News Ticker

This news bulletin is brought to you in conjunction with NATKIM Radio. Listen to WPLK (800 AM), WIYD (1260 AM) and WPLK FM (98.3 FM).

Authorities are asking people to be on the lookout in St. Johns County for a person of interest in a double homicide in Pennsylvania. Jack Elijah Turner, 21, who lived in St. Augustine before moving to Pennsylvania, is wanted for questioning in the murder of his stepmother and 10-year-old half-brother on Aug. 10 and for the armed robbery of an Ohio convenience store on Aug. 11. St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office reports three apparent sightings of Turner in the past 24 hours all in or near the St. Augustine area. He is a white male, 5 feet 11 inches with dark brown eyes and a tattoo on his right hand. Photos are on the Sheriff’s Office website. If you have information, don’t confront or attempt to detain Turner, say authorities, but either call 911 or the United States Marshals Service at 800-336-0102.

Two South Putnam County men are in jail on suspicion of burglary and larceny after a house, garage and shed belonging to a winter visitor were cleaned out. Deputies used their tracking skills to find Justin Dillmon, 28, and Michael Allen, 38, both of Satsuma. The two were arrested after a search warrant was executed Monday. A neighbor Monday afternoon spotted an open gate at a Breezeway Avenue residence and deputies found the house ransacked, wires stripped from an electric breaker box and hand tools, a riding lawn mower and a boat and trailed missing from the garage. Earlier another unoccupied residence nearby was found broken into and bicycle tracks led deputies to a house on San Mateo Road. Residents there denied any knowledge. After the second burglary was discovered deputies returned to the San Mateo Road house and fund Dillmon’s boots matched a shoe impression left at the Breezeway Avenue address. A search warrant turned up a number of items from the Breezeway residents. The riding mower had been sold but was recovered.

St. Johns County could be getting an indoor sports complex. Plans call for a 175,000-square-foot facility including a variety of activities including indoor volleyball courts, indoor track and exercise equipment on a 46-acre plot. The complex to be called Project Family will be off Race Track Road between Interstate 95 and 9b. Developers still must get permits for the project in order to begin construction by 2020.

In Flagler County two more applications for a new county judgeship created by the Florida Legislature this year. Deadline was Friday and 22 people had sent in paper applications. Two more applications came in electronically Friday, one just before the deadline and the other just after. All names will go to the Seventh Judicial Circuit’s Judicial Nomination Commission, scheduled to interview candidates Aug. 24 at the Flagler County Courthouse. Their recommendations will go to the governor.

Palatka’s Blue Crab Committee 2019 plans to give several $500 scholarships for teachers this year. Two scholarships are designated for the first half of the 2019-2020 school year. They plan to give two more for the second half. Money comes from profits from the revitalized festival.

St. Augustine businesses serving liquor will meet with city officials Aug. 28 to talk over a proposal regarding a possible extended-hour permit for serving alcohol. Just what the cutoff time for serving drinks will be hasn’t been decided although midnight has been discussed. Now some people are suggesting starting even earlier including 8 or 9 p.m. One of the concerns: how do you handle receptions where people can drink for free for hours and then go out into the street. The proposal is part of quality of nightlife strategic plan from the city aimed at improving downtown St. Augustine after dark and includes more street cleaning, better lighting, walkway improvements and more police. That could cost more than a quarter of a million dollars.

Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranches is $16,263.53 richer thanks to the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office. The money was raised through payroll deductions from employees of the Sheriff’s Office this year, and the check was presented by Sheriff Rick Staley to the non-profit child and family services organization founded by the Florida Sheriffs Association in 1957.

This is Marcia Lane, your roving reporter.

About PluggedInto (1620 Articles)
PluggedInto is an ePublication covering news, history, local events and more in the Putnam/Flagler/St. Johns tricounty area.

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