Melissa E. HolsmanTreasure Coast Newspapers
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Inside a locked evidence room at the Martin County Courthouse, coquina rocks used by the "Salerno strangler" to bury a murder victim sit in tubs near a bullet-riddled door from a sheriff’s patrol car.
A pizza slice from a 2016 burglary trial shares refrigerator space with a 16-year-old vial of tainted milk tied to a 2008 murder case.
“When we obtained the poisoned milk, it was refrigerated, so we keep it refrigerated,” said Carolyn Timmann, Martin County’s Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller.
At the Indian River County Courthouse, evidence clerk Samantha Lounds grabbed a black snub nose .32-caliber revolver out of a box of items from the trial of serial killer David Allen Gore, who was executed in 2012 for the murder of 17-year-old Lynn Elliott in 1983.
And for 20 years inside the St. Lucie County Clerk of the Court building in downtown Fort Pierce, a 10-foot-tall wooden cross with a blonde mannequin nailed to it has been stored alongside tree limbs and ropes used in 1972 by suspected serial killer Gerard Schaefer, a former Martin County Sheriff's deputy.
These are a few of the hundreds of bizarre items among thousands of pieces of evidence kept in locked vaults after being used in court to imprison the Treasure Coast’s most dangerous criminals.
By law, court clerks must maintain highly secured evidence vaults to preserve the odd, very old and often gruesome items that have been presented as evidence in civil and criminal court.
The coquina rocks helped convict serial killer Eugene McWatters, who in 2004 murdered three Martin County women and used the rocks to cover their bodies.
The tree limb, taken from a wooded area in Hutchinson Island in 1972, helped send Schaefer to prison, where he was killed by an inmate in 1995. The limb is where he tied up and assaulted two teenaged girls who later escaped. He was charged with killing two other teen girls whose remains were found buried on Hutchinson Island.
That wooden cross landed arsonist Henry Drevermann in prison for life after he was caught in 2004 burning churches in Port St. Lucie. He left it in the courtyard of Morningside Church in Port St. Lucie before he set the building on fire.
What’s in the vault?
Court clerks are mandated by statute to be the custodian and caretaker for all court exhibits until a judge issues an order allowing an item to be destroyed.
In capital murder cases, trial evidence is kept until a defendant dies in prison or after a death sentence is carried out. In trials of high-profile killers, clerks may retain trial evidence essentially forever.
Stacy Walsh, a veteran St. Lucie County evidence custodian, remembers the first time she entered a vault filled with boxes, bundles of bloodied linens, dozens of firearms − zip-tied and tagged – and more grisly items, such as the claw hammer Tyler Hadley used in 2011 to murder his parents, and a mangled baby buggy shown to a jury in a 2006 DUI manslaughter trial.
“I couldn't believe how many things that we have and how large some of the items are, and how far back some items go back that we still have,” she said. “It was just like a shock.”
It can be tough, Lounds said, logging, tracking and preserving evidence recovered from a murder scene.
“It's just heartbreaking,” she said. “Just seeing the physical items that were used in these kinds of crimes, it's surreal.”
And while the clerks agreed it can be disturbing to confront the morbid side of humanity, the work is tempered by a solemn duty to be a sort of curator to museums of murder.
“It's very sad, some of the items I see. And it's hard to see them and having to walk back there every day,” Walsh said, adding: “But I know I have to do my job to preserve them in case anything comes up.”
Evidence that is damaged or destroyed could result in a mistrial or charges being dropped.
When handling items in a murder trial, Timmann said she feels compassion for the deceased victim and their distraught families.
“I think about the victims, I always do,” she said. “And about the nature of the crime.”
When evidence clerks are hired, applicants are warned that what they see and hear may be upsetting, she said.
“We talk to them … and say you may be in court hearing about child victims, which are probably the hardest,” Timmann said. “And seeing a lot of evidence that could contain blood, 'do you have any sensitivity to that?' And if they do, we move them to other positions.”
Where’s the evidence?
Ryan Butler, who became Indian River County’s top court clerk in 2023, said two custodians must be present when a vault door is opened using two keys that are stored separately.
“If they need to look at drugs, which are in another safe inside the big safe, then we need three clerks present for that,” he said.
He and Timmann said working with and storing deadly drugs such as fentanyl presents a particular hazard to court staff.
“We have to be much more careful now with fentanyl around; my clerks are trained,” Timmann noted. “We're very careful in the courtrooms and we work with the judges.”
All court clerks exposed to drug evidence have immediate access to the opioid reversal drug Narcan, and are trained on how to use it, the clerks said.
Drugs, money and jewelry evidence are kept in the vaults but are secured separate from other items. Whenever possible, jewelry, cash and personal items belonging to crime victims are returned to family members.
Older weapons are mostly stored in bins or on shelves while newer firearms are boxed and sealed separately.
One of the oddest - and oldest - pieces of evidence at the Indian River County Courthouse is a 33-year-old hamburger wrapper with fingerprints the state used to send Rodney Lowe to death row for killing a Sebastian store clerk in 1990.
“The hamburger still existed at the time of his trial in 1991 … and sometime after that it got moldy,” Butler said. “It was a perishable item, so a decision was made to destroy the actual hamburger.”
Wrapped inside brown paper sealed with black tape is an American flag on a metal pole Brian Simpson in 2011 used to ward off two attackers before he was fatally shot at his beachfront home on Fiddlewood Road in Vero Beach.
“You can see the flag is still attached to it,” Butler noted. “I think the flag was actually over the victim, when they found him, so there’s probably blood on the flag.”
Using a ladder, Butler and Lounds gently retrieved from a shelf a 3-by-5-foot handcrafted cardboard model of a Vero Beach Domino's Pizza store tied to the notorious triple murders committed by Thomas Wyatt and Michael Lovette in 1988.
It was the first time Butler had seen the 34-year-old diorama once shown to a jury, complete with a pizza prep kitchen, a sink, Coca Cola vending machine, a bathroom and office space.
“All three of the victims were put into a bathroom or closet. They were stacked like cordwood,” Butler recalled. “I was in high school when it happened and … it dominated the headlines for weeks and weeks because that just didn't happen in Vero Beach.”
Back in Stuart, a worn cardboard box that once stored a Hobe Sound family’s 7-foot Christmas tree provides grim proof even a holiday tradition can become a painful reminder of murder.
Every court clerk knows it's THE box that in 1996 contained the body of Margaret “Peggy” Bartlett, after her son Joshua Grey, then 19, beat her to death at their rented apartment.
“You've got a nondescript Christmas tree box that someone's body was stuffed in,” Timmann said. “And when you see something like this, you think about what they must have gone through; you can’t forget the story.”
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Melissa E. Holsman is the legal affairs reporter for TCPalm and Treasure Coast Newspapers and is writer and co-host of "Uncertain Terms,"a true-crime podcast. Reach her at melissa.holsman@tcpalm.com. If you are a subscriber, thank you. If not, become a subscriber to get the latest local news on the Treasure Coast.
