ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – A 55-year-old man who has been in and out of prison for decades is now in custody again after police said he broke into a pastor’s home and attacked his wife.
Records from the Florida Department of Corrections show the suspect, Ronald Davis, has a criminal history that dates back to the 80′s. He most recently spent time in prison after a burglary case in Orange County.
News 6 has learned that Davis was sentenced to 15 years in that case and was released from a correctional facility in June 2024 — seven months before he was arrested by Orlando police again last week.
Court documents related to the previous burglary case show prosecutors had initially asked for Davis’ sentence to be served “day-for-day,” which means he would serve his full sentence without earning credit for good behavior. In a notice, an assistant state attorney with the 9th Judicial Circuit wrote that Davis qualifies as a “prison release reoffender,” and the crime was committed within three years of him being released from a correctional facility.
If convicted, Davis faced a mandatory sentence of five years for a third-degree felony, 15 years for a second-degree felony, 30 years for a first-degree felony, and a life sentence, according to the notice.
Instead, later records show Davis signed a plea deal, and it was agreed that he would be sentenced to 15 years in prison, and all counts would be served concurrently.
News 6 spoke to the victim from that 2009 case who said she received a letter this summer notifying her that Davis would be released from custody. She declined to speak on camera because she said she still worries about what happened to her years ago.
She told reporter Catherine Silver that she came home one day, saw her back door was open, and then found Davis inside her house. She said she was tied up with the cord from a phone charger and her home was ransacked.
Orlando police said Davis also forced his way inside Lucy Pat Curl’s home on Caribbean Court on Friday. Her husband, a pastor at First Baptist Church Orlando, called for help after he returned home and found his wife had been badly beaten.
Senior pastor David Uth spoke to the congregation Sunday and said the suspect had presented himself as a community service officer, and when 85-year-old Curl asked for proof, the man forced his way inside and started attacking her.
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“He began to hit her. She fell, and the fall did incredible damage along with the wounds that he gave her directly with his fists,” said Uth. “And so he began to ransack the house while she was lying there in a pool of blood.”
Uth said Curl managed to get to a car after the attack and honk the horn in an attempt to call for help.
Curl’s loved ones have been sharing updates online through the weekend and wrote on Monday that there is no change in her condition.
When Uth spoke on Sunday, he told the crowd, “The last word we got is that CAT scans, the MRI’s, show tremendous brain damage.”
Uth said the injuries are “the kind that the doctors say there’s only one way for her to wake up, and that’s a miracle.”
Davis is currently in custody at the Orange County jail and faces charges of home invasion robbery, aggravated battery on a person over the age of 65, and aggravated battery with a weapon.
According to an arrest affidavit for Davis, the Orlando Police Department’s Homicide Unit has been notified to take over the investigation because it is likely that Curl was placed into a medically induced coma and will likely not survive.
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