Port Orange

Two eldest kids dead; third clinging to life in hospital

Photos for Headline Surfer® /

PORT ORANGE, Fla. -- A domestic quarrel between a married couple on the verge of divorce ended in bloodshed before dawn today in the Spruce Creek Farms subdivision after the wife ran out of the house and the husband taking aim at their three children -- killing two of them in the process -- before shooting himself to death.

Legal sources: Clear cut conflict of interest for jurist who may be forced to recuse himself from presiding at trial that begins Tuesday

Photos for Headline Surfer® / The big question heading into the trial for Jim Sotolongo and Ramara Garret, shown in the inset, is whether U.S. District Judge Roy B. Dalton, Jr., shown at far left, will be presiding.

ORLANDO -- Before he was nominated by President Obama and his appointed ratified by the U.S. Senate in 2011 for a federal judgeship in the Middle District of Florida, Roy B. Dalton, Jr.,was a member of the board of trustees for the Orlando-based Seaside National Bank& Trust for four years before laving to assume his position on the bench.

Headline Surfer® photo by Henry Frederick /

A Port Orange cop car is shown at 6:30 p.m. near the intersectioon of Nova Road and Spruce Creek Boulevard in Port Orange as a rainstorm pelted the area.

DAYTONA BEACH -- Heavy rain pelted Central Florida with wing gusts reported as high as 50 mph plus lightning strikes, from Kissimmee in Osceola County and heading to the coastal communities.

The storm started during the evvening commute over Central Florida moving eastward over Orange, Lake and Marion counties and into Brevard, Volusia, Flagler, Putnam and St. Johns Counties just before 7 p.m.

Photos for Headline Surfer® / Waverly Media park bench ads like this one at the intersection of U.S. 1 and Dunlawton Avenue in Port Orange, dot the landscape in Volusia County.

DAYTONA BEACH -- No matter where you drive along the major roadways in the county, invariably you are going to see more than a few of those eye-catching park bench ads.

Such is the successful advertising medium of Waverly Media, which literally has hundreds of benches dotting the landscape that is home to the world's most famous beach, the Daytona 500 and Florida's first 24/7 internet newspaper, HeadlineSurfer.com.

University of Central Florida Knights 52, Baylor Bears 42

Photos for Headline Surfer® / Don Burnette, shown at left, is all smiles at the University of Phoenix, who along with his wife and several friends, flew out to Arizona to watch the UCF Knights win big in their first BCS Bowl, 52-42 over the Baylor Bears in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl.

PORT ORANGE -- What a way for Port Orange City Councilman Don Burnette to kick off the new year.

Burnette was still celebrating his UCF Knights' big win over the Baylor Bears in the New Year's Day Fiesta Bowl hours after the game.

Photos for Headline Surfer® / Accused bank robber Michael N. London, 63, is shown in a police mugshot on Friday, a far cry from the Santa Claus get-up shown at far left in a surveillance video still from Monday's armed robbery of the Port Orange Sun Trust branch on Nova Road.

PORT ORANGE -- If you thought the man dressed in the Santa outfit who held up the Sun Trust Bank two days before Christmas was having a bad hair day, imagine what an eye opener he was to Port Orange cops who nabbed him outside his residence earlier today, sans the holiday get-up.

Photo for Headline Surfer® / At left is a snapshot from surveillance video inside the Sun Trust Bank branch, 3865 Nova Road, showing a man in a Santa Claus get-up on Monday afternoon robbing the bank while displaying a wrapped package he insinuated was harmful, as in an explosive. The fake Santa left the bank with an undisclosed amount of cash. The package turned out not to be harmful.

PORT ORANGE -- Just two days before Christmas, a man in a Santa get-up with stocking hat, fake white hair and beard, robbed the Sun Trust bank branch, after placing a package on the counter while standing in front of a teller and passed her a note demanding cash and insinuating the package was harmful.

"An undisclosed amount of US currency was given to the male, who left the package on the counter prior to exiting the bank," Port Orange Police Lt. John Jakovenko told Headline Surfer® on the 3:13 p.m. robbery at the SunTrust, 3865 Nova Road.

Daytona Beach, Orlando and Cocoa won't be as chilly as Palm Coast and Ocala

Headline Surfer® photos / The fog predicted this morning came to pass as shown in the scene-setter at far left is clear from this scene-setter in Port Orange. The weather has been seasonable to the liking of this young surfer in the inset shot on New Smyrna Beach, but overnight it's going to dip into the mid-50s along the coast and even colder in interior cities like Ocala.

DAYTONA BEACH -- It's going to start feeling more like Thanksgiving up North after today's expected high of 82 in Orlando and a couple degrees less in Daytona and Cocoa. 

DAYTONA BEACH -- Gov. Rick Scott has re-appointed Robert "Bob" Davis to the Daytona State College District Board of Trustees.

PORT ORANGE -- August is a busy month in municipal government beginning with Tuesday's City Council meeting.

The meeting gets under way at 6:30 p.m. in the Port Orange Council chambers. The following night the Code Enforcement Board will meet at 5:30 p.m. in the council chambers.