Father, mother, son all electrocuted while trying to install radio antenna

55-year old Melville Braham, his 49-year old wife Anna, and their 15-year old son Anthony were killed in their attempt to erect a 50-foot radio antenna Monday night, yards away from live power lines.  All three were killed when 13,000 volts of electric surged through the antenna, according to local officials.

A next-door neighbor, who ran outside after noticing sparks, said he saw three people on the ground and immediately called 9-1-1.  “The sky was a bright orange. It was like a sudden bright fire,” he said.

In a statement released overnight, a Palm Bay fire marshal said. “It is an unfortunate set of circumstances that led to the most tragic result.”

Woman tricked into changing healthy man's diapers for three months

A woman in Melbourne says she was duped into changing diapers and caring for what turned out to be a perfectly healthy and capable man, Florida Today reports.

Janet Shulte said she met the man through Craigslist. He asked her to look after an adult brother with diminished mental capacity. She bottle-fed the man and treated him like a child for three months.

When the man who hired her fell behind on a few of the $600 weekly payments and the disabled man in her care showed some subtle behavior changes, Shulte and her husband became suspicious.

Turns out, the guy who hired her was the same guy who was receiving her care.

Schulte said the fake disabled man never broke character, and when she talked to what she thought was the healthy brother on the phone, there were always excuses when she tried to meet him.

Schulte says the worst part is that authorities can't go after the man. He appears not to have committed any crime.

Bottomless man post #2

A bottomless man walked into a police station ...but don't wait for the punchline because it's not a joke. 

At about 7:30 this morning, a man wearing only a t-shirt -- with an abbreviated piece of plastic not quite covering his...man parts -- wandered into the Indialantic Police Department lobby.  A police sergeant told Floridatoday.com that the man "was highly intoxicated and really didn’t have a whole lot to say. He had on a black T-shirt and was naked from the waist down.

"He had some kind of plastic he was trying to use to (cover his genitals). We were concerned about his health and had him taken to the hospital” for a check-up, the sergeant said.

Police: man apologized after robbery

PALM BAY, Fla. (AP) -- Police in Palm Bay are looking for a man who apologized to a store clerk after raiding her cash register.

Palm Bay Police Department spokeswoman Yvonne Martinez said the bandit turned and apologized to the Kangaroo Express convenience store clerk after Tuesday's early morning robbery.

According to police, the clerk told investigators that she was cleaning outside the store when the man rushed at her. She said the man ran into the store, opened the register and fled the scene.

Martinez said authorities used a police dog to search for the man, but they could not locate him.

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Information from: Florida Today, http://www.floridatoday.com

© 2009 The Associated Press.  All rights reserved.  This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Ginormous load of PlayStations...gone

Local6.com reports that a semi-trailer driver went to sleep in Melbourne Sunday night and awoke Monday morning to discover that his rig -- containing 28 pallets of PlayStations -- had disappeared overnight.  When the driver called his company, he was told the vehicle's on-board GPS system last registered the truck's location at Loxahatchee, near West Palm Beach, on Sunday night.  Melbourne police think the GPS system was disabled after that, and have contacted West Palm Beach police.

They have sex, he dies, she robs him and goes on 'sex rampage'

In an interview with WFTV.com, 44-year old Lynn Stewart said she was drinking with Lawrence Wetzler last Thursday night at his apartment in West Melbourne, and then they had sex and fell asleep.  Sometime during the night, apparently, Wetzler gave up the ghost.  Stewart, who said she thought he had just passed out, got up to leave.

"I closed the bedroom door and never went back in. I just thought he was sleeping. You know, some people when they drink quite a bit they sleep quite a bit. I didn't think anything of it," Stewart told the TV station.  When she left, however, she took his guitars, his truck, and other items.  "I thought he passed out, went to sleep or something and I'm a crack addict and I stole some things from him," she said.

Police said she pawned Wetzler's items, used the money for crack, and then did the nasty with 22 other men before being arrested.  "It was a sex rampage," West Melbourne Police Department Cmdr. Steve Wilkinson told firstcoastnews.com.

Police also said Stewart went back into Wetzel's apartment after his body was removed and stole more items, which she denies.  A preliminary autopsy reveals that Wetzel died of natural causes.

Hammer, letter opener fight injures 1 man

     HOLLYWOOD, Fla.     (AP) -- Hollywood police say a man wielding a hammer lost an argument to a man with a letter opener.

Police say the men were fighting early Thursday morning when they both grabbed their weapon. The man with the letter opener stabbed the other man. Someone then called 911.

When officers arrived, the victim refused to cooperate or say what the argument was about. He's being treated at Memorial Regional Hospital. His condition is not yet known.

The men's identities have not been released.

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Information from: South Florida Sun-Sentinel, http://www.sun-sentinel.com

Police: Teenager kills woman for beer money

Police say a 16-year old Palm Bay youth confessed to police Monday morning that he had stabbed a 58-year old woman to death last week while robbing her house.  "He stabbed her multiple times and across the neck to the point where he nearly severed her head," said a Palm Bay Police Department spokeswoman.

Alan Michael Tanguay had told several people about the crime, police said, ultimately resulting in a SWAT team raid on his house this morning.  A detective said Tanguay was crying and remorseful, reports Florida Today, which has more details.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, the police report indicated that the teenager used the $6 he'd stolen from the victim to buy beer.

Millions and millions of nickels...and one fatality

The Florida Highway Patrol shut down I-95 near Mims Wednesday morning after one semi-truck rear-ended another, killing one passenger and spilling $187,000 worth of nickels.  "It's shiny across the roadway," an FHP trooper told WTVT-Orlando.  "There are nickels in the grass, across the interstate."

According to the FHP, a guard was driving the truck carrying the coins, with another guard as a passenger, when it was hit from behind by another truck.  The second truck swerved off the road and the first truck overturned, killing its passenger and spewing more than three-and-a half million nickels onto the roadway and beyond.  A trooper told cbs4.com the nickels were on their way from the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia to the U.S. Treasury in Miami, to be distributed to banks.  The trooper said Treasury and Secret Service agents were on the scene, trying to figure out how to clean up the mess "and to make sure nobody touches any of the nickels."  (Image:  U.S. Mint)

An alligator kinda Sunday

FloridaToday.com reports that animal control agents removed a 4-foot alligator making its way along a Melboune Causeway bike path Sunday and relocated it to a nearby canal.  "He went back to a more alligator-friendly place," said a Brevard County Animal Services officer.

It took roughly two hours for a wildlife officer and St. Lucie County Sheriff's deputies to remove a 6-foot alligator from the Atlantic Ocean on South Hutchinson Island on Sunday, according to TCPalm.  Eventually, a trapper arrived, snagged the critter, secured its jaws and legs, and hauled it away.  The trapper said alligators smaller than 5 feet are generally released back into the wild, but the larger ones that turn up in populated areas can be dangerous -- they have usually lost their fear of people -- and so they are generally killed.