Taylor Petras

A judge has sentenced three students for fake threats and they will spend a maximum of 21 days in juvenile detention. However, some parents are worried that the punishment is not severe enough to deter future fake threats at schools. “When I came Monday I thought, where is everybody?” said Keith Hepler, a grandparent. Hepler came […]

A spree of school threats now has children facing serious consequences. A 16-year-old is facing felony charges and expulsion after investigators said she wrote a threat on a toilet seat at North Fort Myers High School. A 12-year-old is also facing serious consequences for threatening Oak Hammock Middle School. “You’re so worried about if I’m […]

A man is after yelling at high school students, shouting religious rhetoric as they were dismissed from class. Police arrested Matthew Meinecke, 33, for trespassing and disturbing the peace as he was proselytizing to students as they left Fort Myers High School Friday afternoon. “The guy was out there, you know, he was speaking about Jesus […]

Once a month, residents in the Sandpiper Key neighborhood will see Marty Geraghty and his daughter on patrol for the night watch. “We check the pools and make sure there’s nobody in the pool after dark,” said neighborhood watch member Geraghty. “We check all the lights in the place.” He’s checking for any lights that […]

While the destruction of red tide and blue-green algae have disappeared from Southwest Florida shores, people like Sushila Cherian know it is just a matter of time before it returns. “It’s become worse and worse,” Cherian said. “We’re getting extremely concerned.” That is why Cherian and hundreds of others came to the Charlotte County Water […]

As crews seek to bring closure to a family after more than two decades, they are finding their work to identify the victim increasingly tricky. But an expert said DNA testing might lead authorities to a solution. Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office Detective Kurt Mehl, along with search crews, is not giving up on that cold […]

The search hoping to end a 24-year-old cold case has been centered in the woods behind Linda Carroll’s backyard for the past three days. “It was a whole line of cars and I was wondering what is going on?” Carroll said. “We don’t normally get that kind of traffic here.” Detectives and cadaver dogs are looking […]

Locking them up and throwing away the key is a thing of the past for the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office. The agency is partnering with Charlotte Behavioral Health Care to help those struggling with mental illness. A lot of times the crime that they are committing are not serious crimes at all and so these […]

The Lee County Sheriff’s Office held a press conference Tuesday afternoon in regards to a homicide arrest. A vehicle driven by Aden James Wright, 20, was found in a ditch on Leonard Boulevard South in Lehigh Acres September 14, 2017. Wright had multiple gunshot wounds and died at the hospital. Krisroy Amison Lloyd, 45, was arrested […]

Charlotte County public school students will be ringing in the 2019 school year with a new bell schedule. The School District of Charlotte County is adding an additional 30 minutes to the day. Parents like Chris Taylor are supportive of the measure. “Less time them being home and being on videos and doing stuff they […]