Times Special Investigations
The Tampa Bay Times Special Reports and Longer Reads can be found online as well as in print. For online versions, click here.
In Search of Lost Cemeteries
A number of cemeteries forgotten through the years across the Tampa Bay area came to light during 2019, most of them final resting places for African-Americans. The new attention to old burial grounds springs from a Tampa Bay Times report in June that revealed the first and largest of them – Zion Cemetery in Tampa.
GardaWorld
As it built an armored truck empire, GardaWorld took dangerous shortcuts. Its workers and unsuspecting motorists suffered the consequences.
Poisoned – Part I
Hundreds of workers at a Tampa lead smelter have been exposed to dangerous levels of the neurotoxin. The consequences have been profound.
Poisoned – Part II
Equipment designed to control poisons inside Gopher Resource kept breaking down, creating more dangers for workers. As violations mounted, regulators have been absent.
Poisoned – Part III
Gopher Resource promised changes at Tampa's old lead factory. It kept polluting.
Police Academy: Who wants to be a cop?
After a reckoning over policing in America, 30 recruits enroll at the academy
► The New Recruits: Part I (PDF)
► The New Recruits: Part II (PDF)
► The New Recruits: Part III (PDF)
► The New Recruits: Epilogue (PDF)
Targeted
Pasco’s sheriff created a futuristic program to stop crime before it happens. It monitors and harasses families across the county.
The Girl in the Window
She was a stranger to the world. She had never seen a doctor, never been to school. She couldn’t speak or feed herself. Authorities had discovered the rarest of creatures: a feral child. In this Pulitzer-Prize special report, writer Lane DeGregory and photographers Melissa Lyttle and Lara Cerri document the extraordinary case of a girl who was rescued and given a chance at a better life. Can love and caring make up for years of neglect?
Death at Freedom Square
How did coronavirus overwhelm this nursing home so quickly? An outbreak. Evacuations. Forty families shattered.
Insane. Invisible. In danger.
Florida cut $100 million from its mental hospitals. Chaos quickly followed.
Angels & Demons
On June 4, 1989, three bodies were found floating in Tampa Bay. This is the story of the murders, their aftermath and the handful of people who kept faith amid the unthinkable.
Red Tide
For centuries, toxic algal blooms have plagued Florida’s shores. Now a new outbreak of the microorganism Karenia brevis — better known as Red Tide — is plaguing Tampa Bay and the gulf beaches, killing marine life and threatening the region’s tourism industry.
► Scientists Search for Local Red Tide Trigger, June 14, 2021
► Red Tide Carnage Travels up Coast, June 17, 2021
► At Shore Red Tide Odor of the Day, July 11, 2021
► Red Tide No End in Sight, July 14, 2021
► Grim Reapers of the Tide, July 25, 2021
“Students shouldn’t be scared”
Hillsborough schools have a troubled history when it comes to protecting students from sexual misconduct.
Mercy or Murder
To end his wife’s suffering, he shot her. Was it mercy or murder? Stephen Kruspe’s wife, who was struggling with dementia, begged him to kill her.