By Fallan Patterson

Staff Writer

Jury selection begins Monday in the second-degree murder trial of Steven Louis, the Kissimmee man accused of stabbing to death the mother of his daughter in the Polk County side of Poinciana in November.

Louis, 28, is being tried in Polk County. However, Orange/Osceola State Attorneys Sarah Hatch and Mark Levine will be prosecuting the case as the Osceola County Sheriff's Office originally investigated the disappearance of Louis' ex-girlfriend Nicole Fields from the Osceola County Courthouse following a child support hearing involving the couple's daughter.

Fields, 26, had dropped off the couple’s daughter and another from her previous relationship at a Kissimmee babysitter’s house Nov. 3, 2011, before her scheduled court hearing.

During the hearing, Fields filed a motion to give Louis $11,700 credit because he had been giving her money toward daycare and she “had a change of heart” and wanted to give him a “fresh start” because he had recently been released from prison, court records stated. Her motion was denied.

Fields was visible on the courthouse security cameras walking to and from the hearing alone, according to court records.

Louis was scheduled to also appear at the hearing but told detectives he lacked transportation from his Poinciana home at 913 Gateshead Court.

It was after the hearing that Fields drove to Louis' home where the pair got into a heated argument about child support while driving around the neighborhoods in Fields' teal 1994 Oldsmobile Cutlass.

Louis told detectives the couple stopped by an abandoned home, 612 Robin Lane in Haines City, that has an empty lot and a wooded area in the backyard so Fields could urinate. It was in that wooded lot that the argument between the 5 foot, 3 inch, 155-pound Fields and the 5 foot, 11 inch, 195-pound Louis escalated, according to the detective’s interviews with Louis.

Fields allegedly told Louis he wouldn't be allowed to visit their daughter except in the presence of the Department of Children and Families unless he supplied her with more child support. It was then the pair allegedly began hitting each other and a knife fell out of Louis' pocket.

When Louis bent down to retrieve the knife, Fields allegedly hit him. Louis told detectives he was a “different man” when he stood back up and allegedly stabbed Fields multiple times in the shoulder and torso.

Louis told detectives that Fields was bleeding heavily and said she felt like she was going to “pass out.” Fields then fell to the ground and Louis said he kissed her and took his polo shirt off and laid it over her face, according to court records.

He then fled the scene with Fields' cell phone in her car because he “believed Nicole was dying so he got out of there as fast as he could,” the court records stated.

Louis then allegedly texted Fields' babysitter because she was already later than planned to pick up the children, telling the sitter in Fields' voice that the mother was running late because court was taking longer than expected.

The sitter told police the texts didn't “sound” like Fields because they didn't “resemble the wordings” Fields had used in the past, court records stated.

Louis then fled the county, driving south where he was apprehended Nov. 4, 2011, near mile marker 6 on Big Copitt in the Florida Keys after a brief police chase.

Louis allegedly drove Fields' car through the partially closed gate of a private residence, off a boat dock and into the ocean, according to the Monroe County Sheriff's Office.

Louis was observed by the pursuing office talking on a cell phone and ingesting a “white substance” the officer suspected was cocaine, he wrote in his report.

A 10-inch knife was found in the car but authorities would not comment on whether it was the murder weapon.

Fields was found Nov. 10, two days after her 27th birthday, face down and partially covered by a polo shirt in the wooded lot after an extensive search by law enforcement.

According to the autopsy report, conducted by Orange/Osceola Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Jan Garavaglia, Fields died from multiple stab wounds including one that punctured her left lung. Animal activity to her body was also noted in the report.

Fields' mother Sherry Fields told detectives her daughter and Louis lived together for approximately two years until about a month before the murder. Fields told her mother that Louis had physically abused her during their relationship, the police report stated.

Louis faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted.