Pubdate: Tue, 28 Jun 2005
Source: Palm Beach Post, The (FL)
Copyright: 2005 The Palm Beach Post
Contact:  http://www.palmbeachpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/333
Author: Larry Keller, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

MURDER CHARGE DROPPED FOR LACK OF WITNESSES

WEST PALM BEACH -- West Palm Beach and Riviera Beach police aren't the
only ones stymied in solving killings because witnesses either won't
come forward or won't talk.

Assistant State Attorney James Martz dropped a charge of second-degree
murder with a firearm on Monday against a reputed drug dealer when he
could not find more than a half-dozen of his witnesses as the case was
about to go to trial.

The development was especially frustrating to Martz because he
narrowly missed convicting Sherly Petit-Frere, 29, of the killing of
Simon Sands in an earlier trial last December that ended with the jury
deadlocked 5- 1 in favor of conviction.

"We've got a good case," Martz said moments after Circuit Judge Jack
Cook granted his request to not prosecute Petit-Frere. "But without
the witnesses to the crime, we can't prosecute. People need to
understand, law enforcement can't do it by themselves."

That's been a refrain of police who have had a tough time solving a
rash of killings in the past year in poor, black neighborhoods in
northern West Palm Beach and Riviera Beach, where there is strong
distrust of police.

Petit-Frere was arrested in March 2003 after Sands, 33, was shot once
in the head outside an apartment at the Stonybrook subsidized housing
complex at 1555 Martin Luther King Blvd. in Riviera Beach, severing
his spinal cord.

The following circumstances led to the shooting, according to
police:

Sands, Petit-Frere and his brother, Samuel, all were drug dealers. A
woman nicknamed "Psycho" assisted Sands, handling his drug cash. When
the woman learned that the Petit-Frere brothers were planning to rob
her, Sands confronted Samuel Petit-Frere and they argued.

Bad blood simmered througout the day and at 10:15 that night, Sherly
Petit-Frere returned to an apartment at Stonybrook where Sands was.
One witness said he was accompanied by two other men.

"It don't have to be like this," Sands was heard to say. Then a single
shot was fired and Sherly Petit-Frere was seen walking away and
getting in a car.

Getting the people who saw that to testify is Martz's problem. "This
is classic," he said. "I get witnesses all the time that duck it.
People standing together are stronger than any individual charged with
a crime. The community needs to make a stand."

Monday's development doesn't return Petit-Frere to the streets.
Because he's a Haitian citizen, there is an immigration hold on him.

Meanwhile, Martz still has the option of filing the case against
Petit- Frere anew. Will he? "I just don't know."
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin