MURDER IN THE SUNSHINE STATE
Bob Gilmartin is a three time National Emmy winning producer and a three time Regional Emmy winning reporter. He’s covered Florida crime stories for forty-five years - seven of them as an investigative reporter in Miami during the "Cocaine Cowboy" days. For the last 28 years, he had been a producer for the premiere true crime program, "Dateline NBC."
Bob's beat for Dateline was Florida, especially south Florida. His sources and contacts are unmatched, having built relationships with law enforcement, prosecutors and defense attorneys. He knows the criminal justice system, having covered literally hundreds of trials. He has interviewed countless victims of crime and their families and developed many relationships that have lasted through the years. Despite Florida's reputation as paradise, for some it was paradise lost, having seen their loved ones fall victim to crime and Murder in the Sunshine State.
The podcast "Murder in the Sunshine State" will highlight cases I've covered over the course of the last 40 years in Florida. Some are well known and made national headlines, others are unique to Florida and filled with the twists and turns that make your head spin. You'll hear from the detectives who solved the unsolvable, where experience, hard work and sometimes just plain luck led to the arrests of killers. As I've said a million times covering these cases over the years, just when you think you've seen everything, another case comes along. But most importantly in these podcasts, you'll get to know the victim and their families because after all, their loss and the pain it’s caused is the reason so many dedicated people pursue justice, both for the living and the dead.
MURDER IN THE SUNSHINE STATE
Dark Day in Suniland
On April 11, 1986, I was a reporter with the NBC station in Miami, Channel 7, WSVN. I'll never forget that morning with the police radio scanner crackling in the newsroom, "FBI agents shot," gunfight in the area of Miami called Suniland. My photographer, Phil Zarowny, and I jumped in the news van. I drove. As a former New York cab driver, I pulled out all the stops and never stopped for red lights, barreling down I-95 and then U.S. 1. The trip should have taken at least 25 minutes. I think we made it in 10-15. Suniland was really just a strip mall that had a parking lot on top of the buildings. With the streets closed off, we drove to the upper level parking lot. Looking down, what we saw next was unbelievable.
It was a battleground of bullets, bodies, agents and detectives trying to figure out what happened. By the time we got there, the shooting was over, but there were four dead bodies the ground, two FBI agents, and two bank robbers, ex-military men who saw casualties as the cost of war. There were also five agents shot and wounded, three very seriously. All would survive. On the one year anniversary, I asked the Miami Bureau of the FBI if I could do the first interview with the surviving agents. Three of them agreed. Through police contacts I also obtained exclusive video behind police lines and audio from police radios. The result was a documentary I did called, "Dark Day in Suniland." Here is the audio of that doc. The show can be seen on YouTube. To this day, I am still very close with those FBI agents, one, Eddie Mireles exhibited the greatest acts of heroism I know. It was he who killed the bad guys, despite near mortal wounds of his own. I salute them every day.
It was a terrible day for Murder in the Sunshine State.
