News Update for 5/15/23
An Avon Park couple reportedly were killed in a weekend traffic crash in Glades County. Florida Highway Patrol reports say the 72-year-old man was on a motorcycle north on State Road 29 with a rider, when a sport utility vehicle driven by a Melbourne woman went left of center and slammed head-on into the bike.
Both he and his passenger, a 71-year-old Avon Park woman, were pronounced dead at the scene. No names have been released. The incident remains under investigation.
If you normally take Hammock Road, today’s the day you’re going to be taking a different route. County officials will be closing that heavily traveled thoroughfare between Lakewood and Brunns roads, so a new drainage culvert can be installed.
Local officials say they hope the work will be done and the road back open a week from Friday. In the meantime, motorists are urged to plan a little extra time to get where they’re going.
You might want to think about changing your password. A new report from Upgraded Points shows that there have been more than 25 identity theft reports per each 10,000 members of the population in the Avon Park/Sebring metro area in 2022. That represents a 15-percent increase over 2019.
It’s still well below the national average of 33.4-percent.
Officials attribute it to the high number of people applying for government benefits coupled with the government’s rush to distribute them. That created vulnerabilities in the system that criminals were able to exploit.
It appears a weekend argument cost an Orlando woman her life. According to reports, 27-year-old Lataysha Rene Kelley had stopped her car along Chalet Suzanne Road just north of Lake Wales during an argument with a male passenger in the vehicle.
The tiff spread onto the roadway, where Kelly was hit by an oncoming vehicle. She was taken to the hospital where she later expired from her injuries.
A man is dead after a wrong-way crash in Polk County. The sheriff’s office says Garry Restifo of Lake Wales was going the wrong way on a motorcycle Saturday night when he hit a pickup truck on Highway 27 in Dundee.
The 60-year-old was taken to the hospital where he passed away. Deputies say he was not wearing a helmet. No one in the pickup truck was seriously hurt.
A man is dead after an ATV Crash near Lakeland. It happened Saturday night on Wildlife Trail.
The sheriff’s office says Lakeland’s Roger Tyer, Jr. was riding an ATV when it flipped and landed on top of him. The 35-year-old was pinned under the ATV for about half-an-hour before someone found him and called 911. He was taken to the hospital where he passed away.