November 27, 2003
Police in Santa Barbara, California, say they a jailed a man for allegedly boarding the jet that brought Jackson into town last week to surrender to authorities.
Lee Kevin Madden was arrested after Jackson's security people discovered him aboard the private jet. Madden was booked for investigation of trespassing and was released.
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11:05 AM
When he surrendered to the Santa Barbara County sheriff last week, Michael Jackson resembled an aging Joan Crawford, pale, frail and weighing 120 pounds. Mr. Jackson's financial well-being appears equally fragile. With each successive record costing more and earning less than the last, he is finding it increasingly difficult to maintain his lavish lifestyle.
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11:04 AM
DENVER, Colorado (Reuters) -- The 19-year-old woman who accused Los Angeles Laker Kobe Bryant of rape has checked into a medical treatment center to escape intense media scrutiny and death threats, according to a published report, but officials on Wednesday declined comment.
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11:03 AM
MODESTO - Accused double murderer Scott Peterson used his Covena Avenue home as collateral for a $100,000 loan he obtained from his parents, according to documents recently filed with the Stanislaus County recorder's office.
The loan's purpose was unclear, but legal observers said it likely was to help fund Peterson's defense against charges he murdered his wife, Laci, and their unborn son, Conner. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
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11:02 AM
CHESAPEAKE, Virginia (CNN) -- For the first time since it was seized, officials Tuesday allowed the media to photograph the car that authorities say served as a sniper platform during the October 2002 Washington, D.C.-area killing spree.
CNN and other news organizations petitioned Judge Jane Marum Roush to allow access to the 1990 Chevrolet Caprice, which had been shown to jurors in the trials of John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo.
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11:01 AM
Convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad will spend this Thanksgiving in the same place he spent last Thanksgiving in a cell in the Prince William County, Va., Detention Center.
Meanwhile, his former companion, Lee Boyd Malvo, will spend the holiday in a Chesapeake, Va., jail, waiting for his capital-murder trial to resume Monday.
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11:00 AM
November 24, 2003
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) - A jury decided Monday that John Allen Muhammad should be executed for masterminding the sniper attacks that terrorized the Washington area for three weeks last fall. Jurors sent word they had reached a decision after deliberating five hours over two days.
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11:05 AM
CHESAPEAKE, Va. A cocky Lee Boyd Malvo laughed repeatedly during a police interrogation as he recounted some of last year's sniper attacks, saying of one victim, "He was hit good. Dead immediately," a detective testified at Malvo's murder trial. Malvo, speaking confidently at times and rambling at others on an audiotape played in court, also said he and convicted sniper mastermind John Allen Muhammad selected targets in places with white vans nearby because they knew police and the public were on the lookout for such a vehicle.
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03:31 AM
CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) - One jury heard hours of sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo's taped confessions, punctuated by his giggles and sound effects and proud descriptions of a paramilitary mission to extort money in the nation's capital region. Another jury, looking for insight into the mind of convicted sniper mastermind John Allen Muhammad as they decide whether to recommend the death penalty, has seen little beyond old home movies of him playing with his children, and his bizarre but short-lived attempt to represent himself at trial.
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03:31 AM
LOS ANGELES Michael Jackson's defense team plans to vigorously attack the credibility of the mother of the boy now making the allegations against the superstar, Fox News has learned. In addition to videos, first reported about by Fox News this past week, in which the mother and the boy say they love Jackson and have never seen any inappropriate behavior, sources said there are written statements saying the same thing, which were signed late February by the boy and his mother in front of Jackson's attorney Mark Geragos
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03:30 AM
DENVER - The team of prosecutors working on the sexual assault case against Kobe Bryant is growing. The Jefferson County district attorney has agreed to let Dana Easter help his counterpart in Eagle County work on the case. Easter, a former nurse, specializes in crimes against children and sex crimes.
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03:29 AM
MODESTO -- Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge Al Girolami plans to hear arguments on releasing two pieces of evidence Dec. 3, when Scott Peterson is to be arraigned on the double-murder charges upheld Tuesday at his preliminary hearing. Defense attorney Mark Geragos asked prosecutors to release the$15,000 cash Peterson had with him when he was arrested and Peterson's Ford pickup, which police seized in December.
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03:28 AM
Kansas City, Mo A Salvation Army bell ringer has been charged with stealing donations and using some of the proceeds to buy a lottery ticket. Stephanie Beavers, 36, of Kansas City, was arrested Thursday night after a woman told police she had seen Beavers put a dollar into her pocket after receiving it as a donation.
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03:28 AM
PHILADELPHIA A 19-year-old woman has been accused of killing her newborn son and disposing of the body in the basement of her home. Chante Bass went to the hospital on Friday night after she had fainted, and an examination determined that she had recently given birth, police said.
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03:27 AM
November 20, 2003
ALHAMBRA, Calif. (AP) - Record producer Phil Spector, the 1960s recording-studio wizard who created pop music's Wall of Sound, was charged Thursday with murder in the shooting death of a woman at his home last February.
Spector, 63, was expected to be arraigned Thursday afternoon in the slaying of 40-year-old Lana Clarkson, a B-movie actress and model found dead in the foyer of his Alhambra mansion.
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05:59 PM
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) - A handcuffed Michael Jackson walked into the Santa Barbara jail on Thursday to face child molestation charges that could destroy the pop superstar's career and send him to prison for years.
A private jet carrying Jackson landed at the Santa Barbara airport shortly before noon and rolled its nose into the partly opened doors of a hangar. A caravan of cars left the hangar shortly afterward.
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04:14 PM
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (Reuters) - Pop superstar Michael Jackson, a self-styled "Peter Pan" whose relationship with children has long been controversial, was expected on Thursday to surrender to California authorities to face multiple charges of child molestation.
The Santa Barbara County sheriff and district attorney told reporters that they were giving Jackson, 45, who was in Las Vegas this week shooting a music video, a chance to turn himself in and raise a $3 million bail.
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04:15 AM
MODESTO, Calif. About two weeks after his wife's Christmas Eve disappearance, Scott Peterson apologized for deceiving his mistress into believing that he was a widower, according to the transcript of one phone conversation. The transcript of the 23-minute-long conversation on Jan. 6 between Peterson and his then-girlfriend, Fresno massage-therapist Amber Frey, was submitted as evidence in Peterson's preliminary hearing Tuesday. Peterson faces a double-murder charge for the death of his wife Laci and their unborn son.
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04:13 AM
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) - John Allen Muhammad's youngest child had a message and some questions for her father. The message: "I miss you soooooooo much." One of her questions: "Why did you do all these shootings?"
The jury deciding whether Muhammad should be executed for masterminding Washington sniper attacks heard Muhammad's ex-wife on Wednesday read letters written by the couple's three children - ages 13, 11, and 10 - to their father.
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04:12 AM
NEW YORK The U.S. Justice Department (search) said Wednesday it charged 47 foreign exchange traders, including employees of J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM) and UBS, with fraud and other criminal offenses after a slew of arrests in a sting targeting several top firms thought to have defrauded small retail investors of millions of dollars.
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04:12 AM
November 19, 2003
LOS OLIVOS, Calif. (Reuters) - Police armed with a search warrant remained at Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch in central California into Tuesday night, and a broadcast report early on Wednesday said officers also carried an arrest warrant for the pop superstar. "The Jacksons' family attorney has confirmed that the Santa Barbara County Sheriff has issued an arrest warrant for Michael Jackson," NBC Television reported.
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10:46 AM
MODESTO, Calif. Scott Peterson will stand trial on murder charges that could bring the death penalty in the slaying of his pregnant wife, Laci, and her unborn son, a judge ruled Tuesday. Superior Court Judge Al Girolami said prosecutors presented enough evidence in 11 days of testimony spread out over four weeks to show probable cause that Peterson killed his wife and dumped her body in San Francisco Bay.
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10:44 AM
Jury selection began Tuesday in the federal trial of an anti-abortion activist charged with mailing anthrax hoax letters to women's clinics around the country two years ago. Clayton Lee Waagner, who once said he was on a mission from God to kill abortion providers, has pleaded innocent to mailing the letters and to posting a message on an anti-abortion Web site that said he had been following clinic employees home and was "going to kill as many of them as I can."
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10:43 AM
About a week before the FBI arrested him in Miami Beach on suspicion that he was plotting to bomb abortion clinics, Stephen Jordi called two of his wife's younger brothers here to chastise them for ''living in sin'' with their girlfriends. Sex before marriage is a sin before God, Jordi, a devout evangelical Christian, said in the long-distance telephone message. ''It's hard to argue with him, because he knows the Bible and he has a verse to back up everything on the abortion issue,'' Charlotte Jordi, 27, said in an interview.
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10:42 AM
FORT WORTH, Texas - (KRT) - A tearful Cassy Robbins faced her infant son's killer in court Tuesday, telling the 16-year-old Grapevine, Texas, girl that she had vowed on the baby's deathbed that he would have justice. ``He looked up at you with trust, and he trusted you, and you killed him,'' Robbins, 18, told Jennifer Henson in a Fort Worth courtroom.
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10:41 AM
November 18, 2003
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) - Was John Allen Muhammad a man who tenderly looked after his children while they lived in a shelter, or a callous killer who deserves to die for masterminding the Washington area sniper shootings? Those are the two sides of Muhammad that lawyers on opposing sides will present during the sentencing phase of his trial as prosecutors try to win a death sentence and defense lawyers strive to avoid one.
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03:27 AM
NEW YORK (AP) - A federal appeals judge said Monday it would be "a sea change" in the Constitution to allow the Bush administration to designate a U.S. citizen suspected in an alleged dirty bomb plot as an enemy combatant. In a critical showdown between the government and civil rights lawyers, two members of a three-judge federal panel seemed hesitant to embrace the government's reasoning for why Jose Padilla, 33, should be held indefinitely without access to a lawyer and without being charged.
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03:26 AM
MODESTO, Calif. A pathologist who examined Laci Peterson's (search) badly decomposed body testified Monday that he could find no evidence of wounds and could not determine what weapon may have been used to kill her. Testifying for the prosecution at a preliminary hearing for Scott Peterson (search), forensic pathologist Dr. Brian Peterson, no relation to the couple, said Laci Peterson's neck, head, forearms and one of her feet were missing.
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03:25 AM
Kobe Bryant began the next phase of his criminal case last week as analysts renewed the question that has been on their minds since a 19-year-old woman accused the NBA superstar of rape: If he's guilty, will a jury convict him?
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03:24 AM
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) A 25-year-old man was apprehended Monday on charges stemming from a home invasion robbery and child abduction in which an 8-month-old was snatched from her home, authorities said. Karief Youmans was taken into custody about 7:30 p.m. Monday from a Philadelphia apartment, the Camden County Prosecutor's Office said. He is the second suspect to be arrested in the case.
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03:23 AM
LINCOLN -- A San Jose woman has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the scalding death of her 11-month-old son. Robbin Graham, 18, is accused of causing Austin T. Graham's death by placing him in a bathtub of scalding water Friday at a residence in or near San Jose. The baby's father, Nathan Graham, was at work at the time.
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03:22 AM
In March 2001, prison authorities collected some of Glenn Thomas Prince's DNA as a condition of his pending parole later that year. Instead, officials in October 2001 used Prince's DNA to charge him with capital murder for the brutal killing of a convenience store clerk in Pasadena that occurred almost 20 years before.
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03:22 AM
November 17, 2003
John Allen Muhammad faces the death penalty after being found guilty Monday of capital murder and terrorism for his role in the sniper-style shootings that terrorized the Washington, D.C., area last fall. The Virginia jury returned the decision after only a few hours of deliberation. Mr. Muhammad, 42, was found guilty of all four counts, including conspiracy and using a firearm in a crime.
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08:55 PM
Although a verdict on the guilt or innocence of sniper shootings defendant Lee Boyd Malvo is likely weeks away, a sentencing option for jurors already has shaped the course of the trial and renewed debate about executing juvenile offenders. The possibility of a death sentence if a guilty verdict is returned against Malvo has determined the composition of the jury that will judge the 18-year-old, and led to the insanity defense strategy that his attorneys will employ and prosecutors will argue against.
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01:03 AM
CHESAPEAKE, Va. -- On the same floor of the courthouse where sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo is being tried on murder charges, survivors and relatives of those killed are being provided with a "safe haven," modeled after the one used when the Oklahoma City bombing trials were moved to Denver seven years ago.
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01:02 AM
A subhearing on mitchondrial DNA testing has been woven into the larger preliminary hearing since it began Oct. 29. The Peterson proceeding is breaking new ground because mitochondrial DNA analysis has never before been used for forensic evidence in California courts.
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01:01 AM
In an alcoholic fog, Darlene Trick fell on her infant son, ending an all-night drinking binge and the life of her defenceless child. Trick was sentenced to a year in jail yesterday for criminal negligence causing the death of five-month-old Brandyn Sampson.
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01:00 AM
A Dade County sheriffs department employee has been arrested and charged with having sex with a female jail inmate. Kyle Stumpf, who works at the county jail, was charged with sodomy.
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12:59 AM
A 32-year-old man has been charged with the murder of a two-year-old girl who died in hospital two days after allegedly being assaulted. A 22-year-old woman who was arrested with the man in connection with the incident has been charged with child neglect.
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12:58 AM
Four people are charged with igniting a fire that caused $5 million worth of damage to a lumber yard, the third such fire in a month. Prosecutors allege the four--three men and a woman--set the Oct. 12 fire that caused extensive damage to a lumber yard in Kansas City. Earlier that month, arson fires did about $2 million worth of damage to two other lumber yards in the area.
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12:57 AM
November 16, 2003
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- Jurors considering the murder charges against sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad deliberated for four hours Friday without reaching a verdict, and their discussions are scheduled to continue Monday morning.
While emphasizing that it is extremely difficult to read anything into the length of jury deliberations, attorneys in Muhammad's case said they believe jurors are taking their time to look at a large amount of evidence from three weeks of testimony.
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02:12 AM
Lee Malvo's wardrobe, mostly a series of boyish, slightly baggy sweaters, has been a subject of discussion at the brief news conferences his lawyers hold after court here each day. Mr. Malvo, 18, is accused of participating in the sniper attacks last fall in the Washington region. The sweaters make him look like a high school student.
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02:11 AM
Let the paper war begin: The judge in the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case has given attorneys a month to outline issues that could play a key role at trial, from medical histories to rape kit evidence.
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02:10 AM
Prosecutors announced they would not be calling Scott Peterson's former girlfriend, Amber Frey as a witness at the preliminary hearing. But Friday, there is the suggestion that the defense may call Frey to testify.
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02:09 AM
November 13, 2003
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) - Jurors have listened to three weeks' worth of evidence against sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad, while his defense team has demanded their attention for all of two hours. It appeared as though that's all the jury would have to consider, as closing arguments were expected to begin in the 42-year-old's trial Thursday, with the jury possibly getting the case later in the day.
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05:01 AM
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (Reuters) - Defense lawyers for Washington-area sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad rested their case on Wednesday, taking less than three hours to counter three weeks of evidence and more than 130 witnesses put forward by prosecutors. Defense attorneys Peter Greenspun and Jonathan Shapiro offered just five witnesses in the capital-murder case against Muhammad, who is accused of leading a 23-day sniper spree last year that spread fear throughout the Washington area.
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05:00 AM
MODESTO, Calif. (Reuters) - Scott Peterson spoke with his girlfriend six days after his wife, Laci, disappeared and made up a story about traveling to Europe, a police detective on Wednesday told a preliminary hearing into whether Peterson should be tried for the murder of his wife. "(He) wasn't talking about Laci. He was talking about where he was in Europe," police detective Al Brocchini said under cross-examination when questioned about Peterson's ex-mistress, Amber Frey, who is due to testify later in the hearing.
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05:00 AM
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) - Courtney Love pleaded innocent Wednesday to two felony drug counts after ridiculing the charges in a rambling monologue to reporters before the court appearance. The complaint against the 39-year-old singer-actress said she illegally possessed two painkillers when she was treated at a hospital for an Oct. 2 overdose. The two painkillers, hydrocodone and oxycodone, can be prescribed legally.
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04:59 AM
MIAMI A man arrested on suspicion of plotting to bomb abortion clinics came "perilously close to carrying out his plans" after casing clinics, studying bomb-making and buying material that could be used in an attack, according to the FBI and court documents.
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04:58 AM
NEW YORK (AP) - Neither Rosie O'Donnell nor publisher Gruner+Jahr USA emerged a winner in an ugly and "ill-conceived" court battle over the defunct magazine Rosie and no money damages will likely be awarded, a Manhattan judge said Wednesday.
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04:58 AM
November 12, 2003
GALVESTON, Texas (AP) - New York real estate heir Robert Durst, who said he accidentally killed a hotheaded neighbor in self-defense and then chopped up the body because he feared no one would believe him, was found innocent Tuesday of murder. The jury took five days to reach the verdict, bringing a startling end to a grisly case that began to unfold when trash bags containing pieces of 71-year-old Morris Black started washing up along Galveston Bay in 2001.
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02:03 AM
As John A. Muhammad's lawyers prepare to present their case on Wednesday, they must find ways to counter three weeks of detailed forensic evidence intended to link the defendant to the Washington-area sniper shootings. But in many ways, experts said, a more powerful element of the prosecution's case was its skillful, almost subliminal, evocation of the victims as unsuspecting everymen and women.
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02:02 AM
"Do any of you have a moral, religious or philosophical objection to the death penalty when the defendant was a juvenile at the time the crime was committed?" he asked. That question underscores a difference between the trial of Mr. Malvo, now 18, and that of the other defendant in the shootings, John A. Muhammad, who is 42.
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02:01 AM
PITTSBURGH (AP)--A newspaper reporter was convicted of trespassing at a chemical plant while apparently working on a story on security with a CBS ``60 Minutes'' correspondent and a freelance cameraman.
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02:00 AM
Police yesterday made an arrest in the Monday killing of a Queens grandmother, charging that the woman's son-in-law was responsible for the crime. Sydney Sampson, who lived with his wife, two sons and his mother-in-law, was arrested at the 103rd Precinct about 9 a.m. after being questioned by investigators, police said.
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01:59 AM
November 11, 2003
CHESAPEAKE, Va. Lawyers for sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo have subpoenaed fellow suspect John Allen Muhammad in a quest to show the older man brainwashed Malvo into participating in last year's deadly Washington-area shootings. Malvo attorney Craig Cooley said Monday after the first day of jury selection for Malvo's trial that he had not yet received a response from Muhammad's attorneys.
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06:59 AM
CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) - As sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad stood trial in a courtroom 15 miles away, jury selection began Monday in the murder case against 18-year-old Lee Boyd Malvo, with his lawyers arguing he was brainwashed by the older Muhammad. The start of Malvo's case sets the stage for simultaneous sniper trials in separate courtrooms in different cities.
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06:35 AM
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. The prosecution rested its case Monday in the trial of older Beltway Sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad. Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. planned to consider several motions after he sent the jury home Monday. The defense is expected to begin presenting its case on Wednesday.
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06:34 AM
Scott Petersons attorney continued trying to discredit police work done by a detective investigating the Christmas Eve disappearance of Laci Peterson. Modesto police Det. Al Brocchini admitted neglecting to list a pair of yellow-handled pliers among items in Scott Petersons boat in the police report he wrote the next day.
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06:33 AM
GROVE CITY, PA. -- Two teenagers killed their counselor at a juvenile detention center Monday and escaped but were captured hours later, authorities said. Wayne Lamont Urey Jr., 43, was killed in one of the boy's bedrooms shortly after midnight at George Junior Republic, a private residential school and treatment center 50 miles north of Pittsburgh, authorities said.
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06:33 AM
GREEN BAY Motel cleaners foiled a possible murder plot when they found a revolver and bullets in a room registered to a man accused of traveling to Wisconsin to have sex with a 15-year-old girl. Kevin C. Jordan, 43, of Mount Vernon, Ohio, was charged Monday in U.S. District Court with traveling between states to engage in a sexual act with a person under 18, having a firearm as a convicted felon and traveling between states with the intent to kill or injure another person.
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06:32 AM
A St. Louis substitute teacher is charged with assaulting and molesting a 15-year old female student inside a classroom. Clifton Brookings, 28, was arrested at Roosevelt High School last week.
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06:31 AM
A King County, WA corrections officer was accused yesterday of keeping a woman in his Tacoma home for days while raping and torturing her. Floyd Wayne Drane, 51, pleaded not guilty in Pierce County Superior Court to charges of assault, kidnapping, robbery and rape.
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06:31 AM
LE MARS, Iowa -- Adamant that she only aided and abetted in the death of her adopted son, Lisa Boss on Monday pleaded guilty to four felony charges and agreed to a 50-year prison sentence. Boss, 35, of Remsen, had been charged with first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping and child endangerment for the Feb. 23, 2000, beating death of her 10-year-old adopted son, Timothy.
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06:30 AM
A grandfather who left his young granddaughter in a car during a heat wave - causing the child's death - pleaded guilty to child endangerment charges yesterday. Calvin Howell was publicly distraught after 20-month-old Sasha Cohen's death on Aug. 12, 2002. Charges against him were initially dropped but later refiled by District Attorney Lynne Abraham.
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06:29 AM
November 10, 2003
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lee Malvo, the 18-year-old suspect in a string of sniper-style shootings that terrorized the U.S. capital region last year, was headed for trial on Monday in the murder of an FBI analyst. Malvo, 17 at the time of the attacks, faces two murder counts and a weapons charge in the death of Linda Franklin, who was gunned down on Oct. 14, 2002, as she loaded purchases into her car in a parking lot in Washington's Virginia suburbs.
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12:56 AM
So far at Scott Peterson's preliminary hearing... a day-by-day account.
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12:55 AM
As new details emerge about last week's brutal carjacking and slaying of Cincinnati Reds outfielder Dernell Stenson in Chandler, a fourth man was arrested early Sunday for allegedly hindering the investigation into the killing. Robert Lee Maye, 32, was booked into a Maricopa County jail after being picked up late Saturday in his Phoenix home. Investigators said Kaye is a cousin of two half-brothers accused in Stenson's killing.
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12:54 AM
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - A 6-year-old boy suspected of shooting his grandfather to death with a .22-caliber rifle has a history of mental illness and attacking family members, authorities said. James Zbinden, 59, was found dead at his home Friday after his grandson ran into the street and flagged down a neighbor, Cole County Sheriff John Hemeyer said.
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12:50 AM
An assistant high school principal in suburban Boca Raton is in jail tonight on charges that he supplied OxyContin to a drug dealer. Keven L McKinney is the assistant principal at Olympic Heights High School. He was arrested Friday and charged with charged with possessing OxyContin with intent to sell.
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12:49 AM
WOODBINE, GA-- A 35-year-old soldier from Georgia is under arrest for allegedly trying to abduct an 8-year-old girl. Police say they caught up with Alexander Wright after deputies say his white pick-up truck on Highway 40 in Kingsland, Georgia. Wright is accused of trying to kidnap an 8-year-old girl from a Woodbine hotel.
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12:48 AM
A Columbia, SC woman has been charged with murder and burglary in the 2001 shooting death of a Richland County man. Sheriff's investigators think Carmen Latrice Rice, 25, and possibly others were involved in the shooting of Alfred B. Brennan, 46, Richland County Sheriff's Department spokesman Joseph Pellicci said.
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12:48 AM
November 07, 2003
A Modesto Police detective who spent last Christmas Eve launching an investigation into Laci Peterson's disappearance testified Thursday that officers found a .22-caliber semiautomatic handgun in Scott Peterson's pickup truck.
It was the first hint that Peterson, accused of killing his pregnant wife and unborn son, owned a weapon.
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02:52 AM
MODESTO - Two weeks before his wife disappeared, Scott Peterson told his mistress he was a widower about to spend his first Christmas alone, an investigator testified Thursday.
That was Dec. 9, the same day Peterson purchased the boat he told police he used while fishing San Francisco Bay the day his wife disappeared, said detective Al Brocchini.
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02:50 AM
It is known as Commonwealth's exhibit No. 1: the .223-caliber Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle that investigators found in John A. Muhammad's car when he was arrested in the Washington-area sniper attacks last October.
The first piece of evidence in Mr. Muhammad's trial, the rifle is also the most important, providing the mortar that prosecutors hope will hold together the complex structure of their death penalty case.
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02:47 AM
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The captain of a New York ferry boat that crashed last month killing 10 people refused to testify to investigators on Thursday on the grounds his statements might incriminate him, officials said.
The federal panel probing the cause of the Oct. 15 crash said in a statement that Capt. Michael Gansas, who was not the pilot at the wheel when the commuter ferry struck a Staten Island pier, exercised his rights under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
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02:43 AM
PHOENIX (AP) - A 19-year-old man was arrested on a homicide charge Thursday night in the death of Cincinnati Reds outfielder Dernell Stenson, and police said they were seeking a second suspect.
Reginald Riddle also was charged with armed robbery and kidnapping, Chandler police said.
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02:40 AM
November 06, 2003
PHOENIX (AP) - A man found driving a vehicle that belonged to slain Cincinnati Reds outfielder Dernell Stenson was booked on a charge of possession of stolen property, police said Thursday.
The man, Kevin Riddle, was arrested and jailed Wednesday night about two hours after Stenson was found dead in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler, police said.
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03:06 PM
GALVESTON (Reuters) - Jurors deliberated for a second day on Thursday in the murder trial of New York real estate heir Robert Durst, who is accused of killing his neighbor in a rundown Texas apartment, then dismembering the body.
Durst, 60, faces a life sentence in prison if found guilty of murdering Morris Black on Sept. 28, 2001
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02:18 PM
CHANDLER, Ariz. - Cincinnati Reds outfielder Dernell Stenson was found dead Wednesday on a residential street after he was shot and apparently run over in a Phoenix suburb, police said. Chandler police said the death was being treated as a homicide.
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02:16 PM
WEST CHESTER, Ohio - A man with two handguns opened fire Thursday at a trucking company, killing two employees and wounding three, then fled in a van, authorities said. Police later arrested a former employee of the company at a truck stop 50 miles away in Indiana.
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02:12 PM
VIRGINIA BEACH - The semiautomatic rifle found in sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad's car was linked to shootings that killed eight people and injured three during last year's sniper spree, and to two earlier slayings, investigators testified today.
Walter A. Dandridge Jr., a firearms identification expert with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said he looked at microscopic markings left on fired bullets, bullet fragments and casings recovered from spree victims or at crime scenes. Such markings are unique to each individual weapon, he said.
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02:09 PM
WEST CHESTER, Ohio (AP) - A man armed with two handguns opened fire Thursday at a trucking company, killing two employees and injuring three, then fled in a van, authorities said.
The man drove past a security checkpoint in an industrial park, then began shooting at five men in an office in the mechanics area of Watkins Motor Lines in suburban Cincinnati, West Chester Police Capt. David Kelly said.
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01:40 PM
NEW YORK (AP) - The authorized biography of former prisoner of war Pfc. Jessica Lynch reportedly says she was raped by her Iraqi captors.
A spokeswoman for Lynch's family, while not directly confirming the report, said Thursday it was unfortunate attention was being focused on one incident.
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01:33 PM
SEATTLE (AP) - Uttering the word "guilty" 48 times with chilling calm, Gary Leon Ridgway admitted Wednesday he is the Green River Killer and confessed to strangling four dozen women over two decades - "so many women I have a hard time keeping them straight." "Choking is what I did and I was pretty good at it," the 54-year-old former truck-factory employee said in papers submitted as part of his plea bargain.
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01:30 AM
VIRGINIA BEACH, Nov. 5 -- A parade of experts outlined a variety of forensic evidence against John Allen Muhammad on Wednesday, including revelations that authorities found his DNA on a rifle scope and heard his voice on a recording trying to extort money. "We have given you a way out," said the voice -- identified by a Montgomery County police detective as Muhammad's -- on a recording made Oct. 22, 2002, shortly after the final sniper shooting in Aspen Hill. "You know our request. You know our demands. And you know it can be done. My advice to you is to take it."
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01:29 AM
GALVESTON, Texas (AP) - Jury deliberations began Wednesday in the trial of real estate heir Robert Durst, after prosecutors told jurors that murder was the only explanation for the death of a man whose dismembered remains were dumped in Galveston Bay. After attorneys spent several hours wrapping up nearly six weeks of testimony in closing arguments, the jury deliberated for more than an hour before breaking until Thursday.
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01:28 AM
NEW YORK (AP) - A federal judge on Wednesday ordered a Staten Island ferry captain to appear before federal investigators for detailed questioning about the crash that killed 10 people. The captain's lawyer, however, signaled he still might not talk. U.S. District Court Judge Frederic Block told Michael Gansas to appear Thursday morning for questioning by members of the National Transportation Safety Board.
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01:28 AM
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Martha Stewart says in an ABC News interview that she is innocent of wrongdoing in an insider trading case but guilty of chopping a cabbage too vigorously when asked about the stock scandal during a now infamous 2002 news show. Stewart, in excerpts from the Barbara Walters interview set to air on ABC's "20/20" program on Friday, said she does not think she will go to prison. But she said the stock trading case has taken its toll on her.
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01:27 AM
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) A doctor illegally distributed huge quantities of painkillers, sedatives and diet pills as the central figure in an eastern Pennsylvania drug ring, state law enforcement officials said. Dr. William Delp, 71, gave OxyContin, Percocet, Xanax and amphetamine-like diet drugs to people who visited his office, without regard to their medical histories, Attorney General Mike Fisher said in a statement.
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01:27 AM
Boston Red Sox team doctor William Morgan was arrested on drunk-driving charges after his car was spotted swerving on a highway and a near-empty glass of wine was found in the front seat, state police said.
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01:26 AM
U.S. Customs inspectors seized 1,235 pounds (560 kilograms) of the highly potent "B.C. bud" variety of marijuana during a routine investigation of a southbound semi-trailer unit at Portal, N.D.
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01:25 AM
November 05, 2003
MODESTO, Calif. - (KRT) - Police became suspicious of Scott Peterson within hours after his wife was reported missing, first when he seemed to trip up on his alibi, then when he smoothed out a small rug that was scrunched up against the back door, a detective testified Tuesday.
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12:12 AM
MODESTO, Calif. (Reuters) - A policeman who visited Scott Peterson's California home last Christmas Eve when he reported his wife missing testified on Tuesday that he saw no sign of a struggle in the home or anything other than a rug out of place. Modesto, California, Police Officer Jon Evers told the fifth day of a preliminary hearing into whether Peterson, 31, should be bound for trial on charges of murdering his wife and their unborn son, Conner, said there was nothing out of the ordinary to indicate a struggle or disturbance had taken place.
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12:11 AM
MODESTO, Calif. Scott Peterson has admitted to family members and friends that he cheated on his wife, Laci Peterson, at least four times with different women, Fox News has learned. One relative, who does not believe Peterson is guilty of murder, described him as a sex addict. "He has a sexual problem and has a need to sleep with other women," the relative told Fox News.
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12:10 AM
A man was posting a letter in a mailbox when he heard an explosion, turned and saw a woman slumped over on a bench, blood pouring from her head, he testified Tuesday in the trial of sniper shootings suspect John Allen Muhammad.
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12:10 AM
KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) The mother of teenage sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo has refused to testify in the murder case of John Allen Muhammad unless she's allowed to meet with her son. Una James, 38, was subpoenaed by prosecutors to testify in Muhammad's trial in Virginia. She was scheduled to fly from her native Jamaica on Sunday, but refused at the last minute, saying she hadn't received assurances she could see her son, suspected of murder.
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12:09 AM
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (Reuters) - Former HealthSouth Corp. (HLSH.PK) Chief Executive Richard Scrushy was indicted on Tuesday on 85 criminal counts for his part in deliberately inflating earnings and assets at the health-care company he founded by $2.7 billion, U.S. officials said. Scrushy, 51, the latest top executive to face criminal charges in a series of recent corporate scandals, surrendered at the FBI's office in Birmingham, Alabama and later appeared in court with his legs in shackles.
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12:08 AM
November 04, 2003
A former pastor from Laurens was arrested Friday after allegedly having an inappropriate relationship with a 14-year-old girl vacationing with him and her family on Hilton Head Island, deputies say.
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11:59 PM
A Kansas City man was charged Tuesday with third-degree assault and child endangerment in connection with the death of his 5-month-old son at a downtown St. Louis hotel.
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11:58 PM
November 03, 2003
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) - A woman worried that she could be the next victim in the Washington-area sniper shootings saw a suspicious blue car but didn't tell police "because they were looking for a white van." A police officer spoke to John Allen Muhammad, who was driving a blue car near one of the shootings, but let him go.
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02:12 AM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The victim at the heart of sniper suspect John Muhammad's murder trial has been pushed into the background by gory crime scene photos, anguished 911 calls and testimony about killings that are not part of this case. In some jurisdictions, such evidence could be barred, but Virginia law allows evidence about "unadjudicated criminal acts" -- crimes with which the defendant may be linked but not necessarily charged with or convicted of -- in cases where the death penalty is at stake.
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02:12 AM
MODESTO, Calif. Laci Peterson's sister threw into question Scott Peterson's story about going fishing the day his pregnant wife vanished, testifying that he said he had golf plans on Christmas Eve. Amy Rocha, a hairdresser, said Friday she cut Scott Peterson's hair Dec. 23 and that he had offered to pick up a gift basket for their grandfather near the country club where he was a member.
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02:11 AM
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - A woman who rammed her car into an arena where President Bush had just given a speech was charged with aggravated assault on a police officer, authorities said Sunday. Chief David Mitchell, spokesman for the DeSoto County sheriff's department, said Betina Mixon was being held in the DeSoto County jail without bond and would be arraigned Monday or Tuesday.
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02:11 AM
COLLINGSWOOD, N.J. (AP) - A former neighbor of the couple accused of starving four adopted sons said he notified police eight years ago when one of the boys came to his home begging for food. The child, now 19, is the same one found rooting through trash three weeks ago by another neighbor. That call to police resulted in the arrests of Raymond and Vanessa Jackson.
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02:10 AM
COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho -- An Aryan Nations member running for Hayden City Council who allegedly attacked a Hispanic man in a grocery store parking lot is facing hate-crime prosecution. Zachary Loren Beck, 24, was arrested for investigation of felony malicious harassment after allegedly punching John A. Albright, 20, of Hayden in the face on Friday after asking him if he was Mexican.
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02:09 AM
FBI agents and police arrested two men Sunday who they said were suspects in the fatal shooting of a Georgia bank employee. Marcellus Levan Henderson, 21, and Terron Vassell Vernon, 22, were wanted on charges of attempted robbery of a bank in Roswell, Ga., and murder in the Oct. 24 death of teller Angela Towle, the FBI said.
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02:08 AM
PIGEON FORGE, Tenn. A 14-year-old boy is accused in the shooting death of another 14-year-old boy on Halloween night. William Jordan Canterbury was shot and killed in Pigeon Forge at the home of another boy. That boy told police that he got a shotgun, loaded it and pointed it at Canterbury to ''freak him out.''
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02:07 AM