Highlands County deputies are still searching for the suspect in a Christmas night shooting. ...more

December 26, 2009

"Congratulations, I'm pleased to inform you that you've won $10,000," reads a letter that crime prevention specialist Nell Hays says is a common scam. ...more

November 29, 2009

A 12-year-old girl first reported missing on Monday has been found. Stormi Canter was found by members of the Highlands County Sheriff's Office's Criminal Investigation Unit around 5 p.m., at a home near Commerce and Maple avenues, according to her mother, Helen McKinney. ...more

March 5, 2009

A body found Saturday in Hardee County may have ties here in Highlands County, with local law enforcement assisting in the investigation. Lt. Tim Lethbridge, with the Highlands County Sheriff's Office's criminal investigation unit, said the Hardee County Sheriff's Office responded to a burned vehicle on Saturday. Inside, authorities discovered an unidentified body. ...more

December 1, 2008

An incident on July 6, when a sheriff's deputy fired his gun in defense of a fellow deputy who was injured when a driver swerved toward him, was ruled justified by an administrative review. ...more

September 13, 2008

Items of interest at the July 14 city commission meeting and budget workshop included: ...more

July 23, 2008

One day after police complained of no civilian witnesses in the police shooting of 17-year-old Javon Dawson, a black activist group typically opposed to police says it knows of some, but the witnesses will talk to authorities only with a lawyer present. ...more

June 13, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG — One day after police complained of no civilian witnesses in the police shooting of 17-year-old Javon Dawson, a black activist group says it knows of some, but they will talk to authorities only with a lawyer present. At a press conference today, Omali Yeshitela, leader of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement, said the witnesses, who he described as children, were traumatized by the event. ...more

June 12, 2008

SEBRING — When Army Sgt. First Class Judy Puffenbarger went to Iraq, a photo of her taken when her unit was being deployed to the war was sent to her hometown in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. Everybody who saw it broke out in laughter. Puffenbarger's blonde hair has grown back, but the day before she left for the war zone she shaved her head. "I did it on a bet, a bet I lost," the 49-year-old Avon Park resident said at the Veterans Administration Community Based Outpatient Clinic, where she works as a receptionist. Puffenbarger, whose father was a World War II Army veteran who lost one of his legs in the battle of Okinawa, bet members of her squad that they would not be deployed to the Iraq war. She offered to shave her head if the order came down for her 33-person unit to ship out to the war. ...more

May 25, 2008