Florida
Florida girls kidnapped by man they met on Roblox: MCSO
Courtesy: Martin County Sheriff’s Office
INDIANTOWN, Fla. – Two missing Florida girls are back home and a 19-year-old man from Nebraska is behind bars after deputies say he kidnapped them after they met on the gaming app Roblox.
What we know:
According to the Martin County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded to a service call around 8 p.m. regarding a pair of missing sisters who were 12 and 15 years old.
Family members told deputies that the girls went to a park in Indiantown around 9 a.m. that morning. They were brought back home and their cell phones were taken away as punishment.
The sisters’ family told deputies that the girls may be with someone they had been communicating with on Snapchat.
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The deputies saw that the SnapChat app was deleted from the girls’ phone so they reloaded the app on the phone and saw conversations between the girls and the suspect.
Those conversations revealed that the suspect, later identified as 19-year-old Hser Mu Lah Say, was on his way to Indiantown to pick up the girls and leave.
“We were dealing with a type of abduction,” Martin County Sheriff John Budensiek stated. “We know these girls went willingly, but their age suggested that they had been taken and were probably being removed from our area. That didn’t stop us, however, from searching local motels, local areas, local parks trying to find these young girls. It was literally freezing in Indiantown that night. We were in full crisis mode.”
Dig deeper:
Budensiek said the communication between the girls and the man began in the summer of 2025 on the gaming app Roblox and then eventually moved to Snapchat.
Family said they noticed strange things like gifts, specifically food, showing up to the house.
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Detectives pieced together a timeline and said the suspect left Omaha, Nebraska on Friday morning and drove straight through to Indiantown, arriving on Saturday around 10 a.m.
Courtesy: Martin County Sheriff’s Office
Initially, investigators said the girls planned to meet him at the park, but they were taken back home, and their phones were taken away.
They learned that the suspect was taking I-75 to head back to Nebraska, so the detectives contacted the Florida Highway Patrol and the Georgia State Police.
“There’s nothing good with a grown man coming into the state of Florida, removing two teenage girls, troubled teenage girls, taking them to Omaha, Nebraska,” Budensiek stated.
Courtesy: Martin County Sheriff’s Office
The Georgia State Police pulled the vehicle over and took Lah Say into custody and rescued the girls.
The sheriff noted that the girls were found about five minutes before an Amber Alert was issued for them. He said if it was sent out earlier, the suspect would know the information law enforcement had on him, including details about his car and where they believed he was headed with the girls.
READ: Body found inside truck submerged in Plant City pond during search for missing man: HCSO
What they’re saying:
“In this case, I think we prevented something disastrous,” Budensiek said. “Do we know what would have happened? No, none of us do, but we went through the devices we had available to us at the time. We’ve not seen anything explicit, necessarily, but the suspect was repeatedly warning these young girls that he could get into a lot of trouble for what he was about to do. He knew he was violating the law. We knew that if we didn’t find those girls in a timely manner and everyone did not do what they did to find these girls, they would be in Omaha, Nebraska, missing.”
Lah Say has been charged with two counts of kidnapping and two counts of interference with child custody.
Courtesy: Martin County Sheriff’s Office
What’s next:
Lah Say is awaiting extradition back to Martin County.
The Source: This article was written with information posted online by the Martin County Sheriff’s Office and presented during a press conference.
Florida
Federal judge blocks DeSantis executive order declaring CAIR a 'terrorist organization'
Florida
Gas prices rise in South Florida amid U.S. and Israel’s conflict with Iran, as the stock market also reports a dip
Four days into the Iranian conflict, gas prices are rising at many stations in South Florida.
“I’ve traveled all over the United States,” says Stacey Williams. CBS Miami spoke to him as he was gassing up on the turnpike. He paid $66 for 20 gallons of diesel to fill his pickup truck. Williams has noted the fluctuations in fuel as he drives to locations for his work on turbines. He just spent three weeks at the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant south of Miami.
“The salary we get paid per hour does not add up to what we pay for gas, housing, and food,” he says.
Mitchell Gershon is also dealing with the higher gas prices. He has to fill three vehicles constantly for his business—Thrifty Gypsy, a pop-up store at musical venues. He’s back and forth from Orlando to Miami and says fuel is costing him 20% more. When asked how he handles these fluctuations, he said, “Have a little backup cash so you are ready for it.”
The rise in oil prices contributed to a drop in the stock market on Tuesday, which means some retirement accounts dipped, too. CBS Miami talked to Chad NeSmith, director of investments at Tobias Financial Advisors in Plantation, for perspective on the drop.
“We are seeing most of the pullback today. Yesterday was a shock,” he says. He’s not expecting runaway oil prices but says investors should stay in the loop: “Pay attention to your portfolio. Stick to your goals. Have a plan because these things are completely unpredictable.”
That unpredictability has Williams adjusting his budget. “You just cut back, cut corners, all you can do,” he says.
Florida
Man convicted of 1991 fatal shooting of a police officer is set to be executed in Florida
STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of fatally shooting a police officer with his own service weapon during a traffic stop is set to be executed Tuesday evening in Florida.
Billy Leon Kearse, 53, is scheduled to receive a three-drug injection starting at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke. Kearse was initially sentenced to death in 1991 after being convicted of first-degree murder and robbery with a firearm.
The Florida Supreme Court found that the trial court failed to give jurors certain information about aggravating circumstances and ordered a new sentencing. Kearse was resentenced to death in 1997.
Kearse awoke at 6:30 a.m. He declined a last meal and has remained compliant throughout the day, corrections spokesman Jordan Kirkland said during a news conference. Kearse met with a spiritual adviser during the day but had no other visitors.
This is Florida’s third execution scheduled for 2026, following a record 19 executions last year. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The highest number before then was eight executions in both 1984 and 2014, under former governors Bob Graham and Rick Scott, respectively.
According to court records, Fort Pierce Police Officer Danny Parrish pulled over Kearse for driving the wrong way on a one-way street in January 1991. When Kearse couldn’t produce a valid driver’s license, Parrish ordered Kearse out of his vehicle and attempted to handcuff him.
A struggle ensued, and Kearse grabbed Parrish’s firearm, prosecutors said. Kearse fired 14 times, striking the officer nine times in the body and four times in his body armor. A nearby taxi driver heard the shots and used Parrish’s radio to call for help.
Parrish was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he died from the gunshot wounds, officials said. Meanwhile, police used license plate information that Parrish had called in before approaching Kearse to identify the attacker’s vehicle and home address, where Kearse was arrested.
Last week, the Florida Supreme Court denied appeals filed by Kearse. His attorneys had argued that he was unconstitutionally deprived of a fair penalty phase and that his intellectual disability makes his execution unconstitutional.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Kearse’s final appeals Tuesday afternoon without comment.
A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025. Florida led the way with a flurry of death warrants signed by DeSantis, far outpacing Alabama, South Carolina and Texas which each held five executions.
Besides the two Florida executions this year, Texas and Oklahoma have each executed one person so far.
Two more Florida executions have already been scheduled for this month. Michael Lee King, 54, is scheduled to die on March 17, and the execution of James Aren Duckett, 68, is set for March 31.
All Florida executions are carried out via lethal injection using a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.
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