The Weather Authority: Hot temperatures, rain, and we’re watching the tropicsWoodpeckers build home in Alva woman’s house
Southwest Florida The Weather Authority: Hot temperatures, rain, and we’re watching the tropics Get ready for a typical Southwest Florida weekend. It’s going to feel like the triple digits before rain rolls in and we’re watching the tropics.
ALVA Woodpeckers build home in Alva woman’s house You may have heard of squatters, but this woman is dealing with squawkers. Who needs a rooster to wake up when you have woodpeckers?
FORT MYERS Man claims he was trapped in a high-rise for 5 days A 77-year-old man wants justice after he claims he spent days trapped on the 24th floor of a high-rise apartment building.
PUNTA GORDA Charlotte Correctional prisoner arrested for death of another inmate State Attorney Amira Fox convened a grand jury, which decided to move forward with a case against a Charlotte Correctional inmate.
SANIBEL Construction near Dairy Queen eagle nest on Sanibel raises concerns While many eagle nests may be a bit difficult to see, one nest has always been a favorite for Sanibel residents and tourists.
The environmental effects of artificial sweeteners Experts are studying how the foods we eat affect the environment, especially after we flush our waste down the toilet.
Victim reacts to man exposing himself to her Ring camera You get a notification on your phone from your ring camera app that someone is at the door, only to find out it is someone exposing themselves. It’s the last thing victim Maria Kivi wanted or expected to see last week.
LEE COUNTY The art of capturing your eye and drawing you in How do you capture young, hip, trendy, fun, movers and shakers, all in a pose? We take you behind the scenes of a Gulfshore Life cover shoot.
FORT MYERS The lives of two SJC Boxers changed in the ring Two SJC Boxers, Mario Nunez and Arbon Kurtishi, help each other in the ring as each of them had their lives changed because of boxing.
FORT MYERS Chlamydia cases rising sharply in Lee County If you think about a crowded space- something with more than 250 people- if it’s in Lee county, statistically one person has chlamydia.
SANIBEL Sanibel resort day passes hope to get more business on the island A pass will allow vacationers to hang out at a Sanibel beach club for a day in hopes of drumming up some business.
Voting equipment tested ahead of Lee County elections Voting equipment is being tested in Lee County. This is to ensure all ballots are printed and counted correctly for the upcoming election.
Collier County teen assaulted after leaving party The teen has been charged and the sheriff’s office said they’re aware that many believe felony charges are in order, but under Florida law, there are very specific criteria that must be met for felony charges to be filed.
WINK weather team watching tropical wave over Atlantic Ocean The Weather Authority is watching a tropical disturbance over the Central Atlantic Ocean.
CAPE CORAL Cape Coral drug bust leads investigators to fake fentanyl, cash and guns Cape Coral man arrest on drug charges. Investigators said they found, guns, drugs, and more than $32,000 in Richard Riley’s home.
Southwest Florida The Weather Authority: Hot temperatures, rain, and we’re watching the tropics Get ready for a typical Southwest Florida weekend. It’s going to feel like the triple digits before rain rolls in and we’re watching the tropics.
ALVA Woodpeckers build home in Alva woman’s house You may have heard of squatters, but this woman is dealing with squawkers. Who needs a rooster to wake up when you have woodpeckers?
FORT MYERS Man claims he was trapped in a high-rise for 5 days A 77-year-old man wants justice after he claims he spent days trapped on the 24th floor of a high-rise apartment building.
PUNTA GORDA Charlotte Correctional prisoner arrested for death of another inmate State Attorney Amira Fox convened a grand jury, which decided to move forward with a case against a Charlotte Correctional inmate.
SANIBEL Construction near Dairy Queen eagle nest on Sanibel raises concerns While many eagle nests may be a bit difficult to see, one nest has always been a favorite for Sanibel residents and tourists.
The environmental effects of artificial sweeteners Experts are studying how the foods we eat affect the environment, especially after we flush our waste down the toilet.
Victim reacts to man exposing himself to her Ring camera You get a notification on your phone from your ring camera app that someone is at the door, only to find out it is someone exposing themselves. It’s the last thing victim Maria Kivi wanted or expected to see last week.
LEE COUNTY The art of capturing your eye and drawing you in How do you capture young, hip, trendy, fun, movers and shakers, all in a pose? We take you behind the scenes of a Gulfshore Life cover shoot.
FORT MYERS The lives of two SJC Boxers changed in the ring Two SJC Boxers, Mario Nunez and Arbon Kurtishi, help each other in the ring as each of them had their lives changed because of boxing.
FORT MYERS Chlamydia cases rising sharply in Lee County If you think about a crowded space- something with more than 250 people- if it’s in Lee county, statistically one person has chlamydia.
SANIBEL Sanibel resort day passes hope to get more business on the island A pass will allow vacationers to hang out at a Sanibel beach club for a day in hopes of drumming up some business.
Voting equipment tested ahead of Lee County elections Voting equipment is being tested in Lee County. This is to ensure all ballots are printed and counted correctly for the upcoming election.
Collier County teen assaulted after leaving party The teen has been charged and the sheriff’s office said they’re aware that many believe felony charges are in order, but under Florida law, there are very specific criteria that must be met for felony charges to be filed.
WINK weather team watching tropical wave over Atlantic Ocean The Weather Authority is watching a tropical disturbance over the Central Atlantic Ocean.
CAPE CORAL Cape Coral drug bust leads investigators to fake fentanyl, cash and guns Cape Coral man arrest on drug charges. Investigators said they found, guns, drugs, and more than $32,000 in Richard Riley’s home.
Thomas “Tommy” Zeigler is photographed on Florida’s Death Row at Union Correctional Institution, in Raiford, Fla., on June 21, 2018. A Florida prosecutor has agreed to allow DNA testing on evidence that helped convict Zeigler for the 1975 murders of his wife, in-laws and an acquaintance at the family’s furniture store and landed him on death row. (Cherie Diez/Tampa Bay Times via AP) A Florida prosecutor has agreed to allow DNA testing on evidence that helped convict a man for the 1975 murders of his wife, in-laws and an acquaintance at the family’s furniture store and landed him on death row. Monique H. Worrell, who was elected state attorney for the Orlando area in November, has agreed to allow testing that Tommy Zeigler and his many supporters believe will show he is innocent of gunning down the four on Christmas Eve. Previous prosecutors have contended Zeigler staged the massacre as a robbery to collect his wife’s life insurance policy. The Tampa Bay Times reports that Worrell’s office recently agreed to give all evidence in the case to Zeigler’s attorneys for testing at a lab certified by the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors. The agreement will now go before a judge, but is expected to be approved. In particular, Zeigler’s attorney wants to test his clothing to see if it has the victims’ blood on it and the fingernail clippings of his father-in-law, who fought his killer before being shot. A previous test in 2001 failed to detect any DNA from the victims on four small patches of his clothing, but prosecutors blocked attempts to do a full test, saying other evidence ties Zeigler to the murders. “I am hoping and praying that the test results come back with enough evidence to force the court to grant me a new trial!” Zeigler wrote in a Thursday email to the Times. Worrell reviewed the case when she lead the office’s conviction integrity unit and concluded Zeigler had not received a fair trial. “Can the state of Florida legally decline to support additional DNA testing? Absolutely,” Worrell wrote in a 2019 memo to her predecessor. “Can the state of Florida morally justify a decline to support additional testing? Absolutely not.” Her predecessor rejected her recommendation, but now the final decision was hers. The killings happened at W.T. Zeigler Furniture in Winter Garden. Prosecutors contended at Zeigler’s 1976 trial that he lured his wife, Eunice, to the store to kill her, and her parents, Perry and Virginia Edwards, got in the way. A fruit picker Zeigler knew named Charlie Mays was killed, too. They had all been shot. They said Zeigler then shot himself in the stomach to make it appear that he, too, was a victim. They say he staged the robbery so he could collect on a $500,000 life insurance policy he took out on his wife just months before. Zeigler said then and now that he went to the store to make some last-minute Christmas deliveries. Unbeknownst to him, his wife and in-laws, who had come to look at a recliner that was to be her father’s Christmas present, were already dead in various places in the store. After finding the lights shut off at the breaker box, he was hit over the head and beaten by two men. He lost his glasses but managed to find and fire one of the guns he kept in the store. He believes Mays — who had cash from the store stuffed in his pocket — was one of the attackers and was killed in the gunfight. Zeigler says that when he came to after being knocked out, he was the only one left alive in the store. Whoever else attacked him had fled. Zeigler was found guilty on July 2, 1976, amid allegations of juror misconduct. One of the jurors, now dead, said in media interviews after the trial that she believed Zeigler was innocent and that she was harassed and coerced into voting guilty by other jurors who wanted to finish up in time for the nation’s Bicentennial celebration two days later. The jury then voted to recommend a life sentence, but the judge — in an exceedingly rare move in Florida — overruled the panel and sentenced him to death. Zeigler has twice been scheduled to die, but the execution was stopped — once with less than a day to spare. “The entire process has not been handled as it should have been,” David Michaeli, one of Zeigler’s attorneys, told the Times earlier this year. “And if you don’t have a criminal justice system that works for Tommy Zeigler, you don’t have one that works for me or you, either.”