Episodes
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Three years ago, UPS driver Frank Ordonez was taken hostage while delivering packages on a Miami street. His truck, stolen by two armed robbers who had held up a jewelry store, took him and police on a 25-mile chase. When it was all over, Ordonez was dead and so was another innocent victim sitting in his car and caught in the crossfire. 20 officers from four police departments all shot at the truck after it got caught in rush hour traffic on a busy Thursday afternoon. Should police have shot at the truck? And who were the kidnappers? Plus an ironic twist of fate leaves another man dead. The Florida Files' Michelle Solomon takes listeners through the dreadful day, unearthing ties to the criminals, and how the families are still awaiting answers three years after the fact.
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It's been three years since a UPS driver delivering packages was taken hostage after his truck was hijacked by two armed robbers leading police on a 25-mile chase. Frank Ordonez's stepfather says it didn't have to happen. His family and the family of another innocent victim, a union rep who was stopped at a red light on his way home from work killed in the crossfire, wonder why 20 police officers began shooting at the UPS truck. Frank's sister talks about finding out the horrible news about her brother on social media. Plus, a civil case ends badly for the family. The Florida Files' Michelle Solomon takes listeners through the dreadful day and up to the present as the families continue to seek justice.
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Missing episodes?
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A 27-year-old father of two is delivering packages in a Miami neighborhood when two armed robbers hijack his UPS truck and take him hostage. Then the police chase, spanning 25 miles, which ends up in a busy intersection at rush hour. 20 police officers guns drawn begin shooting at the UPS truck. All captured on live TV. When the gunfire stops, the robbers are dead as is the hostage, and another innocent victim driving home from his union job. Three years later, the investigation remains open. The Florida Files' Michelle Solomon takes listeners through that day, hear 911 calls from frightened people in their cars, and from families with unanswered questions seeking justice.
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The FBI proclaimed him America's most prolific serial killer. Samuel Little, nicknamed the Choke and Stroke killer, criss-crossed the U.S. and confessed to strangling and killing 93 women. He got his murderous start was in Miami, where he knew the back roads and swampy Everglades were the ideal place to dump his victims. Many of the women's bodies have never been found. Cold case detectives are hoping someone remembers something that can help them.
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Torrential downpours wouldn't let up in Miami. The Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears slip and slide all over the field during Super Bowl XLI. What to do about halftime? For Miami football fans and players, the unrelenting rain may have been hell; but for performer Prince, the heavens opened up for him and he took full advantage with his finale of Purple Rain in a downpour, making history as the Best Halftime Show ever.
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Players called him "The Prophet" because of his work ethic and for never missing a chance to lead the locker room in pre-game prayers. But on the night before Super Bowl XXXIII in Miami, Atlanta Falcons safety Eugene Robinson decided to go for a little drive. He ended up in the wrong place at the worst time, offering $40 to an undercover policewoman posing as a prostitute in exchange for oral sex. He played in the game the next day against the Denver Broncos, but he and the rest of the Dirty Birds couldn't overcome Robinson's big blunder.
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Jan. 22, 1989, In the huddle near the end of Super Bowl XXIII, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana settles his teammates' nerves by pointing out comedian John Candy in the stands. The levity caps off one of the most tense Super Bowl weeks ever. While preparations are under way, a race riot breaks out in a Miami neighborhood and thousands of out of town visitors are arriving for the festivities. Should the game go on? The former mayor of Miami tells the Florida Files he was scared for his life.
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The judge overseeing the case against Yahweh ben Yahweh and his followers writes that the case is arguably the most violent ever tried in a federal court with beheadings, stabbings, and severing of body parts. Strange coincidences occur outside the courtroom as the U.S. assistant attorney's secretary is murdered outside her front door, and another witness is run over by a train. The verdict arrives, but things are far from over as Yahweh ben Yahweh is charged with one count of first degree murder by the state of Florida. What was truth about the Temple Of Love? Was Yahweh ben Yahweh wrongly persecuted or rightly prosecuted
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Assistant US Attorney Richard Scruggs gets a box of files from then Florida State Attorney Janet Reno's office. One of his prosecutor's calls it "Janet Reno's 'trash.'" Scruggs has heard of Yahweh Ben Yahweh and knows trying to convict the spiritual leader will be difficult and dangerous. But, it has to be done. Thirty years later, he reflects on the case, never before speaking publicly about it, except to The Florida Files. How he hated the star witness Robert Rozier, but had to place nice with him in the courtroom. Scruggs answers the question: Did the government pay witnesses to lie to convict Yahweh? Venita Mitchell recalls the night thousands of UFOs descended on Miami’s Temple Of Love before her father’s conviction to greet the self proclaimed son of God.
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There are many Miami killings linked to the Yahwehs, but investigators believe there is only one that happens inside the Temple of Love. When a karate champ shows, Yahweh Ben Yahweh challenges him to fight one of the Yahwehs. The disciple loses to the karate champ, but still Leonard Dupree is beaten to death. A former Yahweh member says that the spiritual leader calls him speaking in code. Yahweh Ben Yahweh says a goat was sacrificed in the Temple Of Love. Khalil Amani knew exactly what he meant.
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It's the 80s and mysterious Yahweh Ben Yahweh is buying up hotels, opening schools and grocery stores, and cleaning up rundown apartments. When he takes over a complex in Opa-locka, six miles from the Temple of Love, two residents resist leaving. Twenty-four hours later, the residents are shot dead. Found hiding in the bushes, sniffed out by a police dog, is Neariah Israel, a member of the Nation of Yahweh. He is arrested. Miami detectives find a link between those murders and several homicides where the victims' ears are severed and taken. Police say all the cases have another link – the road leads back to Miami's Temple of Love.
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It is the late 1970s when the oldest son of a Pentecostal minister from Enid, Oklahoma, arrives in Miami. The predominantly black neighborhood of Liberty City is in one of its most vulnerable times and the time is right for a spiritual leader to bring the community together. Hulon Mitchell Jr., proclaims himself the son of God, Yahweh Ben Yahweh. He founds the Nation of Yahweh and the Temple of Love. But, then people start turning up dead.
What is really going on inside Miami's Temple of Love? Or is it all a government conspiracy?
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Finally, Anna Nicole Smith is buried in Nassau, next to her beloved son Daniel along with ashes of her billionaire husband J. Howard Marshall.
Yet, there's still no rest in peace in the Bahamas.
A paternity and custody fight is playing out in court over Smith's five-month-old daughter Dannielynn, and mama Virgie believes she's the best fit to raise the child, despite a DNA test that will soon prove who the biological father is.
Back in Broward County, the Seminole Police Department and the Broward Medical Examiner are ready to release the results of what killed Anna Nicole Smith in South Florida.
Despite conclusions, 12 years later, Judge Larry Seidlin says there are still red flags waving. The little girl Anna Nicole always wanted, Dannielynn, is now 12 going on 13. She's on the honor roll at school and a Girl Scout. Contradictory to what the media reports, it's not likely that anytime soon she'll become one of the richest kids on the planet.
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In death, Anna Nicole Smith is getting the same kind of attention in life that brought her fame. Anna Nicole Smith's body is accompanied by a motorcade of police out of the Broward Medical Examiner's office to Miami International Airport in a procession usually reserved for heads of state. The Bahamian arrival is just as royal. Her mother, Virgie Arthur is the last guest to arrive at Mount Horeb Baptist Church in Nassau. She is in Nassau Supreme Court up until the last minute trying to stop the funeral and take her daughter's body back to Texas.
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After a judge approves Anna Nicole Smith's body to head to the Bahamas for burial, mama Virgie puts up a fight in Palm Beach County court.
Meanwhile there are legal battles aplenty in the Bahamas over custody of little Dannielynn and who owns the waterfront mansion that the baby and Howard K. Stern are living in.
Plus, surprises are around every corner regarding paternity testing.
Hear interviews from Larry Birkhead and former Local 10 reporter Roger Lohse on the fight for the burial in the Bahamas and more.
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It's disorder in the court as the Battle to Bury Anna plays out on cable television, and the ringleader? Judge Larry Seidlin.
In one corner, Anna Nicole's estranged mother Virgie Arthur wants to take her daughter's body to Texas. Is Virgie selling stories to the media for money?
In the other, companion and attorney Howard K. Stern who wants the bombshell buried next to her son, Daniel in the Bahamas, but there are questions about his intentions. Larry Birkhead just wants to prove Anna Nicole's baby daughter is his.
Now, 12 years later, hear interviews from those who lived through the media mayhem and the three-ring courtroom circus, and why the infamous Cryin' Judge says the Anna Nicole case still haunts him today.
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She was charismatic and beautiful, but after the death of her son Daniel, friends say Anna Nicole Smith lost her spark. The Broward County Medical Examiner's 84-page report details the former Playboy playmate's last few months, last few weeks, and final days.
It's a rollercoaster.
Birth of a daughter, and three days later the death of her son. Companion and lawyer Howard K. Stern says, "she didn't want to trade out children: one to be born and another to die." While the father of her daughter, Larry Birkhead, believes it was something she could never recover from.
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Anna Nicole Smith died 12 years ago at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida. But her death would be only the beginning of the media circus that would converge on South Florida's Broward County. So what happened that afternoon in Room 607? Why had she come to the Hard Rock Hotel to begin with? Hear from the yacht broker who was getting her pink boat Cracker ready to take its maiden voyage back to the Bahamas, and from her sister, Donna Hogan, who regrets to this day not being able to save Vickie Lynn Hogan Smith Marshall. Plus, other revelations that reveal why Anna Nicole Smith became part of The Florida Files.
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Nothing and everything has changed for Manuel Oliver since his son was shot by a gunman at his high school. The husband and father moved his family to the United States to escape the violence of Venezuela, but on Feb. 14, 2018, his son, Joaquin, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School became a statistic. Joaquin was one of 17 people shot and killed in the deadliest shooting at a high school in U.S. history. Hear how Manuel Oliver is coping with the tragedy.
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William Russell Matix and Michael Lee Platt are a modern day version of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. What happens on April 11, 1986, is like something out of a Hollywood movie. Two FBI agents gunned down, and a trail of blood from Ohio to Florida. Even decades later, questions still remain about the two-faced killers, military veterans and family men who had neighbors, wives, pastors, and police fooled.
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