Thomas Ludwig's Jail Intake BookingLand O' Lakes, Florida (The Weekly Vice) -- Thomas Ludwig, a 24-year-old Port Richey man was jailed Monday on first-degree murder charges after he allegedly beat his 2-month-old daughter to death for crying.
Authorities say Ludwig gained custody of two twin girls after the child's mother, Nicholle West, delivered the twins while incarcerated in state prison. She is currently serving out a 13 month prison sentence for grand theft.
A female witness who Ludwig resided with told investigators that she saw Ludwig grab one of the girls from a stroller, because she was crying. She said the force applied in pulling the child out of the stroller caused the baby's head to be popped backwards.
The witness stated that she then saw Ludwig slam the child onto a bed in a forceful manner. She then heard him call the baby "a little bitch" and to "shut up", according to the arrest affidavit.
The witness went on to tell deputies that she heard a series of loud banging noises coming from the room, which ended the child's cries.
The child was later found by the witness unresponsive. When she attempted to seek medical care for the infant, Ludwig allegedly tore the child away and contacted EMS. The child was pronounced dead at St. Joseph Hospital the following day.
An autopsy of the revealed that the little girl died of blunt force trauma to the head.
Ludwig is currently being held without bail at the Pasco County Jail on first-degree murder charges.
The Weekly Vice Opinion:
This most depressing aspect of this story for us is knowing that this tragedy might have been avoidable. Looking into the man's record, it's hard to understand why no warning flags went up before the state handed these infants over to him.
Ludwig's criminal history (in Pasco County) starts with charges of grand theft , driving without a license and a designation of (failed to adapt), which means he likely refused to follow the judge's instructions March 2006. He was then found in contempt of court with two probation violation charges in October 2006. He faced two more felony charges of violating probation in addition to writing two bad checks in Feb 2007. finally, he was arrested on contempt of court charges yet again in Dec 2008.
All this and the state willfully placed two newborn infants in his care. How is that possible? Why wouldn't he be in jail like his girlfriend?
Florida's judicial system continues to defy all sense - and it's sad to see children literally dying because of it.
Danny Vice
The Weekly Vice
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21 comments:
well i will say usually driving with out a license, and probation violation, etc isnt a reason to believe he is a chold murder, but is there anything about violence on his record? i mean i still think he is a sick f*cker but unless their was something, anything with some sort of violence in his background the law cant assume he's breaks the law so he is going to be an abusive parent.
lol i wrote chold, hahah its too early for me...
Aquarius. My gripe is with the state for giving him unsupervised, unmonitored custody when he's established himself to be a non-compliant habitual violator with no residence of his own. There are (or should be) some minimum standards applied before the state just turns two newborns over to anyone with a record like that I think.
But what my real issue is - I guess - is that his girlfriend is serving time for the same offense he has been charged with. It just seems to me the ball was dropped somewhere.
This poor girl didn't have a chance, did she? both parents are complete screwballs.
I'm confused or maybe I'm just not law savy. Which of these charges should have set off a red flag, Mr. Vice?
Let me tell you what I see. I haven't done your research and I am also not a police officer, but from what I see Mr. Ludwig got a conviction in a case relating to Driving without a license. After that conviction I see you've listed some cases involving probabtion violation. Now considering you haven't listed any other convictions I'm gonna run with the wacky idea that the probation violations were all related to the Driving without a License case.
I don't see a Drunk Driving conviction so lets assume he was on his way to work or completeing some task involving the care of his daughter when he got arrested. That's an assumption but you don't have to look at it that way.
How do you see it Mr. Vice?
Hi Infamous. I'd be glad to elaborate.
First, the concerning issue is his arrest for grand theft, not driving without a license. Those were additional charges to the primary charge of grand theft. And it's the same charge that has his girlfriend in a state prison right now.
But his case history is also peppered with repeat probation violations that are marked FTA.
FTA is a pretty serious thing to have on your record. I couldn't find out what he did to merit an FTA, but usually it means the offender is repeatedly refusing to follow the court's instructions or work with court appointed 3rd parties. It usually takes quite a bit of aggravation before a court declares someone an FTA offender.
So my issue is not about custody. It's about why this man isn't in jail. Why is he not incarcerated right now?
Florida has a revolving door criminal code that has more felons on the street than I've seen anywhere in the rest of the country.
The other issue is giving this repeat FTA felon full unabated custody without at least monitoring the situation for a couple of months.
If they had, they would have seen some of the other issues that I saw with his ability to care for two babies. He was not stable domestically, financially (and now we see mentally) for taking on the burden of two kids.
I can't get into the specifics of those, because there's no papertrail to back my assertions up with... But the state should have done a better job making sure these children were going into a safe, stable environment....in my humble opinion.
i think we should have some sort of sterlization process for wackos starting with him and his girlfriend, mayhaps starting in flordia...
I see. Thanks for clearing that up Mr. Vice. What exactly is Grand Theft? I was thinking could the FTA charges be charges he got for continuing to drive after his conviction? I mean maybe the cops were trying to be nice guys and give him a chance to hold his family together since his wife was already in stir. Again, I'm not this guy or in any was wise to the facts if this case. Just a guy on the internet posting on a blog.
I'd say cops can be nice guys when he's following the court's instructions. But if he's continually ignoring the court's instructions, what is the benefit of "being nice"?
And I don't think he was holding his family together. It appears to me the couple trying to help him were the ones holding things together.
I know its right there for you to read but I'll post it again. What exactly is Grand Theft? Could the FTA charges be because he was continuing to drive after his conviction? I know he bashed his little girls head in but why don't you think he was trying to hold his family together? Grand Theft charges, your first child born in prison, and probably 100 amature jack asses trying to tear you apart every day has got to be a lot of pressure for a guy. He called his daughter and bitch and bashed her head in. There has to be signs that this was coming, or a reason why it happened. Just fascinated by it actually. This isn't some white thing is it?
What I don't get is why the female witness just sat in the other room listening to all of this going on? She should have done something the minute she saw this creep snatch the baby up out of the stroller. I'm not saying it's her fault, but she should share half the blame. There is no way I'm going to sit around and watch all this go down and then try and do something after the fact. It just doesn't make any sense. Poor baby.
Infamous, it usually means stealing a car.
Since he was arrested for grand theft and also charged with driving without a commercial license, I'd guess he stole something that requires a commercial license like a semi or contruction equipment that requires you to be properly licensed.
Those records are all archived and cost about $15 to have printed off from MicroFische, so I can't tell you for sure... but that's what the charges indicated to me.
And to answer your question...
holding a family together requires following a courts instructions to insure you CAN be there for them.
I don't believe he was employed and he was shacked up with another family in a small house. After slamming the little kid's head into something, he then left the child alone and went outside to watch a house burn.
It was the roommate that found the little child dead. He was off in his own world.
Sorry, but I just see a long list of little things that add up to one big bad impression in my mind.
Of course, this is only my opinion, which is why I didn't put these details into the article itself.
Yeah, I guess I didn't see where you wrote "commercial license" earlier. I'm not the sharpest pencil in the box, which is why I have to ask a lot of questions from a guy like you.
Let me be clear. I'm looking at your site and outside my neighbors kids are playing a game. I'm not sure of the rules but if you sit on the cat you lose. Seems very fair to me, and they are very cute kids so I'm reading this story and I'm thinking what can a loser like me do to make sure something like that never happens to those kids. Now I know what you're going to say, Lets just kill anyone who even looks like they might do something like that and the problem is solved. And I have to admit that sounds like fun. I'd even get off on that power rush of watching the life leak out of the eyes of some godless bastard who would do something like that to little kids. But honestly Mr. Vice I'm not very bright and I'm not very brave. I couldn't even ask someone else to do something like that because I'm just too chicken shit. So that's not the option for me, but what can I do?
So I'm just trying to understand the situation so I can see really what options are available to me. I mean supposed my brother did something like that, or your brother. I know you're thinking its not possible but I bet his family is in Alexandria thinking the same thing, and it happened to them. Their son, brother, cousin called his daughter a bitch and bashed her head in. I know my brother and he's not a freak or a monster so I'd have to ask, how did that happen?
Do you pay to get this information, Mr. Vice? Do you pay $15 per story to post information about these criminals on the internet?
I write the story myself. I don't buy it. The $15 fee I'm referring to is the average fee the court clerk or police station charges to provide a copy of old arrest affidavits that have been archived.
No, I do not buy those. It's easier to just point readers to the jail booking...which the sheriff's department posts online for free. Note the multiple links in the article. Those links go to his arrests in Pasco County.
I don't know how YOU would go about protecting the children in your neighborhood from a crime like this. The path that I've taken is to profile their activities.
Since the threat of jail time doesn't seem to dissuade some of these people from hurting kids, we've added a layer... public scrutiny... to the mix.
If one child molester decides to stop molesting a child for fear that his face will be spread all over the news.... then I'd say we've accomplished our goal.
Wow Mr. Vice, I'm so sorry. I get confused and go off on tangents. That's why I could never do this kind of thing because someone innocent would probably get hurt.
I started off asking you what red flags should have alerted the authorities that this creep wasn't fit to be with his own children, and now I've gone off on all these other subjects.
I'm sure you write these stories yourself. They're very well done and researched and I did not in anyway mean to imply otherwise. I thought I was asking if you payed for the archeived records, but obviously I didn't ask it right.
You're right the situation is out of hand with guys like this. Its like the war on drugs or the war on terrorist, or the war on poverty. Nothing seems to work. Guys like this just keep raping little kids. Thank god for people like you who are willing to stick their neck out and stand up and do something. Maybe an airing of their personal details and destroying what little bit of life they might try to salvage from their conviction will make others think twice about habitually raping children.
Word about your site really gets around. The other day I was reading your logger thingy and almost everyone visiting your site was from the Netherlands. Isn't the internet great? Again I apologize for my dim wits, and I want you to know that you are greatly appreciated.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with your questions and the chain of thought you've shared. I welcome it.
It would be a very boring site if my opinions and questions were the only ones shared. =)
well my ass would be off to jail with the sicko hurtin ga child, because i couldnt just stand there and watch or listen to something happen. like that freak chick you wrote about throwing her daughter in front of the suv. and i already promised my son if son ever puts there hand on him in one negative way there done, course i will prolly get arrested too...
FTA in Florida normally stands for "Failure to Appear."
I took another look and you're right. There are two FTA acronyms used in court journal entries. Failure to appear being more common.
I'd take it a step further and say he likely jumped bail.
But since almost every one of his cases were marked FTA, that makes matters that much worse.
Not only is he not complying with the judge's orders, he isn't even showing up for court.
Thanks for that useful post
Wow its so weird that you posted this. I was thinking in the back of my mind that FTA meant failure to appear too, but I'm usually wrong about these things so I didn't say anything. Wish we could find out which one it was.
Does't matter this baby raper is never gonna see the light of day again, and he did it all to himself.
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