News of Doom 2.0

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.

"May almighty God have mercy on your soul," said Circuit Judge Lisa Munyon.

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.

LAKE COUNTY, Fla. -- Investigators say a father traveled more than 1,000 miles to Lake County to have sex with a seven-year-old girl and her mother, but it all turned out to be part of an Internet sex sting.

The man oversees a Hebrew school for young children and he's on the board of directors for a youth soccer league in Connecticut where he lives. Detectives said he confessed to everything before they brought him to the jail.

Lake County sheriff's detectives said 43-year-old Leonard Shuster caught a flight from Connecticut to Orlando International Airport. A deputy was waiting for him there and followed him as he made his way to Clermont.

Just before Shuster reached the home where he thought he was meeting a 32-year-old mother and her seven-year-old child, he was pulled over and arrested.

"From day one, the talk was exactly to what he wanted. It would not surprise me if he's actually done this before," said Det. Chris Loyko of the Lake County Sheriff's Office.

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.

Monday, arson investigators told the jury that Abdool poured gasoline on his sometime-girlfriend Amelia Sookdeo pretty much from head to toe. Investigators said they found gasoline on her face, soaked through all of her clothing and her socks and shoes. They said that 80-percent of her body was burned and that Abdool removed the nozzle from the gas can he used so that the gasoline would pour out more quickly. Gloves were also found at the scene.

A State Fire Marshal investigator told the jury he believes it was an intentional burning because of all of the circumstances involved, including the fact that the arsonist would have had to have been close to the victim.

"The vapors coming off the gasoline would have been more defused out in the open making it more difficult to ignite," state arson investigator Juan Bailey testified Monday, adding that the igniting device would have to be close to the gasoline to spark it.

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.