placed a tape recorder next to the television set to record afternoon soap operas for Tilton. The tape also recorded the shotgun blast, although none of the five people who worked in and around the house heard it or noticed anything or anyone unusual.
    But wait, a sixth person claims he was there and heard the fateful shot:
     “As the reporter knocked on the door of de Mohrenschildt’s daughter’s home, he heard the shotgun blast that marked the suicide of the Russian, assuring that his relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald would never be fully understood.
    “By the way, that reporter’s name is Bill O’Reilly.”
    But O’Reilly, famous for the “No Spin Zone,” didn’t make this claim until 2012, when his book Killing Kennedy was published.

In his book, Killing Kennedy, Bill O’Reilly claims he was knocking at the door to request an interview when George de Mohrenschildt shot himself.

    In 1977, O’Reilly, then an ambitious 27-year-old TV newsman at WFAA in Dallas, had been digging. He knew de Mohrenschildt was worried about enemies, real or imagined. He knew about his cooperation with the CIA. He knew he might be onto to the story of the century. He and another WFAA reporter did come to Florida hoping to contact de Mohrenschildt.
    But if he was at the Manalapan house at 2:21, why didn’t he stick around? Why didn’t he call the cops later, especially when conspiracy buffs began to speculate that de Mohrenschildt had been murdered?  
    Why didn’t he mention it to colleagues? Ever.
    How did no one else at the house — the gardener, the maid, the cook, or the two women decorating a loft in the boathouse — not see him or anyone else?  
    A few Kennedy assassination buffs took note of O’Reilly’s claim when Killing Kennedy first came out, but their inquiries to O’Reilly received no response.
    When NBC shelved Brian Williams, however, for embellishing his involvement in the Iraq war, O’Reilly jumped in. Recalling Howard Beale, the iconoclastic newscaster in the movie Network, he urged his faithful legions to “open that proverbial Network window and yell out, ‘We’re mad as hell and we’re not gonna take it anymore.’ ”
    Oops. Fox News isn’t yelling from any windows and is sticking by its favorite son, despite other questionable reporting:
    In 2009, recalling his work for CBS during the 1982 war between Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands, O’Reilly claimed to be in a “war zone.” His cameraman struck his head on the pavement as protesters ran from charging Argentinian police. But they were in Buenos Aires, hundreds of miles from the war zone. In fact, no American journalists were allowed in the Falklands.
    “I’ve seen guys gun down nuns in El Salvador.” Not quite. He wasn’t in El Salvador when the nuns were murdered. He later acknowledged he watched filmed footage of the incident.
    After graduating from Marist College in New York, O’Reilly taught history and English for two years at Monsignor Pace High School in Miami, then earned a master’s in broadcast journalism at Boston University. Howard Stern was a classmate. He took his first TV job as a reporter, anchor and weatherman in Scranton, Pa., then moved to Dallas where he began pursuing the de Mohrenschildt story.

The Oswald connection
    A larger-than-life character who had some dealings with the CIA, de Mohrenschildt had met Lee Harvey Oswald and his Russian wife, Marina, socially in Texas in the summer of 1962. A few months later, he helped Oswald find a job with a Dallas photography company. He once visited Oswald’s home, where he said Oswald showed him the rifle he would later use on Nov. 22. But in the summer of 1963, with a contract to set up an industrial enterprise, he left for Haiti. He never saw Oswald again.
    After the assassination, de Mohrenschildt testified before the Warren Commission and in 1967 was interviewed by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who was prosecuting businessman Clay Shaw on charges of conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy, with the help of Oswald and others. Shaw was acquitted.
    In the next few years, de Mohrenschildt’s life took a downward turn. He turned to a fellow oilman, family acquaintance and former prep school roommate of his nephew: CIA Director George H.W. Bush. In his handwritten letter to Bush in September 1976, de Mohrenschildt complained that his phone was bugged, he was surrounded by “vigilantes,” he was being followed; perhaps the FBI was involved.
    “I can only speculate that you may have become ‘newsworthy’ again in view of the renewed interest in the Kennedy assassination,” Bush wrote back. He added that he understood de Mohrenschildt’s concerns but could find no evidence of federal interest.         Two months later, citing four previous suicide attempts, de Mohrenschildt’s wife had him committed to a Texas mental institution. Her affidavit said he was depressed, heard voices, saw visions and believed the CIA and the “Jewish Mafia” were persecuting him. At the end of 1976 he was released.
    A Dutch journalist, Willem Oltmans, made contact and took de Mohrenschildt back to Europe, but he soon disappeared. On March 16, 1977, he flew to New York and was picked up the next day at the West Palm Beach bus station by Nancy Tilton. At her oceanfront home in Manalapan, he was  reunited with his daughter Alexandra. He took solitary walks on the beach and read in his bedroom. Later, Alexandra would say that he was still suicidal.
    Enter Edward Jay Epstein, a freelance writer. For $4,000 and use of a rental car, de Mohrenschildt agreed to be interviewed for a Reader’s Digest article about Kennedy’s assassination. They met briefly on March 28 in Epstein’s room at The Breakers and began the interview the next morning.

In his book, Killing Kennedy, Bill O’Reilly claims he was knocking at the door to request an interview when George de Mohrenschildt shot himself.

    While he was at The Breakers, his daughter answered the door in Manalapan: Gaeton Fonzi, an investigator for the House Committee on Assassinations, asked to speak with her father. Hearing that he was not there, Fonzi gave her his card, saying he would return in the afternoon.
    At The Breakers, de Mohrenschildt agreed to return at 3 p.m. to continue the interview and returned to Manalapan for lunch. When Alexandra gave him Fonzi’s card, he became upset and went  upstairs to his room. Alexandra went shopping. Returning at 2:35, she discovered his body.
    News traveled quickly. Fonzi said he received a call that evening from O’Reilly asking if the reports of de Mohrenschildt’s death were true and saying that he would be there the next day.
    Perhaps O’Reilly was just being sly. He was already in the area with fellow WFAA colleague, Bob Sirkin, who recently jumped to O’Reilly’s defense. They had learned from Fonzi that de Mohrenschildt was being interviewed at The Breakers. With Frank Eberling (misidentified in Sirkin’s report as Everly), they knocked on the door of Epstein’s suite. Sirkin said he “could clearly see de Mohrenschildt sitting in the background.” A “furious” Epstein slammed the door and called security who escorted the trio off the property.
In a report by the website Media Matters, published March 10, Eberling said he was working his regular job at WPEC-Ch. 12 on March 29 and didn’t travel to The Breakers with O’Reilly and Sirkin until the next day. Eberling had no knowledge about O’Reilly hearing the gunshot. “That’s something I would have remembered and I don’t remember him saying that,” Eberling said.         

Eyewitnesses? Tilton died in 1994. Alexandra has faded into oblivion. The original house was demolished in 2000, replaced by a modern estate home. No one to talk to, no house to gape at.
    And that’s the way it was … until O’Reilly wrote the book. 

The Plate: Chicken fried chicken
The Place: Tryst, 4 E. Atlantic Ave., Delray Beach; 921-0201 or trystdelray.com
The Price: $15
The Details: Our cardiologist will thank us not to order this again.
But our belly tells us otherwise.
After all, what could be more soul-satisfying for brunch than a tender breast of chicken delicately breaded, fried and served with a fluffy biscuit?
We can tell you what: Serving it in a rich gravy that is packed with wonderful, smoky bits of bacon. Forget sausage gravy. This is what it’s all about.
Service by our waitress Hannah was spot-on — we love how this is a neighborhood joint for downtown residents, and servers seemingly know many of their customers by name. We’ll be back.
— Scott Simmons

Delray Beach County Fair, 1913. Delray Beach won many blue ribbons.
Photos courtesy Delray Beach Historical Society

By J.D. Vivian

Ever wonder why the first settlers moved to what is now Delray Beach? Or how the Pineapple Grove district earned its name? Or about the origins of the Delray Affair?
The exhibit “Agricultural Heritage of Delray Beach: A Photographic Journey” provides answers to those questions and many more. Running through April 30, this Delray Beach Historical Society presentation features a wide variety of photos and displays throughout Cason Cottage and the Ethel Sterling Williams History Learning Center. Guides host tours and answer questions about early Delray Beach.
“Visitors get a rewarding perspective of why people moved here,” Winnie Edwards, executive director of DBHS, explained. “People moved here, planted, and the town began.”
Farming is important in Palm Beach County — not just for South Florida or the state but for the country, said Roland Yee, a third-generation farmer whose family owns and manages Yee Farms.
“Farmers make up only about 1 percent of the population, but it’s this 1 percent that feeds the world,” noted Yee, who serves as president of the Palm Beach County Farm Bureau. “During the winter months, Palm Beach County is the second-largest vegetable-producing county in the nation.”

Dorothy Steiner, actress Vera-Allen and Diana Sera pose in 1952.

In the beginning
George Gleason of Jacksonville bought the area that is now Delray Beach from the U.S. government in 1868 for $1.25 an acre. The land — a jungle of saw palmetto, scrub pines and other plants — was also teeming with snakes, alligators and mosquitoes.
But the land had something else: lots of fresh water and fertile soil, as well as a year-round growing season. Wild game such as rabbits, fowl and fish were plentiful. Snap beans and tomatoes were the main crops.
As the rural farming town prospered, it began to attract more settlers and the diversity of residents — and crops — increased.

George Morikami on his farm, circa 1920s.

Following the arrival of about two dozen Japanese bachelors in the early 1900s, pineapples became a popular crop. Many of the pineapple fields were located in what is now downtown Delray Beach.
By 1913, when the 2-year-old town of Delray hosted the county fair for the first time, crates of potatoes, peppers and pineapples were displayed alongside beans and tomatoes.
Henry Sterling, a local businessman, later described the time: “Delray was known as the ‘banner town’ of Palm Beach County, taking more blue ribbons for its products than any other section.”
In 1939, a new crop appeared. Though it wasn’t edible, it became an important economic success. By 1950, growers of gladiolas were shipping out 2 million bundles annually.
The colorful crop generated such positive economic impact for what was, by then, the city of Delray Beach that, in 1947, the Gladioli Festival and Fair was founded. The festival, which ran through 1953, was a way to boast about the abundance of local crops. But it served to attract tourists and future residents as well.
The festival’s mission was, according to a 1948 Delray News article, “to exhibit, develop and further the agricultural, horticultural and other resources of south Florida, and … to present to the people of south Florida, and the world in general, the many and varied advantages to be … enjoyed in this section of the Sunshine State.”

Juan Buaque shows the effects of years working in the sun at Dubois Farms. Shot Aug. 6, 1985

Later, when farming vegetables eclipsed gladioli-growing, the Agricultural Expo replaced the Gladioli Festival. In 1962, the Delray Affair was born.
“People love the various exhibits,” said Cathy DeMatto, a long-time DBHS volunteer who serves as a guide. “They’re impressed with the way the exhibits flow, and they love seeing the Gladioli Festival photos and learning how that event led to the Delray Affair.”
Some visitors have another reason to enjoy their tour, DeMatto noted: “A lot of the people coming through — their relatives and friends are in the photos on the walls.”
Roland Yee, whose 800-acre farm grows 14 types of Asian vegetables, stressed another important aspect of the exhibit: “It helps to educate the public on the importance and foundation on which this area was founded.”

If You Go
What: “Agricultural Heritage of Delray Beach: A Photographic Journey”
When: Through April 30; Thursday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Where: Delray Beach Historical Society; 3 NE First St., Delray Beach
Admission: $5
Info: (561) 274-9578; www.delraybeachhistory.org

After three decades, a death warrant may be near
for Palm Beach County’s most notorious killer.
We look back at the case that still haunts our memories.

Why we chose to do this story  | Duane Owen: Debate over his fate

By Randy Schultz

She last spoke with her mother at 10 that Saturday night. The sisters she was babysitting, ages 7 and 2, were asleep. She told her mother that no one else was in the house. Karen Slattery knew that no visitors were allowed when she babysat.
But there was someone else in the white house on that Delray Beach cul-de-sac. Harbor Drive offered lots of foliage for cover, especially late on that March evening 31 years ago when dark of the moon was approaching. He had been in the house earlier and left, unnoticed, waiting until the children went to sleep.
To pass the time, he had pedaled his bicycle south to a bar on A1A called The Gipper. He drank some beer and smoked some marijuana. Still, he had made sure to assess the house that first time and, in his way, to assess the 14-year-old freshman at Pope John Paul High School.
After he came back, he struck — perhaps as Karen Slattery was hanging up the phone.
Shortly after midnight, the parents came home to find their floors covered with blood. As March 24 became March 25, Delray Beach started to learn that evil could cross the Intracoastal Waterway.

This portrait of Karen Slattery, who was murdered in coastal Delray Beach at age 14, hangs at the Karen Slattery Education Research Center for Child Development at Florida Atlantic University.
•

It was the worst crime scene Rick Lincoln would see in his 37 years as a cop.
Karen Slattery had been stabbed 18 times — in her back, neck and throat. After attacking her in the kitchen, the killer dragged her to the master bedroom, where he raped her. Karen’s green blouse had been pulled over her face.
It has long been believed that the sisters slept through the whole thing, even though the killer went into their room to make sure they had not awakened. Lincoln, though, said recently in an interview that the younger sister talked about the “bad Indian with blood on his mouth.” Pause. “That was really creepy.”
Lincoln, then a lieutenant, was running the Slattery investigation for the Delray Beach Police Department. He was at the house until nearly 4 a.m., after which he went to Karen’s home in the Lake Ida neighborhood to speak with Carolyn and Eugene Slattery — “a strong and insistent guy.” The parents, Lincoln said, “were trying to process” what had happened.
So was the community. Delray Beach police would investigate just six murders that year, and certainly none like this one. The violation of Karen Slattery became a violation of Delray Beach, especially the coastal neighborhoods. Fourteen priests presided at the funeral at St. Vincent Ferrer, just blocks from the crime scene. Karen was buried with a rosary in her hands. The coffin contained a teddy bear.
For weeks, investigators chased leads from Miami to Ohio. They interviewed neighbors. They interviewed Slattery’s supposed boyfriends. They interviewed fathers who had seen suspicious people following their daughters. They checked reports of creepy-looking men on bicycles. They checked out towels and bloodstained pants. They checked out similar cases. They checked out a guy who had stolen a tire in Gulf Stream. They questioned a Pope John Paul student who had scratches on his arms and had carved the initials “TNO,” for “Trust No One.” They checked out peepers. They checked out a carrier for The Palm Beach Post and Evening Times. They checked out a parolee who was acting suspicious. They checked out blood trails. They checked out footprint impressions. They checked out Christopher Wilder, who in March and April of 1984 killed eight women on a nationwide spree that began in South Florida. Wilder had been in Oklahoma City on March 24.
After nearly two months, the investigators had spent untold hours, and they had nothing. On May 18, Sgt. Ross Licata wrote: “At this time the case remains active pending further leads. END OF REPORT.”

The murder of Karen Slattery dominated local headlines for months in 1984

•

Georgianna Worden’s two daughters, ages 13 and 9, often slept in the same room because the younger one was scared to sleep alone.
They did so on May 28, 1984, after watching a TV movie that ended at 11 p.m. They lived on Northwest 35th Street in the Boca Raton Hills neighborhood south of Spanish River Boulevard. Then, as now, it was a place of small, moderate-income homes.
Their mother was still up when the girls went to bed. Thirty-eight-year-old Georgianna Worden was an instructor at the College of Boca Raton — now Lynn University. Like Karen Slattery, Georgianna Worden was small, weighing barely 100 pounds. Her husband had run off eight years earlier. The girls remembered their mother dating several men, none of them seriously.
When the girls awoke on May 29, they found their mother’s door locked. That wasn’t unusual. It was unusual, though, that the bedroom window’s glass was broken.
As they had done before, the girls used a tool to pop the lock on the bedroom door. This time, the monster had come for their mother. The girls called a neighbor. His wife carpooled with their daughters and Georgianna Worden’s daughters. It had been Georgianna’s day to drive.

•

The medical examiner listed the cause of death for Georgianna Worden — the only homicide in Boca Raton that year — as “craniocerebral injury.” The monster had not stabbed her, as he had stabbed Karen Slattery. He had beaten her head with a hammer. Over and over.
Among other things, according to the medical examiner’s report, Georgianna Worden suffered:
“Multiple depressed fractures of skull involving left orbit, frontal area, and right temporal area.”
She also had been raped, her body left naked and spread-eagled, head covered, face-up on the bed. She had been choked so hard that her neck was broken. The murder weapon was not a knife, but the common facts — female, head covered, sexually assaulted, entry through a window — got the Delray Beach and Boca Raton police departments thinking together.
They began talking just hours after Georgianna Worden was killed. Delray Beach investigators reviewed the crime scene. The two departments didn’t just have combined resources. They had something else.
At the home in Delray Beach, the killer of Karen Slattery had left only footprints. At the Worden house, the killer had left a print from his left little finger, on a paperback copy of the book Mistral’s Daughter. It would take seven days of processing to get the image, but get the image they did.
As the forensic work for the murders went on, investigators in Boca Raton were continuing to focus on a sex offender whom they suspected had been flashing female students at Florida Atlantic University. The week before Worden was murdered, a sketch artist had worked from a description one of the women gave. Afterward, police checked their mug book.
They found a burglary suspect who matched the sketch. The suspect had failed to appear in court, which meant that there was an open warrant. After the murder, which occurred not far from FAU, Boca Raton Police Sgt. Kevin McCoy circulated the suspect’s photo to all officers and issued a bulletin.
On May 30, Officer Kathleen Petracco — the wife of Police Chief Peter Petracco — spotted him walking on Country Club Boulevard, in the north end of the city, wearing jeans, a gray shirt and a painter’s cap. She stopped him, and asked for his name. He showed a military ID with a false name, for which Petracco arrested him.
Call it luck. Call it preparation meeting opportunity. The police still weren’t sure whom they were dealing with. At 12:35 p.m., however, the monster breathed as a free man for the last time.

•

Duane Eugene Owen was born on Feb. 13, 1961, and grew up in Gas City, Indiana, a town of about 5,000 between Indianapolis and Fort Wayne. That is heartland America, but court documents show that the childhoods of Duane Owen and his brother, Mitchell, contained no Norman Rockwell moments.
In one of Duane Owen’s many appeals, his lawyer referenced a neighbor of the Owen family during the late 1960s and early 1970s in Gas City. According to court documents, Kenneth Richards “testified that the Owen household was the only family in the neighborhood to have their beer delivered by beer truck. Duane Owen’s parents were alcoholics. He testified that Duane and his brother Mitch were left in the Owen home to fend for themselves, and at other times they ran wild. He testified about physical abuse in the Owen household, including beatings of the Owen children at the hands of Duane’s father, Gene Owen.
“Easily accessible to the Owen children was beer, vodka, and whiskey. Mr. Richards recounted that when he and Duane were only about 9 years of age, Mrs. Owen herself would supply them with ‘pea pickers.’ A ‘pea picker’ is a drink containing vodka and Sprite.”
After their mother died and their father committed suicide, Duane Owen and his brother were sent to the VFW orphanage in Eaton Rapids, Mich., which is about the same size as Gas City and is near the state capital of Lansing. Owen would use the name Dana Brown as an alias to enlist in the Army. Dana Brown was another boy at the orphanage.
After leaving the orphanage in 1979 when he turned 18, Duane Owen pinballed from the Eaton County Jail to Lansing Community College to Dillon, Colo., to Las Vegas to Panama City, Fla., and finally, in February 1982, to Delray Beach, where his brother was living.
Soon after arriving, Owen was arrested for indecent exposure. He got to know Marc Woods, then a Delray Beach police officer and now the city’s director of code enforcement, after Woods arrested him. That relationship would come back into play two years later.
In July 1982, Owen was arrested for two burglaries in Delray Beach. In December, he was arrested at what then was University Bowl and Recreation Center on North Dixie Highway in Boca Raton. Owen had crawled into the ceiling above the women’s bathroom because he “wanted to watch girls.”
The sexual nature of Owen’s crimes would become profound. In an interview, Woods said he recommended that Owen receive “counseling for deviance” after that first arrest because of what he saw in the young offender. Owen stole pictures of women. He stole women’s underwear. “That was the trail he was headed down,” Woods said. “It was a clear escalation.” Woods doesn’t know if Owen got that counseling.
Either way, then he was gone — back to Michigan but still in trouble with the law. This time, it was a substance abuse charge in Mason, not far from Lansing.
While incarcerated, Owen participated in a drug treatment program. On Nov. 17, 1983, Owen got this evaluation from Mason Correctional Assessment and Treatment Services: “client … seems well on his way to stable employment. Progress good at this time as client followed up on positive plans for employment & strive for independence.” Owen was released.

Slattery murder investigation files are housed at the Delray Beach Police Department. Randy Schultz/The Coastal Star

•

Though the Delray Beach and Boca Raton cops now had Owen in custody, they didn’t have him for the crimes that mattered most — the murders of Karen Slattery and Georgianna Worden.
Work on the fingerprint and shoe prints was progressing, but the investigators wanted confessions. The Delray Beach investigators especially needed one. As Lincoln acknowledged, they had lots of circumstantial evidence in the Slattery case, but they didn’t have any physical evidence.
Also, Owen had tried to create an alibi by moving the clock back at his apartment after biking back from the Harbor Drive home, then waking up his brother and their roommate, so they would notice the time.
Over four interrogation sessions in early June 1984, Owen confessed to many burglaries and batteries. Two were especially serious.
On Nov. 1, 1982, Owen broke into a room at the Peter Pan Motel on North Federal Highway in Boca Raton. He clubbed a woman so hard that a portion of her skull broke off and was touching her brain. Owen raped her, then called Boca Raton police to report the crime.
On Feb. 9, 1984, Owen broke into an apartment near Boca Raton Regional Hospital. He left 18-year-old Marilee Manley “naked and bleeding from the head.” He had beaten her nearly to death, leaving her disfigured, with a wrench he took from a tow truck.
Owen had been “out on maneuvers,” as he called his searches for young women. He had spotted Manley and counted the windows to find the right apartment. Like Karen Slattery, she had attended Pope John Paul High School. Owen pawned her ring.
But Owen had not spoken about the murders. On June 18, he called Woods, the Delray Beach officer who had arrested Owen two years before. Woods had given Owen his card after Boca Raton had taken Owen into custody.
On June 21, Boca Raton investigators confronted Owen with the fingerprint evidence, and he confessed to killing Georgianna Worden. That left the Slattery case.
Owen and Woods began talking about Karen Slattery. “He was fishing,” recalled Woods, by then a sergeant working in crime analysis. “He wanted to see what we had.”
Owen “thought he was smarter” than the police, Lincoln said. Indeed, he had taunted investigators, once saying, “Roses are red/you pigs are blue/count up my victims/there will be quite a few.”
Lincoln added, though, that when Owen understood that his questioners had something solid, he would “give it up.” He had done so when confronted with the fingerprint in the Worden case.
During Woods’ questioning, Owen was dismissive. He said, as Lincoln recalled, “That all you got?” So they decided that Lincoln would take over, since he knew the case. Lincoln asked Owen if he had ever been to the house where Slattery was killed. “I’d rather not talk about it,” Owen said. Later, Lincoln asked Owen about the bicycle he had ridden to the house on Harbor Drive. “I don’t want to talk about it,” Owen said.
Pressed about the footprints, Owen finally talked about the murder, giving details that only the killer could know. Example: The master bedroom, where he dragged Slattery, had a pocket door. Example: He stole a pair of women’s gloves. When it was done, Delray Beach police also had their confession.

Karen Slattery’s murder struck fear across southern Palm Beach County for months.. She is buried in Boynton Beach Memorial Park; her body was exhumed for murderer Duane Owen’s retrial in 1990. 

•

In 1985 and 1986, juries convicted Owen for the murders of Karen Slattery and Georgianna Worden and recommended the death penalty, which both judges imposed.
There had to be a second trial in the Slattery case. The Florida Supreme Court in 1990 ruled Owen’s confession inadmissible because of those two comments to Lincoln. “I was pissed,” Lincoln said. His anger was justified. Owen had initiated the conversation and quickly re-engaged after his defensiveness.
Seven years later, though, the state’s high court allowed the confession, based on a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling regarding confessions. By then, there also was DNA. In 1999, Owen was convicted again, and again got the death penalty.
Many of the police reports on Owen are brown and faded. The officers who were involved have retired or moved on — not that they have forgotten him. Lincoln believes that, like Ted Bundy, Owen committed many crimes that won’t be connected to him. Still, the record is scary enough.
McCoy recalls the FAU professor whom Owen beat with a cinder block and later derided as “Professor Blockhead.”
Of course, Owen’s spree could have been even more terrible. Had he not been arrested in 1984 — Woods believes that he was heading out of town — he surely would have tried to kill again. Yet he staked out many other homes but didn’t go in or was thwarted. He didn’t kill the children at the murder scenes. “Too young,” Lincoln said. “Even for him.”
Eugene Slattery died in the crash of a light plane in June 1989, five months after Owen was convicted a second time for killing his daughter. Her body was exhumed for the trial. Carolyn Slattery has moved to Monroe County. Mitchell Owen is in Palm Beach County’s nursing home, having suffered brain damage from a fall. The home on Harbor Drive is still owned by the same family. A property management company owns Georgianna Worden’s old home.
The Karen Slattery Education Research Center for Child Development is part of the Florida Atlantic University College of Education. Its website notes that the Slattery family contributed more than $50,000 to help establish the center, which opened in October 1990.
Among the center’s goals is to “encourage the development of a positive self-concept.” Help a child at the right time, the thinking goes, and maybe he won’t turn into a monster.

How could you write this story? Why dredge up such horrible memories?
I expect to hear those questions. I anticipate this story may upset many of our readers. I recognize that this is a very different sort of story for The Coastal Star.
Let me explain:
When I saw late last year that Duane Owen had had what seemed to be a final clemency hearing, I felt that his imminent execution should not go unnoted. I wanted to know how a heinous killer could be lingering on death row for three decades.
But I didn’t want to just write about Owen. He didn’t deserve to be the focus of our story. I wanted The Coastal Star to write about how his violence spree 31 years ago this month had left an indelible mark on the consciousness of our community.
Even if you are new to the area, you will find that the murder of 14-year-old Karen Slattery still haunts our community. Just ask your neighbor.
Without a doubt it haunts the memories of the veteran journalists who reported on, photographed or edited the stories that made headlines during those horrible days following the teen’s murder. Many of them now work for The Coastal Star. We still think about it when we drive down certain streets, or hear about other horrible crimes in other places.
Even three decades later, Karen’s name comes up over coffee or cocktails when something stirs our memory.
And we are not alone. As Randy Schultz researched this story, he talked with prosecutors and defense attorneys, detectives and police officers. All of whom can’t forget this case.
There simply is no way to forget a crime — or a killer — this horrendous.  And if we do forget, don’t we risk letting Owen’s victims simply fade away? Don’t we neglect to acknowledge the dedicated police work of both Delray Beach and Boca Raton in working together to get a horrendous serial criminal off the streets? Don’t we even forget to honor the memory of an innocent who died much, much too young?
When my husband went looking to locate Karen Slattery’s grave at Boynton Beach Memorial Park, I suggested he do it on Valentine’s Day. Surely, I thought, someone would have dropped a flower there — a small token of remembrance.
No one had. Instead, the tombstone had been mowed over and partially covered with sand. Seemingly forgotten.
This solidified my belief that we should tell this story.
We should remember Karen.
And Georgianna Worden.
And the other victims. And their families. And their friends.
And I believe we should tell this story so if the day comes when the governor signs Owen’s death warrant, we remember why. It is important that we don’t forget.

Mary Kate Leming,
Editor

By Dan Moffett

In their federal racketeering lawsuit against Martin O’Boyle and Christopher O’Hare, attorneys for the town of Gulf Stream allege the two men have conspired to use the state’s public records laws as weapons to extort legal fees from hundreds of municipalities and contractors across the state.

Beyond Gulf Stream, the RICO complaint cites similar records assaults by O’Boyle in places far removed from South Florida, one of them in another small, affluent seaside community more than a thousand miles way.
In 2007, during a dispute with the borough of Longport in his native New Jersey, O’Boyle filed so many demands for public records that “the clerk went to the emergency room because of the stress she attributed to the flood of (Open Public Records Act) requests,” the suit says.
Gulf Stream officials know all about that kind of stress. Town Clerk Rita Taylor says she has been working seven days a week for the last two years to keep up with workload generated by O’Boyle and O’Hare.
Town Manager William Thrasher says these days he devotes virtually all his time to lawsuits and records requests. “There’s no end in sight. My job description has been altered forever,” Thrasher said. “When you look back, you get discouraged.”
The 49-page class-action civil suit claims that “the Town of Gulf Stream has become the epicenter of the RICO Enterprises’ scheme” and has fielded about 2,000 public records requests since 2013 from the two residents.
RICO is an acronym for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
O’Boyle and O’Hare, separately and together, have sued the town dozens of times in the state and federal courts over grievances involving building codes, campaign signage and assorted constitutional rights, to name a few.
Thrasher says the town has spent more than $1 million to satisfy records requests and pay lawyers since hostilities with the two men began.
West Palm Beach attorney Gerald Richman, who filed the suit on Gulf Stream’s behalf, accuses the two men of engaging in predatory “scorched-earth” tactics intended to intimidate and collect settlements. “It’s extortion, plain and simple,” he said.
Jonathan O’Boyle, O’Boyle’s son and a key co-defendant in the RICO complaint, believes the town’s lawsuit will have a lasting detrimental effect on open government.
“It is absolutely ludicrous,” he said. “This filing is the boogeyman that will be used to chill citizens from seeking public records for years to come.”
The town’s attorneys allege that Jonathan O’Boyle, who is licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania but not Florida, violated the Florida Bar’s requirements when he ran The O’Boyle Law Firm in Deerfield Beach and supervised hundreds of public records suits for the firm’s nonprofit client, Citizens Awareness Foundation Inc.
Another central figure in the town’s case is Joel Chandler, who worked for Martin O’Boyle last year as executive director of Citizens Awareness. Chandler had a falling out with O’Boyle after a few months and has been publicly critical of the O’Boyles and CAFI as a money-making scheme that had nothing to do with legitimate use of public records. Chandler was not named as a defendant in the suit and is expected to testify on behalf of the town.
In an interview with The Coastal Star, Chandler said his relationship with the O’Boyles broke down after he was ordered to fulfill a weekly quota of 25 public records suits.
Chandler said he joined the O’Boyles to promote open government, not to take part in a “money-making scheme” that may have damaged the cause of transparency instead.
“The money was in the sheer volume of the cases,” Chandler said. “It all adds up to millions in legal fees.”
The RICO action claims that lawyers from the O’Boyle firm  filed boilerplate public records suits against municipalities or contractors doing business with municipalities, then pressed for settlements. Fernandina Beach paid $5,000 to settle one of the CAFI suits, according to court documents, Miami Lakes paid $2,000 and Cutler Bay $2,250.
Besides CAFI, Gulf Stream’s attorneys say Martin O’Boyle used his Commerce Group corporation in Deerfield Beach to launch other sham public records organizations, such as Stopdirtygovernment LLC, Our Public Records, Public Awareness Institute, Inc.
Contractors doing business with local governments also were hit with records requests. In April 2014, the Wantman Group, a West Palm Beach engineering company, received an email from “An Onomy” seeking insurance documents for work with the South Florida Management District. Three weeks later, according to the complaint, the O’Boyle Law Firm sued Wantman on behalf CAFI, demanding attorneys’ fees and costs totaling $3,923.
Wantman has joined Gulf Stream in the RICO suit and the town’s attorneys hope to find other plaintiffs around the state.

Suit cites false names used
Though O’Hare says he has joined with O’Boyle in only one lawsuit, the town’s attorneys maintain the relationship between the two men runs deep when it comes to assailing the town: “O’Hare has been a client of the O’Boyle Law Firm generally, and Jonathan O’Boyle in particular, since the firm’s inception in January 2014,” the suit says. “The O’Boyle Law Firm represents him (O’Hare) in approximately 10 of the public records suits he has brought against the Town, with the first such suit filed by the O’Boyle Law Firm on his behalf on Jan. 22, 2014.”
The RICO case, which has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra, claims that O’Hare often filed dozens of records requests in a single day, and he filed hundreds of them under fictitious or fraudulent names to avoid special services charges from the town. Some of them were bastardizations of  town officials — “Billy Trasher” for Town Manager Thrasher, “Bobby Gangrene” for Commissioner Bob Ganger, “Groan Orthwein” for Commissioner Joan Orthwein — and others outright fabrications: Irnawaty Tirtarahardja, Janto Djajaputra, Hokuikekai Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele, Prigs Hypocrites and Wyatt Burp.
O’Boyle and O’Hare blame the town for violating its own rules and blocking lawful attempts to ensure governmental transparency.
“All this stuff would go away and go back to normal,” O’Hare has told town commissioners, “if you’d just tell staff to follow the law.”
O’Boyle’s attorney, Mitchell Berger of Berger Singerman in Fort Lauderdale, calls it “unfortunate” that the town has decided to file a RICO suit, “instead of just giving the records that were requested.”

Legislation being considered
Worries about public records abuses have reached the Florida Legislature, where Sen. Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, and Rep. Halsey Beshears, R-Monticello, are sponsoring a bill that would try to prevent frivolous requests and unwarranted lawsuits aimed at forcing cash settlements.
“I am an unwavering supporter of comprehensive public access laws, so citizens can hold their government accountable,” Simpson said. “In these cases, though, it is clear that the rights of private citizens and hardworking business owners are being trampled by some unscrupulous people bent on getting rich off a new scam.”
Beshears said he was particularly concerned about cases where small municipal governments with limited resources were overwhelmed by heavy-handed demands for records.
“In each case that I’ve reviewed, government agencies have the records that are being requested,” said Beshears. “Instead of simply asking the records custodian at the state agency, spam-like emails are sent or even worse, intimidating individuals wearing cameras go onto private property and make demands of office staff that have had no training in our public records laws. This isn’t right and we’ve got to put an end to it.”
Advocates for transparency now have worries, too. They are concerned that an overreacting Legislature may damage Florida’s Sunshine Law, widely regarded as one of the nation’s best open government laws.
In Tallahassee, Barbara Petersen, president of the First Amendment Foundation, says the watchdog group is hoping to find “middle ground” with Simpson and Beshears, so that legislative fixes don’t go too far.
It’s not a small irony that the story of the Gulf Stream RICO case actually took root in Tallahassee in the summer of 2013, when Chandler went to visit the FAF’s president and met Martin O’Boyle for the first time.
“My dear friend and colleague, Barbara Petersen of the Florida First Amendment Foundation told me she was meeting Marty for breakfast and I invited myself,” Chandler wrote in a blog post from that July. “Since then we’ve spent many hours together discussing open government and how citizens might better exercise that important right.”
Chandler says he now regrets the encounter. 

By Randy Schultz

The debate about whether Duane Owen should live or die is about whether Duane Owen is the person he was or the person he supposedly has become.
 Inmate 101660 at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford is serving two death sentences, six life sentences, one 15-year sentence and one five-year sentence for crimes committed in Boca Raton and Delray Beach between early February and late May of 1984. Owen’s three calculated rampages left 14-year-old Karen Slattery and 38-year-old Georgianna Worden dead and 18-year-old Marilee Manley near death.  Owen’s case could inspire a script on CBS’s weekly creepfest Criminal Minds.
Owen has claimed that he sexually assaulted women to harvest their hormones, that he was a transsexual who carried out the attacks to “turn himself into a female.” He mocked the police: “Roses are red/yellow, white and pink/If you want to play my game/you’ve got to think.”
Barry Krischer, Owen’s co-counsel during the first Karen Slattery trial, tried unsuccessfully to get off the case because he found Owen so repugnant. Six years later, Krischer was elected Palm Beach County’s state attorney, calling Owen a reason he had given up defense work.
For those who have waited to see the state execute Duane Owen, key decisions may be near. Owen soon could face a death warrant, but his case also could become caught up in the latest debate over capital punishment in Florida.
In December, Owen had a hearing before the Office of Executive Clemency and the Florida Commission on Offender Review, seeking to have his death sentences commuted to life without parole. According to Owen’s lawyer, William McClellan, the state usually holds such hearings when a Death Row inmate appears to have exhausted all of his state and federal appeals. If Owen loses, as he almost certainly will, his case could go to the governor’s office for review and a possible death warrant.
Last month, however, the Florida Supreme Court delayed the execution of Jerry Correll because of concerns about how Florida administers lethal injection. The state’s three-drug protocol is similar to what Oklahoma uses. That state botched an execution last May, and the U.S. Supreme Court is deciding whether the Oklahoma system amounts to “cruel and unusual punishment” and therefore is unconstitutional. Such a ruling could force Florida to change its execution method.
Whatever the method, Owen still could finally face his appointment with death. The state’s political leaders strongly support capital punishment. In 2013, the Florida Legislature passed the Timely Justice Act. There were as many executions during Gov. Rick Scott’s first term as there were in the previous 11 years.
McClellan tried to explain the seemingly inexplicable system by which Florida decides which of the 393 inmates on Death Row to execute. At the hearing, he said, the state was asking of Owen: “What has he done on the Row? Does he have any remorse? He went onto Death Row at a pretty young age. Has he changed?”
To McClellan, the 54-year-old Duane Owen is not the 23-year-old Duane Owen. “He has studied religion. He has studied physics. He has had professors say he has the concepts down. He came in with nothing, but he hasn’t wasted his time.
“Maybe at 18 he was this evil guy, and some people say that should determine everything. In my opinion, it shouldn’t. I’m a big Law & Order fan, and I think a lot about who we’re putting to death.”
Carey Haughwout is Palm Beach County’s public defender. She unsuccessfully argued an insanity defense at Owen’s second trial for killing Karen Slattery. Haughwout believes that the state should spare Owen’s life because of mental illness caused by a terrible childhood. Haughwout said as much in a letter to the Commission on Offender Review.
“I feel like I’ve watched him grow up,” Haughwout said in an interview. Owen has “tried to better himself. Sometimes, incarceration works.” Owen “is learning about how he got to where he is. All his crimes are related to his mental illness. It started with stealing women’s underwear.”
Haughwout has not visited Owen recently, but they correspond fairly regularly. “He tells me not to overwork myself.”
Rick Lincoln, who as a Delray Beach police lieutenant got Owen’s confession in the Slattery case, disagrees with those new characterizations of Owen. Lincoln describes Owen as “a calculating predator. A serial killer. So patterned.”
A 2002 response by the Florida Attorney General’s Office to an Owen appeal in the Slattery case typifies the state’s attitude toward claims for leniency based on his mental illness.
Assistant Attorney General Celia Terenzio called Owen a “malingerer” whose “delusion is fabricated.” Owen, she wrote, “studied up on sexual disorders and believed that the more crazy the story the more people would believe that he is crazy. He has a sexual disorder and anti-social personality disorder, but he is not psychotic.”
In Florida, attorneys for the condemned argue what the state classifies as “mitigating factors” to keep their clients alive. Prosecutors argue “aggravating factors,” one of which is that a murder was “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel.”
Terenzio stressed that factor in her argument 13 years ago that Owen should die for killing Karen Slattery.
Terenzio noted the trial court judge’s ruling in upholding the jury’s recommendation of death: “The Defendant stated that causing deliberate pain and fear would increase the flow of female bodily fluids which he needed for himself. The puncturing of Karen Slattery’s lung caused her to literally drown in her own blood... Each of the 18 cuts, slashes and/or stab wounds caused pain...The crime of murdering Miss Slattery evidenced extreme and outrageous depravity.”
In a letter to the Commission on Offender Review, the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office also dismissed the mental illness argument. Assistant State Attorney Sherri Collins noted the six Florida Supreme Court rulings that have affirmed Owen’s convictions and sentences. “The context, details and Owen’s own words,” Collins wrote, “evidence a killer who targeted and then descended into the darkness of true evil.”
When could the ruling on Owen come? “Hard to tell,” McClellan said. One inmate has been waiting 18 months to find out. “It’s pretty bizarre how all this works.” Owen has been on Death Row for three decades, but in the last two years Florida has executed inmates who had spent more time there than Owen and inmates who had spent less time. Owen has filed many appeals, and in some cases the courts have taken many months to rule.
If Owen does die by whatever method the courts decide is constitutional, it will not be for the Karen Slattery murder or the Georgianna Worden murder, but for both. For those who were here 31 years ago, time barely has diminished the horror.
In her letter, Haughwout wrote, “The crimes Mr. Owen committed are unforgivable, but he is not beyond redemption.”
There may be debate about the second part of that sentence, but in the area where Owen prowled there is no debate about the first part.

Randy Schultz was acting city editor for The Palm Beach Post in the months after Duane Owen was arrested in 1984, and he wrote about the case as the paper’s editorial page editor. He is now a freelance writer and spent more than two months researching this story for The Coastal Star.

The museum building anchors Old School Square, now the cultural hub of Delray Beach. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Rich Pollack

For three and a half years, Frances Bourque and a small but tireless group worked on an enormous undertaking — which many at the time thought might never get done.
Aiming to convert a 1913 elementary school and a 1925 high school into a cultural arts center, they held innovative fundraisers and made numerous trips to Tallahassee to persuade state officials to send down a bucketful of grant money, all the while rallying local support.
After months of restoration, renovations and construction, on one night in March 1990, the doors to the Cornell Museum of Art and History — the first building in what would evolve into Delray Beach’s landmark Old School Square complex — finally opened.
Now, 25 years later, a series of historic buildings once on the verge of crumbling from neglect remains a crown jewel for the city of Delray Beach. The Delray Beach Center for the Arts at Old School Square stands today as a monument to perseverance and to a commitment to restore a sense of pride weakened under the weight of the 1980s economic downturn.
On that first night, the community celebrated the opening of a local exhibit featuring the work of Florida women photographers with a black-tie reception packed with state and local dignitaries. As they listened to a presentation from Florida’s then secretary of state, Jim Smith, and watched as a who’s who of Delray Beach gathered, Bourque and her team were filled with a sense of accomplishment but also the realization there was still much more to do.
“We had taken something abandoned and old and gave it back to the community and in so doing we gave back a sense of community that had been lost,” Bourque said recently. “That night, there was a sense of pride and understanding that we were just beginning and that ‘you ain’t seen nothing yet.’ ”

The buildings at the intersection of Atlantic and Swinton avenues housed schoolchildren for decades before being abandoned to neglect and decay in the 1980s. Photo provided

Since those early days, the Delray Beach Center for the Arts at Old School Square has continued to grow, first in 1991 with the opening of the Vintage Gymnasium and then in 1993 with the opening of the Crest Theatre. Later, classrooms and an outdoor pavilion would be added, as Old School Square quickly became Delray Beach’s version of a modern-day town square.
What few people know is that the idea for a cultural arts center on the site of two historic school buildings might not have surfaced if the then-Palm Beach County Clerk of the Court hadn’t put the kibosh on an idea to build a South County courthouse on the site.
“The idea of putting a cultural arts center there was a fallback,” says Doak Campbell, who served as mayor from 1986 to 1992. “My original idea was to make it into a South County courthouse and have a courthouse square.”
It was Campbell who first approached Bourque with the idea of transforming the vacant and deteriorating school buildings into a cultural arts center.
“The property was fast becoming the focal point of a decaying city,” Campbell said. “We wanted it to be seen as a focal point of a vibrant and revived community.”
Many today see what Bourque, Campbell and others accomplished at the corner of Swinton and Atlantic avenues as the beginning of the Delray Beach renaissance.
They also see the programming of entertainment and exhibits at Old School Square, guided for more than a quarter of a century by President and CEO Joe Gillie, as continuing to make the Delray Beach Center for the Arts a gathering place for the entire community.
“We’re the city’s front yard, the city’s gathering place” says Bill Branning, the current chairman of the Delray Center for the Arts’ board of directors, who also was involved in the restoration of the historic buildings in the late 1980s. “We also provide a total cultural opportunity for the Delray Beach area that few other communities can offer.”
For her part, Bourque remains on the Delray Beach Center for the Arts board and is deeply involved in its continued evolution.
“This year we’re celebrating that the cultural center of Delray Beach has been alive and well for 25 years,” she said. 

The Delray Beach Center for the Arts at Old School Square is celebrating its 25th anniversary season, which will culminate with the 25th Anniversary Gala on Nov. 7. The special fundraiser will feature a farewell performance by Joe Gillie — who is leaving after 25 years — and long-time performing partners Susan Hatfield and Kay Brady, plus special guest stars. The performance will be followed by dinner in the Vintage Gym.