The Florida Files

The FBI proclaimed him America's most prolific serial killer. Samuel Little, nicknamed the Choke and Stroke killer, criss-crossed the U.S. and confessed to strangling and killing 93 women. He got his murderous start was in Miami, where he knew the back roads and swampy Everglades were the ideal place to dump his victims. Many of the women's bodies have never been found. Cold case detectives are hoping someone remembers something that can help them.

Torrential downpours wouldn't let up in Miami. The Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears slip and slide all over the field during Super Bowl XLI. What to do about halftime? For Miami football fans and players, the unrelenting rain may have been hell; but for performer Prince, the heavens opened up for him and he took full advantage with his finale of Purple Rain in a downpour, making history as the Best Halftime Show ever.

Players called him "The Prophet" because of his work ethic and for never missing a chance to lead the locker room in pre-game prayers. But on the night before Super Bowl XXXIII in Miami, Atlanta Falcons safety Eugene Robinson decided to go for a little drive. He ended up in the wrong place at the worst time, offering $40 to an undercover policewoman posing as a prostitute in exchange for oral sex. He played in the game the next day against the Denver Broncos, but he and the rest of the Dirty Birds couldn't overcome Robinson's big blunder.

Jan. 22, 1989, In the huddle near the end of Super Bowl XXIII, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana settles his teammates' nerves by pointing out comedian John Candy in the stands. The levity caps off one of the most tense Super Bowl weeks ever. While preparations are under way, a race riot breaks out in a Miami neighborhood and thousands of out of town visitors are arriving for the festivities. Should the game go on? The former mayor of Miami tells the Florida Files he was scared for his life.

The judge overseeing the case against Yahweh ben Yahweh and his followers writes that the case is arguably the most violent ever tried in a federal court with beheadings, stabbings, and severing of body parts. Strange coincidences occur outside the courtroom as the U.S. assistant attorney's secretary is murdered outside her front door, and another witness is run over by a train. The verdict arrives, but things are far from over as Yahweh ben Yahweh is charged with one count of first degree murder by the state of Florida. What was truth about the Temple Of Love?  Was Yahweh ben Yahweh wrongly persecuted or rightly prosecuted

Assistant US Attorney Richard Scruggs gets a box of files from then Florida State Attorney Janet Reno's office. One of his prosecutor's calls it "Janet Reno's 'trash.'" Scruggs has heard of Yahweh Ben Yahweh and knows trying to convict the spiritual leader will be difficult and dangerous. But, it has to be done. Thirty years later, he reflects on the case, never before speaking publicly about it, except to The Florida Files. How he hated the star witness Robert Rozier, but had to place nice with him in the courtroom. Scruggs answers the question: Did the government pay witnesses to lie to convict Yahweh? Venita Mitchell recalls the night thousands of UFOs descended on Miami's Temple Of Love before her father's conviction to greet the self proclaimed son of God. 

There are many Miami killings linked to the Yahwehs, but investigators believe there is only one that happens inside the Temple of Love. When a karate champ shows, Yahweh Ben Yahweh challenges him to fight one of the Yahwehs. The disciple loses to the karate champ, but still Leonard Dupree is beaten to death. A former Yahweh member says that the spiritual leader calls him speaking in code. Yahweh Ben Yahweh says a goat was sacrificed in the Temple Of Love. Khalil Amani knew exactly what he meant.

It's the 80s and mysterious Yahweh Ben Yahweh is buying up hotels, opening schools and grocery stores, and cleaning up rundown apartments. When he takes over a complex in Opa-locka, six miles from the Temple of Love, two residents resist leaving. Twenty-four hours later, the residents are shot dead. Found hiding in the bushes, sniffed out by a police dog, is Neariah Israel, a member of the Nation of Yahweh. He is arrested. Miami detectives find a link between those murders and several homicides where the victims' ears are severed and taken.  Police say all the cases have another link –  the road leads back to Miami's Temple of Love. 

It is the late 1970s when the oldest son of a Pentecostal minister from Enid, Oklahoma, arrives in Miami. The predominantly black neighborhood of Liberty City is in one of its most vulnerable times and the time is right for a spiritual leader to bring the community together. Hulon Mitchell Jr., proclaims himself the son of God, Yahweh Ben Yahweh. He founds the Nation of Yahweh and the Temple of Love. But, then people start turning up dead.  What is really going on inside Miami's Temple of Love? Or is it all a government conspiracy?

Finally, Anna Nicole Smith is buried in Nassau, next to her beloved son Daniel along with ashes of her billionaire husband J. Howard Marshall.  Yet, there's still no rest in peace in the Bahamas.  A paternity and custody fight is playing out in court over Smith's five-month-old daughter Dannielynn, and mama Virgie believes she's the best fit to raise the child, despite a DNA test that will soon prove who the biological father is.  Back in Broward County, the Seminole Police Department and the Broward Medical Examiner are ready to release the results of what killed Anna Nicole Smith in South Florida.  Despite conclusions, 12 years later, Judge Larry Seidlin says there are still red flags waving. The little girl Anna Nicole always wanted, Dannielynn, is now 12 going on 13. She's on the honor roll at school and a Girl Scout. Contradictory to what the media reports, it's not likely that anytime soon she'll become one of the richest kids on the planet.

In death, Anna Nicole Smith is getting the same kind of attention in life that brought her fame. Anna Nicole Smith's body is accompanied by a motorcade of police out of the Broward Medical Examiner's office to Miami International Airport in a procession usually reserved for heads of state. The Bahamian arrival is just as royal. Her mother, Virgie Arthur is the last guest to arrive at Mount Horeb Baptist Church in Nassau. She is in Nassau Supreme Court up until the last minute trying to stop the funeral and take her daughter's body back to Texas.

After a judge approves Anna Nicole Smith's body to head to the Bahamas for burial, mama Virgie puts up a fight in Palm Beach County court.  Meanwhile there are legal battles aplenty in the Bahamas over custody of little Dannielynn and who owns the waterfront mansion that the baby and Howard K. Stern are living in.  Plus, surprises are around every corner regarding paternity testing.  Hear interviews from Larry Birkhead and former Local 10 reporter Roger Lohse on the fight for the burial in the Bahamas and more.

It's disorder in the court as the Battle to Bury Anna plays out on cable television, and the ringleader? Judge Larry Seidlin.  In one corner, Anna Nicole's estranged mother Virgie Arthur wants to take her daughter's body to Texas. Is Virgie selling stories to the media for money?  In the other, companion and attorney Howard K. Stern who wants the bombshell buried next to her son, Daniel in the Bahamas, but there are questions about his intentions. Larry Birkhead just wants to prove Anna Nicole's baby daughter is his.  Now, 12 years later, hear interviews from those who lived through the media mayhem and the three-ring courtroom circus, and why the infamous Cryin' Judge says the Anna Nicole case still haunts him today.

She was charismatic and beautiful, but after the death of her son Daniel, friends say Anna Nicole Smith lost her spark. The Broward County Medical Examiner's 84-page report details the former Playboy playmate's last few months, last few weeks, and final days.  It's a rollercoaster.  Birth of a daughter, and three days later the death of her son. Companion and lawyer Howard K. Stern says, "she didn't want to trade out children: one to be born and another to die."  While the father of her daughter, Larry Birkhead, believes it was something she could never recover from.

Anna Nicole Smith died 12 years ago at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida. But her death would be only the beginning of the media circus that would converge on South Florida's Broward County. So what happened that afternoon in Room 607? Why had she come to the Hard Rock Hotel to begin with? Hear from the yacht broker who was getting her pink boat Cracker ready to take its maiden voyage back to the Bahamas, and from her sister, Donna Hogan, who regrets to this day not being able to save Vickie Lynn Hogan Smith Marshall. Plus, other revelations that reveal why Anna Nicole Smith became part of The Florida Files.

Nothing and everything has changed for Manuel Oliver since his son was shot by a gunman at his high school. The husband and father moved his family to the United States to escape the violence of Venezuela, but on Feb. 14, 2018, his son, Joaquin, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School became a statistic. Joaquin was one of 17 people shot and killed in the deadliest shooting at a high school in U.S. history. Hear how Manuel Oliver is coping with the tragedy.

William Russell Matix and Michael Lee Platt are a modern day version of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. What happens on April 11, 1986, is like something out of a Hollywood movie. Two FBI agents gunned down, and a trail of blood from Ohio to Florida.  Even decades later, questions still remain about the two-faced killers, military veterans and  family men who had neighbors, wives, pastors, and police fooled.

Police identify the two robbers who lay dead on a Southwest Miami residential street after a shootout with FBI agents. What they are about to discover are the ghosts of the men's past. The wife of William Matix, Patty, is murdered three years before Suniland. She's stabbed to death in a hospital laboratory in Ohio. So,  who killed Patty Matix? 

With two slain agents, two dead robbers, and five wounded agents bloodied on a Southwest Miami Dade street, there are puzzle pieces to put together. Who are these never-say-die killers? What goes wrong that the FBI is outgunned on April 11, 1986? Through the years, FBI directors return to Miami. Familiar names in today's news, former FBI directors Robert Mueller and James Comey, pay tribute to SAs Benjamin Grogan and Jerry Dove for their service and sacrifice.

Never-say-die killers William R. Matix and Michael Lee Platt are shot to pieces, but refuse to give up. Platt sprays more than 40 rounds from a high powered weapon, no match for the agent's revolvers. The call comes over the radio, "Shots fired! Agents down!" Special agents Jerry Dove and Ben Grogan are dead. Five others are wounded, in a shootout that lasts five minutes.

On a spring sunny morning in Miami, a quiet neighborhood becomes the scene of one of the bloodiest shootouts in FBI history when special agents and dangerous robbers exchange more than 100 rounds of gunfire between them over five minutes. Just before the shootout, special agent Ben Grogan calls into dispatch. It would be the last time anyone would ever hear his voice.

The half-sister of Broward rapper XXXTentacion says she believes the rapper's murder on June 18, 2018 was set up by someone close to him. Meanwhile, his mother works to maintain his legacy with a raffle that includes a visit to his crypt.

It's been only weeks since rapper XXXTentacion was murdered outside a motorsports store. On the porch of his $1.4 million house, there's a makeshift memorial. A big, gold X, and a small rock with a "?" painted on it. On Episode 2, The Florida Files looks at the good and bad of XXXTentacion. Plus, more of the interview with the rapper's father, Dwayne Onfroy, who provides a window into the Broward rapper's past.

Not many people in the mainstream had heard of the Broward County rapper known as XXXTentacion before the news of his death broke on June 18, 2018. But at music festivals and in the underground rap scene, Jahseh Onfroy was a music pioneer of a new sound for Generation Z. On a Monday afternoon, a drive in his BMW I-8 sports car to a motorcycle shop with $50,000 in cash in his favorite Louis Vuitton crossbag would end up with the 20 year old murdered in broad daylight in an armed robbery. The Florida Files goes step by step into what happened leading up to the death of XXXTentacions, and looks back at the controversial life of the young rapper. Local 10's Michelle Solomon, host of The Florida Files, talks to those who were close to the rapper. And, listen to an exclusive interview with the rapper's father. 

Today, John Walsh is certain that Ottis Toole abducted and murdered his son. So when Hollywood, Fla., Police Chief Chad Wagner announced that the case was closed in 2008, Walsh says it ended almost three decades of misery for his family. John Walsh talks in a frank and fiery interview with The Florida Files about the hurdles in trying to get justice for his son. Still, there are others that doggedly try to prove that serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was responsible for Adam Walsh's death.

Ten years after Adam's disappearance, another witness comes forth to say what he saw that day at the Sears store in the Hollywood Mall. Meanwhile, things are changing at the Hollywood PD. But as time ticks on, Revé Walsh has had enough. A mother wants justice.

Police track down leads and question alleged witnesses about who might have taken the six year old Hollywood, Fla., boy from a local mall and murdered him. Then, a drifter from Jacksonville, Fla., makes a stunning confession. But, there are holes in his story.

For two weeks in 1981, a Florida community comes together to help police and the frantic parents of a six year old attempt to locate a boy who seems to have vanished into thin air from a Sears store in a local mall. Then, a gruesome discovery in a canal more than 120 miles from where Adam Walsh disappeared changes one family's life, and alerts parents everywhere to the reality of stranger danger. Who would do such a thing and why?

On a typical summer day in Hollywood, Florida, a mother and her six-year-old son stop at a neighborhood mall. It's 1981. He wants to stop and play an Atari game on display in a Sears store, she goes down another aisle to look at lamps. When she returns minutes later, her son is gone. It's only the beginning of a nightmare for parents John and Revé Walsh, one that would drag on for 27 years.

Get ready to dive in to the Florida Files as we look back at the disappearance of Adam Walsh in a case that shook South Florida and the country.