83-year-old woman’s lottery winnings stolen by man who attacked her in store parking lot
Police are hunting for a suspect who was allegedly caught on camera violently robbing an 83-year-old woman of her lottery winnings shortly after claiming them from a convenience store, police said. Via Facebook / Orange County Sheriff’s Office
(ORLANDO, Fla.) — Police are hunting for a suspect who was allegedly caught on camera violently robbing an 83-year-old woman of her lottery winnings shortly after claiming them from a convenience store, police said.
The incident occurred on Wednesday morning shortly after 8 a.m. outside a store on Curry Ford Road, near the intersection of S. Goldenrod Road in Orlando, Florida, according to a statement from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.
Authorities posted surveillance footage of the violent robbery on social media where the unnamed 83-year-old woman is seen walking out of the store to her car with what looks to be the lottery winnings she had just collected.
It was then that the suspect, who authorities named as Diego Stalin Tavarez Fleury, can be seen walking directly toward the woman and attempting to forcibly take the winnings from her hand as she tried to defend herself.
Another man who was in the convenience store is then seen coming outside and appears to intervene between the victim and the suspect, causing Fleury to further attack the woman in an attempt to steal the money while the good Samaritan tried to pull him off of the victim.
Fleury, however, can be seen dragging the woman from her car further into the parking lot before ultimately stealing her winnings and running off.
The suspect is currently at large and wanted for robbery, sudden snatching and battery on a person 65 or older, authorities said, and anyone with information on Fleury’s whereabouts is asked to contact the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.
Regina Mullen, mother of, Kyle, a Navy SEAL that died in February 2022/ABC News
(NEW YORK) –The mother of a Navy SEAL recruit who died after completing “hell week” training has told ABC News that the cases against the men she blames for her son’s death were dismissed by the Navy and she says she hasn’t been told why.
In February 2022, 24-year-old Kyle Mullen died after successfully endured the 120-hour week of brutal training that’s designed to push Navy SEAL candidates to their physical and mental limits.
His mother, Regina Mullen, is now demanding accountability for his death.
Mullen recounted parts of her son’s story on “Good Morning America” in an interview with ABC News’ Will Reeve airing on Tuesday morning.
“I got a text. It said, ‘Hell Week Secured!’” Mullen told “GMA.” “So I immediately called him and he answered and he was out of breath and he said, ‘Hey mom, I did it. Hell Week secured.’ And I said, First I’m like, ‘my God, you’re all happy.’ And then I’m like, ‘wait a minute, you all right? Are you in a hospital? You don’t sound good.’”
“All he said to me is, ‘Mom, I love you. Don’t worry about me. And he hung up,” Mullen continued.
Kyle died hours later from bacterial pneumonia, with the final medical check showing swollen legs that required him to be sent back to his barracks in a wheelchair with abnormalities in his lungs and severe trouble breathing.
A Navy investigation cited failures “across multiple systems” that led to a number of candidates being at a “higher risk of serious injury” with “inconsistent medical monitoring.”
Additionally, a “lack of training” among commanding officers and an “at all costs” mindset among the candidates was also cited in the investigation.
“We have a failed leadership and under a command that killed a man unnecessarily and injured many,” said Regina Mullen. “I think it’s pretty reasonable to ask for accountability.”
Mullen insists that Capt. Brad Geary, who was in charge of her son’s trainee class, and Cmdr. Doctor Erik Ramey are responsible.
But now, with the case being dismissed, Regina Mullen said questions still remain about the quality of her son’s medical care and that she has not yet been provided with any answers.
“The Navy’s not giving me what I’m asking for,” Mullen said. “The medical treatment of Kyle’s care — why won’t they provide it? I want the Board of Inquiry to be reinstated. This is what I really want so we can go public.”
A lawyer for Geary released a statement to ABC News saying “this case was badly mishandled from the beginning. When we were noticed for the board of inquiry it became very clear that a comprehensive investigation had never been done and the deciding officer hadn’t had access to all the evidence. Through the discovery process, the Navy was forced to gather all the relevant evidence which made continuing the case unsustainable.”
Ramey’s attorney told ABC News that “we invested a substantial amount of time investigating the case with the assistance of top medical experts. The overwhelming evidence confirmed that Dr. Ramey met the medical standard of care.”
The investigation also looked into allegations of the use of performance enhancing drugs among SEAL candidates. Authorities say they found a bottled labeled as human growth hormone in Mullen’s car. Investigators, however, “determined that [Mullen] died in the line of duty, and not due to own misconduct.”
Mullen says the medical examiner told her they did not test her son for steroid use. “She said that they didn’t test for it because it was irrelevant to the cause of death. Right. For the medical exam, for the Navy medical examiner.”
The Navy has refused to comment, “citing privacy considerations for the officers.”
“Cases sometimes take a long time and that can be frustrating,” Regina Mullen’s attorney, Kevin Uniglicht, told ABC News. “The problem in this case is that when we have a dismissal, we don’t have a basis for it. Secondly, when we’re doing our investigation and we can’t find documents, we have to question, where are the documents? Was there ever treatment? If there is treatment, why didn’t it follow the military’s protocol on medical standards?”
“We’re trying to figure out what they’re hiding. It’s simple as that,” Uniglicht continued.
Since her son’s death, Regina Mullen says she has seen some improvement, with candidate’s vitals being checked more consistently and preventative antibiotics administered prior to “hell week” so sailors don’t catch pneumonia. But, she says, more work still needs to be done.
Mullen said she still lives with the pain of her son’s death every day.
“I’m deflated, I’m upset,” Mullen said. “The pain is unreal for me. I don’t get the call anymore. I don’t get the jokes anymore. I don’t get the little cards. I don’t get that anymore.”
“Before he left the Navy, I said, ‘how am I going to live my life if something happens to you?’” Mullen continued. “He said, ‘Mom, you’re the strongest person I know. You got this.’”
“He was just trying to be a hero and protect people,” Mullen said. “And it happened by his own … own country, by his own military.”
(TEXAS) — At least three people have died after heavy rain brought record-breaking flooding to South Texas, according to officials.
The deaths occurred in Hidalgo County, where officials issued a disaster declaration as a result of the flooding. The county, which includes the city of McAllen, saw some of the heaviest rain accumulations over the last 24 hours.
There was no further information about the three deaths immediately available, but officials said they would release more details later.
A large part of South Texas is still reeling from the life-threatening flooding that began overnight and continued into Friday morning.
Thunderstorms began Wednesday, with another round of heavy rainfall on Thursday afternoon and evening. The rain continued through Friday afternoon.
The National Weather Service issued flash flooding emergency warnings multiple times on Thursday and overnight for South McAllen and Harlingen — both located in the Rio Grande Valley in the southernmost parts of Texas.
“This is a particularly dangerous situation,” the NWS said in a statement issued Thursday night, urging people to avoid travel unless fleeing a region subject to flooding or are under an evacuation order.
The region received between 6 inches and a foot of rain or more in some areas, according to the NWS. McAllen got more than 6 inches of rain, while more than 14 inches was recorded at the Valley International Airport in Harlingen.
The NWS received reports for several vehicles stranded on Interstate 2 in waist-deep water, according to the agency. Dozens of water rescues took place as a result of the flash flooding.
Video shows first responders in inflatable boats rescuing people stranded on roadways. The South Texas Health System hospital in McAllen experienced minor flooding on its first floor.
Several school districts in the region canceled classes on Friday, as did the South Texas College in McAllen.
Flooding continued into Friday morning, with rivers nearly overflowing. A flood watch is in effect for parts of South Texas and southern Louisiana.
Water levels at the Arroyo Colorado River at Harlingen are nearing a record-breaking 30 feet. There is no precedent for the kind of damage a 30-foot water level in the Arroyo Colorado River could do, according to the NWS. The previous record water levels measured at the Arroyo Colorado River was 24 feet.
The flooding stemmed from a stationary boundary — a front between warm and cold air masses that moves very slowly or not at all. A band of significantly heavy storms was forming over the same hard-hit areas on Friday morning. A storm with 3-inch rain rates was forming over Harlingen on Friday morning.
The system also conjured up a tornado, with a twister reported near Edcouch, Texas, about 25 miles northeast of McAllen, that damaged several structures.
The potential for showers and thunderstorms in this region is expected to continue through the afternoon, with the threat ending Friday evening, forecasts show.
(ILLINOIS) — An Illinois man has been convicted of murder and hate crime charges in the 2023 fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy.
Wadee Alfayoumi was stabbed 26 times and his mother more than a dozen in the Oct. 14, 2023, attack inside their home in the Chicago suburb of Plainfield.
Their landlord, 73-year-old Joseph Czuba, was indicted on multiple murder charges, as well as attempted murder, aggravated battery and hate crime counts. He had pleaded not guilty.
Authorities said he targeted his tenants because they were Muslim and in response to the war between Israel and Hamas that had just ignited after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
A Will County jury found Czuba guilty of all counts.
Jurors began deliberating around noon Friday, before reaching their verdict less than two hours later.
Wadee’s father, Odai Alfyoumi, thanked those who supported him in remarks following the verdict.
“I don’t know if I should be pleased or upset, if I should be crying or laughing,” he said through a translator during a press briefing with the Chicago division of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, the U.S.’ largest Muslim civil rights organization.
“People are telling me to smile. Maybe if I were one of you, I would be smiling. But I’m the father of the child, and I’ve lost the child,” he said.
He also prayed that “this senseless loss is the last that we will see, that no child would suffer what my beloved had to go through.”
CAIR Chicago Executive Director Ahmed Rehab said they are pleased with the verdict, calling it a “very clear-cut case.”
“This is a case that shook up the Muslim community, the Palestinian community, and really Chicago and Illinois and the nation, maybe even the world at large,” Rehab said. “This is one of the worst hate crimes that have been committed in recent memory that targeted an innocent 6-year-old boy, a kindergartner, and his mother.”
The child’s mother, Hanan Shaheen, was the first to take the stand in the weeklong trial.
She said Czuba attacked her first with a knife, stabbing her multiple times, saying, “You devil Muslim, you must die,” as her son watched, according to Chicago ABC station WLS, which was in the courtroom.
She testified that she called 911 from the bathroom when he appeared to leave, but then she started to hear her son screaming, according to WLS.
“I started hearing my son screaming, screaming, screaming, ‘Oh no, stop,'” Shaheen said, according to WLS.
Jurors also listened to the mother’s 911 call from the bathroom, in which she was heard telling the dispatcher, “He’s killing my baby,” WLS reported.
They also watched body camera footage of the officers responding to the bloody scene and were shown the knife used in the attack, which an officer said was still in the boy’s body when they arrived. Jurors additionally heard remarks Czuba made in a law enforcement vehicle following the attack.
“I thought they were going to do jihad on me,” Czuba said, according to WLS.
He also said he was “afraid for my life” and his wife and said the family was “just like infested rats,” according to WLS.
Czuba and his wife rented part of their Plainfield home to the mother and son for two years.
His now-ex-wife testified for prosecutors that Czuba became withdrawn in the days after the war and wanted the family to move out immediately, while she wanted to give them 30 days’ notice, according to The Associated Press.
Czuba did not take the stand, waiving his right to testify.
His defense attorneys told jurors at the start of the trial that there were holes in the state’s case and urged them to “go beyond the emotions to carefully examine the evidence,” according to the AP.
ABC News’ Cheryl Gendron contributed to this report.
