DRUG-DOSE SUSPECT HAS RECORD OF ABUSE

PORT CHARLOTTE -- The tattooed man jailed on charges he injected his
girlfriend's 4-year-old with heroin has a history of inflicting domestic
abuse, civil court records show.

Women here have obtained three temporary restraining orders against Shawn
Edward Malsky in the past five years for alleged abuse against them or
their children. Documents detail the acts of a man who reportedly bruised
the cheek of a girlfriend's daughter when the child refused to eat, and who
tried to strangle his wife in front of her children.

Court records allege that Malsky, too, was the victim of abuse as a small
child. His biological mother reportedly threw him against a stove, and
another time locked him and his sister in a bedroom, then left the dirty
apartment.

The blond-haired, blue-eyed man from Massachusetts has been arrested nearly
30 times in Florida, including once in the 1990 stabbing death of a Deep
Creek woman. Though Malsky was cleared on the murder counts, he has been
convicted more than 10 times on other charges, criminal records show.

Malsky landed behind bars again Oct. 31 after he allegedly shot heroin into
preschooler Rylee Nantell and put a lighted crack pipe in her mouth. He
reportedly told Rylee that smoking crack would give her energy, a sheriff's
report states. He has denied the allegations.

The self-employed tree surgeon faces charges of aggravated child abuse and
possession of cocaine, marijuana and drug paraphernalia. He is being held
without bail at the county jail.

This week a judge granted the third temporary restraining order against
Malsky in recent years. Megan Nantell, Rylee's mother, told the court that
Malsky has repeatedly tried to contact her through her grandmother, court
documents filed Monday showed. Malsky and Nantell had been dating and lived
together in a house on Bragg Court.

She said her grandmother was upset.

"I don't want any contact with him," Nantell wrote in court papers about
Malsky, whose twin sons she is carrying. She declined comment for this
story, but said Rylee is doing well.

The judge ordered Malsky to have no contact with Nantell and her two young
children, including by phone or through another person. A hearing on the
final injunction is scheduled Monday morning before Judge Peter Bell.

The first record of domestic abuse here involving Malsky was reported five
years ago by Brenda Sexton. Sexton had known Malsky for nine months and
shared a Punta Gorda home with him.

On Sept. 6, 1998, Malsky forced her youngest daughter to eat by squeezing
the child's face, leaving her cheek bruised, a document filed by Sexton
alleged.

Grabbing a hammer, Malsky beat the table where the child was sitting and
threw things about the room. He also threatened to beat Sexton, according
to the document.

"I was in fear and ran with my two girls with just the clothes on our
backs," Sexton wrote. "I'm fearful of what he can or will do to me or (my)
children."

A judge granted a temporary restraining order against Malsky. Sexton
appeared at a court hearing days later, where she voluntarily chose to
dismiss the injunction.

They married three months later.

Then in November 2002, DeSoto County sheriff's deputies arrested Malsky
after he tried to choke her in front of her children, a sheriff's report
states. He was charged with domestic battery and spent two nights in the
DeSoto County jail before making bail.

DeSoto County sheriff's deputies found red marks on Brenda Malsky's throat,
according to the report. The charge was dropped in April.

In January 2003, Brenda Malsky filed another domestic violence order
against Malsky. Again, a judge granted Brenda Malsky a temporary
restraining order, and again, she chose at a later hearing to voluntarily
dismiss the order.

Malsky's criminal record is lengthy. In Charlotte County alone, there have
been 21 cases against him. Those include charges he hit a woman in the face
with a shortened pool cue in 1998; he pleaded no contest to battery and was
sentenced to 67 days, time already served in the jail.

The 1990 murder of the Deep Creek woman, Sharon Gill, remains unsolved.
Investigators at the time had said Malsky bragged about the murder to
several friends. After Malsky spent 27 months in jail, however, prosecutors
dropped the charges because they were unable to place him at the scene of
the killing.

During the investigation, details about Malsky's childhood emerged. In
depositions taken in 1994, Malsky's grandparents -- Ed and Viola Malsky --
told his lawyer that Malsky was abused as a toddler, court records show.

Viola Malsky told the defense attorney that Malsky's biological mother
would lock him and his sister in a bedroom, then leave the apartment.

"She wouldn't get up in the morning and feed them, change them," Viola
Malsky said in March 1994. "She wouldn't wash their clothes ... Just filthy."

Said Ed Malsky: "She hit them. She threw them across the room."

Another time, Viola Malsky alleged, Malsky went to the refrigerator for a
slice of cake and his mother slammed him against a stove. He cut his head
and required stitches.

When asked if Malsky's mother drank alcohol, Viola replied: "I don't think
so, but every drug dealer was welcome into her home."

Records show Viola and Ed Malsky took custody of Malsky when he was 3; they
adopted him when he was 5. They also adopted his sister, Nicki, who was 7
at the time.

Malsky lived with the couple in Massachusetts, then later joined them in
Deep Creek. There, Viola said, Malsky had come home drunk "many, many times.

"Drinking has been Shawn's big problem," she stated in the deposition.

Malsky is the older brother of Scott Christopher Malsky, who in May was
convicted of raping and murdering an elderly Port Charlotte widow. Scott
Malsky also has been convicted of raping and trying to kill a North Port
teen whose body he set afire.

Shawn Malsky, who has been declared indigent, is being represented by
public defender Richard Kolody.

He is set for arraignment Dec. 5.