Suicides Florida

A man apparently distraught over the repossession of his car walked into a finance office here Monday morning and began spraying customers and employees with gunfire, killing eight and critically wounding five before fatally shooting himself. Police later said they had "confirmed" that the same man was responsible for gunning down a man and woman on a Jacksonsville street 33 hours earlier. The gunman was identified as James E.

It was a lonely and despondent 15-year-old, feeling sympathy for accused terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, who stole a private plane and slammed it into a Tampa skyscraper, authorities said Sunday. A brief handwritten note found in the pocket of student pilot Charles J. Bishop, who died in the Saturday crash, strongly implied that the high school freshman was inspired by the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Former Tampa Bay cornerback Bobby Futrell committed suicide at his Tampa home after quarreling with his wife, a Hillsborough County Sheriff's spokesman said. Futrell, 29, had an argument with his wife, Patricia, on Sunday. "She apparently threatened to leave him," Jack Espinosa said. "He went into the garage, barricaded himself inside and hung himself with an electric cord." Futrell played for the Buccaneers from 1986 until he was waived early in 1990.

Graceful and golden-hued, the Sunshine Skyway Bridge is an American architectural treasure--its four-mile span over the mouth of Tampa Bay both a vital highway and a work of art. And yet, there is a dark side to its shimmering grandeur. Nearly two decades after 35 motorists and passengers plunged to their deaths when a freighter rammed the old bridge, people have begun to commit suicide in record numbers by jumping from this new one.

The Coast Guard called off its search for a 14-year-old Canadian boy believed to have jumped from a cruise ship after an argument with his parents. The boy, Grant Medeiros, disappeared Friday night, Coast Guard Petty Officer Steve Aitkins said. "We believe we've exhausted any possibility that he's still alive," Aitkins said aircraft and patrol boats searched more than 1,200 square miles over two days.

The owner of a houseboat where Andrew Phillip Cunanan was found dead voluntarily appeared at FBI offices Thursday and answered questions about the case, the agency said. Torsten Reineck, 49, the owner of a gay club in Las Vegas, is being sought by German authorities on fraud charges, but the FBI said the warrants would be executed only if he were arrested in a nation bordering Germany. At an FBI news conference in Washington earlier in the day, Deputy FBI Director William J.

Andrew Phillip Cunanan was nursing a stomach wound before his suicide and investigators believe he may have been wounded in one of the five murders he's suspected of committing. Police found bloody bandages, cotton swabs, gauze pads and penicillin pills in the Miami Beach houseboat where Cunanan ended his life with a gunshot to the head July 23. Cunanan, 27, was the prime suspect in the point-blank slaying of fashion designer Gianni Versace July 15 in Miami Beach, along with four other

Police in Jacksonville, Fla., released dramatic tapes of terrified office workers pleading for help on a 911 phone line as a gunman roamed through the building and shots rang out in the background. "He's got an AK-47 and he's killing everyone," whispered a General Motors Acceptance Corp. employee as James E. Pough made his way through the auto loan office. Authorities said Pough, 42, blazed away with a clip-loaded .30-caliber semiautomatic rifle. He then killed himself with a .

A woman convicted of driving her teen-age daughter to suicide by forcing her to work as a nude dancer was sentenced Thursday to a year in jail, followed by house arrest and probation. "You did procure a sexual performance by your own child," Broward County Circuit Judge Arthur Franza told Theresa Jackson as he sentenced her.

A postal clerk left his counter to get a gun from his car Tuesday, then walked back in and critically wounded his ex-wife and her friend as the two women waited in line. After shooting each woman once in the chest, the clerk walked outside and fatally shot himself. "He exited the post office, went to a tree, looked up in the air and shot himself in the face," police spokesman Bobby Hernandez said.

Andrew Phillip Cunanan was nursing a stomach wound before his suicide and investigators believe he may have been wounded in one of the five murders he's suspected of committing. Police found bloody bandages, cotton swabs, gauze pads and penicillin pills in the Miami Beach houseboat where Cunanan ended his life with a gunshot to the head July 23. Cunanan, 27, was the prime suspect in the point-blank slaying of fashion designer Gianni Versace July 15 in Miami Beach, along with four other

Trapped on a moored houseboat by his own notoriety, Andrew Phillip Cunanan committed suicide apparently using the same .40-caliber handgun he used in a nationwide murder rampage, Miami Beach police said Thursday. Cunanan's body was pulled from the houseboat early Thursday after a siege by police that began midday Wednesday, ending a manhunt but leaving open a mystery about the motives of a suspect who became America's most-wanted man.

Even in death, Andrew Cunanan eluded police. When the 27-year-old fugitive took his life in a houseboat moored at Miami Beach, he took with him the best chance that a cross-country string of murders will ever be explained. The suicide, foiling the quest for answers, was a fitting denouement to a case that left five other dead men scattered over four states while the suspect openly taunted pursuers. The 2 1/2-month series of killings is over. But frustration lingers.

According to authorities, these slaying are linked to Andrew Phillip Cunanan: APRIL 27 Cunanan left a message for Jeffrey Trail, 28, a gas company manager in Minneapolis, asking Trail to meet him at the apartment of architect David Madson. The three had met when Trail, a former Navy officer, was stationed in San Diego. * APRIL 29 The body of Trail, Cunanan's first alleged victim, was found in Madson's apartment, rolled up in a rug. He had been bludgeoned with a claw hammer, found nearby.

The owner of a houseboat where Andrew Phillip Cunanan was found dead voluntarily appeared at FBI offices Thursday and answered questions about the case, the agency said. Torsten Reineck, 49, the owner of a gay club in Las Vegas, is being sought by German authorities on fraud charges, but the FBI said the warrants would be executed only if he were arrested in a nation bordering Germany. At an FBI news conference in Washington earlier in the day, Deputy FBI Director William J.

A heavily armed man who was upset at renovations to a Melbourne Beach, Fla., church wounded two people and barricaded himself inside the church with a hostage for seven hours before killing himself. Officers fired tear gas then stormed St. Sebastian-By-The Sea Episcopal Church and found the body of Douglas Pearson, 47. The hostage, Deacon George Smodell, wounded in the leg, crawled out as police charged.

A man convicted of contracting his wife's murder through an advertisement in Soldier of Fortune magazine was found hanging in his prison cell, an apparent suicide, authorities in Polk City, Fla., said. Robert Spearman, who was serving a sentence of life plus 20 years in the 1985 slaying of his wife, was found dead three days after authorities announced that they had thwarted a planned helicopter escape.

Andrew Phillip Cunanan, suspected of killing fashion designer Gianni Versace and four other men in a murder spree that launched one of the most massive manhunts in U.S. history, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound Wednesday after police SWAT teams stormed a houseboat in which he was hiding.

Word about the death of Andrew Phillip Cunanan spread quickly Wednesday night through the gay neighborhood of Hillcrest, provoking feelings of relief and revulsion. "The terror is over, thank God," said Phil Artson, a tutor of languages. In the dance parlors, bookstores and restaurants where Cunanan once was a regular, young men discussed the news from Miami Beach in hushed but excited tones. A few motorists raised their fists and shouted joyously.