Felonious Florida

Casimir Sucharsky Jr. — or Butch Casey, as he's known — is the flashy, well-known owner of the popular South Florida nightclub Casey’s Nickelodeon. After a night out at his bar in June 1994, he invites two young, attractive women back to his house for an after-hours party. As they share a bottle of wine, two intruders with a machine gun burst into the house and slay all three. Police discover the crime has been caught on a...

Theories around the killing of Butch Casey and his female guests begin to spin around. The public is consumed by talk of a connection to the murders days earlier of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman — and the arrest of Butch’s long-time friend, O.J. Simpson. But police are looking elsewhere and probe possible connections to the mob. Then, a violent home invasion not far away in Miami-Dade County breaks the case open....

Was Pablo Ibar the man who showed his face to a security camera during the murders of Butch, Sharon and Marie? Police think so and begin to gather a case against him. Meanwhile, their search for the second killer surfaces two names — Alex Hernandez and Seth Penalver. But as prosecutors bring their suspects to trial, the apparent mountain of evidence they gathered begins to break down. The case is in jeopardy. Subscribe tod...

Seth Penalver is a free man, acquitted by a jury in the brutal 1994 Casey's Nickelodeon Murders after spending six years on Death Row. Pablo Ibar spent 16 years on Death Row before his conviction was thrown out. Soon, he'll get another chance to convince a jury of his innocence. Supporters in his father's native Spain have rallied to fund his defense, raising nearly $800,000. Can they overcome a solid eyewitness who s...

A mother and her 7-year-old daughter are kidnapped from a mall in Boca Raton, Florida, after an afternoon of Christmas shopping in December 2007. They’re found executed in the back seat of their SUV, still parked in the mall lot. As police piece together details of the shocking crime, they realize the unthinkable: This child killer has struck before — at the same mall, that same year. Only that time, the mom and son surviv...

The mom who survived the terrifying kidnapping at the Boca Raton mall is frustrated when police doubt her wild story. They think she may have made it up to make her boyfriend angry. Then, just two months later, Nancy Bochicchio and her 7-year-old daughter are kidnapped and shot to death at the same mall. And it gets worse: The crimes lead police back to another kidnapping and murder that happened earlier that same yea...

On a warm summer night in August 2009, an intruder shot Camile Hamilton in the face inside a suburban Florida home. A staggering 14 hours after the attacker fled, Camile wakes up — barely alive and with a bullet still inside her neck. Three others, including Camile’s teenage daughter, are dead. The crime scene is brutal and complicated, and neighbors didn't see anything. The search is on for a killer.

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Camile Hamilton is starting to remember what happened to her that brutal night in August 2009. A tiny piece of evidence and a series of breaks leads the Encino Street triple murder investigation to a homeless man with a criminal history named Kevin Pratt. But our investigative reporter finds inconsistencies in Camile's recollections that lead to questions about how reliable they are. And there's one more major disappointme...

In the conclusion of The Encino Murders, Camile Hamilton confronts Kevin Pratt after an in-person lineup — and the encounter is explosive. Kevin insists he didn’t kill anybody, but when the DNA evidence gets stronger he faces the death penalty. As the years go on, problems with the investigation are uncovered — and suddenly, the case against Kevin isn’t as strong as once thought.

See photos, video and read more about the En...

The text came in to Paul Edwards’ cell phone from his girlfriend, Lisa Spence. “Just wait till I got better,” it said. But it wasn’t so much what the text said, but that it had been sent at all. A month earlier, in October 2009, Lisa had vanished after a night shift at a beauty supply store and hadn’t been seen again. When other friends and family start getting texts from Lisa, police begin to wonder if Lisa was ...

Police looking into the disappearance of Lisa are convinced there's foul play involved. With nothing else to go on, they devise an unusual plan to crack the case. Within days, their text from the grave pays off — it leads them to a gruesome discovery in an empty field near Miami and to the man they say brutally murdered Lisa Spence.

See photos, video and read more about the Encino Murders at FeloniousFlorida.com

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When Marlene Warren answered a morning knock on her front door on Memorial Day weekend in 1990, a clown delivering flowers and balloons was smiling back at her. But her delight instantly turned to horror when the clown pulled a gun and put a bullet in her face. Police jumped on the trail of the killer clown almost immediately, and our reporters found that the investigation led them into the darkest corners of the...

The early days of the search for the killer clown focus on Marlene Warren's husband, Michael, and the repo woman who worked on his used car lot, Sheila Keen. There appeared to be motive: An insurance payout, investment properties, a lavish home and an affair. But there's little or no hard evidence. As Michael goes to prison for illegal activities on his lot, the investigation into his wife's murder goes ice cold. Until 27 ...

It's the murder case that launched the Felonious Florida podcast in 2018. There's been a verdict in the trial of Pablo Ibar, accused of murdering Butch Casey, Sharon Anderson and Marie Rogers in South Florida in 1994. It's the fifth time a jury has considered evidence against a suspect in the brutal home invasion — but this time, it's not the remarkable 22-minute video recording of the murders that's the key to the case. T...

In a new 6-part season, Felonious Florida investigates the mysterious disappearance of a 15-year-old Fort Lauderdale girl. Sophie Reeder was first treated as a runway, but clues begin to emerge within days that point to a devastating possibility: Sophie had entered a violent world where death is always lurking and young lives are shattered forever. Her case leads our reporters to others with striking similarities — and the...

When 15-year-old Sophie Reeder disappears from her Florida home, it appears at first that she has run away. But clues begin to emerge that something terrible has happened to Sophie. Then more cases surface that expose a violent world that lures in girls like Sophie and tears their lives apart — or leaves them dead and often forgotten. The mystery of Sophie Reeder's fate hinges on one thing: If somebody out there knows what...

There have been some updates to cases featured in Season 3 of Felonious Florida: Innocence Sold. In a special episode, host David Schutz is joined by the reporters who brought you Season 3 as well as two special guests to hear what's happened in the past two months. The team also talk the challenges of reporting on these difficult cases and the issues of child sex trafficking raised in our investigation.

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Nobody knows when 16-year-old Marina Ralph entered room 334 of an Extended Stay hotel in Florida, or what happened to her while there. What we do know is that Marina was terrified of something. The only person who might have known what happened to her was a friend she met at school — but now, both girls are dead.

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