Crime News
Man jailed in girl's slaying
By Sandra Mathers
Apr 13, 2003, 16:10

Orange County investigators arrested a Pine Hills man Saturday in the death of a 17-year-old high school girl found in the apartment complex where they both lived.

Lester Ray Rogers, 38, of 5324 Via Major Way was jailed on charges of first-degree murder and sexual battery with physical force in the death of Sherley Telfort, a sophomore at Evans High School.

An arrest report listed Rogers as unemployed, but neighbors said he worked the night shift at an Orlando plastics company.

A boy on his way to school found the girl's nude body early Friday near the swimming pool of the Seville Place apartments off Pine Hills Road.

Sherley, who lived at the complex with her mother, Angena Telfort, 40, and her 8-year-old brother, Stanley Simeon, knew Rogers only slightly as a resident of a nearby apartment, family friends said.

"The fact that they caught the guy won't bring my daughter back to life," Angena Telfort said Saturday through a Creole-speaking interpreter. "But if the system works, he will pay for the crime he committed."

She said she hoped young people would learn a lesson from her daughter's death and be more careful in their lives.

Angena Telfort left Haiti for Miami in 1994 and moved to Orlando two years later. A cook at a Haitian school since August, she said she was able to bring her daughter here from Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, four years ago.

Report tells of final hours

Few details about Sherley's death have been disclosed, but an Orange County sheriff's report gives this account of her final hours:

Sherley's mother said her daughter left their apartment at 7:30 p.m. Thursday night. An unidentified female told investigators she was with Rogers later when Sherley came to Rogers' apartment. The witness told investigators she left soon afterward.

Another unidentified female, who identified herself as Rogers' goddaughter and said she lived in the apartment with him, told investigators she arrived home about 8 p.m. and found Rogers' bedroom door closed. While there, the witness said, she received a phone call from a male who said Sherley had called him from Rogers' apartment and asked him to call Sherley back there.

After leaving to stay with another resident of the complex, the goddaughter said she returned to Rogers' apartment at 1 a.m. for a blanket and found the bedroom door still closed, the report said. Rogers came out of the room and told her to lock the apartment door on her way out, she said. She told investigators she thought someone was with him in the room.

Sheriff's investigators could not be reached for comment Saturday.

Police search apartment

Before Rogers' arrest in Orlando early Saturday, investigators collected a DNA sample from him and obtained a warrant to search his apartment. They removed a mattress and box springs, along with several other, unnamed items, the report said.

Rogers was being held without bail at the Orange County Jail. No one answered at his apartment Saturday afternoon.

Friends said Sherley was a shy, often quiet teenager who hoped to become a nurse.

Her grief-stricken mother lay on a couch in her apartment Saturday, surrounded by friends from the Haitian community. She said her daughter left Port-au-Prince hoping for a better education in America. Sherley liked to work with kids and was a volunteer at the Christian Haitian Academy of Orlando after school, her mother said.

Angena Telfort has been chief cook since August at the school for students from pre-kindergarten to eighth grade, said Mony Dorce, a teacher at the school and a member of Telfort's church.

Sherley "was quiet until she got to know you. Then she was always laughing and telling jokes," said Danelle Daverman, a former choir director at the Guilgal Seventh-Day Adventist Church, which the Telforts attended and where Sherley sang in the choir.

Trust fund to be set up

Now, Angena Telfort is planning to hold her daughter's funeral at the church next Sunday, if she can come up with the money to bury her daughter.

Dorce said he plans to help his friend set up a trust fund for Sherley at a local bank to help cover funeral and burial costs, which could exceed $5,000.

"She [Angena Telfort] lives on her wages as a cook and working two days a week at local hotels," Dorce said. "There isn't much money here."

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