OCALA, FL (352today.com) – Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods, the county’s top law enforcement officer for a decade, stopped by the Ocala offices of North Central Florida Media Group on the morning of Thursday, March 19, 2026, to sit down first in the studio and on the air with radio stations 93.7 K-Country and WIND-FM 92.5/95.5 FM, and then with 352Today.
While speaking with K-Country’s Mr. Bob during his morning show, Woods addressed the persistent claims, spearheaded largely by the reporting of the Ocala Gazette, that Marion County’s jail has one of the highest rates of inmate deaths in the state. (Most recently, the Gazette called the facility, which predominately houses charged individuals awaiting the disposition of their criminal cases, “second only to the facility run by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office” in terms of inmate fatalities in a March 17 article.)
Woods pushed back against the claims, calling the Gazette a “tabloid” while saying that “there’s a lot of misinformation” and “a whole lot of dynamics at play.” He cited 45 deaths of persons in MCSO custody over 10 years, a number he said is well within the national occurrence norm…