3 years later, 2 families still broken

After three years of lawyers and families battling in court, a judge ordered yesterday that Mikese Morse be committed to a mental hospital after killing a man in 2018.

What happened: Prosecutors and experts agreed that the 33-year-old Morse — once a track-and-field Olympic hopeful at USF — was insane when he ran down Pedro Aguerreberry and his two young sons with his car as they rode their bicycles along New Tampa Boulevard in 2018.

• Aguerreberry, then 42, was killed.
• Morse was diagnosed after the crash with bipolar schizoaffective disorder.

After the ruling, both families said they're forever broken, in different ways.

• The Aguerreberry family will never get their son back — and some cannot believe no one has been held criminally responsible.
• The Morses may never get their son out of the criminal justice system they tried so hard to keep him out of.
• Mikese spoke through Zoom to the Aguerreberrys: "I regret not getting the help I needed before this happened. I’m sorry I caused you this pain. I know my words don’t mean that much, but I’m really sorry."

What's next: Morse will be committed to North Florida Evaluation and Treatment Center, a maximum-security health facility in Gainesville.

• His family hopes that one day, with continued progress in treatment, he can go into a transitional program to re-enter society.