PANAMA CITY BEACH — Investigators with the Bay County Sheriff’s Office spent the day searching for answers that may never be known.

Why Phillip Stephens decided to shoot his 10-year-old son Joshua, then turn the gun on himself late Tuesday night in a bedroom of their Panama City Beach home, is a question only he could answer, said Maj. Tommy Ford with the BCSO.

“It’s kind of one of those things where it is what it is. … I’m not sure that it’s something you can ever understand,” Ford said Wednesday.

Two teens also were in the home at the time in another room, Ford said. They are not suspects.

“All the indications are this was a murder-suicide,” he said.

According to Joshua’s account on Vine, a social network that allows users to create and share six-second videos with a smartphone, he seemed to like playing Halo, cats and going to Golden Corral.

Watch the video

Phillip Stephens, 51, worked for Bay District Schools as a bus driver. He was hired eight years ago, according to Karen Tucker, spokeswoman for the school district.

Investigators learned Phillip Stephens was upset with wife Tuesday night, Ford said. He had threatened to commit suicide in the past, and deputies have had him involuntarily committed under the Baker Act on at least one occasion, Ford said.

According to the BCSO incident report:

Deputies responded to the Stephens home on Shady Oak Court just after 11 p.m. Tuesday and found Deborah Stephens waiting on the porch, where family members had moved Joshua. He had been shot in the forehead.

Joshua was taken to a local hospital, where he died of his injuries.

Phillip Stephens was found dead in the master bedroom. He had a significant injury to his head, investigators said.

An earlier version of this story is posted below:

PANAMA CITY BEACH — A Panama City Beach man fatally shot his 10-year-old son, then killed kimself late Tuesday, investigators said Wednesday morning.

Bay County Sheriff's Office investigators said deputies found Phillip Stephens dead of a gunshot wound at about 11 p.m. at 2508 Shady Oak Court, according to a news release. The deputies found Stephens' son, Joshua, shot but still alive. He died a short time later at a local hospital, according to the release.

A teenage family member was also at home at the time of incident but did not witness it, investigators aid. Family members said Phillip Stephens had a history of threatening suicide.

Check back later for more details

Below is an ealier version of this story:

The Bay County Sheriff's Office is investigating what appears to be a murder-suicide on Panama City Beach in which a man shot his 10-year-old son and then himself. 

Officials said the incident happened on Shady Oak Court at about 11 p.m. Tuesday night. 

It is unclear what sparked the slaying. 

"We're still working on that at this point," Maj. Tommy Ford said Wednesday morning. He added that other family members were in the home at the time of the incident and detectives are working with them to try and determine what happened. Ford said the father's name is Phillip Stephens.

More details are expected to be released later today. 

PANAMA CITY – A Sneads resident was found guilty Tuesday afternoon on three counts of conveying false and misleading information involving the unlawful use and threatened use of a weapon of mass destruction involving a biological agent and toxin, and a destructive device, federal prosecutors wrote in a news release.

Jamie Lee Wambles, 32, was also convicted of a fourth count of mailing threatening communications to a federal agent, involving the potential bombing of the Federal Courthouse in Tallahassee.

Evidence presented at trial revealed that on December 17, 2012, Wambles wrote his first threatening letter from a Jackson County jail facility to the Clerk’s Office at the Federal Courthouse in Tallahassee claiming it contained anthrax.  This letter was received at the courthouse by court security officers.  On December 18, 2012, Wambles wrote a second threatening letter to the Clerk’s Office at the same address with a white powder claiming it was anthrax.  It turned out to be finely crushed Tylenol pills, officials wrote. He wrote a third threatening letter on December 20, 2012, to the same Federal Courthouse, this time claiming he would bomb the building unless his demands were met.

Wambles was aggrieved over the shooting death of his pit bull during his state arrest and wanted the officers responsible to be investigated.

Finally, on  January 7, 2013, Wambles mailed a fourth letter to an FBI agent claiming he had the materials to bomb the Tallahassee Federal Courthouse if his concerns were not addressed, officials wrote. Wambles faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000.00 fine on each of the first three counts, and up to ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the fourth count.  The sentencing of Wambles is scheduled for August 29, 2013. Wambles is currently serving seven years in state prison on unrelated state firearm charges.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney James Ustynoski.

DeFUNIAK SPRINGS — Michael Spencer, who spent summers in Seagrove Beach with his aunt, was best friends with Steven Cozzie during the summer of 2011.

But two years earlier Spencer had lied to Cozzie when, in a burst of bravado, he told him he had once fought 20 men and killed two of them using martial arts his Special Forces father had taught him.

 On June 16, 2011, only a couple hours after authorities say he raped and brutally killed 15-year-old Courtney Wilkes, Cozzie arrived at Spencer’s aunt’s house and asked his friend, then 18, to confirm “if I had killed two people like I said I had?”

Spencer testified in court Wednesday that he repeated his lie. When he did, Cozzie stunned him with a revelation of his own.

“He said, ‘I just killed this chick,’ ” Spencer told prosecutor Bobby Elmore.

Cozzie, 23, of Seagrove Beach, is charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping, rape and child abuse. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

Elmore said in his opening statement Tuesday that Cozzie had lured Wilkes away from her vacationing family’s South Walton condominium complex to a nearby nature trail. There, Elmore said, he used his shirt and then hers to strangle her nearly to death. Finally, he dragged her off into a dry swamp bed, raped her and beat her at least 10 times on the head with a piece of lumber to kill her.

Spencer’s testimony could prove particularly valuable for the prosecution because, according to his story, after making his pronouncement Cozzie insisted on taking Spencer to show him Wilkes’ body.

Spencer told the jury things he said Cozzie told him as they traveled the mile or so from his aunt’s house to the crime scene. How Cozzie said, “I wrestled with her for like 20 minutes” and that “he had taken off his shirt and strangled her with it and took off her shirt and strangled her with it.”

And then Cozzie showed his friend the badly beaten, nude body of his victim, Spencer testified.

“I got close enough where if I had wanted to I could have reached out and touched her dead body,” Spencer told the court.

Spencer testified that Cozzie removed his bloodied shirt from over Wilkes’ head, muttered, “Oops, I need this, and stepped to the side and threw it into the bushes.” He then told Spencer he had debated how he wanted to club her to death: “Do I want to use the flat end or side, flat end or side, then I said (expletive) it and hit her like 10 times with the side.”

Elmore told jurors Tuesday that testimony from the medical examiner would prove a cause of death of both strangulation and blunt force trauma. He also showed jurors photos he said indicated a fierce struggle and that a bloodied shirt belonging to Cozzie would be introduced into evidence at some point.

Law enforcement officers and emergency personnel who searched for Courtney Wilkes after she was reported missing also testified for the prosecution Wednesday. They confirmed seeing Cozzie and Spencer together the day Wilkes disappeared, and that Spencer had indeed led them to her body.

Cozzie’s half brother, Jeffery Pedersen, worked in a beach services capacity and met the Wilkes family, including Courtney, during their vacation in 2011. In fact, he gave authorities the name of the man — his brother — she was last seen with.

Pedersen also testified that he had noticed Cozzie’s apparent attraction to girls of or about Courtney Wilkes’ age, and “four or five times talked to him about pursuing young girls.”

Pedersen testified that a trespass order had been issued against Cozzie at a neighboring condominium complex where Cozzie’s advances toward young girls had been noticed.

Spencer admittedly wasn’t forthcoming to everyone he talked to on June 16, 2011, as he and Cozzie increasingly drew attention during the search for Wilkes.

On cross-examination, Spiro Kypreos, Cozzie’s attorney, keyed in on Spencer’s omissions and questioned why a martial arts expert such as he would have anything to fear from Cozzie, particularly while in the company of an armed officer.

Spencer testified he was afraid to say anything with Cozzie nearby.  He said he was scared of what Cozzie might do to him if he turned him in right away, so he didn’t tell the officer who gave him a ride home what he had seen earlier.

 “I wanted to get back to my aunt’s house so I could go to the police,” he told Kypreos.

PANAMA CITY — U.S. Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Scott Springer spoke about organized retail theft at the Panhandle CrimeStoppers’ monthly meeting on Tuesday.

Springer said retail theft is “something that goes on in our community every day,” and “a lot of people are not aware of its impact.”

Retail theft sometimes happens when organized groups go into a store and steal items, and later repack and sell the items for a profit, Springer said.

He said it is hard for consumers to see whether an item is stolen and has been repackaged and sold again, but he said if the label is torn it might be a sign that it has been stolen and repackaged.

Expensive items such as cigarettes are often stolen, he said. He also talked about a case he worked on in Texas in 1999 where an organized group stole infant formula.

In his presentation Springer said the director of the FBI has said there sometimes are links between terrorist activities, terrorism funding and organized retail crime.

But Springer said that “… 90 percent of the organizations that are involved in buying and selling stolen merchandise are just greedy people, and they have nothing to do with any kind of terrorist financing.”

Law enforcement from Panama City, Panama City Beach and Lynn Haven gathered together with local business owners and the public for the monthly meeting on Tuesday.

“We have a lot of fun,” Sheriff Frank McKeithen said.

He said working in law enforcement is a stressful job, and the meeting is a good way to talk about serious issues in a different environment.

PANAMA CITY — Florida’s Department of Children and Families is trying to bring attention to abused, neglected and endangered elderly adults.

“Thousands of elderly adults and adults with disabilities in Florida are mistreated each year by trusted family members, caregivers or others responsible for their well-being. Last year, DCF investigated more than 64,000 allegations of abuse, neglect and exploitation of adults statewide,” officials wrote in a news release.

Of those, 4,900 abuse cases originated in Northwest Florida, they added.

The agency is hosting the fourth annual Elder Abuse Awareness Expo at the Glenwood Community Center, 722 E. Ninth Court, on Friday beginning at 9 a.m. The event is free and open to the public. Those who attend are encouraged to wear purple to support elder abuse awareness.

"We are pleased to once again host this informational event in recognition of World Elder Abuse Awareness Day and encourage everyone to join us," said Courtney Stanford, DCF's community development administrator. "We set this day aside to bring awareness to elder abuse and to call on our community to get involved in the lives of all our seniors. You can help by regularly visiting with older friends and family members, volunteering with local organizations serving vulnerable adults or reporting suspected physical, mental or financial abuse to our hotline."

More than 40 venders and government agencies, including the Bay County Sheriff’s Office, Legal Services of North Florida and the Junior League of Panama City, will provide information and help to those who need it. BCSO will demonstrate Project Lifesaver, which uses a transmitter bracelet to help locate individuals with Alzheimer’s, dementia or other disorders if they go missing.

Abuse can be reported to DCF by called 1-800-962-2873 or visiting www.floridaabusehotline.com

IF YOU GO

-What: Elder Abuse Awareness Expo

-When: 9 a.m. Friday

-Where Glenwood Community Center

MARIANNA -- A man robbed employees of a fast food restaurant and got away with an undisclosed amount of money just after midnight on Wednesday, a news release from the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office states.

After Taco Bell, 4689 U.S. 90, closed for the night and as employees exited the restaurant, the suspect approached them and demanded money, the release states. The suspect then fled on foot toward Holiday Lanes Bowling Alley.

The release described the man as being a black male, light complexion, about 6 feet tall, wearing blue jeans, ball cap and a light colored shirt.

Officials wrote in the release a white extended cab Chevrolet truck was seen in the area before the incident and is a vehicle of interest.

Anyone with information about this incident is asked to contact the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office at 850-482-9648 or CrimeStoppers at 850-526-5000.  

DESTIN — Five fishermen hauled in 25 kilograms of cocaine worth an estimated $2.5 million Wednesday in the Gulf of Mexico south of East Pass, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office.

The fishermen noticed a bale floating in the water about 2.5 miles offshore and pulled it onto their boat, the Sheriff's Office reported. When they saw it was filled with individually wrapped brick-shaped packages, they contacted the Coast Guard Station in Destin.

Federal and state law officers responded about 11 a.m. to take statements from the fishermen.  Coast Guard Petty Officer Matt Barnickle said a crew took the cocaine and turned it over to the Sheriff’s Office.

The bale was at the sheriff’s office in Shalimar at 3:30 p.m., Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Michele Nicholson said.

Twenty-five kilograms equals 55 pounds. The Okaloosa County Multi-Agency Drug Task Force determined the cocaine had a street value of $2.5 million.

Law officers are investigating where the bale might have come from.

In a video released by the Sheriff's Office, a deputy notes a “00” marked on one of the cocaine bricks and attributed it to a drug cartel.   

Cocaine has been found floating in local waters previously. One of the largest hauls was in 2004 when about 80 pounds worth about $3.6 million was discovered by employees at the Navarre Beach State Park.  

It is always possible that more bales could be in the Gulf, Nicholson said. Anyone who sees anything unusual is asked to call the Sheriff's Office at 651-7400.

PANAMA CITY — The man who apparently faked his death in Georgia and fled to Colorado to escape prosecution in Bay County pleaded Thursday to charges he came here to have sex with a minor last year.

Nathan Wilkins, 19, entered a straight-up plea of no contest in front of Judge Michael Overstreet on Thursday, which means he has no deal with prosecutors when he is sentenced Aug. 5. His plea means he faces up to 20 years for traveling to meet a minor for sex and computer pornography and child exploitation.

Wilkins recently had hired attorney Al Sauline, who had a filed a motion to suppress his client’s statements to investigators after he was arrested as part of Operation Riptide, a multi-agency sting targeting people interested in sex with minors.

Thursday’s hearing was scheduled to be for Sauline to argue his motion with prosecutor Christa Diviney, who filed a response to the motion. In that motion, Sauline argued his client was so high on the hallucinogen C-2I when he waived his Miranda rights that his consent shouldn’t be considered to have been made knowingly.

In her response, Diviney, who could not be reached for comment Thursday, pointed out that Wilkins has no evidence to support his contention he was high on hallucinogens that night, and if he were to offer evidence through his own testimony it would contradict his own argument.

“If the defendant provides evidence of this ‘intoxication’ by testimony today, then this is an admission that defendant has a conveniently selective memory which is remarkable to some events of the evening but not others,” Diviney wrote. “Additionally it appears based on the content of his recorded post-Miranda statement that the defendant did not have any trouble recollecting the events of the day on the evening in question.”

Wilkins traveled to Bay County after answering an ad on Craigslist purportedly posted by a father seeking a sex partner for his 11-year-old daughter. It actually was police who posted the ad, and it was the police waiting for him when he arrived.

Wilkins was out on bond in April when a fisherman found a pile of clothing and a suicide note on the banks of the Little River in Brooks County, Ga. Authorities there began to search for Wilkins, who turned up alive three days later in Colorado.

DeFUNIAK SPRINGS —Assistant State Attorney Bobby Elmore let Steven Cozzie’s own words put the final touch Thursday to his case for conviction of first-degree murder.

Two weeks after his arrest for the killing of 15-year-old vacationer Courtney Wilkes on June 16, 2011, Cozzie requested an interview with 30-year Walton County Sheriff’s Office veteran Stephen Sunday, the lead investigator in the case.

When Sunday arrived at the jail he was presented with a written document that laid out what Cozzie was going to tell him. Cozzie then told Sunday that he had killed Wilkes, but was forced to do so at gunpoint by his friend, Michael Spencer.

“He pulled out a gun and told me to kill her, so I killed her,” Cozzie told Sunday. “I’ve never had anything like that happen to me in my life.”

The taped conversation was played Thursday afternoon for the jury trying Cozzie on charges of first-degree murder, rape, child abuse and kidnapping. The state will seek the death penalty if Cozzie is convicted.

Elmore rested the prosecution’s case after the tape was played.

Cozzie is accused of luring Wilkes away from her family and leading her to the secluded Cassine Gardens Nature Trail in Seagrove Beach. There, when she decided she wanted to return to her family, he pulled off his shirt and began to strangle her. The strangulation continued until the 6-foot, 2-inch Cozzie was able to subdue the smaller Wilkes, according to authorities. He then raped her and beat her to death with a piece of lumber.

In another tape played for the jury Thursday, Cozzie denies over and over again the night of his arrest that he had killed Wilkes.

In the second tape, recorded Aug. 1, 2011, Cozzie told Sunday that he had lied in an original interview by telling investigators he had never taken Wilkes to the nature walk where her body was found. He said he was there with the girl when he slipped and fell on her, and she was knocked unconscious when she hit her head on a cypress stump.

“I seen blood, that’s why I panicked,” Cozzie told Sunday.

He also said in the interview that he was high on marijuana and Ecstasy.

Although a deputy testified Thursday that Cozzie had slept in his patrol car on the way to the county jail the night of his arrest, Cozzie said in his written statement to Sunday, “I had remorse” after killing Wilkes.

“It was my job to bring the girl back safely and I failed,” he said.

“The killing was not one of violence, it was me being forced to do it,” he said in his statement. “The truth is I was drug induced, and the truth is I was forced by Mike Spencer.”

Cozzie told Sunday that Spencer wanted Wilkes dead and even discussed mutilating her.

Spencer was a key figure in the investigation. He led deputies to Wilkes’ body the day of the killing and testified Wednesday that Cozzie had shown it to him and described what he had done to her.

In the tape made the night of Cozzie’s arrest, officers tell him that Spencer has been cooperating with law enforcement.

Jennifer Hatler, a DNA expert with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, provided testimony Thursday that put Cozzie at the scene and made the case that Spencer, the man Cozzie said forced him to kill Wilkes, was not present.

Cozzie’s DNA was found on a Hawaiian shirt soaked with Wilkes’ blood that was found near the body, Hatler testified. His DNA also was discovered on the girl’s thigh, and her DNA was found under his fingernails.

The likelihood that the DNA taken from Cozzie’s hands did not belong to Wilkes was “one in one quadrillion,” Hatler said.

Defense attorney Spiro Kypreos also rested his case Thursday without calling any witnesses. He told Circuit Court Judge Kelvin Wells that he would save his witnesses for “the next phase” of the trial, indicating perhaps that he believes a murder conviction is a foregone conclusion and he’s preparing for the death penalty phase.

He and Elmore will present final arguments Friday morning before the jury begins deliberations.

DeFUNIAK SPRINGS —Two days before the second anniversary of the brutal killing of 15-year-old vacationer Courtney Wilkes, Steven Cozzie has been convicted of her murder.

An eight-woman, four-man jury deliberated for almost two hours Friday afternoon before they found Cozzie, 23, guilty of first-degree premeditated murder, sexual battery, aggravated child abuse and kidnapping.

Wilkes’ battered, naked body was discovered June 16, 2011, in a dried-up cypress swamp off Cassine Gardens Nature Trail in Seagrove Beach. She had taken a walk with Cozzie earlier that day, and authorities determined he strangled her almost to death with a shirt, dragged her behind a tree, raped her and beat her with a piece of lumber he found nearby.

The murder shocked Wilkes’ small town of Lyons, Ga., where she was a popular high schooler, and the typically quiet Seagrove Beach, where Cozzie lived.

Wilkes’ family and a courtroom full of supporters were present when the verdict was read. Following instructions from Walton County Circuit Judge Kelvin Wells, they waited until the jury left before exchanging tearful hugs. Several stopped on the way out of court to embrace Sheriff Mike Adkinson, who also was emotional.

“My thoughts and prayers are with the Wilkes family,” Adkinson said. “I hate for them to have had to go through with this.”

Cozzie’s murder conviction carries only two possible penalties — life in prison without parole or death. The state will seek the death penalty.

The penalty phase of the trial, in which the same jury will be asked to recommend one of the two sentences for Wells to consider, will begin at 8:30 a.m. Monday.

“It was obviously the verdict we were asking for,” prosecutor Bobby Elmore said.

He declined to comment further until after the penalty phase.

Defense Attorney Spiro Kypreos declined comment on the verdict.

Friday opened with closing arguments in the case. Elmore spent about an hour going over the evidence he had presented earlier in the trial and discussed each charge Cozzie faced. Convictions on any of the charges of sexual battery, kidnapping or aggravated child abuse give the prosecution “aggravators” it can use to argue that Cozzie be put to death.

“Justice requires you convict Steven Cozzie, according to the evidence and the law, of all the crimes he committed against that child,” Elmore said. “Justice requires it.”

Kypreos told the court during a break after Elmore’s closing argument that he and his client had decided to forego any effort to obtain an acquittal.

Kypreos instead argued that Cozzie had indeed killed Courtney Wilkes, but was guilty of second-degree rather than first-degree murder. He told jurors Elmore had not proven premeditation.

A second-degree murder conviction still could have carried a life sentence, but would have taken the death penalty off the table. Kypreos referred in his closing to an interview Cozzie had given to investigators in which he admitted killing Wilkes, but was forced to do so at gunpoint.

“Mr. Elmore said he (Cozzie) admitted he killed her and the prosecutor is correct, he admitted it,” Kypreos told the jury. “Does that mean he is guilty of first-degree murder?”

Kypreos tried to convince jurors that Michael Spencer, the young man who Cozzie showed Wilkes’ body to, had lied, exaggerated or perhaps even misspoke because of shock when providing information about what he had seen or what Cozzie had told him on the day of the murder.

Kypreos also tried to raise doubts that Wilkes’ murder had been as brutal as Elmore made it appear,  and even questioned whether the blood-covered piece of lumber found at the scene — and described by Cozzie as what he had beaten the girl with — was indeed the murder weapon.

“At some point in time we have to get away from the theatrics and down to hard evidence,” Kypreos said.

On rebuttal, Elmore assured the jury, “You’ve heard all the evidence and arguments, if there’s reasonable doubt it will find you.

“Seek the truth.”

PANAMA CITY — The attorney for an attorney charged with criminal contempt of court scrambled to file an emergency petition with the appeals court Friday after the judge declined to disqualify himself from deciding a case he initiated.

Attorney Bill Price already had asked Judge James Fensom to disqualify himself from presiding over his criminal trial, which is scheduled for next week, arguing he doesn’t believe the judge who initiated the charges will give him a fair trial. Fensom denied Price’s request.

Price, who faces possible jail time and bar sanctions if convicted of the misdemeanor, hired attorney Walter Smith to represent him, and Smith asked Fensom to reconsider. Smith’s argument was that Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure require a judge to step aside in a contempt case that involves disrespect to or criticism of the judge. In such a case, the chief judge would appoint another judge to hear the case.

Prior to a recent felony trial in which Price represented the defendant, Fensom warned Price not to bring up certain subjects in front of the jury. Specifically, Price was not to refer to the gender of a transgendered witness for the prosecution or the possible penalties for his client if she were convicted.

“You’ve got to try to attack the state’s case, and he was doing that the best he could,” Smith said. “That’s what got him in trouble with the judge.”

According to Smith’s motion, Price at one point told Fensom: “Your ruling is wrong, so I will try to get around it.”

If that’s true, Smith argued, Price’s attempt to avoid abiding by a ruling he disagreed with could be perceived as disrespect.

Fensom, during a brief hearing Friday morning, said he would not disqualify himself.

“The train has left the station,” Smith said after the hearing.

 Smith said the ruling puts Fensom in the position of victim, juror and sentencing judge, which raised serious doubts in his mind that Price’s due process rights, such as the presumption of innocence, would not be violated.

“That’s an impossibility for anybody,” Smith said. “I don’t care if you’re a judge or King Solomon; you can’t sit in that role.”

It was Fensom’s ruling that was allegedly violated, it was Fensom who charged Price and, unless Smith’s emergency petition to the 1st District Court of Appeal receives prompt attention, it would be Fensom who determines Price’s innocence or guilt and subsequent sentencing.  

Smith wasn’t sure if the appeals court would even see his petition in time because the trial was less than a week away. Smith also asked to postpone the trial to allow for the appeal, but Fensom wouldn’t go for it.

“I think it takes five business days to do anything in any situation,” he said. “At this point we’re just trying to get a hearing in front of someone who hasn’t made up their mind yet. At this point I don’t think Judge Fensom can presume him innocent.”

The contempt charge against Price is a misdemeanor and he could be sentenced to up to six months in jail, but he doesn’t have a right to a jury trial. He could also be subjected to sanctions from the Florida Bar, Smith said.

“It’s a serious thing for an attorney to be charged with criminal contempt of court,” he said.

MARIANNA -- A man on probation entered a plea Wednesday to the charge of theft of copper or other nonferrous metals from a communications service provider and admitted to being in violation of his probation as a result of committing this new offense. 

Robert Wendell Scott Jr. was sentenced to 10 years in the Department of Corrections to be followed by 20 years of probation. There is a substantial amount of restitution owed due to the unique type of copper wiring and the down time incurred by the radio station because of this crime, according to a Marianna Police press release.

This charge stems from a Marianna Police Department investigation of a theft that occurred from the WJAQ radio tower in March. Several of the lines that provide power to the station and allow it to transmit had been cut and stolen. These lines are unique to the radio communication industry. Police were able to arrest the defendant after finding him in possession of the unique copper lines.

PANAMA CITY -- A man died after jumping from the Hathaway Bridge Friday evening, officials said.

According to the Bay County Sheriff’s Office, the man jumped into the bay from the eastbound side of the bridge.

The man had not been identified as of 9 p.m. Friday, pending next of kin.

The incident is being investigated as a suicide, officials said.

FORT WALTON BEACH — A 28-year-old woman accused of killing a cyclist on Easter Sunday last year has pleaded no contest.

Rhea Reynolds of Niceville is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 21 for leaving the scene of an accident involving death, according to the state attorney’s office.

Harry Robert Crawford, 63, of Destin, was riding his bicycle on Okaloosa Island to an Easter sunrise service April 8, 2012, when he was hit from behind near Gulf Islands National Seashore. He was thrown from his bike and had died by the time emergency crews arrived.

Investigators found parts of a vehicle at the scene. Crime Stoppers reports traced them to Reynolds’ 2004 Chrysler Pacifica.

Reynolds originally pleaded not guilty. She told investigators she was driving home from work when she looked down to ash her cigarette. She said she felt a bump at the front of her vehicle, but did not see anything when she looked in her rearview mirror.

She was arrested last October.

Before her arrest, Crawford’s family publicized the case by placing signs and a bicycle at the crash site along U.S. Highway 98.

Reynolds faces from 21 months to 30 years in prison, according to the state attorney’s office. Okaloosa County Circuit Judge John Brown will preside at the sentencing hearing.

Crawford’s wife, Andi, said she will urge a stiff sentence for Reynolds at the hearing.

“No number of years will bring back my husband, my soul mate, my spiritual adviser, my best friend,” she said.

PANAMA CITY BEACH -- A Missouri man who allegedly bragged to police about having sex with a teenage girl was arrested in Panama City Beach early Saturday morning.

Police received information that Benjamin Isaiah Miller, 24, was possibly involved in a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl. Officers located Miller shortly before 1 a.m. at an empty lot near Henry Avenue and Panama City Beach Parkway, where he allegedly confirmed the relationship and boasted that he’d had sex with the girl every day for three weeks.

An investigation is ongoing, but police believe the relationship was consensual. It was unclear if the relationship occurred in the Panama City area.

Miller, of Joplin, Mo., was charged with unlawful sexual activity with a minor. He is being held in Bay County Jail.

PANAMA CITY BEACH — Last October, the McDivitts of West Alexandria, Ohio, had the best vacation of their lives in Panama City Beach. There’s nothing like surviving a near-death experience to remind someone how it great it is to be alive.

Michael McDivitt and his 12-year-old daughter, Grace, were nearly killed when they were caught in a rip current right behind their hotel. They vacationed often in Florida, Charla McDivitt said, and the year before Grace had been stung by a jellyfish in the water near Miami.

Since then, she had been afraid of the animals in the water, and when the family saw rays in the surf on the day they arrived, Grace thought better of going in the Gulf. The water was calm that day, but on the morning of Oct. 1 Charla McDivitt was surprised to see yellow flags flying over the beach.

At noon, Grace and Michael McDivitt went into the water. A police report said they went in under double red flags, though Charla McDivitt thought they were upgraded later. They hadn’t seen any flags since the morning, she said.

“We never really stopped and read what each flag meant, so even if it had been red we probably still would’ve gone in,” she said.

Later she would see a plane flying up and down the beach, pulling a banner explaining that the double red flags meant the beach was closed, and they heard Beach and Surf Patrol trucks with loudspeakers admonishing swimmers out of the water.

“They kind of realized … they should make it clear to dummies from Ohio not to get in the water,” Charla McDivitt said.

But, that wasn’t clear to the McDivitts at noon. Grace went into the churning surf, which finally appeared free of aquatic life, and her father followed.

They were in water up to about their knees or mid-thighs and walking through the surf toward a dip where the waves were converging and crashing from both sides.

“As they went in that dip, the water just took them, and they were gone in a second,” she said. “I could see that they were drowning. They were just drowning.”

McDivitt stood on the sand trying to coach her family into swimming parallel with the shore, but the current was too strong to even do that, she said. She was afraid if she went in after them she would drown.

“I just remember the looks on their faces. … It was just the saddest look of — they’re going to die and there’s nothing we can do about it,” she said.

Someone already had called for help. The woman who showed up from Beach and Surf Patrol moved with a purpose. Despite Charla McDivitt’s panicked pleas for her to hurry, the patrol officer moved at a deliberate pace as she slipped into flippers, grabbed a flotation device and jumped into the water. A moment later, she returned and swapped the device for a surfboard and went back to the water.

The rescuer brought Grace and Michael McDivitt back to the sand. A local man had tried to help and gotten swept out, and the officer brought him in as well. He was hospitalized. Grace and Michael McDivitt went to the hospital, too.

They were out of the water about 10 minutes after they went in. The rescuer looked at the McDivitts like they were stupid, Charla McDivitt recalled.

“We apologized,” she said, to the officer for putting her life in danger.

Back home in Ohio, when the McDivitts tell their story, some people get scared and say they will never go in the ocean, but the McDivitts plan to come back to Panama City Beach in a few months, she said.

“Believe it or not, we think of it as the best vacation,” Charla McDivitt said. “Because after that, we just enjoyed it, and we were glad to be alive.”

‘We didn’t know’

Every year rescuers go into the Gulf of Mexico and save dozens of people who’ve been swept out by rip currents. In Bay County alone, one man drowned June 15 and another man drowned Tuesday. Beach and Surf Patrol pulled 22 people out of the water between last weekend, six of whom were hospitalized.

They return to their hometowns with stories similar to the one Charla McDivitt tells, but they don’t all recall their trips as fondly.

Cassidy Mrozek is a 16-year-old with a story to tell when she returns home to Illinois. She went swimming in the Gulf under red flags with her dad and a friend on the second full day of her visit to the beach.

When she was caught in a rip current last weekend behind her hotel, she didn’t know what to do. She tried to swim back to shore.

“All of a sudden the current and the wave got me, and I just kept getting pushed farther out,” she said.

Her dad tried to bring her back in and was swept out as well. Beach and Surf Patrol brought them both back in. Mrozek was exhausted and close to losing consciousness, she said. Shortly after she was rescued, the flag warning was upgraded to double red, she said.

“We traveled here and we didn’t know,” she said.

She’s “terrified” of the water now, Mrozek said later in the week.

“I go in there, but I don’t go no farther than 5 feet from the shore,” she said.

PANAMA CITY BEACH -- The death of a woman at Regency Towers, 5801 Thomas Drive, Saturday night is under investigation by the Bay County Sheriff’s Office.

The initial call came to authorities sometime after 9 p.m. as a fall from a height. However BCSO would not confirm that or release any other details of the case.

BCSO said details should be available Sunday as the investigation continues.

VERNON - A man was killed in Vernon early Sunday morning after crashing his SUV and being ejected from the vehicle, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

Elliott Lee Culbreath, 38, was driving his Jeep Wrangler west on U.S. 98 when he lost control near Watersound Parkway. The vehicle entered a ditch and went airborne when it struck a driveway culvert. It rolled over several times and Culbreath was ejected.

Culbreath, of Miramar Beach, Fla., was not wearing a seatbelt, FHP reported.

An investigation into the crash is ongoing.

MARIANNA — A Jackson County man was arrested Sunday after a standoff in which he swung a rifle barrel at law enforcement officers and was both pepper sprayed and tased.

The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office responded to a domestic disturbance call at a Marianna residence around 4 p.m. The victim’s live-in boyfriend, Robert Fred Phillips, denied her medical treatment and forced paramedics out of the residence.

The victim eventually escaped, and Phillips was ordered out of the house after deputies established probable cause of domestic battery.

After a 42-minute standoff in which Phillips threatened the lives of officers, Phillips was arrested and booked in the Jackson County Correctional Facility.