Clermont man arrested, charged with raping 13-year-old girl
Frank Stanfield
Hezekiah Benjamin was arrested Friday after a relative of the girl called police.
The relative said the girl texted her with the words: “Help me.”
She also texted: “This man keeps touching me and I want him to stop.”
She said Benjamin kept texting her, wanting her to do a video chat on an app.
Police could not find any explicit sexual messages on the phone, but noticed that he called her “Cherry” and “Cherry Blossom.”
The child said Benjamin brought an outdoor chair into the house so he could sleep next to her and during the night had pulled her pants down when another adult woke up and said: “What’s going on?”
WILDWOOD – The Sumter County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the slaying of two teenagers whose bodies were discovered Wednesday morning.
The teens have been identified as Isaiah Alexander Nelson, 17, and Preston Wayne Nixon, 16, both of Wildwood.
Deputies were alerted to the homicides through a 911 call at 5:08 a.m.
The bodies were found near the intersection of County Road 219 and State Road 44, according to sheriff’s spokeswoman Michelle Keszey. The intersection is not far from the entrance ramp to Interstate 75.
At first, the identities of the teens was unknown.
A spokeswoman for Sumter County schools said Thursday the two boys were not students in the local public school system.
The charge carries a mandatory life sentence if he is convicted.
The girl’s age is not disclosed in the arrest report.
The girl told authorities that Ricky Berlin “touched her breast while they were laying in the suspect’s bed together,” according to the arrest affidavit. She said he also rubbed her genitals and penetrated her with his fingers.
A medical exam showed “visible irritation in the area between the vaginal opening and the anal cavity,” the report said.
The alleged incident took place in February.
He was jailed without bond.
Gwendolyn Granade called the sheriff s office on Sunday.
“I saw a man holding a rifle or a shotgun, Granade told Daily Commercial this week. He had a look on his face. I can’t describe it.”
She said she saw Sayre holding the weapon up in the air, then watched him climb a fence onto an adjoining wooded property. She then heard him shout: “Help.”
Granade said she heard a deputy shout, “Show me your hands,” and then heard a single shot.
From the video, it appears Sayre was shot in his right side. He was airlifted to the trauma center at Central Florida Regional Hospital in Sanford.
The report also reveals the name of the deputy who shot Daniel P. Sayre Deputy Brian Schneider.
But it raises more questions, too.
Several hours of body camera footage were released to the Daily Commercial and other news outlets Friday. The videos were slow to download and difficult to examine. In the end, however, no weapon could be seen in the hands of Sayre, though witnesses have said they saw him with a gun.
Meanwhile, the report brings into light what witnesses saw on May 2 in the rural area between Lake Mack and DeLand.
That day, LCSO responded to calls of an armed man spooking two horses in a pasture at 1:15 p.m. at 43340 Cooter Pond Road.