JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA: A Florida man died after he and his best friend were attacked by another man carrying a knife on Sunday, August 6. Jolene Bowlus and her best friend, James Hoffman, were eating dinner on her porch at Pickett Street and Edgewood Avenue when a young man approached them, according to NBC affiliate WTLV.
Bowlus said, "He asked me if I knew this girl named Pam. I said 'no,' He said 'you're a liar' and he went bam, next thing I know I was lying on the ground." Bowlus was knocked out for a moment, and when she awoke, Hoffman was being stabbed as he had jumped to her defense. "My little dog was barking, so he picked her up and killed her," said Bowlus about the knife-wielding assailant. Bowlus ran away and rang for assistance. She claimed that without the help of her best friend, Hoffman, she would not have survived. "He's a hero," Bowlus said. He died a hero."
The suspect was killed for disobeying an officer
The suspect was killed when he disobeyed an officer who responded to the 911 call, according to a press conference by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. According to the sheriff's office, the officer first tried to take down the suspect using a Taser gun, but it had no effect. Mark Romano, Director of Investigations, said, "The suspect then grabbed a large, metal bucket and ran toward our officer. Our officer fired his weapon multiple times." The suspect passed away in a hospital after being taken there. Officials claim that the officer received a minor injury from the bucket.
Another Florida man confesses to murdering girlfriend 48 years ago
Earlier today, a retired Florida man admitted to committing a cold-case homicide that had remained unsolved for nearly 50 years, in a dramatic and long-awaited development. The shocking confession of the 81-year-old Rodney Mervyn Nichols has solved the gruesome murder that has plagued law enforcement for decades. Nichols, formerly a resident of Montreal, confessed to the 1975 murder of his girlfriend, Jewell Langford. His confession emerged due to the culmination of forensic advancements and his own guilty conscience, as documented in federal court records from the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida.
Jewell Langford, after relocating to Montreal to live with Nichols, vanished without a trace. Her friend's report to the Montreal Police Service about her going missing in the month of June in 1975 marked the beginning of a mystery that would persist for decades.
After Nichols confessed, 48 years later, he was arrested on July 25. Nichols' admission, clarified by court documents, stated that he "had an altercation with Langford that started in his home in Montreal and that he subsequently dumped her body in the Nation River."
