Southeast
'Milkman Homicide' of Florida WWII veteran solved by killer's ex-wife
More than five decades after a decorated World War II veteran-turned-milkman was murdered “execution-style” on his route, testimony from his killer’s ex-wife solved the cold case.
Hiram “Ross” Grayam had been shot multiple times when investigators searching the area via airplane spotted his milk truck deep in the woods in Vero Beach, Florida, in April 1968, the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office wrote in a Thursday news release.
The Purple Heart recipient had witnessed the liberation of two concentration camps and survived the Battle of the Bulge before he was shot dead, CBS reported.
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Grayam’s murder went unsolved until this year, when the ex-wife and a friend of Thomas J. Williams’ sister told Florida authorities he’d confessed to Grayam’s killing before his own death in 2016.
“These folks said, ‘I would have never said anything to you before, as long as he was alive, he was a threat to me and my family, we would have never told you,’ but the fact that he is now dead gave them the courage to come forward,” Indian River County Sheriff Eric Flowers said at a press conference this week.
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“Two independent witnesses, who both say this guy confessed to killing the milkman to them, independent of each other, (they) don’t know each other,” Flowers said.
In 2006, rumors that Williams was responsible for the locally infamous cold case circulated — he wrote in a letter to the editor to an area news outlet “saying that he had been accused of the murder, but he denied having knowledge of it, that he wasn’t involved in it,” the sheriff said at the press conference.
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The department is still looking for a second man they believe was involved.
Soon after Grayam’s disappearance on April 11, 1968, a witness told deputies that she saw the milkman talking to two men walking alongside the road before they all left together in the Borden Milk Company truck.
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“She said that Mr. Grayam engaged them in conversation, and announced that he would be back shortly,” Flowers said.
Grayam’s son, Larry, who was 16 when his father was killed, recalled his shock.
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“A deputy came to the door and told my mom that dad had not returned in his Borden Milk Company truck to the yard in Fort Harrison and had talked to her. Then he wanted to talk to the kids – I was the oldest one there,” Grayam’s son told Fox News Digital on Friday.
“We went outside in the yard, he wanted to know if there were good relations between my mother and my father – they wanted to try to see if my father just took off somewhere,” he said.
“At 16 years old I called him an idiot,” the younger Grayam recalled. “I said ‘Do you think if he was going to run away, he would do it in a yellow and black and white truck instead of his own truck?”
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“They knew he carried cash – most people paid the milk man in cash then, they knew he’d have it,” Grayam’s son said of the killers’ potential motives. “Initially, their thoughts were an armed robbery… It was [also] about a week after Martin Luther King Jr. had been killed – racial tensions were the highest that I’ve ever seen.”
Now, detectives are asking residents of Gifford, the town where Grayam was last seen by witnesses, to come forward if they know anything about the second man or Grayam’s final movements.
“The Cold Case Unit continues to pursue every new lead,” the sheriff’s office wrote in their statement. “Armed with the latest technology and new partnerships, they stand as beacons of hope for families like the Grayams, ensuring that no victim is forgotten, and no crime is unpunished.”
“I’m hopeful, but it’s doubtful unless somebody comes forward that he has confessed to, if we open up an additional line of evidence,” Grayam’s son said of finding the second culprit. “Witness’s memories change, a whole host of things could happen.”
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Southeast
Georgia lawmakers can subpoena Fani Willis for information related to Trump case, court rules
A Georgia judge has ruled that state lawmakers can subpoena Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as part of an inquiry into whether she engaged in misconduct during her prosecution of President-elect Donald Trump.
In his Dec. 23 order, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Shukura Ingram gave Willis until Jan. 13 to file a list of claimed privileges and objections to anything that has been subpoenaed.
Willis plans to appeal the decision.
“We believe the ruling is wrong and will appeal,” former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes, who is representing Willis in the case, wrote in an email to The Associated Press.
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Earlier this month, an appeals court removed Willis from the Georgia election interference case against Trump and others, citing an “appearance of impropriety.” The panel also cited the romantic relationship between Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade.
“This is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings,” the court said.
At the time, Trump called the case a “disgrace to justice.”
“It was started by the Biden DOJ as an attack on his political opponent, Donald Trump,” he said, “They used anyone and anybody, and she has been disqualified, and her boyfriend has been disqualified, and they stole funds and went on trips.”
In August, the Republican-led Senate committee sent subpoenas to Willis seeking to compel her to testify in September. She skipped a hearing that month when lawmakers hoped to question her.
The committee was formed to examine misconduct allegations against Willis during her prosecution of Trump over efforts to overturn the former president’s 2020 election loss in Georgia.
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Barnes, Willis’ attorney, argued the subpoenas were overly broad and not related to a legitimate legislative need and that the Senate committee didn’t have the power to subpoena her in the first place.
One issue raised is that the Georgia legislative term will end when lawmakers are sworn in for their new term on Jan. 13. Republican state Sen. Greg Dolezal said last week that he plans to file legislation to re-establish the committee at the beginning of the 2025 legislative session.
“The law is clear, and the ruling confirms what we knew all along,” Dolezal wrote in a text Friday. “Judge Ingram rejected every argument made by Willis in her attempt to dodge providing testimony to the committee under oath. I look forward to D.A. Willis honoring the subpoena and providing documents and testimony to our committee.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Southeast
South Carolina AG leads legal battle over gender pronoun rules in school districts
South Carolina’s attorney general is leading a legal battle over gender pronoun rules in the U.S.’s public school districts.
AG Alan Wilson appeared on “The Faulkner Focus” on Friday to explain how some gender pronoun rules in school districts threaten free speech.
The case started with a school district outside Columbus, Ohio, that adopted policies requiring everyone to use a student’s preferred pronouns, which parental rights groups challenged and lost in both the district and appeals courts. Now, Ohio and South Carolina are leading 23 states in a legal battle, claiming the action “reflects the unusually egregious government action here” and, “The First Amendment forbids school officials from coercing students to express messages inconsistent with the student’s values.”
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Wilson, who is co-leading the legal fight, said local school districts across the country, like the one in Ohio, are compelling students “to lie to violate their own personal viewpoints.”
“That is something that we cannot abide in Ohio, South Carolina or any state in this country,” he said. “Yes, the lawsuit has gotten struck down, or we have lost at the district court and the court of appeals level, but this is one of those cases that I think is best served by going to the US Supreme Court.”
Wilson pointed out that in 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that teachers and students don’t shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate, but argues that the school district in Ohio is trying to force all students to say things that many might not believe in.
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“Parental rights groups are doing what I think groups around the country are all doing, and it’s trying to protect their children from being compelled to not only violate their First Amendment rights inside the schoolhouse, but this policy, the one in Ohio in particular, would do the same thing outside of school,” he said.
“If you were at a mall on a Saturday or you were texting a friend or putting something on X or Twitter or whatever, you could be penalized when you showed up at school on Monday morning for using the wrong pronoun that someone found offensive,” he added.
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Southeast
Sylvester Stallone axes $35 million mansion sea barrier plans after angering Palm Beach neighbors
Sylvester Stallone is standing down on his initial plan to build an underwater barrier near his Palm Beach home.
After he angered several neighbors in his affluent, waterfront community, Stallone made a plea during the Town Council meeting in Palm Beach on Thursday.
Stallone previously addressed concerns about marine life and water quality on the Palm Beach shore near his $35 million mansion.
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“We wanted to bring back this, it’s almost a sanctuary,” Stallone, 78, pleaded, according to The Palm Beach Post.
“You’re great neighbors and you’ve been here a long time… we respect your work and the way you see this,” Stallone said, adding that his plan for the barrier “was not just a vanity thing.”
While the “Rocky” star attended the Town Council meeting with his wife Jennifer Flavin Stallone, neighbors continued to be angered by his message and dismissed his plea.
“If you’re out there in the channel … and a big boat comes, you have to get out of the way quickly,” a former U.S. Army major general argued to the council and explained how the barrier would create a safety issue.
“A barrier like this would merely trap the trash and push it farther down the line,” a lifelong resident echoed.
Council President Bobbie Lindsay joked and told Stallone, “It’s tough being so famous.”
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“I think today we’re being asked by our residents, and you can see where this is heading, to not support this particular application,” she said. “And I would hope that when we do that … that we also at the same time invite you to please work with us to go after some of these injustices that are happening in our waterway.”
The meeting concluded with Stallone agreeing to withdraw his application.
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Reps for Stallone did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Stallone’s plans to build the underwater barrier in the Intracostal Waterway near his massive Palm Beach home stemmed from an application he previously submitted that neighbors were reportedly blindsided by, according to the outlet.
What appears to be billed as an environmental project needed to keep out debris and seaweed from the waterway, “the overall project purpose is to exclude boaters” from being near the property, a public notice from the Army Corps stated. Seaweed is listed as a secondary concern.
The proposal request from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection stated Stallone’s surrounding neighbors have until 5 p.m. on Christmas Day to comment on the actor’s project, according to the outlet.
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The “Tulsa King” star’s application also included a request for a lease of state land due to the positioning of the barrier which is owned by the state, according to records.
Records indicated the barrier application was submitted in January 2023, with plans received by the Army Corps in August. A month-long public comment period began on Oct. 24, where one question was submitted regarding manatees becoming entangled, and the proposed project’s effects on seagrasses.
“He bought a beautiful property,” Stallone’s neighbor Bradford Gary told the outlet, calling the home “one of the nicest West Indies houses” in the North End. “I can see why you’d want to protect it. But you can’t just kind of stake your claim and think you own the water.”
In 2021, Stallone was confirmed as the buyer of a sprawling $35 million home, which sits on approximately 1.5 lakefront acres, facing over 250 feet of beach with a dock.
The total living space – including a main house, a guest house and a pool pavilion near the keyhole-shaped pool in the backyard – is over 13,000 square feet. Between the main and guest spaces, the property has seven bedrooms and 12 baths.
Fox News Digital’s Tracy Wright contributed to this report.
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