Fort Myers teen finds dead body in bed of his truckFGCU softball falls to No. 4 Florida in NCAA Tournament
FORT MYERS Fort Myers teen finds dead body in bed of his truck A 16-year-old in Fort Myers drove to school, drove home, drove to the barbershop and back home again. Then, he noticed a swarm of flies in the back of his truck.
Scottie Scheffler facing felony charges; local attorney reacts The attorney we spoke with told us that, at a minimum, we’d spend the night in jail before having our first appearance and getting bail.
GAINESVILLE FGCU softball falls to No. 4 Florida in NCAA Tournament The FGCU softball team couldn’t keep up with the No. 4 Florida Gators as the Eagles drop their first Regional game 6-0 to the Gators.
Summer Safety: Swim safety tips to know before the summer The pool is warming up to be the hot spot for kids and families this summer. It’s now also the number one leading cause of drowning deaths for children ages 1-4 in the state.
FORT MYERS BEACH ‘The Whale’ restaurant to break ground on new building The Whale is a place that has shown great strength and determination.
COLLIER COUNTY Endangered Florida panther deaths surpass 2023 total in 5 months It’s taken wildlife officials just over four and a half months to report finding more dead endangered Florida panthers than in all of 2023.
FORT MYERS FMPD honors 7 officers and 2 K-9s who died in the line of duty dating back to 1930 Nine lives were given, and all nine will remain remembered. A lifetime of gratitude for the fallen officers.
Firefighter recovering from heat exhaustion after battling flames in Collier County It happened at Progress Rail, a transit corporation on Mercantile Avenue just before 5am on Friday.
FORT MYERS How do SWFL graduation rates compare to the state average? How do graduation rates for Charlotte, Lee and Collier Counties stack up against the state? WINK News crunched the numbers.
FORT MYERS Community divisive over ‘justified’ officer-involved shooting of Christopher Jordan A detective who killed an unarmed black man in a controversial shooting will be back at work on Monday.
CAPE CORAL Family submits civil complaint against Cape Coral Police Department The family of a 13-year-old boy who was struck and killed while riding his scooter has officially filed a civil complaint.
FORT MYERS Community reacts to ‘justified’ officer-involved shooting of Christopher Jordan Leaders with the NAACP are saying there is a divide between the black community and Fort Myers police.
NAPLES Inside look at $21 million Naples Players Theater, set to open at the end of May On Friday, as the theater’s 70th season approached, leaders and organizers invited WINK News for a ‘hard-hat-tour’ to showcase the new additions and construction updates.
FORT MYERS Detective who fired fatal shot at Christopher Jordan returns to work Monday Fort Myers police have confirmed to WINK News the detective who shot and killed a man inside his home will return to work Monday morning.
FORT MYERS Bishop Verot onto first state semifinals in nearly a decade A trip to the FHSAA State Semifinals has been a long time coming for the Bishop Verot Vikings who have not been since 2016.
FORT MYERS Fort Myers teen finds dead body in bed of his truck A 16-year-old in Fort Myers drove to school, drove home, drove to the barbershop and back home again. Then, he noticed a swarm of flies in the back of his truck.
Scottie Scheffler facing felony charges; local attorney reacts The attorney we spoke with told us that, at a minimum, we’d spend the night in jail before having our first appearance and getting bail.
GAINESVILLE FGCU softball falls to No. 4 Florida in NCAA Tournament The FGCU softball team couldn’t keep up with the No. 4 Florida Gators as the Eagles drop their first Regional game 6-0 to the Gators.
Summer Safety: Swim safety tips to know before the summer The pool is warming up to be the hot spot for kids and families this summer. It’s now also the number one leading cause of drowning deaths for children ages 1-4 in the state.
FORT MYERS BEACH ‘The Whale’ restaurant to break ground on new building The Whale is a place that has shown great strength and determination.
COLLIER COUNTY Endangered Florida panther deaths surpass 2023 total in 5 months It’s taken wildlife officials just over four and a half months to report finding more dead endangered Florida panthers than in all of 2023.
FORT MYERS FMPD honors 7 officers and 2 K-9s who died in the line of duty dating back to 1930 Nine lives were given, and all nine will remain remembered. A lifetime of gratitude for the fallen officers.
Firefighter recovering from heat exhaustion after battling flames in Collier County It happened at Progress Rail, a transit corporation on Mercantile Avenue just before 5am on Friday.
FORT MYERS How do SWFL graduation rates compare to the state average? How do graduation rates for Charlotte, Lee and Collier Counties stack up against the state? WINK News crunched the numbers.
FORT MYERS Community divisive over ‘justified’ officer-involved shooting of Christopher Jordan A detective who killed an unarmed black man in a controversial shooting will be back at work on Monday.
CAPE CORAL Family submits civil complaint against Cape Coral Police Department The family of a 13-year-old boy who was struck and killed while riding his scooter has officially filed a civil complaint.
FORT MYERS Community reacts to ‘justified’ officer-involved shooting of Christopher Jordan Leaders with the NAACP are saying there is a divide between the black community and Fort Myers police.
NAPLES Inside look at $21 million Naples Players Theater, set to open at the end of May On Friday, as the theater’s 70th season approached, leaders and organizers invited WINK News for a ‘hard-hat-tour’ to showcase the new additions and construction updates.
FORT MYERS Detective who fired fatal shot at Christopher Jordan returns to work Monday Fort Myers police have confirmed to WINK News the detective who shot and killed a man inside his home will return to work Monday morning.
FORT MYERS Bishop Verot onto first state semifinals in nearly a decade A trip to the FHSAA State Semifinals has been a long time coming for the Bishop Verot Vikings who have not been since 2016.
FILE – A memorial to the victims is seen outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., during the one-year anniversary of the school shooting, Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019. The three-story building in the background is where the massacre happened. Jurors in the trial of Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz walked through the still blood-spattered rooms of the high school Thursday, Aug. 4, 2022, in a visit to the three-story building where he murdered 14 students and three staff members four years ago. (Al Diaz/Miami Herald via AP, File) The 2018 Parkland high school massacre will be reenacted twice with the firing of about 140 blanks on campus as part of families’ lawsuits against the former sheriff’s deputy they accuse of failing to stop the gunman, a judge ruled Wednesday. Circuit Judge Carol-Lisa Phillips granted the motion from attorney David Brill, who says his video-recorded reenactment will prove former Broward Deputy Scot Peterson knew the shooter was firing inside a three-story classroom building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018, but chose not to intercede. Phillips also granted the request by Peterson’s attorney, Michael Piper, who questioned the validity of such reenactments but said his side would also now need to conduct one. Peterson, the school’s on-campus deputy, was acquitted last month of criminal charges accusing him of inaction, but the civil case against him, the Broward Sheriff’s Office and others is governed by different laws and rules of evidence. It also has a lower standard of proof. The judge made it clear that she was not ruling on whether she will allow the reenactments to be played for the jury at the trial, which has not been scheduled. “That’s for another day,” Phillips said of that decision. She will have to review the reenactments’ recordings and hear arguments on whether they accurately reflect what Peterson heard. Families of the 17 killed and 26 injured are seeking unspecified damages in lawsuits that are being tried jointly. The judge ordered that the reenactments be conducted before the school’s summer break ends next month and that nearby residents be given sufficient warning. She wants them done on the same or consecutive days. The reenactments would be based on school surveillance videos of the massacre that show second-by-second the actions and locations of Peterson and shooter Nikolas Cruz during the six-minute attack. Reenactors playing Cruz would fire nearly 140 blanks from guns identical to the AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle he used from the same spots on each floor. The school’s fire alarms would sound at the same moments they did during the shooting. Meanwhile, reenactors playing Peterson and wearing a recording device would duplicate his actions as he rode on a golf cart from his office about 100 yards from the classroom building. Peterson was dropped off about 10 yards from the building about two minutes after the shooting began. Peterson went toward a door and drew his handgun but then backed away, taking cover next to a neighboring building. He remained there for 40 minutes, long after the shooting ended and other law enforcement officers went inside, making radio calls to dispatchers and other deputies. The families and injured insist he could have gone inside and shot Cruz or at least distracted him, saving the six killed and four wounded after he arrived at the building. Peterson, 60, insists that echoes prevented him from pinpointing where the shots were coming from and that he would have charged inside if he had known Cruz’s location. He retired shortly after the shooting but was then retroactively fired. Brill told the judge he wants to reenact the shooting because “we don’t want to leave anything to chance and allow Peterson to escape justice in this civil case like he did in the criminal one.” He said the reenactment will provide “similarly sufficient evidence” that Peterson knew shots were coming from the building, meaning he should have looked through the door — something Brill believes he did but has lied about. “He could hear the cacophony of the gun discharge of a …. rifle that was about 50 yards from his position,” Brill said. Peterson, if he looked, would have seen “deceased people, blood, the shooter, the shooter’s jacket that he threw on the floor.” Piper said he doesn’t believe the reenactments will accurately depict what Peterson heard. He said blanks don’t sound exactly like bullets and it is impossible to accurately recreate the direction and angle of Cruz’s gun. There were also hundreds of people in the building, others in the area and cars in the parking lot that would muffle and deflect sounds. “It is going to be impossible for this to be reliable … evidence,” Piper said. “There are so many variables that cannot be accounted for.” He said the best evidence will be witness testimony about what they heard. Some witnesses at Peterson’s criminal trial testified they knew where the shots were coming from, while others said they were unsure or incorrect about the shooter’s location. It is unclear whether the reenactments will delay the school district’s plan to demolish the classroom building, which has been locked behind a chain-link barrier as evidence in the Cruz and Peterson criminal cases while the rest of the campus reopened to students in 2018. The jury in Cruz’s penalty trial last year toured the building, but the judge in Peterson’s trial rejected a prosecution motion to have his jury do the same. Victims’ families, the wounded and teachers have been given the opportunity over the last week to tour the building, if they chose. Cruz, 24 and a former Stoneman Douglas student, received a life sentence last year after his jury could not unanimously agree that he deserved the death penalty.