Senior Airman surprises cousin on Aubrey Rogers softball senior nightPolice: 15-year-old injured after accidentally shot in the leg
NORTH NAPLES Senior Airman surprises cousin on Aubrey Rogers softball senior night Aubrey Rogers senior pitcher and infielder McKenzie Vargas surprised by her Air Force cousin for Senior Night.
BONITA SPRINGS Police: 15-year-old injured after accidentally shot in the leg Lee County deputies say the teen was accidentally shot in the leg.
PUNTA GORDA Exclusive: Brother and best friend of accused pedophile priest speak out Riley’s brother reached out to WINK on Friday, saying people aren’t getting the full story.
IMMOKALEE Caught on video: Huge gator crosses Immokalee neighborhood Fridays in Florida are for gators
FORT MYERS FGCU softball pitcher making a name for herself One season in FGCU, freshman pitcher Allison Sparkman is already ruffling feathers in the circle.
Surrendering-pets trend at Gulf Coast Humane Society concerns An large amount of pets are being surrendered by their owners. About half of the dogs at the Gulf Coast Humane Society are surrender dogs.
Students benefitting from millions in sales tax dollars So far, the voter-approved half-cent sales tax has brought in $507 million for the Lee County School District.
PORT CHARLOTTE ‘Shady’: One woman feels misled after federal student loan consolidation It takes some people decades to pay off their student loans. One woman’s last payment was in sight until she took a gamble she said she was told to take.
FORT MYERS Homeless encampments inch closer to neighborhoods Law enforcement has swept multiple encampments, cleaning the trails of mess and muck left behind, and some of these encampments are right in our backyards.
BIG CYPRESS PRESERVE What changes if Big Cypress National Preserve becomes a Wilderness Area? America’s first nationally designated preserve is in Southwest Florida’s backyard, and it is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
Method to treat IBD being used for other health issues Trying to get treatments for the brain when fighting neurological diseases like epilepsy and ALS is a challenge.
FORT MYERS NTSB report reveals new details in helicopter crash after Hurricane Ian The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released its final report on a helicopter crash that occurred in Iona, Florida, shortly after Hurricane Ian.
NAPLES Memorial celebrates the life of John Passidomo Hundreds of friends and family gathered for a memorial at Baker Park in Naples.
‘Latinos in Action’ empowers all students to succeed WINK News talked with teachers who are a part of the program, helping kids reach their full potential.
Immokalee ‘The eyes always draw me in’; Immokalee portrait artist turns dark times into color One of Southwest Florida best portrait artist, Martha Maria Cantu, almost gave up art. Now she’s on the forefront of the city of Immokalee, to make her community filled with color.
NORTH NAPLES Senior Airman surprises cousin on Aubrey Rogers softball senior night Aubrey Rogers senior pitcher and infielder McKenzie Vargas surprised by her Air Force cousin for Senior Night.
BONITA SPRINGS Police: 15-year-old injured after accidentally shot in the leg Lee County deputies say the teen was accidentally shot in the leg.
PUNTA GORDA Exclusive: Brother and best friend of accused pedophile priest speak out Riley’s brother reached out to WINK on Friday, saying people aren’t getting the full story.
IMMOKALEE Caught on video: Huge gator crosses Immokalee neighborhood Fridays in Florida are for gators
FORT MYERS FGCU softball pitcher making a name for herself One season in FGCU, freshman pitcher Allison Sparkman is already ruffling feathers in the circle.
Surrendering-pets trend at Gulf Coast Humane Society concerns An large amount of pets are being surrendered by their owners. About half of the dogs at the Gulf Coast Humane Society are surrender dogs.
Students benefitting from millions in sales tax dollars So far, the voter-approved half-cent sales tax has brought in $507 million for the Lee County School District.
PORT CHARLOTTE ‘Shady’: One woman feels misled after federal student loan consolidation It takes some people decades to pay off their student loans. One woman’s last payment was in sight until she took a gamble she said she was told to take.
FORT MYERS Homeless encampments inch closer to neighborhoods Law enforcement has swept multiple encampments, cleaning the trails of mess and muck left behind, and some of these encampments are right in our backyards.
BIG CYPRESS PRESERVE What changes if Big Cypress National Preserve becomes a Wilderness Area? America’s first nationally designated preserve is in Southwest Florida’s backyard, and it is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
Method to treat IBD being used for other health issues Trying to get treatments for the brain when fighting neurological diseases like epilepsy and ALS is a challenge.
FORT MYERS NTSB report reveals new details in helicopter crash after Hurricane Ian The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released its final report on a helicopter crash that occurred in Iona, Florida, shortly after Hurricane Ian.
NAPLES Memorial celebrates the life of John Passidomo Hundreds of friends and family gathered for a memorial at Baker Park in Naples.
‘Latinos in Action’ empowers all students to succeed WINK News talked with teachers who are a part of the program, helping kids reach their full potential.
Immokalee ‘The eyes always draw me in’; Immokalee portrait artist turns dark times into color One of Southwest Florida best portrait artist, Martha Maria Cantu, almost gave up art. Now she’s on the forefront of the city of Immokalee, to make her community filled with color.
In a Friday, March 3, 2006 file photo, Brendan Dassey is escorted out of a Manitowoc County Circuit courtroom, in Manitowoc, Wisc. Photo via the Associated Press. MADISON, Wis. (AP) The confession of a Wisconsin inmate featured in the Netflix series “Making a Murderer” was improperly obtained and he should be retried or released from prison, a three-judge federal appeals panel ruled Thursday. Brendan Dassey was sentenced to life in prison in 2007 in photographer Teresa Halbach’s death on Halloween two years earlier. Dassey told detectives he helped his uncle, Steven Avery, rape and kill Halbach in the Avery family’s Manitowoc County salvage yard. Avery was sentenced to life in a separate trial. A federal magistrate judge ruled in August that investigators coerced Dassey, who was 16 years old at the time and suffered from cognitive problems, into confessing and overturned his conviction. The state Justice Department appealed the ruling to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a move that kept Dassey, now 27, behind bars pending the outcome. A three-judge panel from the Chicago-based 7th Circuit upheld the magistrate’s decision to overturn his conviction. Wisconsin can appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, ask for a review by the full 7th Circuit or retry Dassey within 90 days. Johnny Koremenos, a spokesman for Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel, said the office expects to seek review by the full 7th Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court, and hopes “that today’s erroneous decision will be reversed.” “We continue to send our condolences to the Halbach family as they have to suffer through another attempt by Mr. Dassey to re-litigate his guilty verdict and sentence,” Koremenos said. Dassey’s lawyers from the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth at Northwestern University said they’re elated and will take immediate steps to secure his release. Attorney Laura Nirider said they want to send Dassey home to his mother as soon as possible. She said they did the math and determined that he had been in prison for 4,132 days as of Thursday. The center’s director, Steven Drizin, said the ruling provides a model for the kind of thorough analysis that courts should always undertake in assessing whether a confession was voluntary, and highlights the importance for teenagers to have parents or trusted adults in the interrogation room. “While these tactics might not have overwhelmed a seasoned criminal or a 30-year-old with a law degree, they clearly overwhelmed a 16-year-old, socially avoidant, intellectually limited (youth) who had never been interrogated by the police before,” he said. The appellate panel split, with Judges Ilana Rovner and Ann Williams affirming and David Hamilton in dissent. The majority opinion by Rovner said “no reasonable court” could have any confidence that Dassey’s confession was voluntary. It cited “the leading, the fact-feeding, the false promises, the manipulation of Dassey’s desire to please” as among many factors that cast it in doubt. Hamilton, in dissent, wrote: “The majority’s decision breaks new ground and poses troubling questions for police and prosecutors. It calls into question standard interrogation techniques that courts have routinely found permissible, even in cases involving juveniles.” Avery and Dassey contend they were framed by police angry with Avery for suing Manitowoc County over his wrongful conviction for sexual assault. Avery spent 18 years in prison in that case before DNA tests showed he didn’t commit the crime. He’s pursuing his own appeal in state court. Their cases gained national attention in 2015 after Netflix aired “Making a Murderer,” a multi-part documentary looking at Halbach’s death, the ensuing investigation and trials. The series sparked widespread conjecture about the pair’s innocence and has garnered them a massive following on social media pushing for their release. Authorities who worked on the cases insisted the documentary is biased. Ken Kratz, the prosecutor, wrote in his book “Avery” that Dassey was “a shuffling, mumbling young man with bad skin and broken-bowl haircut” who could have saved Halbach’s life but instead involved himself in her rape and murder and Avery is “by any measure of the evidence, stone guilty.”