Four-Year-Old Miami Girl Survives After Mother Tries To Asphyxiate Her

"Sitting across from Miami police detectives, Janice Marie Miles explained she had a good reason for trying to kill her 4-year-old daughter by wrapping a plastic bag around her head. "Ms. Miles justified her actions due to her current financial decision," police officer William Moreno wrote in a statement released Thursday. And with that, police charged Miles, 32, with attempted murder and child abuse. The mother of three initially thought she had killed her little girl, and even called 911 from a pay phone to make a confession and direct them to the girl's body, police said. But the girl, whose name was not released, survived and was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where she is listed in stable condition. She is expected to make a full recovery."

480-Pound Woman Dies After Six Years On Couch

STUART, Fla. -- A 480-pound Martin County woman has died after emergency workers tried to remove her from the couch where she had remained for about six years. Gayle Laverne Grinds, 40, died Wednesday, after a failed six-hour effort to dislodge her from the couch in her home. Workers say the home was filthy, and Grinds was too large to get up from the couch to even use the bathroom. Everyone going inside the home had to wear protective gear. The stench was so powerful they had to blast in fresh air. A preliminary autopsy on the the four-foot, ten-inch woman lists the cause of death as "morbid obesity." But officials want to know more about the circumstances inside the home. Investigators say Grinds lived with a man named Herman Thomas, who says he tried to take care of her the best he could. He has told them he tried repeatedly to get her up, but simply couldn't. No charges have been filed, but officials are looking into negligence issues. Emergency workers had to remove some sliding glass doors and lift the couch, with Grinds still on it, to a trailer behind a pickup truck. Removing her from the couch would be too painful, since her body was grafted to the fabric. After years of staying put, her skin had literally become one with the sofa and had to be surgically removed. She died at Martin Memorial Hospital South, still attached to the couch. Neighbors say they had no idea Grinds lived at the duplex, though they had seen Thomas and some children outside.

(WFTV article here)

Theft Of X-Box Leaves 6 Dead In Daytona Beach

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — An ex-convict who blamed a young woman for taking his video game system and clothes recruited three teenagers to stab and beat her and five others to death, investigators said Sunday. The 22-year-old woman was singled out for an attack so vicious that even dental records were useless in trying to identify her. Some of the victims were attacked in their sleep, according to authorities. The victims' bodies were found Friday in a blood-spattered home. All four suspects have been charged with first-degree murder and armed burglary, the Volusia County sheriff's department said. Suspected ringleader Troy Victorino, 27, of Deltona, was "very guarded" during questioning, Sheriff Ben Johnson said. Three 18-year-olds were also arrested Saturday: Robert Cannon of Orange City and Jerone Hunter and Michael Salas, both of Deltona. All four were jailed in Daytona Beach while awaiting bail hearings Monday. Johnson wants prosecutors to seek the death penalty, saying, "These families will never get over this." Police said the attack was the culmination of events revolving around a nearby vacant home owned by one of the victims' grandparents and used by Victorino and other squatters as a party house. The four men and two women who were slain had reported being harassed by the alleged assailants. "Officials struggling to come up with a motive for the crime believe the killings were committed over the theft of some clothes and an Xbox game system owned by Victorino," a statement from the sheriff's office said. All four suspects were armed with aluminum bats when Victorino kicked in the locked front door, according to arrest records. The group, who wore black clothes and had scarves on their faces, grabbed knives inside and attacked victims in different rooms of the three-bedroom house, authorities said. The victims, some of whom were sleeping, did not put up a fight or try to escape, Johnson said. All had been stabbed, but autopsies determined the cause of death was the beating injuries. Victorino has spent eight of the last 11 years in prison and was arrested Saturday for a probation violation. His first arrest was in an auto theft when he was 15, according to state records. He has prior convictions for battery, arson, burglary, auto theft and theft. Hunter, who was with Victorino when he was arrested Saturday, agreed to accompany investigators for questioning. Police said he admitted his role in the slayings and identified the other two suspects. All four suspects appeared before a judge Saturday without attorneys. They will have a chance to ask for court-appointed lawyers on Monday. Hunter, a high school wrestler, moved out of his family's house in May but recently agreed to return home for his senior year. "He never seemed to be that type ... that was violent," his father Dan Washington said. "He was a good kid, he just got with the wrong crowd." The sheriff's office has identified five of the victims as Michelle Ann Nathan, 19; Anthony Vega, 34; Roberto "Tito" Gonzalez, 28, who recently moved from New York; Francisco Ayo Roman, 30; and Jonathan Gleason, 18. The sixth victim was believed to be Erin Belanger, 22, whose grandparents own the vacant home and spent the summer in Maine. Joe Abshire, Belanger's brother-in-law, said she described heading to the vacant house to go swimming one day and finding about six people living there. The squatters were kicked out, but deputies were called to the grandparents' house six times in 10 days before the killings. The victims reported a tire-slashing at their home and a threat. The squatters warned Belanger that "they were going to come back there and beat her with a baseball bat when she was sleeping," Abshire, who is married to Erin's sister Jennifer, told The Sun of Lowell, Mass., for Sunday editions. Victorino complained that his belongings were removed from the grandparents' house while he was in jail following a July 29 arrest for battery, Johnson said. He said Victorino found his things boxed up at the victims' house and took them after the killings. The bodies were discovered in the rental home in the working-class community about 25 miles north of Orlando after one of Nathan's co-workers at a Burger King asked someone to visit the house because she had not arrived for work.

(Fox News article here)

Florida Keys Woman, 69, Charged With Shooting At Lobster Divers

"An elderly woman who was upset about lobster divers in the canal behind her house in the Florida Keys was arrested after allegedly shooting at them with a handgun. Mary Alice Workman, 69, pointed the gun at a pontoon boat and opened fire as others warned divers participating in the state's annual two-day sport lobster hunt, witnesses told investigators. No one was injured."