Armed Homeowner Saved Lives of Numerous Cops

Ambush Designed to Commit Mass Murder of Lawmen

By Robert A. Waters

NOTE: Had this massacre actually occurred, it would have made national and international headlines. Because it was stopped before it began, it received little coverage. 

The trailer in the backwoods of Dixie County, Florida was a haven for Wayne Pert (pictured above) and his long-time girlfriend, Kaye Murr. They used it to get away from the city, and as a hunting and fishing cabin. Jared Blohm, of U. S. Concealed Carry Association, wrote that "the two-track driveway to the mobile home stretches about 120 yards between fenced cow pastures, and the aluminum-sided, off-white trailer sits another 100 feet from the end of the lime-rock lane."

In the early morning of February 23, 2022, the couple began to stir. Ryder, their 55 pound blue heeler, suddenly made a beeline to the front door and began growling. Kaye cracked it open to let him out when she spotted a strange man inside the screen door on their porch. The man, dressed for somewhere north of Florida, wore thick gloves and a heavy army coat.

Kaye screamed.

Still wearing his shorts, Pert raced to the door. "Can I help you?" he asked the stranger.

The man said he'd run out of gas on the main highway and coasted to the trailer. Pert knew that was impossible. It was a quarter mile away. He saw the man's gold Chrysler Sebring convertible parked next to his own truck. "I didn't like the way he was acting, moving around or talking," Pert said. "And I didn't like his attire, the way he was dressed. Nothing added up with him."

Pert told the stranger to wait while he went back inside and dressed. He told Kaye to keep Ryder inside. As he dressed, Pert holstered his Taurus semiautomatic 9mm pistol. It contained six rounds in the magazine, but none in the chamber. He opened the front door again, and indicated that the man should step back, to give Pert some space.

As the stranger moved away, he turned back toward Pert. In a surprise move, the man pulled a handgun from beneath his coat and fired four quick shots at the homeowner. Blohm writes: "The stranger (later identified as Gregory Ryan Miedema) fired the handgun four times from barely out of arm's reach. He hit Pert twice: once in the left shoulder above his collarbone and once in the left wrist. Pert, who says time seemed to slip into slow motion around this point, fell forward--down the steps about 3 feet--and onto the concrete porch. The final two shots whizzed past his head."

Miedema calmly walked into the house. Seeing Kaye, he placed his gun against her face. Pert said, "I was just so afraid that he was fixing to pull that trigger when he had that pistol between her eyes." 

Still lying on the concrete, Pert rolled onto his back and drew his own weapon. Then he remembered there was no bullet in the chamber. But even with his shattered left hand, he racked a round into the barrel. 

Before Miedema had a chance to shoot Kaye, Ryder confronted the intruder. Growling and biting at his feet and ankles, the dog distracted him. Miedema looked down and aimed his gun at Ryder, giving Kaye the opportunity to escape. She ran into the bedroom. Locking the door, she grabbed a shotgun and began trying to load it.

Pert said, "I just emptied my gun right there. I wasn't going to stop until he fell." Hit five times in the back, Miedema collapsed onto the floor. He then attempted to stand up, but dropped his gun in the process. Pert climbed to his feet and staggered inside. With his own weapon out of ammunition, Pert picked up Miedema's gun and placed the barrel against the stranger's head. A final shot killed the intruder.

The bloody scene looked surreal. Moments before, Pert and Murr had been planning a fishing trip. Now they had barely survived a nightmare. Kaye called a nephew who lived close by and he called 9-1-1.

An ambulance transported Pert to Shands Hospital in Gainesville. Blohm wrote that "at the hospital, doctors discovered that the bones in Pert's left wrist were badly shattered and that the bullet that entered his left shoulder had lodged near his neck after hitting an artery and shattering his fifth vertebrae." 

Eventually, doctors decided to "leave both bullets in his body because they feared removing them would do additional damage."

A few hours earlier, at about 9:30 P.M., in nearby Taylor County, another nightmare had unfolded. Deputy Troy Anderson made a routine traffic stop of a Chrysler Sebring convertible. He called in the license tag number, then approached the vehicle. Suddenly, a barrage of gunshots rang out. Anderson went down, hit in the hand, jaw, and neck. He managed to notify dispatchers that he'd been shot. 

As lawmen from various agencies raced toward the scene, Taylor County Sheriff's Office released a "Florida Blue Alert," designed to apprise Floridians that a law enforcement officer had been shot. It was broadcast on cell phones, local television and radio stations, and the internet.

Neither Wayne Pert nor Kaye Murr had heard the alert.

The suspect, Gregory Miedema, was a registered sex offender from Lee County, Florida.  He had served a Federal sentence of six years for raping a 15-year-old girl. Now he had more warrants on him for several violent crimes. Cops knew he had nothing to lose. But after the shooting of Deputy Anderson, searchers lost track of their suspect.

Then they received the call they had been waiting for.

When lawmen from Dixie County, Taylor County, the Florida Highway Patrol, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement arrived at the Pert residence, they made a chilling find. 

On the hood of Miedema's car, hidden beneath a blue blanket, cops found the following weapons: three 9mm handguns; a 5.56X45 NATO handgun; a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun; a .30-30 lever-action rifle; a .22 rifle and dozens of rounds of ammunition. They also found two tactical vests, a leg holster and a wooden bat with metal spikes along with a machete.

An FDLE spokesperson stated that she believed Miedema had scouted out the Pert property earlier when the couple was not there. Law officers said he planned to hide there and set up an ambush of law enforcement personnel. 

With the fenced pastures, cops had one way in and one way out. It acted as a funnel and would have been easy for a sniper to kill anyone who came onto the property. Dixie County Sheriff Darby Butler told reporters that Miedema's "thought process was to kill and destroy innocent people and, fortunately, he did not succeed in that.

Pert and Murr survived the shooting, but not without consequences. Murr, suffering from PTSD, has been unable to return to work. "This was my safe haven," she said. "This is where nothing was supposed to happen. Now I can't even stay there. In a split second--I'm alive, thank God--but I lost where it was safe."

Pert is still recovering from his injuries. "The wounds, they heal, but the inside stuff takes a little longer," he said. "You lose trust in people."

Deputy Anderson's wounds are also slowly healing.

Ryder, the blue heeler, got a steak dinner after helping to subdue Miedema.

NOTE: Much of this information came from a story Jared Blohm wrote for USCCA. In addition to that wonderful article, I used numerous local newspapers to gain additional information. This amazing story never received coverage in major news outlets.

Burglar Shot Dead--His Accomplice was an Illegal Alien

See the News Conference by Manatee County, Florida Sheriff Rick Wells

"This is Florida. If you break into someone's home, you should expect to be shot."

Prosecutors recently filed murder charges against an illegal alien who broke into a Lakewood Ranch home near Bradenton, Florida. On December 26, 2024, Michel Soto-Mella, 39, and Jorge Nestevan Flores-Toledo, 27, allegedly used a crowbar-type instrument to pry open the window of a residence in the 6700 block of Hickory Hammock Circle at about 9:00 P.M.

Flores-Toledo, wearing a mask and gloves, entered the home first. Soto-Mello, also masked, began climbing through the broken window. 

The 57-year-old homeowner, who wished to remain anonymous, was alerted by a security system. After telling his wife to hide in the bedroom, he retrieved a 9mm semiautomatic handgun. Confronted by Flores-Toledo, the homeowner fired three shots. Flores-Toledo later died at Sarasota Memorial Hospital. Soto-Mella fled when the shots rang out, but was later tracked down by the Sheriff's Office K9 unit.

Flores-Toledo had been arrested in Illinois for residential burglary but was released on parole. At the time he died, the felon had an active arrest warrant.

Soto-Mella, originally from Chile, arrived in California several months ago and was granted a 90-day work visa. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported that "he was supposed to return to his country in September but did not."

The homeowner was not charged with any crime.

Please check out the 8-minute video. Manatee County Sheriff Rick Wells describes the sequence of events that led to the shooting.  

What were the differences between the French Revolution and the American Revolution?

Review of Contrasting Ideals and Ends in the American and French Revolutions by Dr. Miguel A. Faria, Jr.

Review written by Robert A. Waters

Published at the end of 2024 by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in Great Britain, this book contrasts two revolutions. They each took place at about the same time in history, i.e., the American Revolution started in 1765 while the French Revolution began in 1789. However, the differences in rationale and causes of the two rebellions could not have been more different.

The genesis for the revolts against the French King, Louis XVI, and England's King George III, began with the Enlightenment (1618-1815), also known as the Age of Reason. This philosophy had its origins in Europe and "championed the ideals of Natural Law, liberty, constitutional government, and separation of church and state." In America, the founding fathers were heavily influenced by the Enlightenment.

While French intellectuals rejected religion, Americans embraced God and the church. Faria writes that "the American Revolution not only was a struggle for self-governance but also a thunderous political event that affirmed the Natural Rights of men--namely life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Property rights were a given that went along with the right to work, pursue good health, and the right to inherit property bequeathed by others." Since many new Americans came to the colonies to escape religious persecution, it was only natural that spiritual issues would be important.

In dramatic detail, the author recounts the American colonists' revolt against British taxation and attempts at political control. The French, recent losers of the Seven Years' war with England, allied with the Americans. Faria writes that "the French not only provided financial and material assistance but also crucial military support. French armies under the Comte de Rochambeau as well as the French volunteer, the Marquis de Lafayette, fought alongside the Americans...providing men, assistance and logistical support in the war effort."

In the end, the 13 American colonies prevailed, defeating the British. 

On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress finalized the Declaration of Independence, which was signed by all 56 of the delegates. The Richard Henry Lee resolution stated "that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states."

In France, in 1789, a small fire smoldered until it became a raging flame. Then it blazed into a conflagration that couldn't be put out or controlled. The Age of Reason had struck again, but in a different form.

"Unlike the American Revolution, though," Faria writes, "the French Revolution experienced a period of state-sanctioned violence that extended beyond what has been called the Reign of Terror, or simply the Terror."  

To counteract the new ideas (i.e., the Enlightenment) facing him, Louis XVI made major concessions in France, including, among other rights, "allowing the election of local and provincial assemblies." 

It wasn't enough. The author writes that "the Paris parlement (an advisory legal body composed of aristocratic nobles that also codified the laws of the realm) demanded a 'veto power over the decrees of the king.'" Pamphleteers, orators, and politicians lampooned the king and the rebellion quickly gained steam. "Death to the rich, death to the aristocrats" soon became a dangerous rallying cry as the country spun out of control.

For more than a year, the mobs increased in momentum. The streets of Paris were rife with political intrigue. Then, on July 14, 1789, "the mayhem reaches a climax with the storming of the Bastille by armed Parisian mobs, and the medieval fortress falls." The bloody head of the governor of Bastille, Bernard-Rene de Launay, was raised on a pike in the city.

Severe food shortages throughout the country spawned more hatred of the establishment. By now, the mobs could not be contained.

On August 10, 1792, the monarchy fell. Faria writes that "the King is deposed, and the constitutional monarchy ended. Louis XVI and his family are imprisoned in the Temple tower prison. This is followed by the persecution and arrest of royalists and priests. The Swiss guards are forbidden by the King to resist and are massacred by the rabid mobs."

On January 21, 1793, King Louis XVI died on the guillotine. Nine months later, his wife, Marie Antoinette, was tried, convicted and beheaded.

One curious difference between the French and American Revolutions was their views on religion. Atheism became the order of the day for the French intelligentsia. In many instances, hardcore revolutionary fanatics demolished churches and placed signs on cemetery gates stating, "Death is but an eternal sleep." 

"At the same time," Faria writes, "the war against the Church and the brutal dechristianization campaigns were progressing throughout France. 'The Roman Catholic and all other Christian denominations were officially abolished,' and any sort of Christian celebrations were forbidden." Churches were defaced and looted and priests and nuns violated and murdered.

Like all of author Faria's books, Contrasting Ideals and Ends in the American and French Revolutions is meticulously researched. There are more than 100 photos and artist's renderings (many in color) that give a face to many of the participants.

This book should be studied in university classrooms across the country. I highly recommend it.

Contrasting Ideals and Ends in the American and French Revolutions

Dr. Miguel A. Faria, Jr.

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published in 2024 

Unsolved Murder of Anita Redmon

 The Stone Mountain Murder

By Robert A. Waters

Anita Redmon (pictured above) trailblazed the way for women to become police officers at the Doraville (Georgia) Police Department. She began as a dispatcher, but soon began working a beat as the first DPD female officer. 

Melinda Duncan, Anita's daughter, told reporters that officers "would call her when they were having problems trying to arrest somebody and [the offender was] refusing to get in the back of the car. She could talk to them and for lack of a better term, sweet talk 'em into getting into the back of the police car and everything was fine."

Sergeant Anita Redmon retired after 25 years of service.

Only three months before her murder, Anita began working part-time as a gate attendant at Stone Mountain Park. The park is owned by the state of Georgia and has the largest bas-relief carving in the world. The stone carvings depict Confederate heroes Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis. In addition to the historical rock sculpture, the park has 3200 acres of entertainment, including a railroad, a time-machine depicting life-size dinosaurs, a grist mill, covered bridge, hiking trails and rides.

At 12:30 A.M. on Saturday, July 16, 2005, Anita worked the West Gate of the park. Her job was to collect an $8.00 parking fee from visitors.

Suddenly, the park radio crackled to life. Officers of the Stone Mountain Police Department heard Anita shout, "44, 44, 44," which is police jargon for a robbery in progress. The first police officer arrived just 45 seconds later and found Anita lying on the floor and the suspect gone. The former cop had been shot once in the abdomen. The killer used a .25-caliber semiautomatic handgun.

Anita died in the hospital, as surgeons worked to save her life. 

Her killer has never been identified. Pictured below is an image of a possible suspect seen leaving the scene shortly after the shooting.

A few days after the murder, detectives arrested a career criminal named Mark Anthony Woolf. An associate accused Woolf of plotting to rob a teller at the West Gate of Stone Mountain Park, but Woolf was never charged with the murder. (It's possible that his "friend" was attempting to collect the $25,000 reward posted by the governor of the state of Georgia.)

It's been nearly 20 years since Anita's murder.

No one has ever been charged.

If you have information concerning this case, please contact the Georgia Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-597-8477 or the Stone Mountain Park Police Department at 770-498-5675. A $55,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons responsible for Redmon's murder.

Kevin Underwood is Scheduled to be Executed on December 19, 2024

 Jamie Rose Bolin

It Can't Come Soon Enough

By Robert A. Waters

How did a normal ten-year-old girl wander into a madman's evil fantasy? Jamie Bolin happened to live in the same apartment complex as Kevin Ray Underwood, 26, who became obsessed with kidnapping a young girl, raping her, cutting her up, cooking her, and dining on her corpse. As his demented fetish grew, he spied on Jamie, learning everything about her typical daily movements.

On the afternoon of April 12, 2006, Underwood lay in wait. When his victim returned home from school, he invited Jamie into his apartment. The naive child entered and was never seen alive again.

Jamie attended fifth grade at Purcell Intermediate School in Purcell, Oklahoma. The Purcell Register reported that "Jamie Rose lived with her father, Curtis Bolin, in an apartment across the breezeway from Underwood's downstairs unit. Underwood lured Jamie into his apartment to see his pet rat, Freya, and watch a SpongeBob cartoon video. Once she was inside, he battered her skull and back with a wooden cutting board before choking her and cutting her throat in an apparent attempt to decapitate her."

He lugged her bicycle, which she had been riding, into his home and dismantled it. Hiding the components and parts underneath his bed, he hoped it would stay hidden until the investigation died.

During this time, Underwood began acting in a suspicious manner. He told his father, who had come to visit, that he may have been the last person to see Jamie alive. He said he'd seen her walking toward the school library a couple of blocks away. As soon as detectives heard this, they called Underwood in to the precinct for an interview.  It didn't go well. He told FBI agents she wore a short-sleeve blue shirt as she rode her bicycle although cops had heard from several witnesses that she'd been wearing a pink shirt.

FBI agents and local cops were now swarming the complex, interviewing hundreds of residents. Because of Underwood's inconsistent statements, agents asked the suspect if they could search his home. Underwood agreed. Court documents read: "While looking around the apartment, [Agent Craig Overby] saw a large plastic storage tub in appellant's closet. Its lid was sealed with duct tape."

The child's body lay in the bottom of the barrel, covered by her clothes, including the blue shirt mentioned by Underwood.

It didn't take long for Underwood to confess. Purcell Police Chief David Tompkins told reporters "this appears to have been a plan to kidnap a person, torture them, kill them, cut off their head, drain the body of blood, rape the corpse, eat the corpse, then dispose of the organs and bones."

To back up his confession, investigators found the following items in Underwoods' home: barbecue skewers, a meat tenderizer, numerous knives and swords, a wooden cutting board, and rolls of duct tape.

Before her brutal murder, Jamie loved singing, sewing, riding her bike as well as four-wheelers, and watching movies.  

There was no doubt about his guilt. Underwood was convicted of first degree murder, and the jury found the crime to be "especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel." He received the death penalty.

Now, after nearly 20 years, the killer's execution is approaching. Surprisingly, hundreds of people oppose his "murder by the state." As of this date, the Action Network has received 1,536 signatures in a petition to spare Underwood's life.

The website reads: "During questioning, Kevin confessed to developing a desire to abduct someone, molest them, eat their flesh, and dispose of their remains. Although he tragically succeeded in killing Jamie, he was unable to carry out his cannibalistic and sexually deviant fantasies...Since Kevin's confession and sentencing, numerous concerns have been raised about his mental health. He has a  documented history of severe mental illness, including depression. Initially diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder, Kevin was recently re-diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, which is a form of Autism Spectrum Disorder. This developmental condition is characterized by diminished cognitive empathy, difficulties in social interaction and emotional regulation, and poor impulse control. Kevin's mental health struggles led him to live a reclusive lifestyle and develop increasingly disturbing fantasies."

Jamie's last words haunted cops and jurors alike. 

"I'm sorry," she said. "My God, I'm sorry."

Sentenced to Death, then Released to Kill Again

Preying on Innocents

By Robert A. Waters

On July 9, 1957, Marjorie Hipperson had everything to live for. The night before, she and her fiance, Dr. Walter Dieke, attended an engagement party thrown by family and co-workers. Their wedding, scheduled for the following week, would be a dream come true for the industrious hospital nurse. 

But as Marjorie lay sleeping in her Los Angeles home, a stranger forced open a window and entered. Later that morning, her husband-to-be found Marjorie raped and murdered. Detectives located an unidentified handprint on a wall above the head of the bed where she had been attacked. 

For two years, investigators checked those prints against every new inmate who shuffled into the jail. None matched until Darryl Kemp raped a woman in Griffith Park. Cops soon located the car he had been seen driving and arrested him. He would later be tied to three other violent sexual assaults.

In 1960, a California court found Kemp guilty of first degree murder. According to the Associated Press, "Darryl T. Kemp was sentenced to die in the San Quentin gas chamber for strangling a nurse, Marjorie Hipperson, June 10, 1957."

Twenty-one years later, on the morning of November 14, 1978, Armida Wiltsey (pictured above), a 40-year-old mother, left home to go for a jog. She loved hiking and running the trails around the Lafayette, California reservoir, near her home. When she didn't pick up her daughter from school, a neighbor reported Armida missing. (Her husband was out of town on business.)

A few hours later, as cops searched into the night, deputies discovered her body. She lay a short distance from one of the trails, strangled to death. Her assailant had left semen for cops to save and process, but it would take decades to identify him. Thus began a thirty year search for her killer. 

Had Kemp's original death sentence been carried out, Armida Wiltsey may have enjoyed life for many more years. But, in 1972, the California Supreme Court struck down the death penalty as unconstitutional. Five years later, the serial killer was released on parole and soon Armida lay dead near the reservoir trails she loved so much. 

After her murder, Kemp fled to Texas where he was sentenced to life in prison for yet another series of rapes. After California investigators placed his DNA in CODIS, a national databank for offenders, he was identified as the killer of Armida.

Once again, Kemp was sentenced to death.

But once again, he escaped justice. Against the wishes of most Californians, who voted to reinstate the death penalty, Governor Gavin Newsome placed a moratorium on executions. 

Now 88-years-old, Kemp still resides on California's death row.

Unsolved Hardee's Murder in Tennessee

Who Killed Peggy Cox?

By Robert A. Waters

Peggy Cox (pictured above) "wasn't the kind of person that was involved in  nefarious things," said Franklin Police Department Detective Matthew Thompson. "She was a working mother. That's what she did." For years, she manned the drive-thru at Hardee's, raised her children to be diligent citizens, and regularly attended the local Catholic Church. Detectives say Peggy had no known romantic relationships and no irate boyfriends. Her wholesomeness is likely why her murder has never been solved.

The question has always been: what was the motive?

It was nearing midnight on February 1, 1991. The last customer of the day pulled in and placed an order. A roast beef combo. But then, with no warning, he raised a pistol and fired twice. One round pierced Peggy's brain stem and she died instantly. Investigators got no accurate description of the car--it may have been a white Chevy Impala, or maybe a compact blueish gray vehicle.  

Her son, Jude, a cook, heard the shots and watched his mother crumble to the floor. He dropped behind the counter, thinking more shots would be fired. After waiting a few seconds, he rushed to Peggy. For many hours after the shooting, Jude was in a state of severe shock. He could barely speak, and for a time, was unable to even tell investigators what had happened. When cops arrived, he still held onto Peggy's bloody glasses.

There had been no hint of an attempted robbery. Just the order and then gunfire. Jude heard the killer speak into the outside intercom, and later told police the male voice had a slight "twang." Much like many of those who lived in the area.

In the year 1991, Franklin, Tennessee had one murder, that of Peggy Cox. At the time, the town had a population of 20,000 souls. Much of the area was rural, with a country flavor. (Today, Franklin has grown to more than 60,000.)

For 33 years, the murder of Peggy Cox has remained unsolved. The Franklin Police Department has spent tens of thousands of hours attempting to find the answer. At the time, there were no surveillance cameras in the area. There was no DNA, and no witnesses. Without a known motive, leads have been scarce. Local cops have enlisted the FBI, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, and even the Vidocq Society. This group of former highly-skilled detectives provides a fresh look into cold cases. So far, no clues have lead to a solution.

Long before the murder, Peggy's husband died from injuries suffered in a violent car crash. Peggy never remarried and focused on raising her children. There seemed to be no angry suitor from the past who wanted revenge. To many, it seemed like another random murder. Maybe a "thrill-kill."

Could she have had an unknown stalker? While that is unlikely, it's hard to rule anything out in such a baffling case. 

Jude Cox told reporters the family keeps the memory of their mother alive because "if other people keep thinking about it, one day somebody that knows more about it might decide to say something. I still hope everyday that they find out who done it and find out why. Because it just didn't make any sense."

The video below was created by the Franklin Police Department. It's about 8 minutes long and gives a lot of extra information about Peggy Cox's murder. If you have information about this case, please call the Peggy Cox Tip Line at 615-550-8404. There is a $25,000 reward.

Be Careful Who You Let Into Your Life

The Satanist

By Robert A. Waters

UK Daily Mail reported that "Hendersonville [Tennessee] Police said no charges will be filed against the widower of late country music singer Jean Shepard in deaths at his home Saturday.

"Police said Benny Birchfield, Shepard's widower, fired shots to 'neutralize the threat' at Elnora Court over the weekend. Police said Birchfield shot five times in self-defense and killed Travis Sanders, 21. Birchfield said he was trying to protect his granddaughter, Icie Hawkins (pictured above)."

Icie, 18, lived in the furnished basement of Birchfield's home. A former member of  the Osborne Brothers bluegrass band and later a bus driver for rock star Roy Orbison, Birchfield returned home at about 3:00 A.M. on December 17, 2016. He heard Icie's panicked voice and a struggle in the basement. Walking downstairs to investigate, Birchfield, 73, was attacked.

After shooting Sanders, Birchfield called 9-1-1 and retreated to his front lawn.

Investigators found Sanders, with a bloody 10-inch Bowie knife lying beside his body, dead on the basement floor. Icie lay on her bed suffering from numerous stab wounds--she would die enroute to the hospital. Paramedics transported Birchfield to the hospital where he underwent surgery for severe wounds to his face, head, neck and shoulder. He later recovered.

All Icie's friends and family loathed her boyfriend, Travis Sanders. Many repeatedly warned the pretty teen that her relationship with him would cause misery, or even death, to her gentle soul. On several occasions, she attempted to break up with him, but they always ended up getting back together.

Icie was the granddaughter of Country Music Hall of Fame legend Jean Shepard and Harold Franklin "Hawkshaw" Hawkins. A World War II hero and popular country crooner, Hawkins died in the infamous plane crash that killed Patsy Cline and singer Cowboy Copas. After a second marriage ended in divorce, Shepard married Benny Birchfield. They remained together until Shepard died, three months before the murder.

A critical type 1 diabetic, Icie needed daily doses of insulin to control the disease. Her obituary read: "Independent, fearless, with a loving heart, Icie was an 'old soul' that looked at life in a way that you don't often see in our youth today." A talented musician, she favored tunes from the 1960s and 1970s. 

As her grandmother, Jean Shepard, gradually succumbed to Parkinson's disease, Icie moved into the home to help care for her. When Shepard passed, Icie stayed on to assist Bennie. She loved her family and loved life.

Eight months before he died at the hands of Bennie Birchfield, Icie and Travis Sanders began their journey to disaster. She met him through a friend and he immediately became obsessed with the teen. Their relationship was tumultuous, to say the least. 

One former friend described Sanders as a loser, "with no direction in his life." He claimed to be a Satanist, and had cut his fingernails to look like claws. He had an upside-down cross tattooed on his chest. One friend told reporters that Sanders once scrawled "666" and other satanic scribblings onto the pages of her Bible. He loved knives and told friends he enjoyed stabbing small animals to death.

Sanders rarely bathed and, according to many reports, smelled bad all the time. "It was really gross," one of Icie's friends said. "He got in my car once and I told him he smelled really bad. He thought it was funny." She also told reporters he had no ambition except to play video games.

Icie's friends repeatedly begged her to break her ties with him. UK Daily Mail reports that when her mother, Velvet Sloan, learned Sanders was into devil worship, she warned her daughter to end the relationship. "In the summer," Sloan said, "we were in the swimming pool and Icie told me Travis was a Satanist and into devil worship. I said, 'Icie, come on, that's not a man you would want to be involved with.' But she said he had some problems and she was trying to help him. She said people needed other people to help them through things.  I told her guys like that will end up killing you and she just looked at me and said, 'I know, I know.'"

After Sanders stole money from Icie, she decided to break it off. Unfortunately, Sanders smooth-talked her into returning to him.

Shortly after that, he murdered her.

Sinkhole Swallows Florida Resident

Into the Abyss with No Way Out

By Robert A. Waters

Just after 11:00 P.M. on February 28, 2013, thirty-seven-year-old Jeffrey Bush (pictured above) went to bed. A roadside assistance worker, i.e., a "road ranger," for the Florida Department of Transportation, Jeffrey had to get up early the following morning.

His brother, Jeremy, along with several other family members, lived in a four-bedroom home on 240 Faithway Drive in Seffner. 

The Tampa Bay Times reported that "Jeremy Bush just went to bed when he heard what sounded like a car hitting the house. Then screams from his brother Jeffrey's bedroom.

"'Help me! Help me!'

"Someone flipped the lights. Jeremy, 36, threw the door open, revealing a sight that defied belief: The earth had opened beneath his brother's bedroom and was swallowing everything in sight. The tip of Jeffrey's mattress was the only thing left, and it was sinking into a churning sinkhole."

Jeremy didn't hesitate. He jumped into the vast hole and reached to grab his brother. An ever-shifting quick-sand-like mound of dirt sucked at Jeremy's legs as his brother disappeared into the black abyss. 

Meanwhile, a family member called 9-1-1.

Jeremy clawed at the dirt, trying to rescue his brother from the cavern. Stunned, Jeremy screamed his brother's name. Over and over. In his panic to save Jeffrey, Jeremy didn't realize that he, too, was in grave danger.

According to USA Today, "within minutes, a sheriff's deputy arrived and helped pull him from the hole, telling him the ground was still crumbling around them...They ran out of the home. No one ever went inside again."

 The family escaped and gathered outside. Hugging, crying, praying, they watched as dozens of rescue vehicles surged into the neighborhood. Cops, EMTs and state experts on natural disasters gathered in clusters, trying to figure out what to do. Should they send a team in to try to save Jeffrey? Should they evacuate neighbors? Could the home be saved, or should it be razed?

Authorities seemed stumped. Jeremy stood in the crowd of neighbors who had now lined up outside. He and other family members were angry that none of the so-called rescuers seemed willing to go into the belly of the beast to try to save Jeffrey. 

Later in the day, Hillsborough County Fire Rescue officials decided to use state of the art equipment to look into the hole. They set up cameras and a listening device and lowered them into the cavern. But soon the ever-moving ground swallowed the equipment. Shortly after that, authorities condemned the home.

Jeremy said, "They say [the hole] keeps getting bigger and I don't think they're going to find him. I think he'll be in that hole forever."

Florida is sometimes called the sinkhole capital of America. The Orlando Sentinel reported that "central Florida--particularly the Interstate 4 corridor--is more susceptible to sinkholes than the rest of the state because of its geology. Its subdivisions, shopping malls, schools and roads are built on Florida's sponge-like crust of limestone, which is full of cavities and cracks that sometimes collapse."

Three days after the sinkhole engulfed much of the home on Faithway Drive, demolition began. A backhoe operator cautiously approached and began tearing apart the cinder-block house. Crews were available to salvage what they could for the family. They managed to save a centuries-old family Bible with baptismal records, a few portraits, a purse, two antique rifles, and a jewelry box. 

Relatives reminisced about Jeffrey. He loved his family, they said, especially his young niece. Just a few days earlier, he had cooked the family a pork chop supper. 

So is Jeffrey still entombed in the earth beneath where his bedroom sat? One theory is that the chasm carried him down into the aquifer. From there, county officials told the family, he may drift into the Alafia River. But an environmental scientist told reporters it's more likely the body "sunk into a 60-foot-tall water-filled void between the sinkhole and the bedrock and is trapped in sediment."

The first cop to arrive at the scene, Hillsborough County Sheriff's Deputy Douglas Duval, spoke to reporters. "These are everyday working people, " he said. "They're good people. You guys out there, if you know these people, if you know this neighborhood, pray for them."

"We've Got to Hide!"

James III and Acelin Persyn

14-Year-Old Boy Saves University Student

By Robert A. Waters

For obvious reasons, the victim in this story has not been publicly identified. She was kidnapped at gunpoint from the Student Activity Center parking lot of Central Michigan University, driven to a nearby home, and raped. Then her abductor, Eric Ramsey, 30, wrapped her upper body with clear packing tape, pinning her arms to her sides, and forced her into the passenger seat of her own car. He showed the victim two cans of gasoline and told her he planned to kill her and cremate her body. As the car sped along at close to 50-miles-per-hour, the victim managed to open the car door and roll out onto the road. Breaking her arm in the fall, and still wrapped in tape, the victim ran for her life.

Here's where our part of the story starts.

It was nearing midnight in a small Shepherd, Michigan residence. 

The Associated Press reported that "James Persyn III, 14, was home alone with his 11-year-old sister and 2-year-old brother Wednesday night when a Central Michigan University student started banging on the door and screaming for help." 

James, who had been playing video games as his siblings, Acelin and Angus, romped about the living room, later told reporters: "[The victim's] voice was, like, she was going to die if I didn't open that door. I let her in and she asked me if my parents were home. I told her no. She said, 'We've got to hide. I was just kidnapped and I jumped out of a vehicle. We've got to hide now!'"

The teenager saw the woman's battered, bruised, and bloodied face. He noticed her now-useless arm cradled against her chest. But even more horrifying, he observed the victim's body wrapped in that weird-looking packing tape.

James quickly locked the door, then ran to the side door and locked it. He herded his sister and brother and the injured woman into the bathroom. He then ran into his bedroom and retrieved his hunting knife and his dog. As the others cowered in the bath tub, James turned out the lights and used his cell phone to call his father. Then he handed his phone to the victim to call 9-1-1.

Eric Ramsey had stopped his car in the driveway and began trying to force the door open. He screamed over and over, "Let me in or I'll kill you."

James' father, James, Jr., had made a quick run in his car to pick up his fiancee from work. When he got the call from James III, he turned around and flew home. 

John Carlisle, of the Detroit Free Press, described the scene inside the house: "There they were--a rape victim, a dog too friendly to offer much protection, and three frightened children, hiding in the dark, convinced they were about to die at the hands of a man trying to get inside. And the only thing that stood between them and him was a 5-foot-8, 142-pound 14-year-old boy holding a small knife."

Ramsey seemed out-of-control psychotic. But no matter how loud he screamed or how hard he slammed his shoulder against the door, he couldn't get inside. After several minutes, the ex-con ran back to the car, grabbed a can of gasoline, and poured it against the base of the house. Then he lit it and fled.

Acelin had resigned herself to her fate--which she figured was death. She kept calling for James. "I wanted him to come in the bathtub with me and just hug each other and say goodbye," she said. "I didn't know what was going to happen, if we didn't make it, if [the assailant] actually did make it in here and my dad didn't get home in time."

James, Jr., hoping to catch the attacker by surprise, turned off his car lights as he neared his home. But by that time, the man had fled. To the father's horror, however, he saw flames billowing up from the front of the house.

Carlisle wrote: "[James, Jr.] roared up in his car, scrambled out and began throwing his body against the flames to extinguish them. He tried opening the locked doors, but he had no key, so he started trying to break windows to get inside."

Finally, a deputy pulled up. And then, dozens of cops, sirens blazing and lights flashing, seemed to appear out of nowhere. (James, Jr. later said he considered himself lucky he didn't get shot by the first deputy who appeared and thought he was the suspect.) Finally, deputies extinguished the blaze .

The victim was transported to a local hospital. As the story emerged, cops got a read on where Ramsey was headed. For the next hour, they chased the suspect through several small towns in the area. When they cornered him, he used his cell phone to write a final message on his Facebook page: "Well folkes i'm about to get shot. Peace."

He was right. When he approached officers holding a fake pistol, they gunned him down. After his death, it was learned that he'd just been released early from prison on an assault charge.

NOTE:  This story happened a few years ago. While some armchair critics questioned whether James III should have opened that door, he was given an award for saving the life of the victim.