Top 100 Volusia County Stories of the year.
DAYTONA BEACH -- In late August, The Volusia County Sheriff's Office launched a criminal investigation about allegations that at least three male employees with the Pine Girls Delinquency Commitment program at Stewart-Marchman Center had sexual relations with at least four girls there.
NSB NEWS.net photo by Sera King. Cutline: Aa attempt to have New Smyrna Beach City Attorney Frank Gummey fired failed. The city would had to pay him $400,000 in severance.
NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- A verbal sparring match between New Smyrna Beach City Attorney Frank Gummey and another attorney during a New Smyrna Beach City Commission over a technical issue nearly led to Gummey's ouster, which would have forced the city to buy out his contract for a whopping $400,000.
DELAND -- A 19-year-old man shot and killed his 17-year-old former girlfriend, then turned the gun on himself the night of Feb. 15, on the front porch of her DeLand home, in what DeLand police termed a murder-suicide.
But this was no modern-day Romeo and Juliet. Police were called out to the former girlfriend Natasha Hall's home at least nine times since July 2007, all in reference to Daniel "Clay" Kufner.
DAYTONA BEACH -- It's a scary story first reported by the Daytona Beach News-Journal last year and picked up by national media. Could there be a serial killer lurking about?
Stacey Charlene Gage, a 30-year-old Holly Hill mother of two went out for a bag of ice the night of Dec. 11, 2007, and never returned home.
DAYTONA BEACH -- A 31-year-old man was found shot to death in the backyard of his Tucker Street residence Feb. 11, about 14 hours after he left his girlfriend in the car of his driveway to go to relieve himself in the back yard, according to a police report. He didn't return and the woman didn't call police.
Family members found Laron Davis' body the next day and called 9-1-1. Police interviewed the girlfriend who told them she saw several masked men run by.
DELTONA -- One of the killers in the Deltona Xbox murders lost an appeal to get off death row with the majority of the Supreme Court Justices describing the six killings as "especially brutal" and that this particular convict, Jerome Hunter, was a willing participant.
"The murders were especially brutal, with all of the victims having been beaten to death with baseball bats," the justices wrote in a 46-page opinion in September.
It was the first such appeal heard for one of the so-called Xbox murderers, the four men involved in the the Aug. 6, 204, bloodbath that started with an argument over a missing video-game system taken from a Deltona residence where Troy Victorino had been staying as a squatter.
PORT ORANGE -- Family Days had all the makings for Horror Night on Oct. 4, when a woman on a carousel ride called the Crazy Bus, was left dangling with her other arm clutched around her child, the result of the ride suddenly starting up as patrons were getting of it.
Port Orange Fire Department spokeswoman Tonya Gilardi said Sherri Pinkerton of Ormond Beach started to lose her grip and was forced to drop her pre-school child to rescuers 35 feet below.
The mother was then helped off the ride by a Port Orange firefighter after a city worker retrieved a ladder.
DELTONA -- The Volusia County Sheriff's Office on June 5 arrested Robert Benjo of Deltona on a charge of second-degree murder in the shooting death of his 76-year-old wife.
The 82-yer-old husband was transported to the Volusia County Branch Jail in Daytona Beach, where he was being held without bond.
Sheriff's investigators have recovered the .22-caliber handgun they believe the Robert Benjo used to shoot his wife, Peggy Benjo.
DELAND -- Volusia County Manager Jim Dinneen presented the Volusia County Council with a $634.7 million proposed budget July 10, to fund the operations of county government for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, insisting cutting taxes would hurt services.
DELAND -- Even though Volusia School Board Chairwoman Judy Conte was against it saying it "sends the wrong message," Superintendent of Schools Margaret Smith gave herself a 2 percent pay cut Sept. 30, to bring her base salary down to $171,665, a drop of $3,506.
