Florida
Your Florida Daily: Medical examiner’s investigator accused of stealing credit card info from the dead
ORLANDO, Fla. – A Broward Medical Examiner’s Office investigator is in trouble with the law, accused of stealing the credit card information of a dead person and using it to swipe $450.
According to an arrest warrant, 38-year-old Darrell Reid worked for the Broward Medical Examiner’s Office documenting scenes by taking photographs.
The records show Reid was called to a home in Coral Springs last October where a man had been dead for more than two weeks.
Three days after the man’s body was discovered, his daughter reported some suspicious activity happening on her father’s account.
Two payments of $150 were made to a CashApp account belonging to Reid and another $150 payment to his girlfriend, according to the arrest report.
Investigators said they looked at Reid’s CashApp account and found 25 debit and credit cards as payment sources with some linked to other people who recently died in Broward County.
Coral Springs police also linked his account to the credit card of a man who died in New York City in 2022 when Reid was an investigator for the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office.
Reid resigned just a few days after he was arrested and charged with three counts of criminal use of a dead person’s ID and one count of fraudulent use of a credit card.
Each charge carries a maximum prison term of five years.
Florida lawmakers want to make constitutional amendments harder to pass
Florida lawmakers are moving forward with a proposal making it harder to pass amendments to the state constitution.
A house panel approved the measure on Tuesday.
If it becomes law, proposed amendments would need two-thirds support from voters to pass instead of the current minimum of 60%.
Supporters of the change argue it’s too easy to change the constitution but critics say the measure is a way of stifling the voice of the people.
“I can’t think of a better way to protect our Constitution than to raise the bar,” said State Rep. Rick Roth, R-West Palm Beach.
Democrats have a different take.
“It is the content of some of these amendments that certain members of this body don’t like, and that’s why we are making it more difficult,” said State Rep. LaVon Bracy Davis, D-Ocoee.
The legislature does not have the final say on this. The issue will be on the November ballot and if approved in Tallahassee would need 60% support to take effect.
Universal Orlando unveils Epic Universe theme park
Universal Orlando giving us a first look of its newest park, Epic Universe, set to open in 2025.
The park will include brand new hotels, various thrill rides and themed lands such as Super Nintendo World and “How to Train Your Dragon” – Isle of Berk.
News 6 spoke to theme park expert Dr. Duncan Dickson who says the new park is expected to bring in hundreds more high-paying jobs and tourists to Central Florida.
“Every theme park that opens, adds to the luster of the town and the size and the expanse of Epic — they are going to be able to hold a lot of people there,” said Dr. Dickson.
Universal Orlando made the announcement back in 2019, though the pandemic did put some of the construction of Epic Universe behind.
Random Florida Fact
Today marks 66 years since the first satellite was successfully launched by the United States, lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
Explorer 1 was launched in response to the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik 1, setting off the U.S. Space Age.
Copyright 2024 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.
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Florida
FBI asking for help locating missing truck driver after suspected car hauler hijacking in Florida
BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – The FBI is investigating the suspicious disappearance of truck driver Alejandro Jacomino Gonzalez and is asking for the public’s assistance in locating him.
On April 16, investigators say Gonzalez picked up multiple vehicles from the Port of Brunswick, in Georgia. He departed the Brunswick port headed South for Miami, Florida, the drop off location for the vehicles.
Timeline of disappearance
At approximately 1:21 a.m., the FBI says Gonzalez arrived at a truck stop in Brevard County, Florida, where he rested for several hours. At 7:49 a.m., GPS from the truck driven by Gonzalez indicates the truck drove South one exit and then turned North towards Jacksonville. Soon after, Gonzalez became unreachable and the truck was reported missing.
On April 17, the truck was located in Port Wentworth, Georgia, however Gonzalez was not located in the truck. Additionally, several vehicles were missing from the hauler. Since the discovery of the truck, three vehicles have been located in Florida. Others are still missing, along with Gonzalez.
The FBI is seeking photos and video footage from any people located in or around the Brevard County Rest Area in Grant-Valkaria, Florida, between the hours of 1 a.m. and 8 a.m., on Friday, April 17, specifically focusing on the southern portion of the rest area near the ramp that enters back onto I-95 South.
The public is encouraged to share those photos and videos here.
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.
Wildlife researchers have found an unconventional way to help control invasive Burmese pythons in the Florida Everglades – by using one of the snakes’ favorite prey.
Opossums are a key food source for Burmese pythons, which are top predators in the Everglades and have established a permanent breeding population in South Florida, severely harming the ecosystem by wiping out native animals, according to the Conservancy of Southwest Florida.
In 2022, researchers discovered the new technique accidentally while studying the movements and behaviors of small mammals. The team had fitted GPS collars to opossums and raccoons on Florida’s southern coast and discovered an added side effect: They could also track the enormous snakes after they swallowed the tagged animals whole, LiveScience reported.
“We need everything that we can find to remove as many pythons as possible,” Michael Cove, one of the researchers and curator of mammals at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, told The South Florida Sun-Sentinel in 2023.
With that in mind, Cove, A.J. Sanjar and other researchers expanded the effort to track and euthanize invasive pythons as part of Florida’s conservation work. Here’s how they do it.
How the GPS-collared opossums are tracked
Researchers hope to have at least 40 GPS-collared opossums in their conservation program by later this summer. It’s almost a given that some of these furry creatures will meet their doom in the coils of an invasive python diet in the food chain, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported.
Although the use of live prey as bait has drawn criticism, the scientists insist that they are researching natural behavior and that the collars do not limit the mammals’ range or raise their risk, but rather use predatory patterns as a means of detection.
“We’re not putting these animals out there and in harm’s way,” Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge manager Jeremy Dixon told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on April 19. “Harm’s way is there. We’re just documenting what’s happening.”
Where Burmese pythons have been reported in Florida
Burmese pythons in the Sunshine State have reduced the population of raccoons by 99%, opossums by 98% and bobcats by 88%, causing a massive ecological collapse in Florida’s Everglades.
A U.S. Geological Survey report shows that Burmese pythons are expanding their range so quickly that it can be marked in miles per year in some areas.
Here’s where they’re most prevalent in Florida:
About the invasive Burmese python
Originally from Southeast Asia, the Burmese python has been introduced to South Florida either through accidental escape or intentional release of captive animals.
In 1979, the first observation of a Burmese python in the wild in South Florida was recorded in Everglades National Park. The heaviest python ever caught in Florida was an 18-foot, 215-pound snake. It was caught by a biologist with the Conservancy of Southwest Florida in Naples in 2022.
How big do pythons get?
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission keeps track of the length and weight of Burmese pythons after sightings are reported. The longest Burmese python ever captured in Florida, in July 2023, measured more than 19 feet.
Since their arrival in Florida, the snakes have brought harmful, non-native parasites and reduced medium-sized mammal numbers by more than 90%, changing the ecosystem, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History.
Source: North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, South Florida Sun Sentinel, Popular Science, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Naples Daily News and USA TODAY research
Disease and cold temperatures killed nearly 30 sloths at a Florida animal import warehouse in 2024 and 2025, according to a report from state wildlife authorities.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation inspection report from August found that 21 sloths imported from Guyana died at an Orlando facility called Sanctuary World Imports in December 2024 when temperatures dropped into the 40-to-55 degree Fahrenheit (4.4 to 12.8 degrees Celsius) range.
Sloths are unable to regulate their body temperature as well as other mammals and do best in the 68-to-85 degree Fahrenheit (20 to 30 degrees Celsius) range, according to the United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
Peter Bandre, listed as the facility licensee in the report, said that the animals died of what he called a “cold stun.” The building had no water and no electricity and wasn’t ready to receive the animals, he said, but it was too late to cancel the shipment. The facility purchased space heaters but the heaters tripped a fuse and shut down, leaving the sloths alone without heat for at least one night.
The facility later ordered 10 sloths from Peru, which arrived in February 2025. Two were dead on arrival. The rest appeared emaciated and died of what the report termed “poor health issues.” Bandre said that he planned to interview for a new veterinarian, the facility’s third, according to the state report.
Bandre did not immediately return a message The Associated Press left at a number listed for Sanctuary World Imports on the August report.
According to reports detailing follow-up state inspections in March 2026, Sanctuary World President Benjamin Agresta said he had changed the name to Sloth World Inc. and that Bandre was no longer affiliated with the business. A voicemail and text that the AP left Sunday at the number listed in the March reports for Sloth World Inc. were not immediately returned.
Inspectors reported the March inspections at the facility where the sloths from Guyana died revealed independent heat and air conditioning with a temperature constantly set at 82 degrees Fahrenheit (27.8 degrees Celsisus). They did not observe any issues with the sloths the facility was holding.
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