Who executed a career criminal wanted in connection with a February slaying in Miami? That’s what the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Department is trying to piece together this morning after a 21-year-old Miami native named Travis John Lattimore was found dead behind an a abandoned house outside Fort Pierce. Lattimore’s…
John Walsh and his America’s Most Wanted crew aired an episode about the murder of aspiring model Paula Sladewski, who wound up dead in a burning dumpster early last month after being seen alive at Club Space.In the above video, Space owner Luis Puig explains the club’s policy when it…
We haven’t seen a fight over tomatoes this heated since Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers argued about the fruit’s correct pronunciation in Shall We Dance. Luckily, they decided to call the whole thing off before anyone’s neck got broken.Lerner Rodriguez wasn’t so lucky.The Miami Beach resident was driving through the…
Yesterday, a little after 2 p.m., a woman went to visit her friend in her new home, a squat, pastel-painted ranch on a quiet block of SW 5th Terrace just off SW 8th Street in West Miami. When she walked inside, she found her friend on the floor, dead in…
Kevin Klym, the boyfriend of aspiring-model Paula Sladewski who turned up dead inside a burning trashcan on New Years Eve weekend, went on The Today Show last week and placed blame on Club Space. That was the last place Paula was seen alive. Klym also claimed that the suspect sketch…
Blood tests have been completed on Carlos Bertonatti, the aspiring musician accused of drunkenly killing a cyclist on the Rickenbacker Causeway last month and then speeding away. The verdict: Bertonatti was drunk. The 28-year-old’s BAC came back at .122, Riptide’s sources say. In Florida, anyone who blows over a .08 is liable…
Carlos Bertonatti, the musician charged with drunkenly killing a cyclist and then speeding away on the Rickenbacker Causeway last month, was handcuffed and escorted back to jail this morning. After Bertonatti pleaded not guilty to the charges of vehicular homicide, DUI manslaughter, leaving the scene of a fatal accident, and…
Until now, Club Space, the last place tourist Paula Sladewski was seen alive before turning up dead in a burning dumpster, has remained relatively silent about the case.That changed after Kevin Klym, Sladewski’s boyfriend, went on the Today show last week and said the recently released sketch of the man…
Kevin Klym, the boyfriend of murdered tourist Paula Sladewski, went on the Today show this morning and said the recently released sketch of the man supposedly last seen with her looks like a bouncer from Club Space.In his first TV interview, he placed blame on Club Space. He said the…
Last summer, New Times brought you the story of Roman Vidal, a quiet Cutler Bay resident whom authorities linked to a very troubling international conspiracy. Starting in 2001, the 57-year-old smuggled millions of South American cigarettes through the Port of Miami, hidden beneath floorboards and shipments of yarn on freighters, bound…
Nearly a month after the body of aspiring model Paula Sladewski was found in flames in a dumpster, North Miami Police have finally released a sketch of a man they say witnesses last saw her with.Sladewski was visiting Miami with her boyfriend, Kevin Klym, to catch Lady Gaga’s New Year’s…
Jose Armando Rodrigues really wanted to get back home to Miami, so apparently it was a big bummer when his friend’s car, which he was ridding in, broke down on I-95 near Boynton Beach earlier today. We can understand wanting to get out of Boynton Beach as soon as possible, but…
It’s been more than one week since Carlos Bertonatti slammed into cyclist Christophe Le Canne on the Rickenbacker Causeway and then sped away as the 44-year-old died on the roadside, but the crime is still reverberating in the Magic City. Bertonatti, as we first reported here in Riptide, had a…
Lord knows one of the worst crimes haunting our community is the evil of unlicensed massage. We just don’t understand how parents can sleep at night knowing their children are growing up in a world where women, without proper documentation and trying to make ends meet, are lubing up the backs of…
Eighteen-year-old Chonshi Thompson died Thursday morning in the South Beach parking garage near 1601 Washington Ave. Two other victims were involved: 18-year-old Sandro Louis was shot in the groin, and 21-year-old Cesar Gonzalez took a bullet to his left hand. Both had fled the scene by the time police arrived…
Police have released the identity of the couple involved in yesterday’s apparent murder-suicide in Miami Beach.Thirty-five-year-old Sheila Mora was found stabbed to death in the couple’s apartment, Unit 3707 in the beachfront Akoya building on 6365 Collins Avenue. Police discovered her body after they were called earlier yesterday morning about a…
Nearly three weeks after the body of aspiring model Paula Sladewski was found burning in a trash bin on a street in North Miami, Police have few new leads in the case.Riptide briefly joined North Miami Police spokesman Lt. Neal Cuevas and Paula’s brother on Headline News’ Issues with Jane…
Once Miami-Dade police finally arrested Carlos Bertonatti on Sunday morning — after he’d slammed into a biker, sped away and led police on a several mile chase with a bike lodged under his front fender — the singer-songwriter refused to acknowledge that he’d just killed a man. So says an arrest…
Miami Beach Police were called this morning to Akoya, the luxury high-rise condo with the familiar crown-like structure on top in Mid-Beach, to face the possibility of a jumper. When they arrived at 7 a.m., they found the dead body of a man on the south side of the building.Inside…
What kind of person drunkenly slams into a cyclist on the Rickenbacker Causeway and then speeds away while the biker bleeds to death on the road?In the case of this Sunday’s horrific crash, according to police, it’s the same kind of person who can rack up more than 40 traffic…
Including an unprecedented surge of text message donations, people have now contributed more than $150 million to earthquake relief in Haiti, according to figures released yesterday by The Chronicle of Philanthropy. That’s five times the amount donated in the days immediately after the 2004 Asian tsunamis, and more than the…
An up-and-coming Miami pop singer with slick looks and a Sony recording contract has been charged with vehicular homicide in a horrific hit-and-run crash near Key Biscayne yesterday. Carlos Bertonatti, a 28-year-old who lives on Key Biscayne, was arrested yesterday near his battered Volkswagen after a short police chase. Officers…
