Florida

PALM BAY, Fla. -- A crying Brevard County teenager faced a judge Tuesday morning for allegedly killing and nearly decapitating his neighbor. The 16-year-old boy, who calls himself a psychotic killer, was arrested Monday for allegedly breaking into a Palm Bay woman's home and then slashing her throat.

Alan Michael Tanguay shivered and cried as he appeared before Judge Bruce Jacobus during Tuesday morning's court appearance. He was given a public defender and ordered to be held for 21 days, which is not unusual with juvenile offenders facing such charges.

The boy bragged about crimes long before the horrible murder and police said he even claimed he's murdered before. He told his friends that, so in addition to investigating the murder that took place, police have contacted authorities in several other states the teenager lived in to see if he committed other murders similar to the one here.

After a pre-dawn raid on the teen's Palm Bay home, Alan Michael Tanguay was led away to jail, arrested for allegedly killing 58-year-old Patricia Kaliszeski in one of the bloodiest murders detectives can remember. His neighbors couldn't believe he was responsible.

Police said the high school dropout spent his days smoking marijuana, drinking beer and playing violent video games.

"I like gory (expletive), like people getting their neck slit and tounge (sic) pulled out," Tanguay wrote on his MySpace page.

Investigators said Tanguay walked to the woman's house and followed through with a personal rule that he would kill the homeowner if they caught him burglarizing their house. Police said he stabbed Kaliszeski multiple times, but during his confession said he was trying to ease her suffering when he nearly decapitated her.

Tanguay began bragging to friends before the body was discovered and, once they learned he wasn't joking, they turned him in.

Police said Tanguay told his friends precise details about the crime that only the killer would have known and showed them his batting gloves he wore and the Vans tennis shoes that left the Vans imprint in the blood stains on the floor of the house.

Investigators said Tanguay stole around $6 and that he intended to use it to purchase beer.

Jacksonville police are trying to find a man who they said attacked a disc jockey after an altercation at a bar and cut the man's eyes out.

Investigators said the DJ was attacked in the early-morning hours of July 5 near Starlite Café. Rescuers. Police found him in the neighborhood because someone driving by saw him lying in the street. They said right away they realized something was very wrong with man's eyes.

According to a police report, the DJ had life-threatening injuries and both of his eyes were protruding from his face.

Friends of the victim told Channel 4 the man who loved playing music in the bar now has to rely on his hearing because the attack left him blind.

Police have been looking for 30-year-old Foster Leon, who is accused of aggravated battery in the attack.

The DJ continues to recover from his injuries. A benefit concert to help defray his medical bills is scheduled for 7 p.m. Saturday at the Starlite Café on Park Street.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A Seminole County man went before a judge on Monday in a fatal child abuse case involving a 6-year-old boy.

Authorities said the boy, Cameron Palmer, was admitted to Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital on July 3. Hospital officials contacted the Seminole County Sheriff's Office about the case.

Investigators said they found the child unresponsive and on life support and with bruises all over his entire body. He has since died.

On the same day, deputies said they arrested Tony Gonsoulin, 39, the boy's uncle.

Officials said the boy, along with a 4-year-old and a 10-year-old, was visiting Gonsoulin for the summer. The child's mother lives in Louisiana.

Authorities said Gonsoulin admitted to disciplining the boy for lying.

Gonsoulin's common law wife called 911.

"The child did something to upset our suspect and he apparently questioned him about it and he didn't apparently like the child's answer and throughout the course of this day things proceeded to happen, the incident in the pool. He was dunking him in the pool repeatedly and then another incident inside the house we believe was probably stemmed to him believing he was lying to him," Lt. James Clark of the Seminole County Sheriff's Office said.

A neighbor said he saw Gonsoulin holding the boy under water for about 20 to 30 seconds.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- An inmate at the Tomoka Correctional Institution was quickly transferred to the Florida State Prison on Thursday after officials said he raped and killed a prison guard.

Authorities identified the inmate as Enoch Hall, 39, who was sentenced to life in prison for sexual battery with a weapon and kidnapping charges in 1993. He had been at the facility since 1994.

The officer, Donna Fitzgerald, 50, was a veteran guard, who had worked at Tomoka Correctional Institution for 15 years.

Hall hid in a welding shed adjacent to the Pride workshop area with a knife made out of a piece of sheet metal, police said. Pride is a vocational training facility located at the prison.

Officials at the prison said Fitzgerald entered the warehouse area around 7:30 p.m. Wednesday looking for Hall.

When she discovered him hiding, Fitzgerald confronted Hall and was stabbed multiple times, police said.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A mother was sentenced to 20 years in prison Thursday for keeping her 17-year-old adopted son caged in her home.

Brenda Sullivan pleaded guilty in January to three counts of aggravated child abuse. Prosecutors agreed to drop lesser child neglect charges. The teen weighed 49 pounds when child welfare workers found him in 2005 in what appeared to be a cage. Sullivan told a judge at the time that Ohio authorities told her to keep the boy, who had severe medical and emotional problems, in a crib.

Two other children, 13-year-old twins the Sullivans adopted as infants, both testified they were kept in similar cages.

Sullivan's lawyer, Charles Fletcher, said he didn't think prison was the right option because she does not pose a threat to society. He said they would appeal the sentence.

MIAMI -- A woman is accused of starving and torturing her 7-year-old niece for whom she was supposed to be caring.

Felicia Watkins, 37, is charged with multiple counts of child abuse. She appeared before a judge Thursday in Miami.

Miami police said they were first notified after the girl's teacher noticed her fingers were swollen to the point that she could not hold a pencil.

Police said Watkins, who works in the cafeteria at Miami Beach High School, repeatedly abused her niece inside the Liberty City apartment she shared with her husband.

"The aunt confesses and says this was all a part of discipline and punishment," Miami police spokesman Delrish Moss said. "So she seemed to think her actions were pretty normal. She was rather cavalier about it."

Police said Watkins squeezed the girl's fingers with pliers, whipped her with an electrical cord and starved her to the point that she weighed just 48 pounds.

The girl came to live with her aunt and uncle after her mother was arrested, accused of killing the girl's father.

MIAMI -- Police are searching for a father accused of inflicting a day of torture on his 12-year-old son, repeatedly burning him with an iron.

Detectives said Cedrick Brown was reuniting with his son after Brown spent three years in prison.

The reunion allegedly turned abusive April 12 when, police said, Brown asked his son, "Are you ready for your beating?"

What followed, according to detectives, was a day of torture, with the boy being stripped naked, beaten and whipped, and then burned repeatedly with an iron. Police said Brown also threatened to castrate the boy and bit his fingers and toes several times.

Police said after the abuse, Brown and the boy's grandmother, Annette Brown, kept him home from school and away from doctors, fearing the abuse would be detected.

OCOEE, Fla. — Ocoee police are still investigating the shooting death of a toddler over the weekend.

Family members have said 22-month-old Tyler Rodgers accidentally shot himself with his father's gun while everyone else in the house was sleeping early Sunday.

State criminal records show that Tyler's father has a 2003 felony drug conviction, which means it is illegal for him to own a gun.

SANFORD, Fla. -- An abusive father was thrown in jail after his children reported him to Sanford police, authorities said.

A 13-year-old girl had been sexually abused by her father for the past six years, and she and her 14-year-old brother were both the victims of physical abuse, authorities said.

"These kids were living in complete horror for years and years," Seminole County Lt. Dennis Lemma said. "They had shotguns held to their head. The girl was a victim of sexual abuse."

The two teenagers escaped and ran to the Seminole County Sheriff's office, where they recounted the abuses of their father.

"Torture involving weapons," Lemma said, recounting some of the allegations. "We have physical abuse. [The kids are] alleging he had used a PVC pipe to batter at least two of his kids. He used an electronic stun gun to shock the kids as they were tied to their bed."

The father is still in jail without bond. He has been charged with 350 counts of sexual abuse of his daughter, dating back to when she was 7. Investigators said the number of counts could double before the investigation concludes.

The children's mother was also arrested, having been accused of neglect for failing to report any of the things the kids say happened to them.

CLAY COUNTY, Fla. -- Three days after her father was shot and killed, an 11-year-old recounted a haunting story about what she saw when a man she thought was a family friend walked through the door with a rifle.

Deputies were called out to a home on Old Dine Field Road in Middleburg Friday night. That's when they said 32-year-old Jonathan Williams pulled out a rifle after Buddy Pickett showed up at his door along with his two kids and a teenage neighbor asking for $35 dollars.

Pickett's daughter, 11-year-old Sierra, said they had gone to Williams' home to get some money to buy groceries, but they never expected the man to come outside carrying a rifle.

"Buddy just wanted John to give him $35 he owed him so he could take care of his family," said Pickett's mother, Patricia Pickett.

She said her son sent his daughter and a friend to collect the money to avoid any confrontation, and that Pickett only went to the house when Williams began cursing at the children.

Sierra told Channel 4 that after a verbal exchange, Williams went inside his home.

"We waited because we thought he was going to give us the money," she said.

Instead, police said when Williams opened the door again he opened fire and killed Pickett.

According to the police reports, when an officer saw the girl walking on Kivler Drive about 9:30 a.m. and stopped to find out if she was a truant, she began to cry and run. When he caught up with her and asked what was wrong, she said she had just been kidnapped and raped by four men.

The victim said she was walking in the 8600 block of Cinderella Drive when a Jeep Cherokee pulled up, a man pointed a gun at her and said, "You need to come with me," according to police.

She said she was driven to a house, taken inside, ordered to take off her clothes, then all four raped her, according to police.

When they left her alone in a bedroom, she climbed out the window and escaped, she told police.

Investigators said that the victim took police to the home on Macgregor Drive where she said she was raped. The suspects and SUV were gone, but LaBron Miller, 28, was arrested when he walked up to the home, police said.

"She, without mistake, positively identified him as one of the suspects involved in the case," Jacksonville Sheriff's Office spokesman Ken Jefferson said. "While processing the scene, the others suspects rode up in a car. She, again, identified these individuals and they were taken into custody."

Those men were identified as Alan Alley, 26, and Dwayne Miller, 29.

Police continue to look for a fourth suspect.

WINTER HAVEN, Fla. -- A mother intentionally set herself and her two children on fire in a storage room at a Winter Haven motel last week, investigators said.

All three died in the blaze.

It's not known what led Priyakumari Master, 25, to kill herself, along with her daughter, Mahi, 3, and her son, Milan, 1. Autopsy results are pending.

Fire investigators said they found a melted cigarette lighter and a plastic gasoline container inside the room.

A Winter Haven man was charged with murder, accused of fatally beating his 4-month-old daughter Christmas Day because he wanted a son, authorities said.

Marcos Gomez-Romero, 28, told investigators that he beat Ariana Rodriguez Romero to death because he wanted a son instead of a daughter, according to a Polk County Sheriff's Office report.

According to deputy interviews, Gomez-Romero said he became angry every time he saw the girl. He also said that abusing his daughter became a habit, a sheriff's report showed.

Gomez-Romero told deputies that he would slap his daughter on the ribs while she was sleeping, and the Medical Examiner's Office said the girl had dozens of rib fractures, a bruised liver and a hemorrhage in her left eye, according to the Polk County sheriff's report.

Gomez-Romero told investigators that the beatings had gone on for months, the sheriff's report stated.

SANFORD - A Sanford mother of two was stabbed to death Sunday in what police called "a senseless, random act of violence" by a stranger who said he was "angry."

Charlene Amrhein, described by neighbors as a "supermom" to her children, spent much of her time visiting with neighborhood kids in the breezeway outside her front door, friends said.

It was there that Amrhein, 46, met her demise early Sunday, police say, when Solim Kolassiba took out his rage by stabbing her to death.

Neighbor Melissa Col?n said she awoke about 7:50 a.m. to screams of "Help me! Help me!" She went outside and saw Amrhein, who had stepped out for a morning smoke, lying on the concrete in a puddle of blood.

Another neighbor called 911, and Col?n ran and fetched some towels and tried to stop the bleeding. Amrhein was gasping for air and couldn't speak, she said.

Col?n saw stab wounds to Amrhein's arm and belly and below her breast, and her shirt had holes in it. Police said the weapon was a large kitchen knife that was recovered near the Charleston Club apartments where Amrhein lived.

Amrhein was pronounced dead at Central Florida Regional Hospital in Sanford shortly after the attack.

Police arrested Kolassiba, 20, who lives about two miles from the apartments with his parents, Sanford police spokeswoman Cleo Cohen said. Residents saw Kolassiba running toward Lake Mary Boulevard near Amrhein's complex with blood on his clothes,Cohen said, and investigators stopped and questioned him.

Kolassiba confessed to stabbing Amrhein, whom he said he did not know, and told investigators he was "mad and angry," Cohen said. She said she did not know why he was angry or at whom. Kolassiba apparently walked from his home to Amrhein's, police said.

APOPKA, Fla. -- A Central Florida man is accused of pouring hot cooking oil on a 17-month-old and using a hair dryer to burn his skin off because the toddler apparently would not stop crying and whining.

Police said Darlanne Toussaint was charged with felony attempted murder on suspicion he abused his girlfriend's son in an Apopka apartment building Thursday.

The mother of the child, Marlita S. Stokes, 23, was arrested on Friday and faces charges of child neglect and providing false information to police.

According to a charging affidavit, Toussaint poured the hot cooking oil on the boy, shook him hard for 10 minutes and then burned him with a blow dryer to the point that his skin fell off, Local 6 reported.