Alfred Jenkins was fired from his job and arrested for grand theft, and he held Terry Yelvington personally responsible.

In the early morning hours of Aug. 11, 2015, Jenkins drove to Yelvington’s home in Lake Alfred, shot him in the head, and stole his wallet.

After two days of deliberation, a jury convicted Jenkins on Monday of first-degree murder, robbery with a deadly weapon, and tampering with physical evidence. Immediately following his conviction, Judge Harb sentenced Jenkins to life in prison.

Yelvington was president of the employee union when Jenkins, who served as the union treasurer, was fired in April of 2009 for misconduct. The union voted not to challenge Jenkins’ termination, and because Yelvington was president, Jenkins blamed him for the loss of his job.

Jenkins held a great deal of animosity toward Yelvington “for not standing up for him,” Assistant State Attorney Paul Wallace said to jurors in opening statements.

After Jenkins was terminated, it was discovered that he stole nearly $5,000 from the union in his role as treasurer and forged checks for his own personal gain.

Yelvington pushed for a criminal investigation against Jenkins. In 2011, Jenkins was arrested for grand theft, causing him to lose a second job.

Jenkins spent over six months in jail following his arrest.

Jenkins repaid the money he stole, and the charges against him were dropped a year later, but Wallace told jurors that Jenkins still blamed Yelvington for his misfortune.

At trial, Jenkins’ ex-girlfriend testified that he’d been trying to figure out what time an unnamed man opened his garage door to leave for work in the morning because he needed to rob him and settle a debt.

A few months later, Yelvington was shot and killed in his driveway.

One of Yelvington’s neighbors was woken up by gunshots around 5:30 a.m. She looked out of her window to see a dark colored Chevrolet SUV pulling out of Yelvington’s driveway.

Although she didn’t see who the shooter was, she gave law enforcement the vehicle description.

Another resident reported that he’d seen a suspicious vehicle in the neighborhood that morning sitting at a stop sign, and surveillance footage from another resident’s home showed the vehicle near Yelvington’s home around 5:24 a.m.

Law enforcement located the suspicious vehicle at Jenkins’ residence.

Jenkins’ cell records were pulled, and they showed his phone pinging less than a mile away from Yelvington’s home at 5:26 a.m., which is in the same time frame that witnesses saw the suspicious SUV.

Cell records also showed that when Jenkin’s cell phone pinged in Lake Alfred on the morning of the murder, it had utilized this cell tower on only three other dates from April 21, 2015, until the day of the murder.

Shell casings from the crime scene were tested, and FDLE determined they were a match for ammunition found to have been in Jenkins’ possession. The firearm was never recovered, as it is still missing.

Jenkin’s ex-girlfriend testified that she became aware that Jenkins disposed of the firearm he kept in his residence within several days after the murder.

At trial, the defense agreed that Yelvington’s death was tragic but that Jenkins was not the one responsible.

But Wallace reminded jurors that all the evidence only pointed to Jenkins.

Jonathan Diaz Fundora groomed a 10-year-old Lakeland girl he met online and drove over four hours to sexually batter her.

Days before Diaz Fundora was supposed to go to trial, he pled no contest to 13 charges, including sexual battery on a victim less than 12, kidnapping, traveling to meet a minor, and use of a computer to seduce a child, among other charges.

Judge Durden sentenced him to mandatory life in prison on Jan. 30.

Diaz Fundora met the victim online and communicated with her for about a month, sending sexually explicit content to the girl. He then made a plan to drive from his home of Miami to Lakeland, where he told the child they would spend a few days at a motel.

He told the victim to write a letter to her grandmother, telling her she would be at a motel with a friend, and pack a bag. Diaz Fundora arranged to pick her up down the road from her house.

On March 27, 2018, Diaz Fundora drove 4 ½ hours to pick the girl up and take her to a Motel 6, where he sexually battered her.

The victim was reported missing by her grandmother, and Polk County Sheriff’s Office deputies traced the girl’s cellphone to the motel. When deputies arrived, Diaz Fundora answered the door in his underwear and said he had a young girl with him.

Deputies found the child hiding in the bathroom with the lights off.

Nearly four months after Diaz Fundora kidnapped the girl and molested  her, she took her own life.

At Diaz Fundora’s sentencing hearing, a letter from the girl’s grandmother was read aloud in court during the hearing.

She told the judge that the girl was bullied in school and on the internet and often questioned if anyone loved her.

“He preyed on the innocence and immaturity of a child,” the letter said. “(Diaz Fundora) violated our precious baby and changed her short life forever.”

She said the damage Diaz Fundora did ran deeper than anyone could have imagined, causing the girl to take her life in July of 2018.

“Her small, young heart could not handle this world anymore,” the grandmother wrote.

At the hearing, Assistant State Attorney Randi Daugustinis reminded Judge Durden that Diaz Fundora admitted to every detail of the incident.

“The defendant had a calculated plan that he executed,” she said, adding that Diaz Fundora said he knew the girl was young but ignored it and drove to Lakeland anyway. “He knew she had a rough childhood and was in a very vulnerable state.”

She asked the judge to sentence Diaz Fundora to the max on count two, which was also punishable by life. Durden agreed and imposed a second life sentence to run concurrently.

At the end of the grandmother’s letter, she wrote that the victim’s family has found some solace in knowing the girl is in a better place.

“I know she is with God now,” the letter said, “and that eases my pain.”

Jerry Salter Jr. started abusing his victim at the age of five.

Salter groomed the boy to perform sexual acts by using food.

A jury deliberated for about 90 minutes Thursday and convicted Salter of three counts of capital sexual battery on a victim less than 12 years of age. Salter is facing mandatory life imprisonment, which will be handed down on April 12.

Assistant State Attorney Lauren Randall told jurors how Salter slowly groomed the child and repeatedly abused him.

“This became his normal,” she said, “and it continued for over a decade.”

After every act, Randall said, Salter told the boy not to tell his mother. And because the child was fearfully protective of his mother, he complied.

In May of 2017, the victim came forward. He told law enforcement Salter had been abusing him for years and that he wanted the abuse to stop and for the defendant to be out of his life.

Polk County Sheriff’s Office detectives conducted a controlled phone call between Salter and the victim.

The teenager asked Salter when he planned to have sex with him again.

“When we see each other,” Salter said.

Randall told jurors the strongest part of the controlled call was when the victim then asked Salter why he liked having sex with him.

“You’re big. You’re strong. You’re like milk chocolate,” Salter told him.

He was then arrested by law enforcement and taken in to custody.

At trial, the defense said the victim only came forward with the allegations because he wanted a cash settlement. They claimed the evidence in the case had not been corroborated.

But Randall reminded jurors that the victim remembered powerful details spanning back more than a decade.

“You do not tell a child that he’s like milk chocolate,” she said, adding that Salter’s incriminating statement on the controlled call was woven in with discussion about school and the victim’s mother’s health like it was normal.

“This was long-term abuse,” Randall said. “It’s because of his (Salter’s) own admissions that the state has proven his to you beyond a reasonable doubt.”