Natalie and Katherine Stafford have never heard their father's voice. Their dad, Miami Springs Police Officer Charles B. Stafford, was shot and killed on June 11, 1991, while chasing a suspect along the Airport Expressway near Liberty City, and now, more than three decades later, a newly recovered radio recording will let his daughters listen to him for the first time.
The roughly three-minute recording was obtained by current Miami Springs Police Chief Albert Sandoval after new public records requests, according to the Miami New Times. Sandoval, who was the department's assistant chief in 2024, asked New Times reporter Theo Karantsalis for a copy of Stafford's last radio transmission that year. Karantsalis had obtained Stafford's radio records years earlier while reporting the case for the Miami Herald in 2021, but the original recording was later lost in a hard drive failure.
The Florida Center for Government Accountability and the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office helped obtain the records that ultimately led to the recovered audio, the New Times reports. The recording had never been heard by the public before this week, and the outlet is now sharing it directly.
The Final Transmission
On the recording, Stafford can be heard radioing dispatch as he pursued a white 1978 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, saying, “we're, uh, eastbound on 112, approaching 27.” That call came in at 8:49 p.m. on June 11, 1991, according to the recording and corroborated by miamiherald.com's earlier reporting on Stafford's last call to dispatch.
Backup arrived about 10 minutes after that final transmission and found Stafford apparently struggling to breathe, per the Miami Herald's account of the incident. Stafford, a Hialeah native who had previously worked as a prison guard in North Florida, had served with the Miami Springs department for 20 months. He was 28 years old and the father of two daughters, Natalie and Katherine, the latter just three months old at the time, according to a 1991 report from the Sun Sentinel. He remains the first and only Miami Springs officer to die in the line of duty.
A Confession, a Reversal, and a Plea
Merrit Sims admitted to shooting Stafford but claimed he acted in self-defense, alleging that Stafford had choked him, used racial epithets, and repeatedly threatened to kill him, the Miami Herald reported. A jury recommended the death penalty by a vote of eight to four, and the trial court imposed that sentence on March 18, 1994, according to a Florida Supreme Court filing in the case.
The Florida Supreme Court reversed Sims' conviction in 2007 after finding his defense attorney failed to object to testimony suggesting Sims may have had drugs in the car, per the Miami Herald. Rather than face a retrial, Sims accepted a plea deal in June 2011, admitting guilt to second-degree murder of a law enforcement officer. Accounts of the resulting sentence differ: the Miami Herald has reported the deal will keep Sims imprisoned until February 18, 2037, while the City of Miami Springs and miami.cbslocal.com have both described it as a 25-year sentence effective June 2011.
Former Miami New Times editor Tim Elfrink, now a supervising editor at CNN Investigates, covered Sims' 2011 sentencing at the time. Stafford's mother, Cecilia Stafford, called that sentencing “a bittersweet day” and addressed Sims directly in court, telling him, “on behalf of my family, my children and myself, may you rot in hell,” according to reporting from the Miami New Times on the case.
Keeping the Memory Alive
Miami Springs has continued to honor Stafford's memory in the years since his death. The department holds an annual Charles B. Stafford Memorial Golf Tournament on June 11, and the city renamed Stafford Park, located at 501 East Drive, in his honor, according to the City of Miami Springs.
Lt. Eddie Rodriguez recently spoke to journalism students at Miami Dade College's Wolfson Campus about the relationship between media and police, telling them, “we have to work as a team,” a comment that underscores how cases like Stafford's often rely on cooperation between reporters and law enforcement records requests to resurface lost history.
