Mystery in #FreeKate Case: What Does Kaitlyn Hunt’s BFF Julia Gilmore Know?

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An intriguing detail I reported last week on the Kaitlyn Hunt case:

[Assistant state attorney Christopher] Taylor also recounted a May incident in which Hunt violated the no-contract order by communicating with the victim “through a third party, Julia Gilmore.” In May, Gilmore told a local TV station she “has been friends with Hunt for five years” and, at a Wednesday [Aug. 14] hearing in the case, Hunt’s attorney attempted to compel the prosecution to provide Gilmore’s address, but prosecutors said they don’t intend to call Gilmore as a witness.

Amid all the shocking allegations in the prosecutor’s petition for revocation of bond, the mention of Julia Gilmore seemed trivial, but I was intrigued by the description of the Aug. 14 hearing:

8/14/2013 DEF/ATTY GRAVES/ASA WORKMAN PRESENT FOR STATE’S MOTION FOR PARTIAL CLOSURE OF COURTROOM GRANTED, ONLY IMMEDIATE FAMILY WILL BE ALLOWED IN COURTROOM, DA [defense attorney] MOTION TO COMPEL ADDRESS OF JULIA GILMORE HEARD, SA [state’s attorney] ARGUES THAT THEY DONT HAVE THE ADDRESS OR INTEND TO USE HER AS A WITNESS, COURT ADVISES THE SA IF THEY DECIDE TO USE HER THAT THEY NEED TO SUPPLY DA WITH THE ADDRESS 30 DAYS BEFORE TRIAL DATE, DA RULE TO SHOW CAUSE ON CYNTHIA VOEGTLIN AND ON MIAH SHEPHERD HEARD, DA TO RESET DEPOS, CASE CONTINUED UNTIL 9/26/13 @ 9:00 **CARD GIVEN**

Kaitlyn Hunt’s attorney asked the prosecution to provide Julia Gilmore’s address. I’ve seen evidence Gilmore was in regular communication with Kate Hunt as recently as July, so why would Hunt’s lawyer need the prosecution’s help to find Gilmore now?

This is a question to which I don’t know the answer. Nor do I know why Hunt’s lawyer was so interested in finding Gilmore or why the lawyer thought she was important to the prosecution’s case. But there are dots here, and these dots seem to form a non-random pattern.

Meanwhile there is gossip that “LT,” who was mentioned in testimony by Detective Jeremy Shepherd during Tuesday’s hearing, is Kaitlyn’s new girlfriend Latasha Thomas, 27, who was arrested in 2006 for a traffic violation and marijuana possession and arrested again last year on a felony domestic battery charge.

During Tuesday’s hearing, Detective Shepherd described text messages sent by Kaitlyn Hunt to her underage victim, now 15, boasting that someone had asked whether Kaitlyn shared the younger girl’s . . . uh, companionship with “LT,” to which Kaitlyn replied no, that the younger girl was “all mine.” Watching that testimony, I was not sure about the relevance, but the gossip I’ve heard (and this is only gossip so far) is that Kaitlyn had moved in with Thomas after her arrest, and that Gilmore was reportedly also one of their roommates at some point.

OK, that’s the gossip. Now we return to the prosecutor’s petition for bond revocation, which describes a  May 21 text exchange between Kaitlyn Hunt and her younger victim, “CS”:

CS: “[The prosecutor] asked me today if anyone saw us in the bathroom when we would do stuff. Should I have said names?”
KH: “No! Say nobody.”

There has been speculation that perhaps this other person “in the bathroom when we would do stuff” was Julia Gilmore, but that’s just speculation, of course. However, it would make sense that Gilmore, Kaitlyn’s best friend, who purportedly acted as go-between in Kaitlyn’s violation of the no-contact order, was aware all along of the nature of Kaitlyn’s involvement with the underage victim.

Much about this situation remains mysterious. For example, given that Latasha Thomas has a criminal record, including for drug use and domestic violence, why would Kaitlyn Hunt’s parents — knowing that Kaitlyn was out on bond — permit their daughter to associate with someone like that? And why was Kaitlyn’s lawyer so interested in Gilmore, if Gilmore was not a prosecution witness? Is it possible that there has been some sort of falling-out between Kaitlyn and her best friend, raising concern that Gilmore might testify against Kaitlin?

Anyway, here’s video of a local TV report about Tuesday’s hearing. Notice that Kaitlyn’s dad walks out of the court with his second wife.

In many of their public appearances in May, Steve and Kelley would appear together as if they were still married, when in fact they’ve been divorced for at least five years, and both have remarried. In fact, Kelley’s current husband is actually her third husband, because her second marriage, to an immigrant from the Caribbean, was reportedly annulled.

Because the dysfunctionality of the Hunt family didn’t fit the desired “wholesome all-American” media narrative, their divorce was never mentioned, and Kaitlyn’s stepparents were kept out of the picture.

The whole “Free Kate” myth was a gigantic lie from the start.




 

UPDATE: Thanks to the keen-eyed readers who spotted Latasha Thomas in the video above, leaving the courtroom after Tuesday’s hearing. Furthermore, video from WPEC-TV shows that LT arrived with Steve Hunt and his wife. Here are two screen-caps:

The WPEC-TV story notes that Kaitlyn’s mother, Steve’s ex-wife Kelley Hunt Smith, did not attend Tuesday’s hearing, perhaps because she didn’t want to answer questions about prosecution charges that she assisted Kaitlyn’s violation of the no-contact order.

UPDATE II: OK, now it gets weird. A search of court records for Latasha Thomas’s October 2012 case, when she was charged with domestic battery, shows that at her first court appearance, Thomas was ordered to have no contact with Katlin Sanders. According to the Palm Beach Post, Katlin Marie Sanders graduated from Sebastian River High School in June 2012. So, in October 2012, there was a “domestic violence” case in which Thomas, 26 at the time, was accused of attempting to strangle a girl who had just graduated from high school four months earlier? And now, less than a year later, we find Thomas in a relationship with the most famous teenage lesbian in Indian River County Florida America human history?

Anybody got any thoughts on this? It’s just weird, like Sebastian River High School is some kind of lesbian magnet.

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178 comments

  1. Someone may have to correct me, but I recall reading the victim “went for a run”, then KH picked her up while running.

  2. I try not to inflate Stacy’s ego, but this is what happens when a real reporter gets a hold of a story.

  5. I have to wonder why the victim would still be willing to see Kate if she knew she had a new girlfriend? Seems that she would be spitting mad and ready to turn over whatever evidence she has to hurt the girl who was cheating on her.

  6. So, in October 2012, Latasha had a domestic violence arrest with a victim who was 18? At a time when Latasha was 26?

  7. As I’ve said before, there was a rumor that jealousy led to the disclosure that Kaitlyn was violating terms of her bond. But the rumor didn’t say whose jealousy it was. I’m guessing now — given LT’s continued association with the Hunt family — that CS was jealous of LT.

  9. This cast of characters is becoming longer than that in a Tolstoy novel. We need a long interlude where someone waxes philosophic about peasants and steppe, or something.

  12. Or perhaps the indoctrination and recruitment of CS wasn’t as thorough as they thought it was and LT is by the Hunt’s side, not to provide moral support, but to exercise control.

  13. I don’t know that for sure so I’m reluctant to put name out there. If you look up Case # 2012 CF 001454 A at http://public.indian-river.org/default.aspx you’ll see “NO CONTACT WITH KATLIN SANDERS”

    A Katlin Marie Sanders graduated from SRHS in 2012: http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2012/jun/02/sebastian_river_high_school_class_of_2012/?partner=RSS

    There’s also another person with the same name and some association to Sebastian, FL but she’s definitely older: https://www.facebook.com/katlin.m.sanders.5

    When you acknowledge reading this I’ll delete it.

  17. Exactly! Without real reporters I would have served out my second term and the Watergate break-in would have remained a small blurb in the crime report section of the Washington Post.

  21. Just googled it. In the violations of conditions of pretrial release doc, it says Kaitlyn picked her up. According to the major news source articles, they do mention the victim was running at the time.

  22. That Twitter handle screams, “I never want to have a day job.” Haven’t we reached the point where everyone know the internet never forgets?

  23. Ball So Hard is slang for playing a game/sport at a high level. Perhaps she also plays/played basketball in high school.

    It is a phrase popularized by Terrell Suggs of the Baltimore Ravens.

  24. In Florida dirt roads aren’t muddy for that reason many side roads are unpaved. So this dirt road may well have been in the neighborhood.

  25. Until about 30 years ago, any sociologists would have said both Trayvon and Kaitlyn came from “broken homes,” a situation which was recognized as a common source of social problems.

    But then we did away with distinctions like “normal” and “deviant” — so judgmental, you know — and now that about 40 percent of babies are bastards … wait, excuse me, I meant to say, born to single mothers, people who still have any idea of what “normal” means are accused of hate, bigotry, discrimination and violating civil rights.

    So the fact that deviant criminal like Kaitlyn Hunt is the product of a broken home … well, you just can’t mention that as a likely source of her pathological behavior and, really, isn’t “pathological” kind of a judgmental word?

  27. Thanks for explaining. As I’m sure you know, it also means something else. As someone who has worked in a very rigid and traditional environment, where clients expected us to show gravitas, I was shocked at how many people I interviewed with bizarre email addresses, piercings, and tattoos. It may be OK in some industries, but not in mine.

  29. The far east end of 37th St. is a secluded closed dirt track near the shore. It’s only a couple of clicks from the IRCJ…

  30. I’m with you on that. I’ve interviewed a number of young people and the rule was, no visible piercings other than ear studs (one each ear) and no visible tatoos. Harsh, but that’s the business world, and surprise! Some businesses have dress codes. (But I was thinking of something else with the twitter handle, too. I need to get out more, I guess.)

  38. Kate been down some dirt roads and the rest of her life looks like, as they used to say in the Nam, “10000 miles of bad road”

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