{"id":62892,"date":"2026-02-20T20:57:29","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:57:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=62892"},"modified":"2026-02-20T20:57:33","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:57:33","slug":"wauchula-man-arrested-for-murder-after-calling-911-to-report-18-year-olds-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/02\/20\/wauchula-man-arrested-for-murder-after-calling-911-to-report-18-year-olds-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Wauchula man arrested for murder after calling 911 to report 18-year-old\u2019s death"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Wauchula man was arrested for second-degree murder on Wednesday after police said the man called 911 to report \u201ca possible deceased individual.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Officers were dispatched to 31-year-old Joshua Gonzalez\u2019s home off Green Street just after 7 a.m. Wednesday, according to the Wauchula Police Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officers said they heard Gonzalez calling out to them as they entered the home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They found Gonzalez with the victim who was later identified as 18-year-old Destiny Chambers, according to the police department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medics with Hardee County Fire Rescue assessed Chambers and pronounced her dead at the scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Detectives said evidence developed during their investigation suggested that Chambers\u2019 death was not an accident. Police have not specified what led them to that conclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gonzalez was booked into the Hardee County Jail, where he remained Wednesday night, awaiting his first appearance in court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The investigation was ongoing Wednesday night, and no further information was immediately available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Wauchula man was arrested for second-degree murder on Wednesday after police said the man called 911 to report \u201ca possible deceased individual.\u201d Officers were dispatched to 31-year-old Joshua Gonzalez\u2019s… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62893,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"14","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDJcLzEwMDAwMDMyNjF6LndlYnA_Zml0PTg0MCUyQzc5MiZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6IldhdWNodWxhIG1hbiBhcnJlc3RlZCBmb3IgbXVyZGVyIGFmdGVyIGNhbGxpbmcgOTExIHRvIHJlcG9ydCAxOC15ZWFyLW9sZFx1MjAxOXMgZGVhdGgiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.jowydS7X7OR9TMFPjJrOT8kFkX6SmmFddmEhcc8OQy8MQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":62893,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1000003261z.webp","type":"image\/png"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[13753],"class_list":["post-62892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-wauchula-man-arrested-for-murder-after-calling-911-to-report-18-year-olds-death"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62892"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62894,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62892\/revisions\/62894"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}