Haines City man sexually battered girl, got her pregnant

JURY VERDICT: Haines City man sexually battered girl, got her pregnant

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DNA testing revealed there was a 99.99 percent chance Delwyn Manuel was the father of his victim’s unborn child.

Delwyn Manuel, 53, of Haines City.

The jury deliberated for about 45 minutes, convicting 53-year-old Manuel on Nov. 1 of sexual battery with familial or custodial authority. He is facing life in prison and will be sentenced Dec. 15.

Assistant State Attorney Will Dennis told jurors that the 15-year-old victim was vomiting and complaining of her stomach hurting. When her mother took her to the hospital, doctors notified her she was six weeks pregnant.

In interviews with law enforcement, the victim said she was abused while being babysat at Manuel’s house after everyone was asleep.

She said the majority of the time Manuel forced himself on her was while she was trying to sleep on the couch. But there was at least one time when she was looking for a DVD and he told her, “We are going to have sex.”

The victim told detectives she was unsure how many times Manuel had sex with her. When FDLE compared fetal tissue from the victim with a DNA sample from Manuel, it was a match.

The defense told jurors that the victim could not remember exactly when the batteries occurred, which meant that she was being untruthful. He said her embarrassment an even bigger indicator that she wasn’t telling the truth.

Assistant State Attorney Will Dennis addresses jurors during closing arguments Nov. 1.

But Dennis told them that the victim genuinely struggled to talk about it because the defendant was someone she used to trust.

“She was excited to be around him,” Dennis said. “That all changed when he started sexually battering her and got her pregnant.”

He reminded jurors of the DNA test and that there was a 99 percent probability Manuel was the parent.

“That makes it very clear the defendant should be found guilty as charged,” he said. “This is a clear case.”

Winter Haven woman charged with murder, sentenced to life

JURY VERDICT: Winter Haven woman charged with murder, sentenced to life

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Star Tribble shot her sleeping boyfriend in the back of the head and left his body on top of their mattress.

Star Tribble, 36, of Winter Haven.

A jury found Tribble guilty Oct. 31 of first-degree murder, tampering with a witness, tampering with physical evidence, assisted tampering with evidence and false report of a crime. Immediately following her conviction, she was sentenced to life in prison.

Assistant State Attorney Kristie Ducharme told jurors evidence showed that Tribble killed Tomorreio Clark in the early morning hours of Feb. 19, 2016.

Their daughter, Damecia Stephens, came home after her shift ended at midnight, and Clark was alive. Stephens said there was no arguing between her parents and that everything appeared normal.

Stephens went to sleep shortly after getting home and was woken up by a loud boom. Minutes later, Tribble came into her bedroom, telling her to pack bags for herself and her two little brothers so all of them could leave.

Tribble, Stephens and her two little brothers all left their Winter Haven home and checked in to a hotel a few miles away.
On Saturday morning, they pick up Tribble’s friend in Cocoa and drive to the Walton County Correctional Facility in Defuniak Springs.

While stopping at a gas station, Tribble hands Stephens a bag and tells her to throw it away. Stephens later told law enforcement that while she did not look in the bag, she noticed that it was a heavy metal object about 8 inches in length.

Tribble picks up her friend, and they all check into a hotel in Walton County. The two visit their boyfriends in prison and then leave to drop Tribble’s friend off and drive back to Polk County.

They arrive at Tribble’s brother’s house in Lakeland early Sunday morning.

Tribble has her kids unpack the trunk as she tells her brother, Kenneth Stacy, that she needs help moving something. She never told him where they were going, but upon returning to her house, she pointed at the bedroom and told Stacy, “He’s in there.”

Stacy went inside to find Clark’s body and immediately confronted Tribble asking her why she didn’t call the police. She told him the police would have asked too many questions, but that she “shot him in the head” because she was sick of him jumping on her.

She asked Stacy to help her move Clark’s body, but he refused. The two drove back to Stacy’s house that evening and didn’t speak about it again.

The next morning when Stephens was getting ready to leave Stacy’s house to go to class, she told her mother she’d forgotten her book at home. Tribble handed her a key to the house and said, “He’s gone.”

Stephens found her father’s body when she got to the house, and she immediately called 911.

Assistant State Attorney Kristie Ducharme. (FILE PHOTO)

Ducharme told jurors that in Tribble’s first interview with law enforcement, she lied. Tribble also told Stephens and her two younger brothers they had to lie to law enforcement as well.

When Stacy was interviewed, he tried to minimize the situation. He didn’t tell detectives that Tribble asked for his help moving the body or that she confessed what she’d done.

Law enforcement knew their stories weren’t adding up, so they interviewed Stephens and Stacy again. They both came clean and told the entire story.

The defense argued that Stephens’ and Stacy’s testimonies could not be trusted because they lied to law enforcement initially.

Ducharme reminded the jurors that the reason they lied was because Tribble threatened them.

“Yes, they lied at first,” she said. “but there was a reason. They consistently gave the same story after that.”

Ducharme also told the jury that Tribble wrote a letter to Stephens before trial started, asking her to change her story and tell police she’d lied in her second interview and then destroy the letter. Ducharme asked them to combine Stephens’ and Stacy’s statements with all of the evidence, especially the ones showing Tribble was tampering with multiple witnesses, which left no reasonable double that Tribble was the one who killed Clark.

As for why Tribble killed Clark, Stephens said while she had witnessed physical violence between her parents when she was a child, she had not witnessed physical violence between the two leading up to the murder. However, in jail phone calls between Tribble and her boyfriend in the Walton Correctional Institution their conversations allude to them having discussed killing Clark in the past.

Tribble’s coworkers said he was getting out of prison a month later, and Tribble kept telling them she was going to leave Clark to be with him.

Taekwondo teacher sentenced to 15 years for molesting student

SENTENCING UPDATE: Taekwondo teacher sentenced to 15 years for molesting student

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Chase Woolman began making sexual advances toward his victim when she was only 14-years-old.

Chase Woolman, 28, of Lake Wales.

Woolman sexually abused her for three years, taking advantage of the student-teacher relationship he had with her. Woolman was convicted of sexual battery and lewd molestation Friday and was sentenced to 15 years in prison, followed by 15 years of probation.

The girl had been a student at Woolman’s taekwondo school since she was 8, and the abuse began while she and other students were at a taekwondo training in 2010. Woolman started by simply touching her inappropriately, but their interaction eventually led to intercourse.

On a controlled phone call with law enforcement, Woolman admitted to having sex with his student and said he was “concerned every day the police were going to show up” and take him to jail. The victim told Woolman she felt that because he was in a leadership role in her life, she thought she could trust him.

Woolman apologized to the girl for breaking that trust.

Man who stalked young girls, flashed them sentenced to 10 years

SENTENCING UPDATE: Man who stalked young girls, flashed them sentenced to 10 years

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After being fired from a job where he allegedly flashed a young girl, Adam Tharp spent his spare time stalking children at libraries in hopes of exposing himself to them.

Adam Tharp, 24, of Winter Haven.

Tharp, 24, of Winter Haven, pled guilty to lewd or lascivious exhibition Friday. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, followed by 15 years of probation, by Judge Abdoney, who said Tharp’s actions were “alarming.”

The first reported incident was in May 2015 when Tharp was working at an auction house. A little girl went to the concession stand to get Cheetos and Pepsi, and she said Tharp turned around to face her with his genitalia out.

The child immediately ran back to her mother and told her what happened. Tharp claimed that the girl saw his finger and nothing else, but he was fired shortly after.

A year later, in May of 2016, Tharp began frequenting libraries in Polk County, specifically in Lakeland and Winter Haven.
Assistant State Attorney Ashley McCarthy said he would walk through the aisles of the children’s section and peek through the bookshelves to find little girls who were not with their parents. Evidence showed that Tharp crouched down and showed himself to at least one girl at the Winter Haven library.

Security footage from both libraries caught Tharp stalking little girls. Tharp admitted it was him in the video and told detectives he has a desire to expose himself to young girls.