He survived Hurricane Irma, officials said, only to die by a FEMA contractor's hand. 
 
 A Florida man was killed earlier this month by a FEMA contractor he befriended while the suspect was assessing his home for storm damage. 
 
 William Reiss, 68, had shown the contractor, 18-year-old Gerjuan Jackson, his firearm collection and even sold him a pair of handguns, officials said. 
 
 Jackson was arrested this week along with two suspected accomplices for the Jan. 3 slaying of Reiss, whose gun collection was also raided. 
 
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 They met last year after Hurricane Irma damaged Reiss’ Polk County home, NBC affiliate WFLA reported. 
 
 Jackson, who lives in Mobile, Ala., bought the handguns from Reiss for $800 about two weeks after they met, the news channel reported. 
 
 In November, Jackson was arrested for carrying a pistol without a permit in his native Alabama, the Polk County sheriff’s office said. 
 
 On Jan. 3, he traveled back to Polk County with accomplices Kenley Campbell and Darril Rankin, both 22, to rob Reiss of more guns, the sheriff’s office said. 
 
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 Reiss previously sold Jackson a pair of handguns, police said. (Facebook) 
 
 Jackson allegedly went inside Reiss’ home that afternoon while his buddies stayed outside in Campbell’s Chevrolet Sonic. 
 
 That’s when authorities say he shot Reiss four times and also wounded the victim’s roommate, Kenneth Maier, who died of his wounds Friday. 
 
 They then took up to 25 guns from Reiss’ collection and a TV out of his home, loading them into Campbell’s car and Reiss’ Dodge pick-up, the sheriff’s office said. 
 
 The trio torched Reiss’ truck when they got back to Alabama, and sold all but three of his guns on the street as well as the TV. 
 
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 Cops recovered the remaining three firearms when they arrested the suspects, also finding Jackson’s FEMA ID card. 
 
 Jackson admitted to investigators that he shot Reiss and Maier. 
 
 All three were hit with a first-degree murder charge along with a handful of robbery, burglary and grand theft counts. 
 
 Campbell and Rankin are accused of helping boost up to 25 firearms from Reiss' home. (Polk County Sheriff) 
 
 FEMA, in a statement to WFLA, said it’s looking into the incident — noting Jackson worked for a private contractor tapped by the agency. 
 
 Deputy caught on camera stealing from dead man’s home 
 
 “Questions about individuals employed within those contracted companies, or those companies’ hiring practices, must be pursued through their individual contractors,” the agency said. “FEMA works closely with law enforcement on a regular basis, and will provide appropriate coordination with law enforcement on this incident.” 
 
 He’d been tasked with assessing homes after Irma ripped through Florida last September. 
 
 Jackson’s arrest left other Polk County residents startled that he was inside their home. 
 
 “Oh my God,” an unidentified neighbor of Reiss’ told WFLA she yelled to her husband after the arrest. “Oh my God. This guy was in our house!” 
 
 Jackson came to the woman’s home in late September, where he acted nervous as he asked about guns in the home and the local crime rate. 
 
 “It was a rage that he passed a background check to work through FEMA,” she told the channel. 
 
 Sign up for BREAKING NEWS Emails privacy policy Thanks for subscribing! ||||| POLK CITY, Fla. (WFLA) – A man who flagged down help from good Samaritans after his friend was murdered by a FEMA contractor and two others in Polk City succumbed to his injuries on Friday. 
 
 Kenneth Maier, 57, was standing in the driveway of his home and managed to flag down three people driving by on Jan. 3. 
 
 Maier had been shot several times. He told the good samaritans his friend had also been shot inside of their home on Berkley Road in Polk City. 
 
 The good Samaritans entered the home and found 68-year-old William Reiss deceased. 
 
 Three men were arrested and charged in connection with the murder of Reiss: Gerjuan Jackson, Kenley Campbell and Darril Rankin Jr. 
 
 Jackson initially knew Reiss as a FEMA contractor. 
 
 He met Reiss last year while conducting a damage assessment weeks after Hurricane Irma hit Polk County. 
 
 Maier was taken to a local hospital, where he died on Friday. 
 
 There men were arrested in charged in connection with the murder of Reiss, Gerjuan Jackson, Kenley Campbell and Darril Rankin Jr. 
 
 Jackson initially knew Reiss as a FEMA contractor. 
 
 He met Reiss last year while conducting a damage assessment weeks after Hurricane Irma hit Polk County. 
 
 Additional murder charges against Jackson, Campbell and Rankin Jr. in the death of Maier are pending. 
 
 “We are heartbroken to hear that Kenneth passed away today. We are sending our thoughts and prayers to Kenneth’s family and friends. This act of vicious murder should have never happened,” said Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd. ||||| Mitchell Reiss painted a dire portrait Thursday of Colonial Williamsburg’s future. 
 
 As its president, Reiss came to Colonial Williamsburg in October 2014 with the charge of turning its flagging fortunes around. Under his watch, it has implemented various programs with varying levels of support – such as starting a musket range, putting an ice skating rink in Merchants Square, and introducing a mascot. 
 
 Colonial Williamsburg has also invested tens of millions of dollars in its programming, as well as restoring and remodeling places such as its arts museums, Williamsburg Inn, Golden Horseshoe Golf Club and The Spa of Colonial Williamsburg. 
 
 But in some ways, Colonial Williamsburg’s predicament is of its own making, Reiss and members of the Rockefeller family said. 
 
 Reiss, working with the Board of Trustees, senior management and outside advisors, spent six months working on a restructuring plan that the board endorsed at its April meeting. 
 
 “Ultimately, doing nothing or continuing business as usual would mean the end of this special place and our mission,” Reiss said Thursday in his presentation to foundation employees. 
 
 The plan to is not business as usual: Reiss announced the layoff of 71 people, and the departure of another 262 people on the foundation’s payroll when contractors take over golf operations, product and retail management, landscaping and facilities management. The move will leave Colonial Williamsburg with slightly fewer than 2,100 employees. 
 
 In a further acknowledgment of the foundation’s troubles, Reiss said the Kimball Theatre will close July 6, and Colonial Williamsburg will seek tax relief from the localities in which it does business — the city of Williamsburg, and James City and York counties. 
 
 If the measures aren’t taken, Reiss said in an interview, Colonial Williamsburg will exhaust the portion of its endowment money available for operations. Despite having a $682 million endowment, only $365.2 million is available in 2017 for operations. If things don’t change, by 2025, the foundation would have spent all but $12 million of that endowment and would have a negative balance by 2026, he said. 
 
 “We probably would run out of money well before then,” Reiss said, citing a graph he presented to employees. “because that graph assumes that the donors are going to continue to give us money at the same rate they have in the past. And at some point, we know that that’s not going to happen. Nobody is going to continue to subsidize us if we can’t manage our own finances better.” 
 
 The foundation lost $54 million in operations in 2016 and $277 million in the past five years, according to a fact sheet made public by Colonial Williamsburg. 
 
 In 2016, the foundation said it paid $17 million in debt service payments on debt of more than $300 million, with more payments coming due soon, Reiss said in his letter to the Colonial Williamsburg community. He said the foundation compounded annual operating losses, by borrowing heavily to improve its hospitality facilities and visitor’s center leading up to Jamestown’s 400th anniversary in 2007. Reiss said the foundation did not get an adequate financial return on those investments. 
 
 The foundation’s 2016 annual report made public last week shows the organization collected revenues of $229 million, $4 million above 2015 totals. Operating revenues — inclusive of admission ticket sales, hotel and restaurant revenues, retail sales and rental of commercial and residential real estate in and around the Historic Area — were $2 million lower than in 2015, due to a 6 percent decline in merchandise revenue. 
 
 Though the foundation has seen $10.4 million in savings over the past two years, taking these measures now, Reiss said, puts the foundation on a path to financial stability within 18 months. 
 
 Here is a collection of photos from the Daily Press archives of crafts and trades that have been demonstrated in Colonial Williamsburg over the years. 
 
 Virginia State Sen. Majority Leader Tommy Norment, R-James City, a member of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation board of trustees, said in a prepared statement that many factors have contributed to the foundation’s financial challenges. 
 
 “The task now is to look to the future, leading with a renewed commitment to the foundation’s core mission,” Norment said. 
 
 Looking for relief 
 
 In an interview Thursday, Reiss said the foundation is responsible for more than 8,000 jobs and $500 million in economic activity yearly. 
 
 “We have been extremely generous over the decades in supporting other charities and non-profits in the community,” Reiss said. “We have been a good neighbor, and today is a day when we need help from our neighbors, from the community.” 
 
 Reiss hopes that help will come from the city of Williamsburg, as well as James City and York counties, in the form of relief of real estate taxes and some of the license fees for the next three years. He said he would send a letter Friday formally asking for the tax relief that would allow Colonial Williamsburg to stabilize itself. 
 
 The savings for Colonial Williamsburg “would be significant,” Reiss said. 
 
 Illuminations — firing guns into the air and lighting fireworks — were commonly used during the 18th century to celebrate major events such as great military victories, the birthday of the monarch or the arrival of a new colonial governor. Colonial Williamsburg carries on this tradition with Grand Illumination. At 5:45 p.m. the Fifes and Drums signals the beginning of Grand Illumination, from all four stages. At 6:15 p.m., candles are lit in public buildings, shops and homes, and fireworks are launched at three Historic Area locations: the Governor's Palace, Magazine and Capitol. After the fireworks, entertainment resumes on the outdoor stages and continues until 7:30 p.m. (Daily Press) (Daily Press) 
 
 Colonial Williamsburg owns 302 properties in Williamsburg, with a value of more than $200 million dollars, according to Williamsburg property records. It owns 11 properties in James City County worth $8.3 million, according to James City County property records. Most of that property is on Pocahontas Trail, according to Paul Holt, county planning director. In York County, Colonial Williamsburg owns 25 properties worth about $4.5 million. 
 
 Reiss also said he will entertain offers for the Kimball Theatre, which is slated to close July 6. 
 
 “I very much hope that somebody will come forward to lease it and continue to run it as a theater,” Reiss said. “And if somebody wants to buy it, we’d love to entertain that also.” 
 
 In his letter to the Colonial Williamsburg community, Reiss said a key reason the foundation loses significant amounts of money every year is the business decisions that have been made in the past. 
 
 Three members of the Rockefeller family, while expressing their support for the changes, cited a similar reason for launching the Colonial Williamsburg Company in the 1980s, which created a for-profit enterprise that now manages stores, hotels, golf courses and restaurants as altering the financial structure of the foundation. 
 
 “This ambitious and good-faith effort has not reaped its intended benefits, and pressures on financial resources were aggravated by the recession (of 2007),” the Rockefellers wrote in their letter. “The financial issues also became a distraction from the foundation’s mission of historic preservation and civic education.” 
 
 Reiss said the foundation looked at selling off its commercial assets, and said they looked “at a dozen different options” but felt it was best to outsource, rather than sell them off or maintain the status quo in order to be financially stable by 2019. Outsourcing, he said, would allow Colonial Williamsburg to refocus on its core educational mission.
– He was a victim of Hurricane Irma, and then allegedly a victim of something much worse. Police say William Reiss, 68, was murdered on Jan. 3 by the FEMA contractor who compiled the damage estimate of his Polk County, Fla., home in September. The New York Daily News describes Reiss as having "befriended" Gerjuan Jackson. The two reportedly discussed Reiss' gun collection, and the 18-year-old Alabama man purchased two handguns from Reiss weeks after they met for $800. The Miami Herald reports Jackson lost possession of those guns during a subsequent marijuana bust and allegedly decided to replace them via Reiss' stash. Police say he drove to the home with two accomplices who waited in the car. Jackson allegedly shot Reiss and his roommate Kenneth Maier, who initially managed to flag down help from his driveway but died of his injuries Friday, reports WFLA. Police say Jackson took roughly two dozen guns, a TV, and Reiss' truck, which was found burned in Alabama. He has reportedly confessed to the killings, and he and Kenley Campbell and Darril Rankin have all been charged with first-degree murder and other offenses. As for the FEMA connection, the agency says two private-sector companies provide the subcontractors who handle damage assessments, noting, "Questions about individuals employed within those contracted companies, or those companies' hiring practices, must be pursued through their individual contractors."