Good Samaritans? Well, maybe not

A couple stops to help a man who had been in a car crash. Nice, right? Then he noticed his wallet gone.

By AUSTIN BOGUES
Published July 19, 2007

BROOKSVILLE - A 73-year-old man heading home from work early Tuesday morning skidded on rain-slick Broad Street and slammed into a utility pole. He was not hurt, but his Ford Aerostar was banged up.

The man's luck seemed to be changing when a couple stopped to see if he was okay. After helping the driver out of his vehicle, the woman said she would move the damaged van off the road at Broad Street and County Line Road.

The good Samaritans then got back into their Isuzu Rodeo and drove off. That's when the accident victim returned to his van to discover that his wallet was missing.

A Hernando County deputy, using information supplied by the driver and a witness to the accident, quickly spotted an Isuzu on Broad Street near Wilson Road. The occupants matched the descriptions from the witnesses and, according to reports, both were "very nervous and fidgety."

When the deputy asked the woman to get out of the vehicle, he noticed an open wallet on the seat. Peeking from it was a Florida driver's license bearing the photo of the accident victim, according to the deputy.

Cheerish Ramon, 28, told the deputy that she and Michael Williams, 32, had happened upon the accident and when Williams spotted the wallet, he told her to take it, she said.

The couple drove off and reportedly used Huber's credit cards at a convenience store to buy gas. They tried to buy several cartons of cigarettes and a "glass novelty item," but the clerk wouldn't let them use the card, according to a report.

Ramon and Williams were arrested and held in lieu of $10,000 bail in the Hernando County jail.

Mom finds bomb in son's room, report says

SPRING HILL - Robert Turner got into an argument with his mother on Tuesday evening and she threw him out of the house. When she went into his room to gather up his clothes, police reports say, she found a scary surprise: a homemade bomb.

The device was made of paper, masking tape, a fuse, shotgun buckshot, and what appeared to be gunpowder, according to a report.

Turner, 18, told authorities that he and a friend built the device last month and planned to explode it, but they never got around to it. He told police that he forgot about it.

[Last modified July 18, 2007, 21:21:26]