Key West woman arrested after knife threat, assault on liveaboard boat

A liveaboard argument off Wisteria Island escalated into a knife threat and assault before sunrise, ending with a 38-year-old Key West woman in jail on aggravated assault and domestic battery charges.

The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office said deputies met the adult male victim at the end of Margaret Street at about 7:30 a.m. on April 17. The man told deputies that Charlotte Ann Hill punched him in the face during an argument on a boat anchored off Wisteria Island and threatened him with a kitchen knife.

Deputies reportedly saw bruising consistent with being struck. Hill was later found at a nearby bar and taken to jail, according to the report. The case highlights how quickly a dispute in the Keys can turn into a criminal call when it happens on the water, where access, distance and the layout of boat-dwelling communities can complicate a law-enforcement response.

Wisteria Island sits just northwest of Key West and has long been tied to a liveaboard community that treats the area as both home and refuge. The island is federally owned and uninhabited, but the waters around it have been at the center of repeated debates over anchoring, housing pressure and public access.

Monroe County has planned a 100-boat mooring field around Wisteria Island, a project that involves $1.6 million in grant funding and was delayed after a U.S. Navy objection filed in June 2024. A Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission presentation said the county’s anchoring limitation area was amended in 2022 so it would take effect only if Monroe County installed 100 public mooring balls within one mile of the Key West Bight City Dock.

The island’s legal status has also been contested. A 2024 report said a federal judge ruled the U.S. government owns the roughly 22-acre island after years of litigation involving F.E.B. Corp. and federal land managers.

For people who live aboard near Wisteria, the setting is part of the appeal. “It’s not an easy life out here but it’s affordable,” said Jeep Caillouet, a local entertainer and liveaboard boater who lives there.

Against that backdrop, the arrest of Hill landed as another reminder that the harbor’s most familiar waterfront spaces can become the scene of fast-moving violence, with deputies making the case from a boat, a street meeting point and a bar in one morning run.