Top 100 Stories

ORLANDO -- With regard to the beheading of a second American journalist in Iraq by the Islamic State: This tightens my jaw.

Ex-Flagler Avenue kingpin Robert Lott serves as bouncer with new shoes

Headline Surfer® photos / Booze was the big draw at a Rotary function at the Brannon Center in New Smyrna Beach on Aug. 23. Public drinking is illegal in the city, but that didn't stop people from doing so at the event as shown in this inset image. Robert Lott, former Flagler Avenue financial planner, served as bouncer.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- Robert Lott was still wearing the same ratty clothes, though he made sure to show off his new plastic shoes when the internet newspaper showed up to take photos of the recent "Cheeseburger in Paradise" fundraiser at the Brannon Center held by the Rotary clubs of New Smyrna Beach and Edgewater.

Armed holdup of pizzeria now almost a week old with no arrest

DAYTONA BEACH -- A lone gunman held up Papa John's Pizza at 1506 S. Nova Road on Wednesday night, but Daytona Beach police don't have any leads on who the robber lading to an arrest six days later, with one key exception: He had a noticeable scar on his lower right jaw.

With a silver revolver in his right hand, the gunman walked up to the counter 10:36 p.m. and demanded money from the cash drawer. An employee behind the counter handed over an undetermined amount of money and then the the gunman ran out of the store and took off, possibly in a white Ford Escape. There was no video surveillance on the premises of the robbery.

Deltona teen still at large three days later; considered armed & dangerous

Photo for Headline Surfer® / Dontavious Williams, described as 5 feet 11 and 180 pounds, of Deltona, is wanted by Daytona cops on two active warrants. He's considered armed and dangerous.

DAYTONA BEACH -- Dontavius Williams was spotted by Daytona Beach cops just before 3 a.m. Sunday in the 800 block of S. Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard while on routine patrol, but he didn't stick around, even after being handcuffed at the scene. And three days later he's still missing. And so are the handcuffs.

Cops said they approached Williams, who gave them a fake name, but they hd an idea who he was and that he was wanted. And while searching on an in-car laptop, confirmed his identity and that there was an outstanding warrant charging him with aggravated assault with a firearm.

But Williams was able to disappear into the crowd while police were trying to keep everyone back, police spokesman Jimmy Flynt said. While police were handling the crowd, Williams simply ran off, his hands cuffed from behind.

Headline Surfer® graphic / Labor Day turned tragic with the drowing of a 20-month-old boy in  swimming pool on Ferendina Drive in Deltona as shown in this locator map.

DELTONA -- The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office received a frantic 911 call at 7:45 p.m. about a lifeless baby boy, only 20 months old, being pulled out of a relatives' swimming pool at a in thre 1300 block of  Ferendina Drive on this Labor Day evening.

"Adults at the scene were attempting CPR while awaiting the arrival of deputies and paramedics, but they reported that the child wasn’t responding," Sheriff's spokesman Gary Davidson told Headline Surfer®. "Emergency units began arriving at the house about two minutes after the call was received."

Headline Surfer® photo / Volusia County GOP Party Chairman Tony Ledbetter (in orange shirt) is shown Friday at the recount for the at-large County Council race, hours before he was tossed for complaining about what he perceived as the slow pace of things while paying $300 an hour for an attorney. The race was non-partisan.

DAYTONA BEACH -- Tony Ledbetter, the chairman of the Republican Party of Volusia County, was escorted out of the canvassing board's voter recount in the at-large County Council race late Friday at the historic Volusia County Courthouse in DeLand by a Sheriff's deputy, Headline Surfer® has learned.

HOLLY HILL -- John Penny won the race for mayor outright in the primary.

John Penny Aug. 27
From your new Mayor, John Penny: I would like to thank the hundreds of people and community leaders who supported my campaign and share my vision for a bright future for Holly Hill. I owe a special Thank You to my family for supporting my campaign. It is especially gratifying to have prevailed. A three-way race poses particular mathematical challenges, so I appreciate the confidence of the voters and the fact that they voted in numbers great enough to settle the contest outright. I share their passion for Holly Hill and look forward to working together with them to improve our infrastructure, pursue positive growth and compete in the economic development arena.

EDGEWATER -- I can’t believe the people of Volusia County have voted Deb Denys in again as county council member for district 3 representing New Smyrna Beach, Edgewater, Oak Hill and part of Port Orange, Osteen and Lake Helen. After all she and her cohorts have done and are still doing behind everyone’s back, funded by the big wigs who run the county or think they do with their money, and still she gets re-elected?

6th bite victim of the year occurs near South Jetty

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- A 13-year-old girl from Boca Raton was bitten on the calf by a shark while body surfing Sunday afternoon in waist-deep water, a beach safety official said.