Charlie wasn’t a bad guy’

Prisoner killed during escape try had found direction behind bars

By SARAH LUNDY, slundy@news-press.com

Charlie Fuston found comfort in the structure and safety that prison life provided.

In the outside world, the man who left school in the fifth grade couldn’t seem to stay out of trouble, racking up a handful of serious felony convictions.

He had better luck behind bars, where he served on work crews, found religion and began to learn how to read and write. Fuston, 36, hoped to eventually earn his GED, his family said.

“I don’t think he knew how to live in the outside world,” his aunt, Judy Martinez, 60, of Ona, said Tuesday.

Fuston, who was serving a 30-year sentence for a 1993 burglary and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon in Hardee County, died Friday with his family gathered around his Lee Memorial Hospital bed.

Two days earlier, he suffered major head injuries during a botched escape attempt at the Charlotte Correctional Institution that also left Correctional Officer Darla K. Lathrem, 38, dead and another inmate injured. Officers nabbed convicted murderer Dwight Eaglin, 27, and two other inmates whose names were not released, and shipped them to another state prison.

The other injured inmate, whose name was not released, was transferred Sunday from Lee Memorial Hospital to an unidentified prison medical facility.

“The warden said to me, ‘Your brother was a victim in this and was trying to help one of ours,’ ” said Fuston’s sister, Rosie Fuston, 39, of Zolfo Springs.

On Tuesday, Fuston’s family sat at a shaded picnic table in a park outside Zolfo Springs not far from where Fuston once lived and talked about their loved one’s life.

“It upsets me that they are not telling people what my brother did,” Rosie Fuston said. “If someone doesn’t open their mouth, people are going to think that he was a bad guy. Charlie wasn’t a bad guy.”

He did have his troubles.

Fuston was No. 7 in a family of nine brothers and sisters who spent most of their childhoods in Indiana.

Soon after their father died, 12-year-old Fuston began to attract trouble. When the family moved to rural Hardee County a few years later, Fuston stayed behind, incarcerated as a juvenile, his sisters said. He followed his family to Florida after being released.

Fuston bounced between the homes of his mother and an elderly family friend for a few years. As in Indiana, Fuston eventually caught the attention of local authorities.

In 1989 at age 22, he earned a string of convictions, including kidnapping, grand theft with a firearm and armed burglary. Details of the crimes were not available Tuesday. Fuston served more than two years of his nine-year sentence, according to Department of Corrections records.

He was out a little more than a year when he got in trouble again.

On Oct. 8, 1993, he began his 30-year sentence for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, burglary and resisting an officer with violence. Details on these crimes were not unavailable.

Personal growth realized

His prison file shows an inmate who didn’t have many problems. Fuston received his only citation in 1998 for disobeying regulations. That was the same year he wasn’t allowed to attend the funerals of his mother and younger brother who died months apart, his family said.

Fuston took up pencil drawing, sending pictures of a rose and a horse scene to a sister. He started — with his basic reading ability — to read law books in hopes of helping his case. Eventually, he considered converting to Christianity.

“He had a life-changing event two years ago in prison. I was there when he was saved,” said Rossi Borgia, pastor of Faith Walkers Ministries in east Fort Myers and a prison minister.

He believes Fuston’s conversion to Christianity was deep and sincere, and that the inmate was more likely to protect the correctional officer than to join the escapees.

“There was not a mark on his body, but the way his head was caved in, it was really rough,” he said, adding he was was with Fuston when he died.

Early in the investigation, a spokesman in Bush’s office said Lathrem may have been killed by a sledgehammer.

Officials have not commented on Fuston’s role.

Family upset by treatment

Like most of Southwest Florida, Fuston’s family heard about the attempted prison escape the morning after the incident. They learned of his involvement several hours later when a prison chaplain called Rosie Fuston. She and Martinez rushed to the hospital followed by Fuston’s other sister, Margaret Lumley, 38, and niece, Pam McQuaig, 27.

They found Fuston with his head bandaged, and he was hooked up to several machines. He shared a room with the other injured inmate who never had any visitors, they said.

The family finally spoke to a doctor who told Rosie Fuston that her brother was brain dead and the hospital was waiting for the word from the state to take him off life support.

“We had no rights,” Rosie Fuston said, adding she was angry with the way hospital officials treated her family.

Word came, and he died around 9:50 p.m.

“Even though he was an inmate, he was a good person,” his sister said.

Today, Rosie Fuston will meet with a local funeral home to figure out what to do next. The family doesn’t have enough money for a service.

“He didn’t deserve to be killed and it’s not supposed to happen in a prison,” she said.

— Staff writer Joan LaGuardia contributed to this report.

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