Novia11 Badnews, you purchased your plant from someone who doesn't know carnivorous plants. NEVER feed raw meat to them. Feed them only insects tht could crawl or fly into the traps. Also, you need to use distilled water or collected rainwater for watering. Put the plant on a window that gets sunlight all day long and it should be fine. You can cut off the top of a soda bottle and put it over the plant or a DIY terrarium. Dollars stores often have small glass bowls that also work. Lastly, if it dies back, leave it be for a bit. Venus flytraps need to go dormant and they often regrow from their rhizome if they're not too damaged.

Also, like hunterkiller03 indicated, it is sunlight, not insects, that Venus Flytraps "eat." Insects are just fertilizer for the plant. Plants can live without fetilizer, in the case of Flytraps, without insects, for months or even years. They can never survive without adequate sunlight. Centipedes are sometimes natural prey for Flytraps, however, many centipedes produce toxins that are distasteful or even deadly to various animals. I would suggest not to feed the plant centipedes, or anything at all for that matter. It is perfectly capable of capturing prey if it is grown in an open pot outside and even inside, mine caught 5 flies in one day without difficulty. (I simply can't get mine outside where it really belongs right now, so I will just have to hope it survives being inside till then). If you bought your plant with a humidity dome and in dim light, you will need to adapt it to low humidity and bright sun slowly. Start by placing it in a good sunny morning window for a couple of weeks while you slowly remove the dome by lifting (about a 1/4 or 1/2 inch at a time) or punching several 1/4 inch holes in it every 3 days till it no longer holds humidity after two weeks, then take it off. Next, place it in an all day sun window for a week. After that place it in a sunny spot outside if your region does not experience temperatures over 100 degrees. If the outside temprature is too high, you can keep it indoors, but you will need supplemental florescent light from compact 100 watt equivalent (the light bulb replacements) or 40 watt shop light fixtures (the long tubes) about 4 inches from the plant. Venus Flytraps really are garden plants that belong outside if they are to really thrive. Indoors in stagnant air with no source of full sun (even window light is cut in intensity) they tend to do more poorly and grow slowly, even dying from fungal infections quite readily. Good luck with your Flytrap.

As Tommy mentioned, letting a vft flower will not kill the plant PROVIDED the plant is healthy. However, at this time of year the plant should be going dormant -- not blooming. So do cut off the flower stalk. David, if you have a chilly garage, you may be able to keep the plant there. Otherwise, the fridge will do fine. Before bagging and throwing in the fridge, remove any traps that currently have prey in them. (The plant will not draw any nutrients from trapped prey while dormant so all that will happen to traps with prey is mold.) Other traps can be left alone. Personally, I found it helpful to poke a number of very small/pinprick sized holes in the bag. Every 3-4 weeks, remove the plant from the fridge and open the bag to make sure the media is still moist (not wet) and to check and treat for any mold that may have appeared. Then rebag and place back in the fridge.

Well, I remember when I had gone through the stage of anxiety that you did... As far as I can tell, your flytrap is fine, and you even took the extra mile to cut off the dead leaves. If it's on your porch and outside, it might be dormant. Although I don't know if it gets cold or dark enough for VFT to go dormant in Florida, it certainly does in New Jersey. Traps not responding is a sign of dormancy, or just adapting to your new environment. To sum it all up, no, your flytrap is not dead, it might be in dormancy(you can do some research on that online), and since you're doing everything right, like using distilled water and such, your flytrap will most likely live. P.S flytraps like to be in direct sun, so it's fine to take it out of the bag, and I also got my first flytrap in Lowes too :D. David