DELAND Gwendolyn Granade knew that something was wrong Sunday afternoon when she heard her two horses running around in the pasture, frightened about something.
“I saw a man holding a rifle or a shotgun, she told the Daily Commercial. He had a look on his face. I can’t describe it.”
After holding the weapon up in the air, he climbed a fence and went onto adjoining wooded property. Granade then heard him shout: “Help!”
She called the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
“He’s at the road,” Granade shouted to one of the deputies when they arrived.
“I know,” he replied.
CLERMONT Authorities have identified the remains of a dead woman found in a remote area last week as Veronica Sacco, 29, who had been reported missing from Orange County on April 12.
Surveyors discovered the woman’s body last Monday in the area of Five Mile Road and Schofield Road south of Clermont near the Orange County line.
The body was in a state of advanced decomposition, so dental records were needed to positively identify her. It was impossible to say at that time if there were any signs of trauma. The Medical Examiner’s Office in Leesburg performed an autopsy.
Detectives declined to release any other information at that time.
14-year-old Eustis High student charged with arson at school
Frank Stanfield
EUSTIS A Lake County sheriff’s deputy has arrested a 14-year-old Eustis High School student and charged him with setting fire to the school.
The deputy, acting as the school resource officer, was called by an assistant principal to respond to a fire in the boy’s rest room in Building 8 at 10:51 a.m.
When he arrived, the assistant principal had already extinguished the blaze, but found a mass of burned plastic on the floor. A soap dispenser between sinks had been set on fire. Flames had raced up the wall to the ceiling.
Deputies began arriving at 1:15 p.m. When the first deputy arrived, the man fled on foot into a wooded area.
“Deputies searched the wooded area for the suspect and ultimately encountered him, at which time he was shot,” a sheriff’s press release stated on Sunday.
According to that initial report, the man sustained non-life-threatening injuries. He was airlifted to Central Florida Regional Medical Center in Sanford.
It was unclear Monday morning what his status was.
His name has not been released, nor has the deputy’s.
The shooting investigation has been turned over FDLE, which has not yet released any details about the shooting.
One of the deputies, Dane Minor, reported in a probable cause affidavit that he walked up to the passenger side window and began talking to Ellis when he detected the smell of burned marijuana, saw a baggie with a white substance, and saw a bag on the passenger seat he suspected of containing drugs.
Deputies were already suspicious, saying they saw him moving around in the car as if he was trying to hide something while coming to a slow stop.
While other deputies were trying to remove Ellis from the car, he put the car in gear and sped off with the deputy’s upper body still inside the vehicle.