FORT LAUDERDALE - Gary Kerpan confessed years ago to snatching a 12-year-old girl, ****** her, stabbing her and ******* her. Now that he's out of prison, he hangs out in Fort Lauderdale's Stranahan Park.
He is one of Fort Lauderdale's homeless.
The city's warm temperatures attract vagabonds from all over. So much free food is available in this town, you could gain weight eating it, one homeless advocate said. City officials say most of their downtrodden are addicts, mentally ill or in economic crisis. But some, they acknowledge, are criminals, ex-cons like Kerpan.
The presence of the county's main jail in downtown doesn't help, Police Chief Frank Adderley said. Any homeless suspect arrested in outlying cities, then booked and released from the jail downtown, becomes Fort Lauderdale's latest homeless resident.
As the city grapples with controlling a growing homeless population downtown, officials were stunned to learn of Kerpan's presence, and said he illustrates the need for something to be done.
