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Beating Details Revealed

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By DENNIS JOYCE The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 24, 2008

In the hours before the now-notorious video beating, in which a group of girls are seen hitting another girl, there was a spat over a borrowed hairbrush and razor followed by a string of threatening phone text messages, court records show.

The victim of the beating, 16-year-old Victoria Lindsay, told a detective that the girl seen punching her repeatedly in the video, Mercades Nichols, sent the text messages to her while Lindsay was headed back to Polk County from a day at Cocoa Beach.

Lindsay said that before she left, the two argued over a hairbrush and razor that Lindsay borrowed from Nichols without permission.

The details emerge in court records released this week in the prosecution of Nichols and seven others in the March 30 beating.

Gag Order Withdrawn

In other developments Wednesday, Polk County Circuit Judge Keith P. Spoto withdrew a gag order that was issued in the case April 9 after defense attorneys complained that Sheriff Grady Judd was releasing too much information.

Judd, who joined news organizations in appealing the gag order, welcomed Spoto's decision and said, "By bringing attention to these kinds of cases, children, parents, schools and communities can learn from the mistakes of others and take steps to prevent this kind of senseless violence."

It's not clear from the court documents released this week whether the borrowed toiletries were behind the beating, but Lindsay said she became suspicious when Nichols' "rude and threatening" text messages turned friendly as she got closer to returning to Mulberry, where she was staying with Nichols at the home of Nichols' grandmother during spring break. Nichols kept asking Lindsay where she was and when she would be back.

When Lindsay reached the house, she said, "she was jumped and badly beaten by six teenage females while two male teenagers stood watch outside the residence," according to a detective's interview in the court documents.

In the interview, Lindsay's mother, Talisa, reveals that her daughter was thrust into the situation in part because things were difficult back home.

"Talisa advised me her daughter ... had been allowed to stay with her friend, Mercades Nichols, due to problems at home," the detective said.

Teens Documented Injuries

The interview contains Lindsay's blow-by-blow account of the beating and a car ride she was forced to take afterward.

Most of the events are not visible on the three-minute segment of video released by Judd. The beating video, recorded for posting on MySpace and YouTube, runs more than 30 minutes.

Lindsay said in the interview that she was surprised when she returned from Cocoa Beach to find not only Nichols, but two teenage boys sitting on the porch, and one girl after another as she moved through the house trying to gather her things and leave.

She also said she was beaten in three rooms of the house and forced to pose for a recording of her injuries. In the car, the girls gave her a soda and were nice to her, saying her injuries were not that bad, she said. They threatened her, she said, after she suggested she would tell her parents.

All eight defendants are being tried as adults and face up to life in prison on the kidnapping charge.

The three defendants in the car - Brittni Hardcastle, Brittany Mayes and Nichols, all 17 - face additional felony charges of witness tampering.

The other three girls are April Cooper, 14; Kayla Hassell, 15; and Cara Murphy, 16. Two males, Shumaker, 18, and Zachary Ashley, 17, are accused of acting as lookouts.

Editor Dennis Joyce can be reached at djoyce@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7604. Keyword: Beating, to read victim Victoria Lindsay's detailed account.

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