Gulf Coast Confidential with Mollye Barrows

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Bree Kuhn seemed to want to win at all costs. The bossy, U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer had moods as fiery as her red hair and although she often accused her husband, Collin Turner, of physical violence, according to witnesses she was the one who would attack him.

The night he died police were called to their Gulf Breeze, Florida home three times. First, Bree called insisting to officers he hurt her and demanding he be taken to jail. 

They refused and left when they found no signs of violence, but returned when Collin called to say she had locked him out of their house, and he was afraid to leave her with their three children, still inside. 

Body cam footage showed him calmly explaining the situation to officers and with no evidence of a crime they left again. By the third call, there was no question a crime had been committed, but it was Collin who was the victim. 

He reported to 9-1-1 that his wife, apparently outraged that he was still in the home, had tried to break his arm and locked him in the garage. The young father was still on the phone with the dispatcher calmly describing his predicament when a shot rang out and a shocked and wounded Collin cried out, “She shot me! 

She then shot him three more times, killing him, while their traumatized children heard it all from inside the house. Their family ripped apart and destroyed because she couldn’t make him leave or get him arrested.

Bree made the same claims of abuse to a Santa Rosa County jury when she was tried for Collin’s murder last week but just like police, they weren’t buying it.

Join us for the latest episode of the Gulf Coast Confidential podcast, “Bossy, brassy Bree kills kind-hearted husband: the Bree Khun case.”  

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“Migrating” organs, doctored reports, and pressuring operating room staff to cover for his “egregious” mistakes - the Florida Department of Health made no bones about the seriousness of Destin surgeon Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky’s treatment of two patients that left one person permanently injured, and cost another man his life.   

For now, the state of Florida has suspended the doctor’s license in the wake of the tragedy that killed 70-year-old Bill Bryan when Shaknovsky removed his liver instead of his spleen, by mistake. 

In both cases he removed the wrong organ and, as if taking out the wrong organ wasn’t bad enough, he tried to make the operating room staff complicit with his blunder, all but daring them to defy him as he “blindly” operated on Bryan and refused to take responsibility when it was clear he had made a fatal error. 

Join us for more on the emergency order issued by the Florida Dept. of Health in the latest episode of the Gulf Coast Confidential podcast, “Surgeon loses license after removing man’s liver instead spleen: Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky blames mistake on ‘migrating’ organ.” 

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Marcia Thompson shot her husband at least six times while he lay on the couch in his underwear in their Florida home. Prosecutors said it was murder, but she claimed it was self-defense. 

A U.S. Customs Agent, Marcia was getting ready to leave the house for work. That morning was no different than many others before it. Terry Thompson fired a barrage of insults and death threats toward her and their children. But this time, Marcia Thompson had enough. 

She took her service weapon and shot the husband she had known since college to death. Terry was 13-years her senior and the father of their children, but he was also the man who Marcia said spent decades demeaning and assaulting her, physically and sexually, until in fear for her life, she put an end to the abuse and to him. 

Join us for more in this episode of the Gulf Coast Confidential podcast called, “Battered Spouse or Murderer: the Marcia Thompson case.”

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The truth hurts, but it killed 69-year-old Jeff German, an investigative reporter in Las Vegas. 

The well-known reporter had spent more than four decades covering government and organized crime for Las Vegas’ two leading newspapers and was infamous for his fearless truth telling and confronting the powerful on behalf of the powerless. 

Nothing daunted German, not even when a mobster once punched him in the face over one his articles. He took it as a badge of honor. 

So, it was no surprise when German took on an elected official, Robert Telles, who was accused of abusing his county position and his employees, and creating a toxic workplace "mired in turmoil and internal dissension" caused by the administrator having an "inappropriate relationship" with a female staffer.

Telles, a former probate and estate lawyer, went on to lose his next election after German wrote a string of articles exposing Telles’ affair and the divisive mismanagement of his office. He was distraught over the loss and Telles’ mistress said he blamed German, even “hated” him, but it all part of the job for German.

Until the day the investigative reporter was found slashed to death just outside his home. German had been stabbed seven times in the neck and chest. Police believe he was ambushed and fought back before succumbing to his wounds.

Join us for how police were able to catch his killer in this episode of the Gulf Coast Confidential podcast called “Dirty politics, a toxic boss, and a murdered reporter: The Robert Telles story.”   

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Unconscious, exposed in every way. People are incredibly vulnerable when they go under in order to undergo surgery. They can’t argue, push back, or move out of the way once they’re on the operating table and under the knife.

Thinking of that helplessness breaks Beverly Bryan’s heart. Her tall, strong, and strapping husband was a force to be reckoned with when he was standing on his own two feet. 

Not that Bill Bryan normally needed to be tough. The retired boilermaker’s family says he was an easy-going, Alabama football fan who loved his family and classic cars. 

But when he had trouble with his spleen while on vacation in Florida, the Alabama man pushed back on the doctor’s recommendation to undergo surgery in the Sunshine State. 

He said “No,” not just once, but many times. 

Bill finally relented when the surgeon told him he could bleed out if he waited. Tragically, he bled out anyway. According to Bill’s medical records, he died when the surgeon mistakenly removed his liver instead of his spleen. 

Bill could face a lot of challenges his wife said, but not one he never saw coming. 

Join us for more in this episode of the Gulf Coast Confidential podcast, “Death on the Operating Table: Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky accused of removing wrong organ.”

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Daniel and Stephanie Menard were well known and well liked in their small, close-knit community -  Olive Dell Ranch, a family-friendly nudist resort in Colton, California. 

The elderly couple loved the naturist lifestyle, their church and their little Shih Tzu, Cuddles, and they looked out for each other. Daniel Menard, 79, was a diabetic with dementia and 73-year-old Stephanie Menard, who walked with a cane.

The elderly couple had some good friends at the ranch, but their next-door neighbor, 62-year-old Michael Royce Sparks or “Sparky,” was not one of them. 

Sparky told folks he “hated” the Menards because Daniel trimmed a tree that hung over into Sparks’ yard. Outside of that relationship, Sparky was pretty well liked at the ranch, too, although some people wondered why he often made so many trips to the home improvement store to buy cement. 

Turns out Sparky, an apparent doomsday prepper, was hiding a few secrets that came to light when the Menards mysteriously vanished a week ago and he became the primary “person of interest” in their disappearance. Concerned about booby traps, police used a camera to investigate Sparky’s house and discovered human remains in a cement bunker beneath his house.

It took an armored truck to get him out of there. Now Sparks is charged with murder. 

Join us for the latest episode of the Gulf Coast Confidential podcast, “The Menards Vanish: Did doomsday prepper murder elderly couple at family friendly nudist ranch?”

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Dr. Ben Brown, the Florida plastic surgeon arrested for the untimely death of his young wife, has legal battles on several fronts these days. 

Brown has a pre-trial conference in Santa Rosa Count court next week on his negligent homicide charge. His attorney filed a motion to waive his appearance, but just two days ago Brown filed a motion asking to appear telephonically or virtual at the Sept. 3 hearing.

Also next week, Brown's office in Gulf Breeze, the place where he was performing several surgeries on Hillary Brown when she had seizures and coded from lidocaine toxicity last November, will be auctioned off since the bank foreclosed on the property.

And according to court records, another woman has come forward with a filing that she may sue him for medical malpractice. 

In the meantime, Ben Brown still faces sanctions from the Florida Department of Health for failing to call 9-1-1 and perform basic life saving medical care on his wife after her heart stopped and for botching patient surgeries, but a hearing date has not yet been set for the Florida Board of Medicine to hear his case. 

Join us for an update on Dr. Ben Brown in the latest episode of the Gulf Coast Confidential podcast, "Beauty Buyer Beware VII."  

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Fashion to die for. Shopping and combing the racks for clothes is supposed to be fun, even necessary at times, but not deadly. 

The ladies in these next two cases went shopping for all the same reasons many of us do, to buy a new outfit for a special occasion, to pick up a gift for a friend, or to just kill time. Instead, they were killed. 

Police are still looking for the man who gunned down four customers, a part-time employee and the store manager at a Lane Bryant in Chicago, Illinois, in 2008. They were all taken to the back and shot and at least one of the victims was sexually assaulted. 

The store manager managed to call 9-1-1 before she was killed. When police arrived, only one woman had survived to tell police what happened.  

A Lululemon Athletica store in a suburb of Washington, D.C. was the site of an even grislier slaying in 2011, when store clerk Brittany Norwood murdered her co-worker Jayna Murray, after the young woman caught Brittany shoplifting.

Murray was savagely attacked, sustaining at least 331 wounds from at least five different weapons, including a knife and a hammer. Norwood even injured herself and tried to make it look like she had been attacked and tied up, but police soon cut through all her lies.  

It turns out murder is never in fashion. Join us for the latest episode of the Gulf Coast Confidential podcast, “Lululemon and Lane Bryant Murders – Retail Can Kill Ya!”

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You’d have to be insane to kill your mother, but can you become un-insane? According to Florida State Hospital you can. 

Several psychologists say Brandon Aydelott, who at 17 stabbed, slashed, beat and stomped his mother, Sharon Hill Aydelott, to death on Christmas Eve 2013 because she put him in rehab two weeks before he killed her, say he no longer meets the criteria for commitment at their facility for the criminally insane.   

The 28-year-old Gulf Breeze man will be making his new home at the Apalachee Center in Quincy, Florida, once a bed opens up for at the 24/7 lockdown facility. Sharon’s sisters were hoping he would never be released from Florida State Hospital, and they question the criteria used to evaluate their nephew which is certainly not fool proof, but the best the field can do in measuring a person’s ability to not be homicidal. 

They point out his life was charmed at the time he unleashed so much rage on his mother because she was worried enough about his violent and out-of-character behavior in the months leading up to his psychotic break that she led a family intervention to get him help, help he resented when the facility said his drug test came back clean. How would he handle stressors now after so much has happened, is their fear now. 

Brandon Aydelott is in a secure facility now, but his mom’s family worries this is one step closer to the possibility of his release from state custody, where he’s been for years at their expense. 

Join us for the latest episode of the Gulf Coast Confidential podcast, “Mommy Killer III: Brandon Aydelott, Moving Through the System.” 

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Kendrick Johnson was known for being a talented athlete, so how did the strong, healthy 17-year-old basketball player end up dying upside down, head-first in a rolled up wrestling mat in his high school gym? 

Three autopsies, two exhumations, six tennis shoes, and lawsuits seeking billions of dollars in damages later there are still more questions than answers. 

Kendrick’s parents are not backing down from their belief that their son was killed by another student, the son of a local FBI agent, and that’s why they will never accept that what happened was a freak accident or give up their pursuit of justice in the mysterious death. 

Join us as we dive into the latest episode of Gulf Coast Confidential, “Wrapped in the mat: Kendrick Johnson’s family still grappling with boy’s death a decade later.” 

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