Florida Archives – Page 3 of 13

Gravesite Grinch Busted Stealing Christmas Ornaments from Cemetery

December 27, 2017 By HardBoiledNews Staff Leave a Comment

Authorities had been puzzled when Christmas ornaments, like these, began walking off from Florida cemeteries

LAWTEY, Florida — Call it the case of the “Gravesite Grinch.”

A Florida woman was busted Christmas morning for stealing graveside holiday decorations from numerous cemeteries and selling them to a thrift shop, police said.

Jenni Hudkins, 34, is accused of going into three cemeteries in the week leading up to Christmas and taking off with decorations people had placed on their relatives’ graves, the Bradford County Sheriff’s office said.

She then took the stolen goods to a thrift store run by Janice Crawford who bought the items, cops said. Crawford had been arrested a few days earlier on a charge of dealing in stolen property. She said she was unaware the decorations had been stolen.

“She never told me it came from the graveyard,” Crawford told WJXT-TV. “She said it was her’s and her mom’s and she had some of it in storage.”

Police say that may be true, but that Crawford failed to alert the authorities when she later discovered she had taken stolen goods.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I wish I could undo that bit of buying I did.”

Jenni Hudkins

Hudkins was charged with multiple counts of dealing in stolen property and removing a monument from a gravesite. She is being held on $700,000 bond.

Three Vicious Fisherman Charged With Dragging Shark Behind Boat For Laughs

December 13, 2017 By HardBoiledNews Staff Leave a Comment

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Three sadistic fisherman have been charged with animal cruelty after a video of them dragging a shark at high speed behind a powerboat went viral, authorities said.

The video surfaced in July showing the shark being whipped around violently in the surf as it was dragged by its tail and the men laughing hysterically as they watched, immediately sparked outrage online.

“These actions have no place in Florida, where we treasure and conserve our natural resources for everyone,” said Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Chairman Bo Rivard. “It is our hope these charges will send a clear message to others that this kind of behavior involving our fish and wildlife will not be tolerated.”

The three suspects, Michael Wenzel, 21, Robert Lee Benac, 28, and Spencer Heintz, 23, have often posted videos on social media showing them being abusive to animals. In one, Wenzel and others beat up a pelican. In another, Wenzel is shown dangling a dead dog that was later used as shark bait.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw6GFsmzg6k

All three have been charged with felony aggravated animal cruelty. Wenzel and Benac were also charged with illegally taking a shark.

Thief Steals Veterinarian’s Freezer Containing Two Frozen Dogs

December 9, 2017 By HardBoiledNews Staff Leave a Comment

BRADENTON, Florida — Man’s best friend deserves better than this.

Cops are hunting for a thief who broke into the offices of a Florida veterinarian and stole a freezer containing the bodies of two dead dogs waiting to be cremated.

Police say the unidentified suspect broke into the Bradenton Veterinary Hospital late in the evening on Tuesday and made off with the freezer unit.

It’s unclear if the person knew that the freezer contained the two dead animals.

“It’s just left us in disbelief,” Kathy Richardson, the office manager at the hospital told the Bradenton Herald. “We were all like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ The staff is flabbergasted. It’s just jaw dropping how someone could do this.”

Authorities say the suspect loaded the freezer into a dark, medium-sized pickup truck, possibly a Nissan Frontier, and took off.

Richardson said the hardest part was having to explain what had happened to the dogs’ owners.

“To put the family through this is heartbreaking. Calling that young lady was the hardest thing I had to do,” she said. “At first, she was silent for a while just trying to take in what I had just told her. And then she said basically what we had all been saying and that was, ‘How on earth could somebody do this?’

Mother Anna

GAINESVILLE, Florida — A 75-year-old woman who ran a cult-like religious boarding school has been charged in the death of a toddler three decades ago and investigators believe there may be “many, many” more victims.

Anna Elizabeth Young ran the House of Prayer for All People near Micanopy from about 1985 to 1995, authorities said. She was arrested in Atlanta last week on charges that she tortured and withheld food from Emon Harper, who was 2- or 3-years-old when he died in the late 1980s.

Art Forgey, a spokesman for the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, told the Gainesville Sun that investigators believe that Young — who was called “Mother Anna” — may have abused numerous children over the years in multiple states.

“We think there are many, many more. We can document other states and other missing children that we believe are tied into this,” Forgey said. “They ran a religious institution — exorcising demons and other things like that. We have documentation involving her clear back the ’60s. We did extensive forensic examination on the property this summer. We are still analyzing the evidence that we gathered.”

He said investigators had recently received new information regarding Harper’s death which led them to reopen the case and uncover new evidence which resulted in the charge of first-degree murder against Young.

“Witnesses came forward from the House of Prayer alleging brutality and even some children being murdered,” Forgey told WCJB-TV last week. “It’s not just one isolated incident of beatings. There were numerous children that were beaten, locked in solitary confinement, food-withheld.”

He said other attendees of the school — who are in their 40s and 50s now — are cooperating wth authorities.

In 1992, Young was charged with child abuse stemming from an incident in which a 12-year-old

girl suffered severe burns after being dunked in a steel tub filled with chemicals. Young went on the lam and was finally arrested eight years later in the attic of a relative in Illinois. She was convicted in 2001 and served time in jail.

Young had bought the Florida property in 1985 with her husband Jonah Young. He died in 1988 while reportedly working on a truck which slipped off its jack and crushed him.