1. society
2. crime
3. personal offense
4. homicide

CHEERS!
MURDER TRIAL
BACK IN ACTION
TASTY COCKTAILS
FOR THE HOLIDAYS
LET’S EAT 1E
WOMAN ACCUSED OF KILLING
AND COOKING LIMO DRIVER
LOCAL 1C
TIGER WOODS TO
RETURN TO THE COURSE
SPORTS 1B
THE DAYTONA BEACH
NEWS-JOURNAL
NEWS-JOURNALONLINE.COM
HOME OF THE WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS BEACH
WEDNESDAY
D E C E M B E R 3, 20 1 4
COASTAL EDITION 75 CENTS
Sheriff: Volunteer, 85, killed in burglary
Homeless man, criminal charged with Deltona woman’s murder
By PATRICIO G. BALONA
patricio.balona@news-jrnl.com
DELTONA — An 85-year-old
Deltona woman was killed
by a homeless handyman
she recently hired to fix
her floor, sheriff’s investigators said.
Deputies arrested Ronald
Citarelli, 49, on Tuesday
and charged him with
first-degree murder in
Monday’s death of Barbara Minardi, a longtime
Volusia County Sheriff’s
BARBARA
MINARDI
RONALD
CITARELLI
Office volunteer. Citarelli
also stole from Minardi
and was charged with
burglary of an occupied
dwelling, deputies said.
He was being held without
bail at the Volusia County
Branch Jail.
Sheriff Ben Johnson said
Citarelli has a long criminal history of burglary and
assaults and chose an innocent person to hurt. He had
no local criminal history,
court records show.
Minardi was a beloved
volunteer who would go
beyond her work and did
not want to be recognized
for it, making her “an un-
sung hero,” Johnson said.
“It hits hard because
here is an innocent
85-year-old woman brutally murdered by a career
criminal,” Johnson said.
“Here is this wonderful
lady who has not done
anything to anyone and
her life is violently taken
by a career criminal, that
is what is disheartening.”
The murder has left
News-Journal/PATRICIO G. BALONA
Barbara Minardi was killed Monday in her home on
Omaha Drive in Deltona.
SEE KILLED, PAGE 6A
CO M M U T E R R A I L
TICKET TROUBLE
With ridership down, SunRail officials target ticket machines
Daytona
police take
diversity
training
By LYDA LONGA
lyda.longa@news-jrnl.com
DAYTONA BEACH — As protests, anger and frustration continue to grip
Ferguson, Missouri, a criminologist
talked Tuesday with Daytona Beach
officers about race and ethnicity and
how they affect the perceptions of both
police and the people they serve in the
community.
But criminal justice professor Randy
B. Nelson, who has taught as an adjunct at Florida universities, worked
in the state’s corrections and juvenile
justice systems and is president of
a company that researches societal
problems, only mentioned Ferguson
once in his three-hour training session
because, as he put it, “Ferguson happens all across the country.”
What Nelson wants to accomplish at
Daytona Beach police headquarters is
for the men and women to talk about
their perceptions when it comes to
SEE DIVERSITY, PAGE 6A
News-Journal/PETER BAUER
A woman “taps on” at the SunRail train station in DeBary recently. SunRail ridership is down, and officials
say the decline is in part tied to problems with the train’s ticketing machines.
though.
SunRail conductors counted
as many as 30 percent more
DEBARY — Six months after
riders during those months
startup, SunRail’s paid ridership is down, raising questions than the number of riders who
about how much problems with “tapped on” to the train, Project Manager Tawny Olore
its ticket-vending masaid in a recent interchines have to do with
view. SunRail offithe drop.
The first three
cials say problems
months SunRail
with the ticket-maoperated, it came
chine system may
close to the firsthave prevented
year goal of 4,300
some people from
daily passengers.
tapping on while
During the second
others likely rode
three months – August,
without paying.
September and October –
SunRail probably lost some
paid ridership fell by 20 perrevenue, but Olore said it’s imcent.
possible to know how much.
That drop doesn’t necessarThe contractor responsible
ily mean commuters are less
for the ticket machines, ACS
interested in getting between
DeBary and Orlando by rail,
SEE SUNRAIL, PAGE 7A
SunRail Ridership
Paid ridership has dropped in recent months.
5000
1st Year Average Daily Goal of 4,300 Riders
4000
Average Daily Ridership
By MARK HARPER
mark.harper@news-jrnl.com
4,075
By TONY HOLT
4,212 4,127
tony.holt@news-jrnl.com
3,582
3000
3,045
3,214
2000
1000
MAY
Ex-mobster
loses libel
case against
News-Journal
JUN.
JUL.
AUG. SEP.
OCT.
SOURCE: Florida Department of Transportation
“It’s been 6 months and nobody has resolved the issue. It’s not right and it doesn’t make me happy.”
JASON DAVIS
Volusia County chair
BUNNELL — Jurors took 90 minutes
Tuesday to reject the claim by an
admitted killer and ex-mobster that he
was libeled by The News-Journal for
publishing stories about him.
Jurors ruled unanimously that stories published by The
News-Journal did not
defame Joseph Milano,
a former member of a
New York-based crime
family who admitted in
federal court to murdering four people.
Milano claimed he
JOSEPH
lost his Palm Coast pizMILANO
zeria business because
of articles published by the newspaper
in early 2009.
“I was confident from the outset
that a reasonable jury of men and
women would quickly realize that The
News-Journal’s reporting about Joseph Milano’s criminal activities was
accurate,” said Editor Pat Rice. “We
SEE LIBEL, PAGE 6A
Vol. XCI
No. 337
5 sections
© NJ 2014
Halifax
Media Group
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FORECAST
Party sunny, with a
chance of showers.
High 77; low 61.
WEATHER 8C
GOP UNITY
Republicans try to come together
to avoid government shutdown,
fight Obama on immigration.
NATION 3A
FIERY FLIGHT RISK?
Tests show it might be too
dangerous to transport
lithium batteries by plane.
BUSINESS 9A