BREAKING NEWS Former college football star Avantae Williams faces life in prison after arrest over deadly shooting
Former college football star Avantae Williams could be facing a lifetime in prison following a deadly shooting in Florida at the weekend.
Williams, a former safety for Maryland and Miami, was arrested in connection with a fatal shooting that left one man dead and a bartender injured at a bar north of Orlando.
32-year-old Keshod Harris was shot six times during an altercation at McCabe's in DeLand, around 34 miles outside of Orlando, according to multiple reports.
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Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
'MS-13 gang member' wearing Celtics shirt is nabbed after making stupid mistake while driving
An undocumented migrant and suspected member of the notorious MS-13 gang has been arrested in Massachusetts after being pulled over for allegedly using his cell phone while driving. William Alberto Villalobos-Melendez, a 24-year-old Salvadoran national who US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) say has 'verified connections' to the violent group, was apprehended in Brockton last month after a traffic stop in Middleboro, according to a statement released on Monday. An arrest photograph shows Villalobos-Melendez, in handcuffs and wearing a green Boston Celtics T-shirt, flanked by three federal officers. 'William Alberto Villalobos-Melendez has been illegally residing in the United States for almost nine years,' said Patricia H Hyde, ICE ERO Boston acting Field Office Director. 'He is a validated member of a violent transnational street gang and poses a threat to our Massachusetts residents,' she added. 'ICE Boston will not tolerate any threat that a member of a nefarious gang poses to our neighbors.' In March state police pulled over the 24-year-old man and charged him with operating a motor vehicle without a license and using an electronic device while driving, according to the agency. A day later he was arrested during a coordinated operation led by ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston with support from ICE Homeland Security Investigations New England and the FBI's Boston division. He was taken into ICE custody where he will remain pending approval for his removal from the US. 'We will continue to prioritize public safety by arresting criminal alien threats to our New England communities,' Hyde added. Villalobos-Melendez was first arrested by US Border Patrol (USBP) in October 2016 after illegally entering the country near Hidalgo, Texas, according to the agency. After his initial entry into the US, Border Patrol officials determined that he had entered without admission or inspection by an immigration official. USBP issued Villalobos-Melendez a notice in response, ordering him to appear before a Justice Department immigration judge. In June of 2019 a DOJ judge ordered that the 24-year-old Salvadoran national be removed from the country, according to ICE. The Trump administration rounded up almost 1,500 migrants in Massachusetts in May, the biggest ICE sweep yet, officials said last week. ICE chief Hyde said that 277 migrants have been deported and that 790 were criminals. A migrant arrested on May 7 was found to have been deported five previous times and came back into the US committing a slew of violent offenses, according to Leah Foley, the US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. 'Those arrested included individuals who pumped deadly narcotics into our neighborhoods, trafficked firearms for trans-national criminal organizations, defrauded government benefit programs, and in some cases, preyed on vulnerable children,' Foley said at a news conference. 'These are defendants who didn't simply cross a border, they crossed a line and jeopardized the safety of Massachusetts.' Todd Lyons, the director of ICE, credited 'hundreds of brave officers' who he said 'risked their lives every day' to capture migrants. Lyons, a Boston native, said they arrested several convicted murderers, child sex offenders and abusers as he turned to a board of mugshots of some of the migrants arrested. 'ICE is going to make sure we keep the community safe,' Lyons added. Last month Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, often referred to as the 'Democratic dictator' for her progressive policies, ignited controversy after an on-air interview about federal immigration authorities as raids erupted across the state. In the interview at the WBUR Festival the 40-year-old mayor described ICE agents as 'secret police' who are 'terrorizing' people across Boston. 'People are terrified for their lives and for their neighbors,' Wu said. 'Folks are getting snatched off the street by secret police who are wearing masks, who can offer no justification for why certain people are being taken and then detained.' Her remarks prompted a swift response from US Attorney Foley, who condemned the mayor for 'inciting hostility' against federal agents. 'Referring to federal agents as 'secret police' is offensive,' Foley said in a video shared to X. 'There are no secret police.' 'ICE agents, along with other federal law enforcement partners, are making immigration arrests. That is no secret.' 'They are arresting individuals who are here illegally, which is a violation of federal law,' she added. 'To claim otherwise is a gross misrepresentation and a disservice to the public.' As of Tuesday the Trump administration has deported more than 139,000 migrants, which represents a sharp increase since inauguration day but falls behind the president's aggressive targets. The sweeping effort has not been without controversy. A number of individuals have been wrongly deported, including to El Salvador's notorious CECOT mega-prison. The clampdown has also prompted furious riots, the most serious of which in Los Angeles were still raging as of Tuesday.
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Death row inmate, 54, makes bizarre Vietnam War plea before his execution TONIGHT
A death row inmate set to be executed on Tuesday night tried to evoke a scandal from the Vietnam War in a last-ditch attempt to spare his life. Anthony Wainwright, 54, is scheduled to be put to death via lethal injection over the 1994 murder of Carmen Gayheart, who he and an accomplice kidnapped from a supermarket parking lot. The killer and his accomplice brutally raped Gayheart before strangling and shooting her in a wooded area in Hamilton County, Florida. Richard Hamilton, the accomplice, who died in prison in 2023. Ahead of his execution tonight, Wainwright's attorneys threw a Hail Mary plea to spare his fate. They argued that his father was exposed to the herbicide Agent Orange when he served in the Vietnam War, which stunted his brain development. Agent Orange was a potent weed killer sprayed by the US military during the Vietnam War that was later found to have severe health effects on Vietnamese civilians and US soldiers who were exposed to it. Wainwright was conceived around six months after his father returned from the war after he was among the millions exposed to it, he said. In a petition to the US Supreme Court, Wainwright's attorneys argued that the herbicide's health effects were not well understood when he was convicted. His execution will coincide with that of Alabama inmate Gregory Hunt. Hunt will be put to death with controversial nitrogen gas. Although they claimed it could have been a 'mitigating factor' that a jury could have hypothetically considered when sparing him the death penalty, the Florida Supreme Court rejected Wainwright's plea hours before the execution. In their failed petition, the killer's legal team alleged that execution would be 'disproportionate, excessive and cruel', as they argued he was stunted from birth due to the herbicide. 'Although Mr. Wainwright did not serve in the Vietnam War, and was not even a viable life at that point, he was catastrophically and immutably cognitively damaged from it,' the petition said. 'Unlike veterans, who make knowing sacrifices for our country in the face of grave risks, Mr. Wainwright had no such choice.' As it rejected the petition, the court said Wainwright's mental state had already been decided upon in his early appeals. 'First, while Wainwright says he was unaware of the cause of his cognitive and neurobehavioral impairments, his intellectual, behavioral, and psychological issues have been an issue throughout the postconviction proceedings,' the court said. 'Thus, it is unlikely that one additional cause to explain this set of behaviors would result in a life sentence.' When Wainwright and Hamilton killed Gayheart, who was 23 at the time of her murder, they had escaped from a minimum-security prison in North Carolina two days before. After stealing a car and driving to Lake City, Florida, they kidnapped Gayheart from a parking lot at gunpoint and drove her to a remote area off State Route 6. The fugitives brutally raped her before strangling and shooting her in the head. Gayheart's body was found four days later on May 2, 1994. One day later, they were found by a Mississippi State Trooper in Brookhaven, Mississippi, and were captured after the trooper shot both men. If Wainwright's execution goes ahead on Tuesday night, he would become the sixth inmate executed in Florida this year. The execution would be followed by that of Thomas Gudinas, whose death is scheduled for June 24. Gudinas was sentenced to death in 1995 over the rape and murder of Michelle Mcgrath the year prior outside an Orlando bar. He had spent the evening drinking at a bar called Barbarella's, the same bar where McGrath was last seen. Gudinas's friends told investigators that they left the bar without him, and McGrath's battered body was discovered at a nearby school the next morning. A woman named Rachelle Smith said she had been attacked by Gudinas that same night, and it was found that McGrath's car was in the same parking lot. Witnesses said they saw Gudinas in the area around the body until around 7am the next day, and one of his roommates said he found boxer shorts in their apartment stained with blood. If both Gudinas and Wainwright's executions go ahead, the seven executions in Florida in as many months would mark a sharp increase in death sentences carried out in the state. Only one person was executed in the entirety of last year in Florida, and six in total in 2023.
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE My last words to Death Row inmate who murdered my sister in cold blood
Carmen Gayheart was loading groceries into the back of her blue Ford Bronco when she was ambushed in the parking lot of a Florida Winn-Dixie. The 23-year-old mom of two, a straight-A nursing student with a bright future, was about to set off to collect her five-year-old daughter and three-year-old son from daycare - but she would never see her children again. Two recently escaped convicts from North Carolina spotted the pretty brunette alone and, in a moment of opportunistic evil, bundled her into the back of her own car at gunpoint and drove her to a secluded area, where she was raped and killed. Now, 31 years on, one of her killers - Anthony Wainwright - is set to die by lethal injection Tuesday evening at Florida State Prison. Sitting front and center to watch him take his final breath will be Gayheart's older sister, Maria David, who told the Daily Mail she hopes Wainwright is gripped by the same terror her sibling must've felt in her final throes of life. 'Carmen was so scared for her life in her final moments, thinking, 'This is it. I'm gonna die.' And I can only hope that fear is something he's feeling now, too,' shared David. 'She died in a horrific way… it kills me what they did to my baby sister. So I'm glad this is the last time I'll ever see him, and the last time I'll ever have to think about Anthony Wainwright.' Wainwright's death is scheduled for 6pm. The 54-year-old is one of two death row inmates set to be executed in the US tonight. The second, fellow killer Jeremy Hunt, 65, will be suffocated by nitrogen gas in Alabama. Wainwright's accomplice in the murder of Gayheart, Richard Hamilton, died from natural causes behind bars in January 2023. The two men escaped from prison in Newport, North Carolina, on April 24, 1994, where Wainwright was serving 10 years for breaking and entering, and Hamilton 25 years for armed robbery. They stole a Cadillac and burglarized a home the following morning, stealing money and guns, before heading south towards Florida. It was when the Cadillac started having mechanical issues that the men decided to steal another car. That's when they spotted Gayheart. Her remains would be found five days later, on May 2, 1994, off a dirt road in Hamilton County. She had been shot twice in the back of the head with a bolt-action rifle. Wainwright and Hamilton, meanwhile, continued on the lam in Gayheart's blue Bronco before they were eventually snared 520 miles away in Mississippi the day after her murder following shootout with police. Both were shot but survived. Initially, Wainwright told police that he raped Carmen and that Hamilton killed her. They led police to her body. At their trial in 1995, each attempted to point the finger of blame for the rape and murder at the other. Both men were convicted of murder, kidnapping, robbery and rape, with the jury unanimously recommending they be sentenced to death by the electric chair. Wainwright's lawyers have filed multiple unsuccessful appeals over the years based on what they said were problems with his trial and evidence that he suffered from brain damage and intellectual disability. Since his execution was scheduled last month, his lawyers have argued in state and federal court filings that his execution should be put on hold to allow time for courts to hear additional legal arguments in his case. In a filing with the US Supreme Court, his lawyers argue that his case has been 'marred by critical, systemic failures at virtually every stage and through the signing of his death warrant.' Those failures include flawed DNA evidence that wasn't disclosed to the defense until after opening statements, erroneous jury instructions, inflammatory and inaccurate closing arguments, and missteps by court-appointed lawyers, the filing says. David said she isn't buying Wainwright's latest revision of events. She said she heard the evidence against him first-hand and there is no doubt in her mind that he both raped and killed her younger sister. If anything, David said the killer should be grateful that he's being given the lethal injection, rather than the electric chair as was previously ordered. 'He's getting off easy,' David told the Daily Mail. 'I'm sad it's not the electric chair. 'He's going to get an injection that puts him off to sleep like you'd do for your family's sick dog, the dog you loved with all your heart. 'Carmen suffered… but he's taking the easy way out. He's had 31 years breathing, phone calls, letters, all of that - everything he robbed Carmen of.' Wainwright is set to become the sixth person executed in Florida this year after the US Supreme Court denied several of his appeals on Monday. His lawyers unsuccessfully filed a last-minute effort to seek a stay of execution Tuesday morning, focusing on claims that he was improperly barred from hiring a lawyer of his choice under state law. David said that the three decades she has been waiting to see Wainwright held 'accountable' is far too long. During that time, she lost both of her parents. Her father died in 2013, and her mother died in 2023. Both had wanted to witness Wainwright's death, she said. 'I know they're going to be with me in spirit today, for both me and Carmen, so we can see this through together,' David said. Before her sister's callous murder, David held no strong opinions about the death penalty. It was only after Gayheart was killed that she says she understood the 'need' for capital punishment. 'When you are so closely tied to the victim of a horrific crime like Carmen, you change your opinion. You want to see it happen because they deserve it,' added David. 'We didn't ask to seek the death penalty. The state came to us and told us they were going to go for it…I absolutely have to see this through.' David said she is anxious to witness Wainwright's execution but eager to stare him down one last time. She doesn't know what emotions she will feel when the fateful moment comes, but shared that she isn't taking the occasion lightly. 'It's a serious thing; death is final. It doesn't matter who is dying. 'But I will continue to remember what he did to my sister, and that will help me to be strong and push through.' One thing Wainwright should not expect from David or her family is a parting gift of forgiveness, she continued. Addressing her sister's killer directly, David said: 'Mr. Wainwright, you had choices, starting from when you walked away from that prison, when you were in your stolen Cadillac, and you needed to get another car. You made a choice there. 'When Hamilton jumped out, you knew anybody would know when you're approaching a victim like Carmen that something bad was going to happen. He could have gone the other way. He didn't. He followed along. He got into the truck. 'Every step he took, he made a choice - and unfortunately for him, that choice is the ultimate consequence.' Today, David remembers her sister as a warm and loving individual and a doting mother and wife who never met a stranger. She was a lover of all creatures, big and small, so much so that she would refuse to even kill a cockroach. But Carmen wasn't afforded the same kindness she extended to the world in her final moments - a fact that continues to haunt David. Over the years, she has kept a binder with every court filing, from the initial indictment through Wainwright's latest appeals, tracking his case in meticulous detail. 'I'm looking forward to getting the last pieces of paperwork that say he's been executed to put into the book and never having to think about him again.' Through tears, she added: 'The victims are the ones to remember on these kinds of days. 'I'll keep talking about my brilliant sister until I'm no longer here.'
