By 8:30 a. M., a total of 31 Sentinel personnel and seven HOA board members across three counties were in federal custody. At 9:14 a. M., FBI agents knocked on the door of Dr. Garner Vorhees, the Manatee County Medical Examiner, who had signed the four suspect autopsies. He was at home in his bathrobe.
He surrendered without a word. He requested an attorney. He was placed under arrest pending a coordinated federal state investigation of his autopsy work going back to 2019. By 11:00 a. M., the Florida Department of Law Enforcement had issued a formal cease and desist order against Sentinel Estate Protection Services.
By noon, the 15 HOAs that had contracts with Sentinel had each been formally notified that their contracts were void. By 3:00 p. M., the Florida Attorney General had filed exhumation orders on three of the six victims. I sat on my front porch with a bag of ice on my shoulder. Estelle sat beside me with her hand on mine.
Drusen Crane stood at the foot of the porch steps with his clipboard as Hayes. Statement when you're ready. I'm ready. Dusen. I gave my statement.
I gave it on camera with two of his agents as witnesses in the same clear procedural voice I had used to give statements for 28 years. The shoulder hurt. The chest hurt. The taser barbs were already removed by a paramedic with sterile gloves and a Stop the Bleed kit. None of it mattered.
The cameras had captured every second. The empire was already over. Camille Mortonson called me at 12:14 p. M. Hey, Hayes.
We have it all. I sat on the porch for a long moment. Camille, tell Theron Aley I'd like him to sit at the prosecutor's table when this goes to trial. Hey, Hayes. He's already invited.
I hung up. I looked out across my front yard where the trampled St. Augustine grass had two new bootprints right where I had gone down to one knee. The mockingbird was still working through its repertoire from the live oak. A pair of cardinals flickered across the front of the yard.
May would be home by lunch. The Florida Public Safety Commission convened a special hearing on the matter of Sentinel Estate Protection Services 6 weeks after the assault. The hearing was held in the Senate office building chambers in Tallahassee. Beamed live on the Florida Channel, picked up on the same morning by Channel 8 News in Tampa, the Sarasota Herald Tribune, the Miami Herald, and a feature crew from CBS this morning that had flown in from New York the night before. The chamber was full.