3 children, 2 adults dead in ‘tragic, domestic violence situation’; teen boy in custody
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(FALL CITY, Wash.) —Three children and two adults are dead, and a teenager is in custody, following a domestic violence situation at a home in a quiet Washington state neighborhood, authorities said.
Deputies responded to multiple 911 calls Monday morning that reported gunshots in Fall City, about 25 miles east of Seattle, the King County Sheriff’s Office said.
Five people were found dead: three children and two adults, the sheriff’s office said. One victim, a girl, survived and was admitted to a hospital with undisclosed injuries, authorities said.
A 15-year-old boy has been taken into custody in connection with the incident, the sheriff’s office said.
All of the victims appeared to be members of the same family, according to the sheriff’s office.
King County sheriff’s deputy Mike Mellis described the case as a “tragic, domestic violence situation” and a firearms-related homicide investigation.
The victims’ neighborhood is small, quiet and doesn’t normally see police activity, Mellis said, adding that the family had no significant history with the sheriff’s office.
“It’s just unfathomable,” neighbor Cameron Doerrer told ABC Seattle affiliate KOMO. “The younger kids, especially, [were] the sweetest children. So polite.”
(NEW YORK) — It was a story tailor-made for Hollywood: A wealthy white family takes in a Black teenager, guiding his football career from a high school standout to Ole Miss to the NFL. However, years later now Michael Oher claims he was blindsided by the movie that so many of us know and love, underscoring the importance of his perspective for a balanced narrative.
The Tuohy family and Michael Oher’s inspiring story was a book by acclaimed author Michael Lewis and then a blockbuster movie — “The Blind Side.”
The movie premiered in 2009 and reportedly earned $300 million at the box office. Sandra Bullock won an Oscar for portraying Leigh Ann Tuohy, a strong and determined character not to be underestimated.
Audiences embraced the movie’s message of racial harmony, but now the retired NFL star, who is a Super Bowl champion offensive tackle, is questioning everything he thought was true.
“The movie is something that will shadow Michael Oher for life because people think they know his story,” Michael Sokolove, a New York Times journalist and author who interviewed and spent time with Oher, said. “But that’s not actually Michael Oher.”
In a surprising turn, Oher is now suing the family that took him in.
An “IMPACT x Nightline” episode, now available to stream on Hulu, unpacks how such a feel-good story ended up mired in contentious litigation and looks at how everything went so wrong.
In his lawsuit, Oher alleges that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy saw him as a “gullible young man whose athletic talent could be exploited for their own benefit,” and that the Tuohys claimed he was their adopted son when, in reality, he wasn’t.
“What happened is that he entered a conservatorship with the Tuohys, which is wildly different than an adoption,” ESPN reporter Kelley Carter said.
Oher and his attorneys filed a 15-page petition against the Tuohys, alleging that they and their children have made millions of dollars off Oher’s name and story while Michael Oher has made comparatively little.
The petition also accuses the Tuohys of negotiating a movie deal where they would reap millions while Oher and others received nothing.
Oher seeks a full accounting of the money earned from using his story and unspecified damages.
Oher said he did not wish to respond when ABC News reached out to him for comment.
The lawyers for the Tuohys stated that each family member, including Oher, made an equal amount of money from the film.
In court filings, the Tuohys submitted an accounting statement showing they made full payments to Oher for his equal share. The amount was a little over $138,000, one-fifth of the money they say they all made from the movie.
The Tuohy family is claiming that Oher is trying to extort them. Text messages they say are between them and the former NFL star allegedly show Oher demanding they pay him millions, writing in a text, “If something isn’t resolved this Friday, I’m going to go ahead and tell the world how my supposed-to-be parents robbed me. That’s the deadline.”
“Whether we agree with how he sees it, I think it’s understandable that someone would feel differently as a 38-year-old adult than they would as an 18-year-old or even a 26-year-old in the midst of trying to stay in the NFL,” Sokolove said.
The Tuohys filing states that the term “adopted” was always used in its colloquial sense and was never intended as a legal term of art.
“This is a sad day,” Steve Farese Sr., lawyer for the Tuohy Family, said. “It’s devastating to the family. And we hope that it doesn’t have a chilling effect on others who want to help needy individuals.”
The Touhys declined to comment to ABC News, but in an interview with The Daily Memphian last year, Sean Tuohy said lawyers advised them that they couldn’t adopt Oher since he was over the age of 18. However, it is legal to adopt an adult in Tennessee.
Attorneys for the Tuohys say Oher always knew he was in a conservatorship.
“Fact of the matter is, he wrote a book in 2011,” Randall Fishman, attorney for the Tuohy family, said. “And in 2011, he acknowledged in that book, on three separate occasions in that book, that he — that there was, in fact, a conservatorship.”
In the book “I Beat the Odds,” Oher explains that the term “adoptive parents” pretty much means the same thing as “legal guardians,” but the laws were written to consider his age. He didn’t care about the terminology which was explained to him that way by the Tuohys; he was just happy that no one could argue that they weren’t legally what they already knew was real: a family.
“Ultimately, Michael Oher did win a victory, maybe just a moral victory, in getting the Tuohys to pull down any mention that Michael Oher is their adopted son and to stop saying that going forward,” ABC News legal contributor Brian Buckmire said.
Just last year, at Oher’s request, the probate court judge dissolved the nearly 20-year conservatorship. The Tuohy family also agreed to remove all mentions of Oher’s supposed adoption from their websites, and not to mention adoption in public speeches.
“People don’t know anything about me,” Oher told ABC News’ Deborah Roberts in a 2009 interview. “I mean, you might see something on TV and think you know, but you gotta get to know me as a person. But you’ll never know a person by watching a movie or reading a book.”
Now, as the legal case wends its way through the court system, Oher is moving on to the next season of his life. Since 2022, Oher has been the president of the Oher Foundation, a nonprofit set up to empower economically disadvantaged kids through high school scholarships.
In an interview last year with “Good Morning America,” Oher said, “I shouldn’t be a miracle. And no kid — we shouldn’t be miracles. We should have opportunities and resources to live a normal, young adult, child life and grow up and be successful.”
ABC News’ Kevin Rochford, Kelley Robinson, Claire Pedersen and Jaclyn Skurie contributed to this report.
(TAMPA, Fla.) — Tampa General Hospital put its flood barrier to the test during Hurricane Helene late last month, helping protect the facility from record storm surge.
As Hurricane Milton is expected to bring record-breaking storm surge yet again to the region, the hospital — located on the bay near downtown Tampa — is surrounded by the water-impermeable barrier once more.
Milton is expected to make landfall Wednesday night near Sarasota, south of Tampa, as a Category 3 hurricane. The National Weather Service in Tampa Bay warned on Monday that Milton could be the “worst storm to impact the Tampa area in over 100 years.”
While several health care facilities are suspending service due to Milton, Tampa General Hospital, the region’s only Level I Trauma Center, is preparing to continue normal operations.
The hospital said it has several mitigation measures in place for the storm, including its barrier, made by the company AquaFence. The fence is built to withstand storm surge up to 15 feet above sea level, the hospital said.
Peak storm surge in the Tampa Bay area topped six feet during Helene, which set a new record. The flood barrier “worked effectively to prevent the storm surge from flooding” the main campus, the hospital said in the wake of Helene.
Milton could bring a record-breaking storm surge to the Tampa Bay area. Six to nine feet of storm surge is forecast for the Tampa Bay area.
The hospital said Tuesday it had completed assembly of its flood barrier ahead of Milton “to protect vulnerable areas of the campus against storm surge and flooding.”
“While AquaFence has proven effective in the past, it is just the first line of defense and one of many mitigation efforts we’ve implemented this week to safely continue care for our patients,” Jennifer Crabtree, chief of staff at Tampa General, said in a statement to ABC Orlando affiliate WFTV.
Other measures to help sustain hospital operations during the storm include an on-site water source, in the event that water service is disrupted, and an on-site energy plant located 33 feet above sea level that is built to withstand the impact and flooding of a Category 5 hurricane, the hospital said. The hospital said it has also stocked up on more than five days of supplies, including food and linens, and more than 5,000 gallons of water.
Tampa Bay, and many areas across the surrounding peninsula, are particularly vulnerable to hurricanes since these regions have not been hit with a major hurricane in decades.
Hospital systems in the region have invested in flood mitigation, hardening their facilities and moving electrical equipment to levels to protect against flooding, according to Mary Mayhew, president and CEO of the Florida Hospital Association.
“Flooding is such a huge concern,” Mayhew told ABC News. “And now, on the heels of Helene, where we have debris that is, strewn up and down the Gulf Coast, drains are plugged, they’re filled with sand.”
Letcher County Sheriff Mickey Stines (Letcher County)
(NEW YORK) — The Kentucky sheriff accused of fatally shooting a judge in his chambers is retiring, according to a letter from the murder suspect’s attorney.
Letcher County Sheriff Shawn “Mickey” Stines, 43, was charged with first-degree murder in connection with the death of Kentucky District Judge Kevin Mullins, 54, who authorities said was gunned down inside his chambers in the Letcher County Courthouse on Sept. 19.
Stines “has made the difficult decision” to retire on Monday, attorneys Jeremy Bartley and Kerri Bartley stated in a letter addressed to S. Travis Mayo, deputy counsel at the Kentucky governor’s office.
“This decision is made, not as a result of any ultimatum or in any way as a concession to any allegations made by the Commonwealth of Kentucky,” the letter stated. “Rather, Sheriff Stines has made this decision to allow for a successor to continue to protect his beloved constituents while he addresses the legal process ahead of him.”
Stines pleaded not guilty to the first-degree murder charge during his first court appearance last week.
There was no discussion of a bond during the hearing, Lexington ABC affiliate WTVQ-TV reported.
He is expected back in court on Tuesday.
Stines could face the death penalty if convicted, according to a special judge appointed to preside over the case.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear had previously called on Stines to resign in the wake of the incident by Sept. 27. If not, Beshear said there is a “removal process” he can start.
“Every Kentucky county needs an active and working sheriff,” Beshear said at an unrelated press briefing last week. “Right now, Letcher County doesn’t have an active and a working sheriff.”
Mullins was found with multiple gunshot wounds after a 911 caller reported shots being fired inside the courthouse, and Stines was taken into custody without incident at the courthouse, police said.
The shooting allegedly occurred “following an argument inside the courthouse,” according to Kentucky State Police, and investigators are still searching for a motive.
The two had had lunch together the day of the shooting, Letcher County Circuit Clerk Mike Watts told WTVQ.
Days before the shooting, Stines was deposed in a lawsuit, which alleged he had failed to investigate one of his deputies who sexually abused a woman in Mullins’ chambers.
