Deputies went to check on the Reinhart family after concerning Facebook posts
On Tuesday, Paul Reinhart, 46, was found dead along with his two sons
Police report that Reinhart killed his two sons before setting his vacation home on fire and killing himself - it s not clear how he died
Erick Von Reinhart, 49, Paul s brother, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder after stabbing his ex-wife s boyfriend in Pasco County in 2014
Erick then tried to kill himself with the murder weapon, a kitchen knife
He was found on the bathroom floor, bleeding from self-inflicted stab wounds to his neck and stomach and is currently serving 40 years in prison
“You’re going to live with this the rest of your life.”
The text message from her estranged husband arrived at 5:39 a.m., even as Minde Reinhart was already on the phone with a sheriff’s dispatcher pleading for help and searching for answers. Paul Reinhart, 46, had disappeared into the night with the couple’s two young sons.
She replied by text: “Please don’t hurt yourself or the boys. Please come home.”
No answer. He had stopped texting, she told a 911 dispatcher.
Above: A 2:38 excerpt of a nearly 12-minute 911 call on Tuesday, May 4, from Minde Reinhart, 42, of Gainesville who was reporting her estranged husband and sons missing after what she characterized as suspicious text messages and Facebook posts from him. Paul Reinhart, 46, is suspected of killing his sons, Rex, 14, and Brody, 11, setting fire to the family’s waterfront vacation home in western Florida then killing himself.
I recently ran across this vintage photo of a one-room schoolhouse in Florida (St. John’s County) for Black children. My mind immediately flashed to my deceased parents who often told stories of walking barefoot to their one-room schoolhouse in the Piney Woods of Jefferson County near Tallahassee.
Then I thought of Gainesville For All’s ongoing effort to open a high-quality early learning center at Metcalfe Elementary School that would serve mostly poor and Black children who live nearby. I was saddened.
It seems that so much of the progress made by African Americans in past generations has been lost. Since the Jim Crow days of my parents’ youth notable gains were made, including those by my baby boomer generation. We narrowed the achievement gap between black and white students sharply in the 1970s and the first half of the ‘80s.
Minde Reinhart, 42, had raced through darkness to the luxury home in a gated community in Gainesville where she lived until recently with her husband and sons. Her depressed husband who separated from his wife and recently lost his high-paying executive job had bizarrely published 64 photos from their wedding 19 years ago to his Facebook page at 5 a.m.
Texts to Minde around the same time which ended abruptly made clear he blamed her for their pending divorce.
“You should have put your family first,” he wrote. “Now it s too late. You re so selfish. You re going to live with this the rest of your life.