Big Pine Man Featured on "48 Hours" for all the Wrong Reasons

Carl Brandt, the Big Pine Key man whom authorities believe is responsible for the grisly deaths of at least three women, will be the subject of an upcoming network television documentary. CBS News Associate Producer John Bentley said Friday that the staff at "48 Hours" first learned about Brandt in September 2004, after Brandt reportedly killed his wife and her niece in the niece's home outside of Orlando and then committed suicide.

On Sept. 10, 2004, Carl and Teri Brandt, who had evacuated their Big Pine Key home during Hurricane Ivan, arrived at the home of Michelle Jones, Teri's niece. All three of their bodies were discovered in Jones' home five days later. Teri, found on the living room couch, had been stabbed in the chest. Jones, found in a bedroom, had her head and a leg severed from her body and her heart removed. Brandt was found dangling at the end of a sheet tied to a rafter in the garage.

The markings of the crime, especially the way in which Jones was dismembered, bore a striking resemblance to the markings of several unsolved murder cases elsewhere in the state, including one on Big Pine Key. In 1989, the body of Sherry Perisho was found in Pine Channel, her abdomen cut, her throat slit and her heart removed.

On March 9, a task force made up of law enforcement officials from around the state met in the Keys to consider the possibility that Brandt was their man in the Perisho case, as well as cases in Miami and Jacksonville.

The edition of "48 Hours" that features Brandt will air sometime before July.

The Complete Story

Men Charged In Big Pine Key's Alligator's Death

Two men allegedly shot and beat an American alligator to death in the Florida Keys, then served the carcass at a backyard barbecue a few days later, authorities said. They are being charged in the killing of the six-foot female alligator on Big Pine Key. Timothy Goll, 18, of Marathon, and Jordan Milo, 20, also reported as 19, of Big Pine Key, are charged with a felony count of alligator poaching following last month's shooting and beating death of an alligator.

Jim Bell with Key Deer Refuge says the boys killed several birds before shooting the alligator and beating it with a baseball bat.

Meanwhile, authorities are looking for two alleged accomplices. State and federal wildlife investigators say two other people -- both high school students, one a minor -- are also believed to be involved in the March 24 incident. They have not yet been charged.

Bell said that he does not think this incident is related to other crocodile killings in the Florida Keys over the past few months.

"They apparently used a pellet gun to disable it and then used a baseball bat to kill it," said Lt. Steve Acton, a spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The alligator had lived in a freshwater pond on Big Pine Key. Some of its body parts were later recovered in area canals, investigators said.

Killing alligators during off-season or without a special license is a third degree felony offense.

Related story, Crocodiles Killed in the Keys

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Mutant Pine Beetles Threaten Big Pine Key

BIG PINE KEY — A mutant strain of pine beetle is wreaking havoc on the islands most luxurious homes, and sparking a response far more furious than any directed at the pests chewing up the pine trees.

Though the pine beetles threaten to decimate the Keys big pines, the scourge has spawned widespread disinterest until they turned on the Keys finest homes. Now, panicky homeowners, realtors and fish-and-chips vendors are demanding the federal government take immediate action to stop the mansion beetle, sometimes referred to by its scientific name, “chompus opulentious.”

“We have to protect this important resource of our mansions,” said Minky Malveaux, an interior designer who refuses to work on homes worth less than $2.5 million. “You can have a resort without trees and animals, but a world-class getaway without 6-bedroom, 3.5 bath Key West-style vacation lodges with Florida panther rugs, conch stair railings and walls made from the trunks of the last few dozen Amazonian redwoods? That are only used a week out of every year?”

But Scruffy Eagleneck, director of the environmental group Conch Key Chorus, said mansion beetles are part of natures natural cycle of regeneration. “It would be criminal for us to interfere, man,” Eagleneck said. “We should all take a deep breath — I mean really inhale this time— I mean, that’s good stuff, right? I got a sick bud connection in Sugarloaf. This B.P.K. Bud stuff just blows my mind. You bring any jerky, man, I’m hungry?”

A source close to the Big Pine mansion-beetle swarms said the pests have eaten about six mansions so far this year and could devour about a dozen more before the end of Stone Crab season. “They particularly enjoy eating tacky, nauseatingly expensive faux-Native American art — you know those awful watercolors of gloomy Indian chiefs? God I hate those,” said the source, whose name was withheld because he doesn’t actually exist and therefore, doesn’t have a name.

Baxter Phlegmsap, an arborist considered an expert in mansion beetles, said homeowners can take some precautions, such as ridding their homes of items that attract the pests. Removing spa tubs, flat screen TVs the size of billboards, multi-story elevators, helicopter pads and gem-encrusted, solid-gold kitchen fixtures can sometimes ward off the voracious bugs, Phlegmsap said. “They’ve really developed a taste for lobster, sushi and key lime pies,” he said. “The mansion beetle particularly enjoys swimming — and breeding and just hanging out — in indoor hot tubs,” he added.

Duchess Sapphyre Bichon-Frise Edam-Splurgington, who owns homes in Key West, Big Pine and Islamorada — as well as in St. Lucia, Chamonix, Uganda, the Gaza Strip, Islamabad, Bangladesh and Cockamamiestan — said if any of her Florida Keys island mansions, which combined are more worth more then Manhattan, are eaten she’ll simply have the all the pines in the Lower Keys bombed with napalm by the Conch Republic’s Air Force, which she also owns.

Forest Ranger Elko “Stumpy” Badgerhelmet said drastic measures may be necessary. “The only solution at this point may be a controlled burn of several mansions as well as the surrounding 600 acres of Pine Forest,” Barkchewer said. “It may not stop the mansion beetle, but the working classes will get a big kick out of it.”

Read more here

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