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Police: Teens Charged In Homeless Beatings May Have Attacked 2 More

POSTED: Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Police believe that two more homeless men may have been attacked by the three teenagers accused of beating a trio of homeless men, one of them fatally.

William Ammons, Thomas Daugherty and Brian Hooks have already been charged in connection with the beatings of Norris Gaynor, Jacques Pierre and Raymond Perez, but now detectives think 60-year-old Loshaje Lewis and 47-year-old Earl Fulton could also be victims of similar attacks.

Daugherty, 17, and Hooks, 18, turned themselves in to police shortly after the series of brutal baseball-bat beatings that killed Gaynor, 46, and seriously injured Pierre, 58, and Perez, 49, last month.

Ammons, 18, was also arrested and originally charged with aggravated battery causing bodily harm or disability, but police later charged him with murder.

Police said Ammons gave them Daugherty's and Hooks' names.

Police said Ammons admitted he shot Gaynor in the torso with a paintball gun while Daugherty bashed Gaynor's skull with a bat. Ammons also admitted that Daugherty and Hooks used his black 1997 Chevrolet in at least two of the attacks, police said.

All three teens are being held without bond.

Ammons' public defender has argued that his client shouldn't be held without bond -- standard for a murder charge -- since his alleged actions didn't cause Gaynor's death.

But Assistant State Attorney Lee Cohen said even though Ammons didn't cause Gaynor's death, Ammons was acting with a person who did. Under Florida law, people who take part in a crime can be charged with murder if someone is slain, even if they didn't commit the actual killing.

Hooks' attorney has said there is no evidence that his client struck anyone.

Hooks may have been present and holding a baseball bat when some or all of the homeless men were beaten, but neither witnesses nor a videotape of one of the beatings have him actually striking anyone, attorney Jeremy Kroll said.

He said two witnesses have told police that Hooks did not strike Gaynor, nor did he strike the man whose attack was captured by a security camera.

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