It's getting to be time to say good night, so....
"Florida sisters could avoid murder charge" Associated Press February 04, 2015
LAKE CITY, Fla. — Charges could be dropped or greatly reduced against two young Florida sisters accused in the fatal Jan. 5 shooting of their 16-year-old brother, a prosecutor on the case said Tuesday.
Third Circuit State Attorney Jeff Siegmeister said he will make a final decision about charges after a Thursday court hearing, which will also address options for the girls’ care, given that both of their parents are being held in jail.
The shooting resulted in the arrests of a 15-year-old girl and her 11-year-old sister on second-degree murder charges. Documents show the elder girl had suffered years of physical and sexual abuse.
Investigators say the elder girl was held in a locked bedroom by her older brother while their parents were away on a work trip. After the brother fell asleep, the girl persuaded the younger sister to unlock the door so she could shower, police reports state.
The elder sister asked the younger to keep watch while she climbed through the window of her parents’ locked bedroom, where she retrieved a pistol, police said.
With gun in hand, the girl asked her younger sister to take their 3-year-old sister and hide in a closet before she shot her brother in the neck as he slept, police said. The two older girls fled the house, leaving the toddler behind.
Related: Baby Food Backfire
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Also see:
"With Florida’s black bear population rebounding, clashes with humans are on the rise and the state is considering a limited hunting season as part of the solution."
"Fugitive treasure hunter to remain behind bars in Fla." by Matt Sedensky and Amanda Lee Myers, Associated Press February 05, 2015
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A deep-sea treasure hunter was ordered Wednesday to remain behind bars in Florida while his extradition process is delayed and his former investors press for details on what happened to millions of dollars in gold he found in a historic shipwreck.
As he did twice last week, US Magistrate Judge Dave Lee Brannon postponed a hearing to confirm the identity of Tommy Thompson and discuss his extradition to Ohio, because the 62-year-old defendant still hadn’t formally hired an attorney licensed to represent him in federal court. Thompson again repeatedly told the judge of his complicated medical issues, and the judge repeatedly cut him off.
An attorney did appear in court on Thompson’s behalf but said she had not yet received clearance to defend him and had not yet had time to familiarize herself with the case. Meantime, Thompson’s longtime companion, Alison Antekeier, was denied bond and ordered held awaiting a decision on her own extradition. Brannon said even though Antekeier only faces a civil charge, she was a flight risk.
His decision to deny bond for Antekeier came after a US Marshals Service officer who tracked down the couple last week testified about what he found in their possession: information about seeking asylum in foreign countries and more than $420,000 in cash and storage units around South Florida held under different names.
‘‘They were using different identities and using disguises,’’ Officer Christopher Crotty testified.
Thompson made history in 1988 when he found the S.S. Central America, known as the Ship of Gold, which sank in a hurricane about 200 miles off the South Carolina coast in September 1857. Thousands of pounds of California gold went down with the vessel.
Thompson and Antekeier were arrested on Jan. 27 at the hotel where they were living near Boca Raton. Less than 48 hours later, investors and sonar analysts who sued Thompson about a decade ago for their share of the treasure filed subpoenas in federal court, seeking any documents from the hotel that may show how Thompson has been living a cash-only lifestyle for so long.
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Related: Treasure Hunter Thompson Tracked Down in Florida
"Graves at Fla. reform school detailed" Associated Press February 06, 2015
TALLAHASSEE — As the bodies exhumed from dozens of old graves at a shuttered Florida reform school continue to grudgingly yield answers to stubborn mysteries, researchers investigating the cases this week released a report on what they know so far.
There was the 6-year-old boy who ended up dead after being sent to work as a house boy. Another boy had escaped but was later found shot to death with a blanket pulled over his body and a shotgun across his legs.
Then there was the ‘‘rape dungeon’’ where boys were taken and abused.
What the researchers have learned about decades of horrific acts carried out at the now closed Arthur G. Dozier School in Marianna is outlined in a report released by the University of South Florida as researchers continue grappling with the mystery of the graves and deaths there.
University anthropologists have found the remains of 51 people during a dig that also uncovered garbage, syringes, drug bottles, and a dog encased in an old water cooler.
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Related: Dozier Boys School Meant Death Sentence
Or worse.
