ROYAL PALM BEACH, Fla. — A toddler in the Treasure Coast drowned Sunday, police said.The 3-year-old Jordan Cherestal was on a play date in Royal Palm Beach when he was found at the bottom of a pool.Police responded to the scene on Westmont Drive in the Ashford community at about 5 p.m.Stay with WPBF News 25 and WPBF.com for the latest details.
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An on-going domestic dispute ended in tragedy Saturday night in Dale County, when the suspect was shot to death by authorities.
Authorities say 52-year-old Bruce Higdon was shot and killed after opening fire on law enforcement officers.
It all happened on County Road 59 in the Echo Community.
Authorities say just after 6 pm, Higdon’s live-in girlfriend of 13 years called the sheriff’s office saying the suspect threatened to kill her livestock.
After arriving at the suspect’s home, authorities prompted him to come out, which he eventually did, with a loaded gun.
That’s when authorities tapered the suspect twice, but it didn’t slow him down.
Investigators say the suspect fired at the officers and they returned fire, hitting him at least twice, once in the arm and once in the chest.
Higdon was transported to dale medical center where he was pronounced dead shortly after 8:30 pm.
“It’s unusual when you’re tasered twice and it doesn’t work and I believe the second time he actually pulled the leads out of his body,” says Ozark Police Chief Tony Spivey.
“It’s a bad situation, my heart goes out to the family, and it’s a part of our job that we hate to have to experience,” says Dale Co. Sheriff Wally Olson.
Authorities say Bruce Higdon did have a criminal history, the extent of which is unknown at this time.
3 law enforcement officers were involved in the fatal shooting, 2 sheriff’s deputies and 1 Ozark police officer.
All 3 have been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation that’s being conducted by the Alabama Bureau of Investigation.
Authorities suspect Higdon was intoxicated at the time of the incident but that is pending an autopsy and toxicology report.
A man is dead after Panama City Beach police say he fell to his death from the balcony of a Panama City Beach condo.
Beach Police say it happened sometime Sunday morning at the Aqua Condominiums on Front Beach Road near the Powell Adams intersection.
The incident is still under investigation, but witnesses say they heard no scream, but just heard him hit the ground.
He landed in the condo’s driveway in front of the building.
We will bring you more information on the death investigation just as soon as it becomes available.
(CNN) — A 7-year-old girl died after a large ocean wave kicked up by Hurricane Bill knocked her and two other people into the Atlantic off Maine’s Acadia National Park on Sunday, a park official said.
An ocean wave knocked three people into the Atlantic off Maine’s Acadia National Park on Sunday.
Coast Guard rescuers plucked the three from the ocean after a wave swept them from a rocky ledge at the park, according to Sheridan Steele, the park’s superintendent.
The conditions of the two survivors — a 12-year-old girl and a man — were not immediately available. No names were released.
Ocean waves also injured a few other people at the park, knocking them to the ground or into rocks and crevices, Steele said. Some were taken to a hospital with broken bones or other injuries, Steele said.
The victims were among several thousand people who were at the park late Sunday morning to watch the high waves that Hurricane Bill — a Category 1 storm — was producing offshore.
“Even though we try to warn people and try to get people to watch from a safe distance, we weren’t able to contact everybody in time,” Steele said Sunday evening.
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) — Ryan Alexander Jenkins, a reality TV contestant suspected in his wife’s slaying in California, was found dead in a hotel room in British Columbia, Canadian and U.S. authorities said Sunday.
An arrest warrant has been issued for Ryan Alexander Jenkins, wanted in the death of Jasmine Fiore.
Hotel staff in the town of Hope found Jenkins’ body, and preliminary evidence indicates that Jenkins committed suicide, Sgt. Duncan Pound of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told reporters late Sunday.
Jenkins was found in the hotel room, dead by hanging, said Farrah Emami, spokeswoman for the district attorney in Orange County, California.
No other details about Jenkins’ death were immediately released.
Earlier Sunday, Canadian authorities said they had credible information that Jenkins was in Canada and called on him to turn himself in. He was believed to be armed and dangerous.
The nude body of Jenkins’ wife, former swimsuit model Jasmine Fiore, was found last weekend in Orange County, California. CNN has not confirmed reports that the marriage was annulled.
Fiore’s body was found last Saturday in a Dumpster behind an apartment complex in Buena Park, just outside Anaheim, California. Her teeth had been extracted and fingers removed in what police said was an apparent attempt to conceal her identity.
Law enforcement sources have told CNN that Fiore was identified through the serial numbers on her breast implants.
Fiore lived in Los Angeles and was last seen alive in San Diego at a poker game with Jenkins, the night before the body was found.
Jenkins reported Fiore missing last Saturday night to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, authorities said.
The body was identified Monday as Fiore. While the cause of death had not been confirmed, a preliminary coroner’s report indicated she was strangled.
According to court records in Las Vegas, Nevada, Jenkins was charged in June with battery for allegedly striking Fiore in the arm with his fist.
And in 2007, Jenkins pleaded guilty in Calgary, Alberta, Canada to assault in a separate case. He was sentenced to 15 months probation, ordered to undergo counseling for domestic violence and sex addiction and to stay away from the person involved, according to court records.
Jenkins, who appeared on the VH1 show “Megan Wants a Millionaire,” is from Calgary.
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51Minds, which produced “Megan Wants a Millionaire,” said Thursday in a written statement that it “was not aware of Ryan Jenkins’ record when it cast him.
“The company did have in place what it thought was a thorough vetting process that involved complete background checks by an outside company for all contestants on its shows,” it said. “Clearly, the process did not work properly in this case. 51 Minds is investigating what went wrong and taking steps to ensure that this sort of lapse never occurs again.”
An arrest warrant has been issued for Ryan Alexander Jenkins, wanted in the death of Jasmine Fiore.
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) — South Korea bade farewell to former President Kim Dae-jung Sunday in a ceremony attended by thousands of citizens, dignitaries and politicians.
South Korean Buddhist monks pray in front of a portrait of former president Kim Dae-jung during his funeral Sunday.
The solemn Sunday afternoon ceremony was held outside parliament, with a large portrait of Kim placed on a shrine surrounded by flowers.
The funeral followed six days of mourning for Kim, who died Tuesday of a heart failure.
Kim’s age at the time of his death was in dispute, with some reports saying he was 85 while others placing it at 83.
Kim’s state funeral was the second such ever given in the country, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said.
Another president, Park Chung-hee, was also accorded a state funeral after his assassination while in office in 1979.
Kim — who was president from 1998 to 2003 — won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for trying to foster better relations with North Korea.
The watershed moment of his presidency came in June 2000 when he met North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, becoming the first South Korean leader to do so since the Korean War unofficially ended in 1953.
But rapproachment talks between the two sides hit a wall after conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office in early 2008 with a tougher stance toward the North than Kim and his successor, Roh Moo-hyun.
Ahead of the funeral, President Lee met with a visiting North Korean delegation, who delivered a message from Kim Jong Il expressing hopes for improved relations between the two countries.
Lee, in turn, reiterated his government’s firm stance, presidential spokesman Lee Dong-kwan was quoted as saying by Yonhap.
But in a possible sign that icy relations between the two rival nations are nevertheless thawing, South Korean Unification Minister Hyun In Taek met with North Korean unity leader Kim Yang Gon on Saturday.
It was the first high-level, cross-border contact in nearly two years.
The meetings between officials of the two Koreas are in stark contrast to the tense public statements they made about each other earlier this year.
Tensions between the two were heightened in July when North Korea launched seven short-range missiles toward the Sea of Japan.
The launches came after North Korea conducted a nuclear test on May 25 and threatened the United States and South Korean ships near its territorial waters.
South Korea condemned the action, calling the launches “provocative” and “unwise.”
Officials say two people have been killed when a biplane crashed near a football scrimmage at an Ohio high school.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol said the single-engine plane took off Friday night from West Harrison Airport, and crashed within minutes. Sgt. Clint Arnold says it wasn’t immediately known if the plane lost power.
Officials say the pilot and a female passenger died in the crash near McNicholas High School in Harrison.
Parent Ed Meyer says he saw the plane go down as he was watching his son play football. He says “it was so sad to see, but there was nothing you could do.”
The names of the deceased have not been released.
Officials say the National Transportation and Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration will investigate.
A four-year-old northwest Florida girl, critically injured in a traffic crash a week ago, has now died from those injuries.
The Florida Highway Patrol says Hope H. Keller of Pace in Santa Rose County has died in Pensacola’s Sacred Heart Hospital.
Troopers say the 4-year-old girl was a passenger in her mother’s van when it went out of control on the afternoon of August 14th on Interstate Ten in Walton County west of DeFuniak Springs.
The vehicle swerved into the media of the Interstate, struck a pine tree broadside on the passenger’s side and then hit a second pine tree.
The accident investigation is continuing
BRYCEVILLE, Florida (CNN) — Michael Ratley was known as a hero.
Michael Ratley will spend the rest of his life in jail, without parole, for killing his wife with a hammer.
In December 2006, Ratley carried his 2-week-old son, Aiden, and his wife, Effie Ratley, 29, from the flames as fire engulfed their Bryceville, Florida, trailer.
Days after the fire, a teary-eyed Ratley told local media that love drove him to save their lives. “I might have lost everything physical, but I’ve still got my two most precious things,” Michael Ratley told CNN affiliate WJXT-TV at the time.
A month later, Effie Ratley was dead, bludgeoned with a hammer in a bedroom of her in-laws’ home, not far from the trailer’s ashes on a dirt road marked only with a black arrow on a wooden sign.
The man who was hailed as a hero for saving his wife was convicted in July of murdering her.
On Tuesday, a Nassau County Court jury in Yulee, Florida, said he should spend the rest of his life in prison for the crime. Circuit Judge Robert Foster sentenced the 25-year-old to life without possibility of parole.
What changed a heroic husband into a hammer-wielding wife killer? 
Hero gets life for murder »
During the trial, no motive was offered.
On January 27, 2007, with his parents downstairs watching TV with the door shut and his infant son in the other room, prosecutors said, Ratley put on a pair of thick black gloves, grabbed a heavy-duty hammer and went into the bedroom where his wife was lying down after taking some medication. He lifted the hammer and “savagely and brutally beat her on the head over and over” — at least seven times, said Assistant State Attorney Bernie de la Rionda.
During the trial, Ratley said he had nothing to do with the slaying. His defense lawyers argued that an intruder, who Ratley alleged attacked him in the barn the night before, was the culprit. But prosecutors said that was part of Ratley’s plan, setting up for a scenario in which an intruder killed his wife by cutting the wire on their window.
Testifying on Tuesday, his friends and family spoke of him as a church-going, gentle man who always went out of his way to help others — the elderly at a nursing home, a neighbor whose husband was slain and sick family members.
“He has always been a caring, nonviolent person,” said his mother, Cindy Ratley. “He’d give you the shirt off his back.” Cindy Ratley said it had been her dream to have her close-knit family living together on her secluded 20 acres.
Witnesses for Ratley tried in court to give a picture of the son, grandson, and friend they said he had always been, with the defense calling the murder a “single, horrible snapshot” in Ratley’s overwhelmingly positive life. They urged the jury to give Ratley’s son a chance to know his father, one who cares and loves deeply for him, they said.
As his mother and others left the witness stand in the packed and divided courtroom, they each told Ratley they stood behind him and loved him. As they walked back to sit down, many mouthed, “I love you.”
The prosecutors argued Ratley’s character couldn’t be clearer, based on his actions. “Unfortunately, the best example we have of his character is in what he did. This shows his best character,” de la Rionda said, showing the jurors gruesome photos of Effie Ratley’s injuries.
De la Rionda disputed the description of Ratley as a wonderful father. “This loving father had no problem whatsoever — a short distance from his son — exterminating the life of his son’s mother,” he said.
Michael Ratley met Effie Williams when she was having car trouble. He offered to buy a new tire for her and change it.
Effie Ratley, who enjoyed listening to ’50s music and watching black-and-white movies, was thrilled when she and her husband had their baby, her family told the court Tuesday.
“Her son was her pride and joy,” said her stepmother, Joy Williams, wearing a purple and pink “Justice for Effie” bracelet. “But she never knew more than six weeks of her motherhood dreams.”
By all accounts, the Ratleys’ relationship had its rocky points. They were married, separated and remarried.
Michael Ratley’s family said that the first time the couple got married, they were worried he wasn’t mature enough, that he needed to grow up, and they said the couple definitely had growing pains.
“He didn’t know if he could love her enough, because he only wanted the best for her,” Donna Stanley said, talking about her nephew.
Effie Ratley’s father, Duane Williams, cried on the stand Tuesday as he talked about his only daughter. His voice quivered as he tried to explain how he feels her loss each day.
“She’s the first thing I think about in the morning when I wake up,” he said, his voice wavering. “And the last thing before I go to bed.”
Neither Effie or Michael Ratley’s families wanted to speak about the sentencing after the hearing, but de la Rionda said Effie’s family was pleased with the result.
“They were always hoping for [the] death [penalty], but they’re happy he’s going to get life and he’s not going to be able to get out,” de le Rionda said. “He’s going to die in prison.”
While the announcement of the sentence, which spared him from death, was greeted with a pronounced “Yes!” from Michael Ratley’s family inside court, the gravity of the situation seemed to hit during a short recess. His grandmother began sobbing. Family members comforted her until Cindy Ratley sat down next to her. The two cried and embraced for a couple of minutes. Michael Ratley looked over, saw his grandmother upset, and he, too, began to cry.
One person was killed this morning and two others Thursday night in car crashes in St. Clair and Talladega counties.
Callie Wright, 23, of Munford, died just before 1:30 a.m. when the Pontiac Gran Prix she was driving wrecked on McIntosh Road, one mile south of Oxford, according to Alabama State Troopers.
A passenger in her car, Kyle Wayne Paris, also 23, of Talladega, was taken to Regional Medical Center in Anniston.
In St. Clair County Thursday night, a three-car crash killed two and hurt another on Interstate 59 in Springville.
James Kesler, 38, of Milton, and Jackie Ingram, 55, of Birmingham were killed in the crash that happened just before 6 p.m. Thursday, according to Alabama State Troopers.
A third person, 57-year-old Normal Hazelwood of Odenville, was injured and taken to UAB Hospital.
The accident happened when one of the vehicles was going the wrong way, traveling northbound in the southbound lane. The crash shut down both side of the interstate for hours.
Gone But Not Forgotten 