Odd, strange, or bizarre news stories from Florida

Child dead after thrown off bridge in Fla.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - A 5-year-old girl is dead after being thrown off of a bridge by her father early Thursday morning.

According to St. Petersburg police, an officer was heading southbound toward the Skyway Bridge when a Chrysler PT Cruiser passed him going about 100 mph.

The officer tried to stop the suspect, identified as John Nicholas Jonchuck Jr., but when the car was near the top of the Dick Misener Bridge on the approach to the Skyway, the officer witnessed the driver stop and throw his daughter, Phoebe Jonchuck, over the side of the rail into the water.

Jonchuck got back in the car and drove south, and was eventually stopped by Manatee County Sheriff's deputies about 30 minutes later near the University Parkway exit.

Phoebe was located about an hour later and taken to All Children's Hospital but passed away. Several dive teams were involved in the search for the girl, including the Coast Guard and Eckerd College.

Jonchuck has been charged with first-degree murder, aggravated fleeing and eluding, and aggravated assault with a motor vehicle on a law enforcement officer.

Son decapitated mother over 'nagging,' Florida sheriff says

(CNN)When the cops showed up to a subdivision Wednesday night in Oldsmar, Florida, it wasn't to break up a loud party or for any sort of bacchanalian revelry typical of New Year's Eve.

No, Mario Gomez called 911 to report something far more sinister and ghastly: His brother had just cut off their mother's head with an ax.

Responding deputies found the decapitated body of 48-year-old Maria Suarez Cassagne alongside garbage cans outside of the Tampa-area home, according to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. Her head was inside one of them.

Gomez told the authorities that his younger brother, Christian Gomez, had fled the scene, but he didn't make it too far. The Sheriff's Office said it found the 23-year-old some 30 minutes later on a bicycle about a mile from his home and took him into custody.

What could possibly lead a son to be accused of cutting off his own mother's head and then disposing of her body as if trash?

The younger Gomez -- who admitted to the murder, according to the Sheriff's Office -- was apparently fed up with his mother's "nagging" over the previous two days about moving some boxes into the attic, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri told CNN.

Christian Gomez, 23, has been charged with first-degree murder and is in the Pinellas County Jail. It was not known by the Sheriff's Office whether he had retained an attorney, and the Public Defender's Office was closed New Year's Day.

Sisters, 15 and 11, charged with killing older brother

(CNN)It could be weeks before the public knows if 11- and 15-year-old sisters will be charged as adults in the shooting death of their brother, as a Florida prosecutor has 30 days to make his next move in the fratricide case.

At a Wednesday news conference, State Attorney Jeff Siegmeister said the teens will be detained 21 days, plus an additional nine days -- one at a facility in Ocala, the other at a Gainesville detention facility -- while he makes his decision on what charges they will ultimately face and whether they will be treated as juveniles or adults.

So, what would compel the sisters to allegedly kill their older brother? Some mean treatment, they told police.

However, Columbia County Sheriff Mark Hunter told reporters that it wasn't clear what led to the shooting.

"The motive has yet to be determined," he said. "There's going to be 100,000 whys. We might not ever know why this child acted out like this."

The older girl claimed her brother had beaten her and locked her in her room. When he fell asleep, she got a gun out of her parents' room and shot him, according to a police report obtained by CNN affiliate WJAX.

The unloaded gun was secured in the parents' locked bedroom, Hunter told reporters, so the 15-year-old broke an exterior window to the room, climbed in, retrieved the 9 millimeter handgun and loaded it before killing her brother with what appears to be a single gunshot.

The 11-year-old allegedly assisted her, authorities said. The 15-year-old confessed to the crime, Hunter said.

Both girls have been charged with premeditated murder and appeared in a Florida court on Wednesday. That hearing was closed to the media.

The parents, Keith and Misty Kornegay, appeared before a judge who told them they were being charged with child neglect causing great bodily harm, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in state prison.

The judge set bond at $20,000, assigned a public defender to the case and told Keith Kornegay to have no contact with the children. Misty Kornegay was told she could have contact with the kids but only with state approval and supervision.

After the hearing, Hunter told reporters, "The neglect charge has nothing to do with the immediate incident." Rather, he said, the charges stem from an incident in which the 15-year-old was locked in her room on numerous occasions with only a blanket and a bucket.

The two sisters inadvertently tipped off an officer to the Monday shooting when they left their Columbia County home and walked to the town of White Springs, nearly four miles away.

The 11-year-old called a friend's mother to tell her that she had run away. After the friend's mother arrived, she called police.

An officer came, and at first, the older girl played it cool, putting on makeup while answering some questions and dodging others, the report said.

But then she broke into tears and told the officer about her brother.

Police contacted the sheriff. That evening, deputies went to the family's home to investigate. They found the 16-year-old boy's body on the living room floor.

The children's parents were out of town on a truck driving job, but returned immediately when they received the news, Hunter said.

The three children and an additional 3-year-old daughter had been alone in the home. The toddler is now being cared for by a child protection agency.

Misty Kornegay is unemployed and would accompany her husband on some of his truck-driving trips, Hunter said, adding that leaving the 3-, 11- and 15-year-olds in the care of their 16-year-old brother is "an accepted practice."

The case is still under investigation.

While police have identified the girls, CNN is withholding their names since they are minors and have not been charged as adults.

In 2010, the Sheriff's Office visited the home on reports of vandalism and a civil matter, WJAX reported.

Hunter told reporters Wednesday that police had been to the home on three previous occasions: in March 2013 for a property damage incident, in September 2013 for a "civil matter" and in July 2011 for a "juvenile issue" that turned out to be unfounded. He did not mention a 2010 incident.

Killings are uncommon in Columbia County, which is between Jacksonville and Tallahassee, Hunter said. There were no homicides there last year.

CNN's Eliott C. McLaughlin contributed to this report.

Car kills Florida girl who sat in road during family argument
Published March 03, 2015Associated Press

APOPKA, Fla. – Police say a car fatally struck a 13-year-old central Florida girl who was sitting in the road after arguing with her mother and friends.

Apopka police Capt. Randy Fernandez told the Orlando Sentinel that 13-year-old Trinity Bachmann was angry about who would get to sit in the front seat as her mother drove home from the Central Florida Fair in Orlando on Saturday night.

Police say 36-year-old Janice Pedroza had dropped off one of the friends before the argument broke out. Bachmann got out of the car and sat down on a dimly lit stretch of road. Her mother pleaded with her to get back in the car, but she refused. A passing car hit them, killing the teen and injuring her mother.

Authorities are investigating the crash.

Florida man tries to cash check for $368 billion
Posted: 05/06/2015, 03:31pm | Lauren Jacobsen, Digital Editor at Sun Times Network

A Florida man walked into a Jacksonville Bank of America and tired to cash a $368 billion check.

Jeff Waters, explained to the bank a homeless man named Tito Watts sold him the blank check from U.S. Bank of Idaho that was reportedly issued in the 90s.

Waters made the check out to “Cash” and was told by Watts that the check would clear for any amount he wrote it out for if he gave him $100.

Waters said he wanted $368 billion to open up an Italian restaurant. Water said:

“It’s always been my dream to own the best Italian restaurant in the earth,” Waters told police. “I’m 10% Italian. Cooking authentic Italian food is in my blood. I had planned to make the restaurant 80 million sq. feet and able to accommodated (sic) 30 million eaters at once, plus it was gonna be totally underwater so people could look at sharks while they ate. But the bank wouldn’t give me my money they owed me. Tito said the check was good for any amount I wanted to write it for. So blame Tito, not me. I’m as innocent as a schoolgirl.”

When police searched Waters they found both bath salts and Chinese throwing stars on his person. He was arrested that in addition to forgery. He was later released after posting a $23,000 bail.

This cannot be a real story ... can it?

And it's needlessly hurting hundreds of thousands of people.