Carrabelle

O'Neill, born in 1911, was also the grandson of slaves.

He was from Carrabelle, Florida, which is on the panhandle on the Gulf Coast.

He started playing semi-pro ball at 12, in part because his family was in Sarasota by then, and as we've said, there was no high school for black kids.

It also sounds like physically he matured early, so he was a large fella for his age.

That's Apalachicola.

What's up? Carrabelle.

What about Carrabelle? I hear Carrabelle's getting some new plays.

Have you heard about this wine and tapas thing? I haven't.

Situation going on.

Yeah, there's something new coming on to Carrabelle, and I think it's coming soon.

I know nothing about it, so you're going to have to Google it.

We'll tell you about it next week if we find out anything, but there's going to be something,

We went up there and asked if he was willing to speak with us.

He rode with us in the car over to the Carrabelle Police Department office where we could sit down and do a audio recording and try and find out what he might know.

While collecting DNA samples from Jackson, the detectives got a lucky break.

During the course of this conversation, we got around to the clothes that he was wearing, and he said, "You know, I think this is what I was wearing that day." It's like, "Well, can we get that for, you know, testing?" And he said, "Well, I don't have anything else." I said, "We'll take you to go buy clothes." We went and we bought him new shoes, new shirt, so he gave us permission to take his clothes.

beforeHe was obviously super confident that he'd obliterated all of the evidence and that he could sit and play games with the police almost, because they were never gonna pin this one on him.

We both believed that we had our guy.

After that first interview, we had our DNA that he gave us, we had the clothing that he gave us, and Troy and I got in the car and we drove from Carrabelle, Florida back to just north of Gainesville to meet up with one of the detectives from Hillsborough here, who was meeting us halfway so we could pass that off so they could immediately get that back to FDLE the next day to start the DNA comparisons.

Six days later, on September 26th, the DNA reports came back from FDLE, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Well, that's Appalachicola.

What about Carrabelle?

Carrabelle.

What's up in Carrabelle? Tell me about

Radar

Tim.

Nobody's talked to me about it.

No, because

Another big one is the crossing, which is, uh, on a seven-knot boat.

It's, uh, the one that goes from Clearwater to over there from the Panhandle, uh, Cl- uh, Carrabelle.

And you could do that in a couple different options, but I, I've done both.

I've done, uh, all of them now.

There's karaoke on Friday.

So you do have a few options if you can't get out of Carrabelle.

So do that.

You'll have a great time.

But otherwise...

Not much going on in Carrabelle.

Yeah, you know, I rolled through Carrabelle today, and a lot of standing water over there already.

So I hope those folks are all right.

We went up there and asked if he was willing to speak with us.

He rode with us in the car over to the Carrabelle Police Department office, where we could sit down and do an audio recording and try and find out what he might know.

While collecting DNA samples from Jackson, the detectives got a lucky break.

During the course of this conversation, we got around to the clothes that he was wearing.

He was obviously super confident that he'd obliterated all of the evidence and that he could sit and play games with the police, almost, because they were never going to pin this one on him.

We both believed that we had our guy.

After that first interview, we had our DNA that he gave us, we had the clothing that he gave us, and Troy and I got in the car and we drove from Carrabelle, Florida, back to just north of Gainesville to meet up with one of the detectives from Hillsborough here, who was meeting us halfway so we could pass that off so they could immediately get that back to FDLE the next day to start the DNA comparisons.

Six days later, on September 26, the DNA reports came back from FDLE, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Moving right along.

Let's go to Carrabelle.

Your favorite town.

Old Fathoms.