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Neighbors Mourn Retired Nurse Slain In Bradenton

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MICHAEL SCARCELLA and DALE WHITE

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: May 22, 2008

BRADENTON — Janice Fore would sit for hours with her neighbors, smoking and gabbing about everything from fishing and politics to nursing and show business. Fore would talk about anything, her friends said, and she would talk forever.

The 74-year-old widow lived alone on a quiet, tree-lined street where cats roam freely and children with fishing poles march to dip a line in the Manatee River. Fore, a community volunteer and retired nurse, brought many cats into her home over the years, neighbors said.

As the sun set Wednesday and Manatee County Sheriff's Office crime-scene investigators descended on Fore's home, neighbors gathered in shock, confusion and anger.

Authorities say Fore -- whom neighbors described as frail, petite and charitable -- was killed during a burglary or robbery.

The garage door was open when deputies found Fore on Wednesday evening. Her convertible was missing. A neighbor saw the car speed out of Fore's driveway early Wednesday. Authorities found the car late Wednesday in a parking lot on State Road 64 East.

Sheriff's officials called the killing a horrible act of violence and said they aggressively were searching for answers.

Sheriff's spokesman Dave Bristow said the crime is "very solvable." Authorities are investigating whether suspects in a burglary in the neighborhood Tuesday are responsible. A vehicle on the block also was a target in a burglary.

Sheriff's deputies and detectives went door to door Wednesday, interviewing Fore's neighbors in the 1200 block of 67th Street Northwest.

Neighbors chatted together, talking about suspicious people and the last time they saw Fore alive.

"She was a great lady," said neighbor Sam Roby, who had enjoyed morning coffee and cigarettes with Fore for a year. "God bless her. God bless her."

Roby said he knocked on Fore's door about 10 a.m. Wednesday but got no answer. Fore's garage door was open, and that was unusual, Roby said.

Other neighbors thought it was peculiar, too, but nobody called the police.

A man walking in the 6900 block of Manatee Avenue West, behind an apartment building, found items belonging to Fore on Wednesday afternoon and took them to her home, authorities said. The man alerted the sheriff's office.

Sheriff's deputies found Fore's body in a front bedroom. An official would not comment on reports that she was tied up. Bristow, the sheriff's spokesman, said there were obvious signs of trauma.

Crime scene investigators snapped photos of the back of Fore's home, which sits on a lot with a large front yard with oak trees. Cats roamed the front of the house as detectives worked.

Fore was passionate about caring for -- and taking in -- cats in the neighborhood. At one point, she had more than two dozen cats, neighbors said. The number had dwindled in recent months.

Fore often mixed spaghetti with cat food, one neighbor said.

Last year, neighbors said, dead cats were turning up on the block. The neighbors said Fore did not have any enemies in the neighborhood.

A kitten's incessant meowing drew one neighbor, Naythen Schrock, to meet Fore for the first time Tuesday night.

With a flashlight in hand, Schrock tracked the kitten to Fore's doorstep about 11:30 p.m.

Schrock held the kitten as Fore cleaned its eyes. Fore talked about her love for cats.

"Who would want to do that to this lady?" Schrock asked. "I don't get it."

Fore, a native of Massachusetts who never lost her distinctive accent, was the daughter of a truck driver and Teamsters member, William DeCosta, who died in Fairhaven, Mass., in 1998.

She became a nurse in 1959, the year she moved to Bradenton -- sailing here, according to a neighbor.

Her husband, Clyde A. Fore, died in 2003 at age 75. A retired captain and intelligence specialist for the Army, he was the former editor of the Outdoors section of the Bradenton Herald.

He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

Janice Fore, who did not have children, served as the Bradenton chapter president of the service organization Delta Theta. Fore had worked as an administrative assistant at the Salvation Army in Bradenton.

In July 2000, she wrote a guest column for the Herald-Tribune about the restoration of First Baptist Church in downtown Bradenton.

Fore and a good friend, Mike Narbis, who lives across the street, had dinner every Saturday evening for years -- at 5:30 on the nose, alternating houses.

Fore cooked and loved seafood -- chowder, especially. Narbis, 65, preferred pasta, meat, potatoes. Hours slipped by as Fore burned Misty cigarettes.

Fore turned 74 on Tuesday, and Narbis had Fore over for cake and an unwrapped gift: a book by Garrison Keillor, the public radio host of "Prairie Home Companion."

Fore talked about the usual stuff over coffee, of course -- the weather, dogs and cats. Narbis said his friend will be dearly missed.

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