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Detectives arrested Tommy Stephens, 52, on a second-degree murder charge in connection with the killing of Jona Waller, 34, on March 17.
Jona Waller’s body was found in an alley on the afternoon of March 17.
“This case is probably the most difficult and shocking case that this county, St. Johns County, has dealt with,” the judge said.
The jury deliberated about four hours late Friday in the trial of Michael Keetley, who has maintained his innocence in a 2010 shooting that left two dead.
Authorities say it isn’t clear if the attack was connected to the rapper’s 2021 testimony against his gang, which helped convict two high-ranking members.

Latest

  1. Detectives arrested Tommy Stephens, 52, on a second-degree murder charge in connection with the killing of Jona Waller, 34, on March 17.
  2. A post on Facebook about missing Pinellas County lawyer Steven Cozzi.
  3. Aiden Fucci is led into the courtroom start his sentencing hearing on Friday.
  4. Defendant Michael Keetley stands in court Friday before closing arguments in his murder trial in Tampa.
  5. John Robert Ring Jr., left, at Mayor Jane Castor's campaign kickoff at the Hotel Haya in December. Ring had used an alias Giovanni "Gio" Fucarino to become a fixture in city politics in recent months. He was arrested recently for violating his sexual offender status.
  6. A cache of weapons seized from one man as part of a risk protection order is stored in the evidence room at the Hillsborough County Courthouse in Tampa on Sept. 18, 2019.
  7. Tammy Heilman, Sheila Smith, Rio Wojtecki, Lorenzo Gary and Dalanea Taylor were among those targeted by the Pasco County Sheriff's Office under its intelligence program.
  8. Almir Becirovic is seen in his 2018 Honda Odyssey at his home in Wesley Chapel.
  9. The Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office ruled that deputies were justified in fatally shooting a man who opened fire on them and wounded K-9 deputy Matthew Aitken, above.
  10. FILE - Rapper Daniel Hernandez, known as Tekashi 6ix9ine, performs during the Philipp Plein Women's 2019 Spring-Summer Collection, unveiled during Fashion Week in Milan, Italy, Sept. 21, 2018. Palm Beach County sheriff's investigators said an altercation occurred Tuesday night between Hernandez and several people. Hernandez's injuries were not considered life-threatening.
  11. A Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office deputy has been arrested on a drunken driving charge and placed on unpaid leave after a crash in Polk County in December.
  12. Manuel Alejandro "Alex" Gutierrez-Rodriguez, a Tampa orthodontist.
  13. The Florida Department of Law enforcement is investigating a shooting in Trinity on Tuesday in which a Pasco County deputy shot a man who had threatened suicide.
  14. Then-Florida state Rep. Joe Harding listens during a Local Administration and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee hearing in a legislative session on Jan. 13, 2022, in Tallahassee.
  15. Rick Allen, of Def Leppard, shown in this 2019 photo, is recovering from an attack earlier this month outside a Florida hotel. Allen, who was in South Florida to perform a show at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, was attacked while taking a smoke break outside the the Four Seasons hotel on Fort Lauderdale Beach.
  16. A gunshot was fired into the front door of Tampa’s Mons Venus strip club early Sunday morning after security guards encountered a man who was wielding a gun and wearing a “red and black devil mask” as he tried to get inside, police said.
  17. Victor McCleskey argues against an ordinance that would provide a buffer for vehicles entering and exiting the parking lot at the Bread and Roses Women’s Health Center in Clearwater while attending a meeting of the Clearwater City Council on March 2. McCleskey was arrested Saturday after police said he refused to sign a citation that accused him of violating the buffer zone.
  18. Former President Donald Trump speaks at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference on March 4, 2023, at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Md.
  19. Claude Brooks, 35, was arrested Monday in Pitt County, North Carolina. The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office said Brooks, a suspect in the Dec. 30, 2019, death of a young child in an unincorporated area near Tampa, will be extradited to the county to face murder and child abuse charges in the child's death.
  20. A man was injured in a shooting near the intersection 7th Avenue and 16th Street in Ybor City early Monday, Tampa police said.
  21. James Pagán, 30, walks into a Clearwater courtroom Wednesday in Clearwater. Pagán was convicted of shooting and killing 18-year-old Barbarajean Lombardi and 21-year-old Tommy Dixon on Sept. 16, 2021.
  22. Police say they are investigating the death of a woman found Friday with “upper body trauma” in the 200 block of 37th Street North in St. Petersburg.
  23. An image taken from a federal criminal complaint shows Mitchell Todd Gardner, circled, spraying a liquid toward U.S. Capitol police officers on Jan. 6, 2021.
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