Marion County

Well, I'm Matt McLean.

One of my roles here is the county commissioner in Marion County, and I'm in district number three.

There are five county commissioners, and so I'm one of those on the board here.

Wow.

I got started very young as a, uh, uh, involved in a young Republicans club when I was like 12 years old.

So I was always kind of politics adjacent.

And then, um, I, uh, But, you know, along with all that too, you know, my dad was also, I'm born and raised in Marion County.

One of the few that are left, my mom and I were both born in the same hospital here in Ocala and at what was Monroe Regional Medical Center at the time.

Sadly, Peter's body was never found.

Troy Burris was reported missing on July 31, 1990, and on August 4, his body was found in a wooded area along State Road 19 in Marion County in Ocala National Forest.

He had been shot twice.

In a Netflix documentary that I watched, link in the show notes, police footage of this crime scene is shown and you can see Troy's car on one side of the road and his body was on the other side in the brush.

The officers from Suwannee and Dixie began communicating with one another, and they reached out to neighboring jurisdictions as well, checking to see if they had any similar crimes.

Sure enough, there were more.

Soon, a task force was formed, being led by Marion County Sheriff Don Moreland.

Remember how I said a few pages back how on the 4th of July, 1990, Peter Seams' car was found in Orange Springs, Florida? Well, that same day, Aileen and Tyra abandoned his car after they were involved in a crash.

But I can't help but notice that there was a news story last week.

Our great men and women in law enforcement, I'm not going to get too much into it for the little ear's sake, but there's the largest sting operation in Marion County took place last week.

And our wonderful police officers did an amazing job.

But there are people out there today that are, they want to harm our children.

Their post concluded, based on the victim's statement, the witness account, and Gould's confession, Detective Grosso determined there was probable cause to charge Gould with digital voyeurism.

The charge was upgraded from a third-degree felony to a second-degree felony because Gould was in a position of authority over the student.

Gould was transported to the Marion County Jail.

Due to the nature of this case, detectives are concerned there may be other victims.

And Dwayne Hall is accused of the murder of Sonia Exelby.

This happened in Marion County, Florida.

This is Sonia.

Sonia was 32, and she was from Portsmouth, Hampshire, England.

Of course.

Sure, just involve your friends.

Sent his trophies off to one of his disgusting sadist friends? Is that what's happening? so october 15th through the 18th is when investigators search the airbnb and they're trying to reconstruct sonia's movements they're trying to find her on october 17th hall is arrested on the on financial and communication related charges and then on october 17th also sonia's remains are discovered buried in a wooded area of marion county florida October 18th, they do an autopsy, determines she died from four sharp force injuries consistent with stabbing.

Yeah.

So if you didn't know, and this is kind of the point of what I want to talk about is 25 counties in the state have a land acquisition program.

similar to Manatee County, Sarasota County, Polk County has one, Marion County, I think, is getting ready to vote on one.

But there are seven counties literally next week voting to either re-up the money that they contribute to that through a sales tax or through property taxes, or there's two that are starting an actual entire program.

And so I serve as the chair for our program here in Manatee County called LMAC, Environmental Lands Management.

And he was so great at just kind of showing me the ropes.

And this conversation was kind of in the middle of all that.

But I was not working in conservation at the time i listened back through this edit and think oh my gosh the questions would be so different today so please take that into consideration but two if you live in one of those seven counties which are listed there's a link in the show notes manatee county sarasota county is one of them marion county all those i mentioned i think brevard county there's there's seven total that will be voting and voting is november 3rd next week If you live on one of those, please consider reading that information if you want to support.

But also to me at the time, I didn't know I was going to work in conservation.

I was like stealing a cop car so you can play bumper cars with the other cop cars is insane.

It's around 6.15 p.m. on October 26, 2024, when these Marion County deputies respond to an individual requesting assistance after drug use in an area of Ocala, Florida.

But there's something about his criminal history they don't know yet, something they are about to discover in the worst possible way.

What's going on, sir? Are you the one that's been calling us?

So they were just curious, I guess, if she died of natural circumstances or if there was maybe more to it.

For now, Kimberly Kessler is in her late 50s, is currently incarcerated at Lowell Correctional Institution in Marion County, Florida, the state's largest women's prison.

Barring a successful appeal, which nothing in her case history suggests is likely, she will spend the rest of her life there.

She has never revealed what happened to Jolene Cummings' body.