Cellphone Lost, then Held for Ransom at Zombiecon

A story just in time for Halloween.

A 28-year-old Cape Coral, Florida man was arrested Monday night after finding a man's lost cell phone and holding it ransom for $300, police said.

The victim, Michael Pfister, told Lee County Sheriff's Office deputies that he lost his cell phone Friday night at the Zombicon event in downtown Fort Myers.

On Saturday afternoon, Pfister's girlfriend received several text messages from the missing phone.

The suspect with the phone, later identified as Joel Ervin, demanded $200 for the return of the phone.
The suspect also stated that if police were called, the phone would be destroyed.

Pfister arranged to meet the suspect and make the transaction. When the two met, Ervin demanded $300 for the exchange.

Pfister was able to relay the vehicle information and description of Ervin to deputies shortly after the transaction was made.

Ervin was located a short time later and stopped by the deputies.

The money, along with the cell phone were returned to Pfister.

Ervin has been charged with dealing in stolen property, and grand theft over $300 and under $5,000.

Tropical Storm Irene Could Become Hurricane

 

Tropical Storm Irene, the ninth named storm of the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season, formed on Saturday east of the Caribbean's Leeward Islands and was heading westward, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

At 7 p.m, the storm was packing winds near 50 miles per hour and was about 190 miles east of Dominica, the Miami-based hurricane center said.

Irene's forecast track would pass near or over Puerto Rico and mountainous Hispaniola, the island shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti, and the storm could be over the Florida Keys by late next week, forecasters say. It could develop into the first hurricane of the 2011 Atlantic season.

Depending on its eventual path, Irene could pose a threat to the United States or U.S. oil and gas installations in the Gulf of Mexico.

New Years Day Bowl Plays of the Day: Florida and Wisconsin

New Years Day is traditionally the biggest college bowl day of the year.  It's a day to get comfortable infront of the television, eat some junk food and watch a day-long marathon of football.

Two picks today:

Outback Bowl - Florida

Florida, in Urban Meyer's last game as head coach is only giving Penn St. and Joe Paterno 7 pts.  I see the Gators in a blowout.  Both teams are 7-5 and are looking to go out winners on this season.  Florida is  4-1 ATS in their last 5 bowl games with Meyer at the helm.

Look for Meyer to go out as a big winner in the Outback Bowl.  Take the Gators -7.

The Rose Bowl - Wisconsin

 Should be a good Rose Bowl here.  12-0 TCU and 11-1 Wisconsin. 

To say Wisconsin has been dominating teams is an understatement.  To close out the regular season, they scored 70 against Northwestern and before that they scored 83 vs. Indiana.  They are rolling and TCU is going to have to work hard to stop them. 

TCU is no slouch, especially on defense.  But the Badgers are 6-0 ATS in their last 6 games following a S.U. win and are 5-0 ATS in their last 5 games following a ATS win.  Strong trends for Wisco along with the fact they play well against teams that are good, going 4-0 ATS vs. a team with a winning record.

The Horned Frogs are 1-4 ATS in their last 5 non-conference games, so the play would be takeWisconsin and the 3 pts.  Wisconsin will probably even win the game.

Enjoy the games today.

The Big Chill on the East Coast

A wall of cold air is set up perfectly along the East Coast and continues to deliver bone-chilling cold into the Deep South. All throughout Dixie, morning temperatures will hover in the 20's with wind chills as low as the single digits at times.

By the afternoon, temperatures will only warm up into the middle 30's. The record low maximum for the date is 34 degrees - our forecast high is 35. But the real problem will be the wind, which will whip at 15 to 25 mph at times creating afternoon wind chills in the 20's.

Overnight, we'll see lows dip below 20 degrees. Wind chills will again be right around 10 degrees with some places seeing single digit readings.

The cold air is even blowing as far south as Florida.

New record temperatures were set across South Florida Tuesday morning as the Arctic blast of cold air blew into the region.

Palm Beach International Airport, a new record low this morning 32 broke the old record of 33 set in 1966.

Vero Beach set a new record low this morning of 26, breaking the old record of 28 set in 1966!

There's another freeze warning tonight, with record lows possible again. The records tonight: PBIA -- 36 degrees; Vero Beach -- 35.

Bundle up.

Florida Coach to Step Down Again

According to the Twitter page of Sporting News Radio host Todd Wright, Florida’s Urban Meyer will step down later today from his position of head coach.

Others have also tweeted the Meyer news, stating  that the Gators head coach indeed will step down and that a press conference will be held later this evening to announce the decision.

We've heard this before, so Gator haters don't get too excited.  After the season Florida just had, I'd be interested to hear what the opinions of Gators are about Meyer at this point.

Gator fans aren't as patients as Georgia Bulldog fans are.