A man’s family
Suspect ‘did it to woo’ ex-wife of victim, family says
says he shot and killed his girlfriend’s ex-husband because he wanted to show his beloved that he would protect her.
Clay Curtsinger had just divorced his wife of 20-plus years and wanted to move on with his life.
He returned to Central Florida from Texas and began a new relationship with a former high school girlfriend named Carla Radke.
Now he’s facing life in prison.
On Aug. 29, Curtsinger, 47, was indicted on a first-degree murder charge in the July 7 shooting death of Radke’s ex-husband, Jack Radke.
Curtsinger’s family said his new relationship developed quickly and intensely. In less than a week, they said, the two had gotten a joint bank account.
On the same day they opened the account, Orange County Sheriff ’s Office deputies said, he gunned down her ex-husband in an exclusive gated neighborhood in what Curtsinger’s brother described as an attempt to “woo” her by showing that he was willing to protect her and her family from a man Curtsinger said was abusive to his new girlfriend and her children.
Deputies said Radke was in his ex-wife’s private Lake Nona development in his truck talking to a neighbor when Curtsinger drove up and shot him six times around 6:30 p.m. with a 9mm handgun.
Curtsinger told deputies he shot Radke because he saw a gun, but none was found in Radke’s truck.
The neighbor to whom he was talking also said he never saw Radke with a gun, deputies say.
Curtsinger’s brother, Lee Curtsinger, said Clay is not typically a violent man.
“The only reason he would do something like this is if he really loved her,” he said. “He was trying to woo her.”
Curtsinger’s mother, Charlotte Parrish, is convinced her son really did think he saw a gun and was protecting himself from a violent man who was jealous that his exwife had a new boyfriend.
“[Clay] was fearful of his life,” she said. “[Jack Radke] wasn’t going to let anybody be with Carla.”
Parrish said that Jack Radke’s own mother called after the shooting to say Curtsinger was a “saint” for killing him.
“She said, ‘my son destroyed everything he touched,’ ” she recalled in an interview.
But those who called Jack Radke a friend paint a different picture.
“He was a good man — he always tried to do his best,” said Richie Rivera, 50, of Clermont. “His son was everything to him. He was a hard worker. All the neighbors loved him because he
was so respectful.”
Radke had a lawn mowing and tile business and he had many clients in the neighborhood, Rivera said.
He denied that the 48-yearold man had a violent side and said that he was a victim of false allegations by his ex-wife.
Records show the relationship between him and his exwife was contentious.
According to court records, Carla Radke, who could not be reached for comment, filed four domestic violence injunctions against Jack Radke in 2015 alone.
Three were dismissed because of a lack of evidence and a fourth also was thrown out after an agreement through a divorce finalized in 2015.
She had filed nine domestic violence injunctions in Orange County since 2001, ranging from accusing him of grabbing his daughter by the arm to him berating another daughter.
Two of those injunctions led to criminal charges.
In 2010, Jack Radke was charged with felony child abuse after he was accused of putting a bag over the head of one of his children.
However, Carla Radke asked that the charges be dropped and the court honored her request.
Another charge stemming from a 2013 incident in which he was accused of grabbing his other daughter also was dismissed.
In one injunction, she wrote she was “unsure what he would do to the little kids.”
Jack Radke fired back with a letter of support from his doctor, saying his wife was stealing his prescription medications to make him look like an addict.
She also was turning their kids against him, the doctor wrote in a June 2015 letter included in court records.
“I am writing this letter of support for Jack Radke both as a doctor and as a fellow human being seeing his life manipulated unreasonably by his wife,” the doctor wrote.
The shooting has wrecked the Curtsinger family, Parrish said.
“It’s affected my health, it’s affected this family,” she said. “It’s really hard.”
Lee Curtsinger called his brother “the rock” of the family.
“This is the best brother in the whole family,” he said. “He’s the best thing we had.”
The homicide has also been hard on Jack Radke’s friends.
He was estranged from his mother and his ex-wife, so they did not hold a funeral for him. Neither woman could be reached for comment.
His friends put together a memorial, said Myriam AliceaGomez, who used to work with Carla Radke.
She said that she became upset with the other woman because of the way she treated Jack.
“He was the nicest man,” she said. “He didn’t deserve this.”
Curtsinger’s arraignment is scheduled for Thursday.