Marcellus Williams, 55, was convicted in the 1998 killing of Lisha Gayle, who was stabbed during the burglary of her suburban St. Louis home.

Williams was put to death despite questions his attorneys raised over jury selection at his trial and the handling of evidence in the case. His clemency petition focused heavily on how Gayle’s relatives wanted Williams’ sentence commuted to life without the possibility of parole.

“The family defines closure as Marcellus being allowed to live,” the petition stated. “Marcellus’ execution is not necessary.”

As Williams lay awaiting execution, he appeared to converse with a spiritual adviser seated next to him. Williams wiggled his feet underneath a white sheet that was pulled up to his neck and moved his head slightly while his spiritual advisor continued to talk. Then Williams’ chest heaved about a half dozen times, and he showed no further movement.

Williams’ son and two attorneys watched from another room. No one was present on behalf of the victim’s family.

The Department of Corrections released a brief statement that Williams had written ahead of time, saying: “All Praise Be to Allah In Every Situation!!!”

Republican Missouri Gov. Mike Parson said he hoped the execution brings finality to a case that “languished for decades, revictimizing Ms. Gayle’s family over and over again.”

“No juror nor judge has ever found Williams’ innocence claim to be credible,” Parson said in a statement.

The NAACP had been among those urging Parson to cancel the execution.

“Tonight, Missouri lynched another innocent Black man,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement.

It was the third time Williams faced execution. He got reprieves in 2015 and 2017, but his last-ditch efforts this time were futile. Parson and the state Supreme Court rejected his appeals in quick succession Monday, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene hours before he was put to death.

Last month, Gayle’s relatives gave their blessings to an agreement between the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney’s office and Williams’ attorneys to commute the sentence to life in prison. But acting on an appeal from Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s office, the state Supreme Court nullified the agreement.

Williams was among death row inmates in five states who were scheduled to be put to death in the span of a week — an unusually high number that defies a yearslong decline in the use and support of the death penalty in the U.S. The first was carried out Friday in South Carolina. Texas was also slated to execute a prisoner on Tuesday evening.

Gayle, 42, was a social worker and former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter. Prosecutors at Williams’ trial said he broke into her home on Aug. 11, 1998, heard the shower running and found a large butcher knife. Gayle was stabbed 43 times when she came downstairs. Her purse and her husband’s laptop were stolen.

Authorities said Williams stole a jacket to conceal blood on his shirt. His girlfriend asked him why he would wear a jacket on a hot day. She said she later saw the purse and laptop in his car and that Williams sold the computer a day or two later.

Prosecutors also cited testimony from Henry Cole, who shared a cell with Williams in 1999 while Williams was jailed on unrelated charges. Cole told prosecutors that Williams confessed to the killing and provided details about it.

Williams’ attorneys responded that the girlfriend and Cole were both convicted of felonies and wanted a $10,000 reward. They said that fingerprints, a bloody shoeprint, hair and other evidence at the crime scene didn’t match Williams’.

A crime scene investigator had testified the killer wore gloves.

Questions about DNA evidence also led St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell to request a hearing challenging Williams’ guilt. But days before the Aug. 21 hearing, new testing showed that DNA on the knife belonged to members of the prosecutor’s office who handled it without gloves after the original crime lab tests.

Without DNA evidence pointing to any alternative suspect, Midwest Innocence Project attorneys reached a compromise with the prosecutor’s office: Williams would enter a new, no-contest plea to first-degree murder in exchange for a new sentence of life in prison without parole. A no-contest plea isn’t an admission of guilt but is treated as such for the purpose of sentencing.

Judge Bruce Hilton signed off, as did Gayle’s family. But Bailey appealed, and the state Supreme Court blocked the agreement and ordered Hilton to proceed with an evidentiary hearing, which took place last month.

Hilton ruled on Sept. 12 that the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence would stand, noting that Williams’ arguments all had been previously rejected. That decision was upheld Monday by the state Supreme Court.

Attorneys for Williams, who was Black, also challenged the fairness of his trial, particularly the fact that only one of the 12 jurors was Black. Tricia Bushnell of the Midwest Innocence Project said the prosecutor in the case, Keith Larner, removed six of seven Black prospective jurors.

Larner testified at the August hearing that he struck one potential Black juror partly because he looked too much like Williams — a statement that Williams’ attorneys asserted showed improper racial bias.

Larner contended that the jury selection process was fair.

Williams was the third Missouri inmate put to death this year and the 100th since the state resumed use of the death penalty in 1989.

___

AP writer Mark Sherman contributed from Washington. Salter reported from O’Fallon, Missouri.

Prosecutors say Alex Rodriguez was a ghost candidate who helped sway a Miami-area legislative race back in 2020. They claim Artiles messaged him on social media and eventually offered him $50,000 to run for office. 

Defense attorneys admitted Rodriguez was a ghost candidate, but added how that isn’t a crime in Florida.

However, Artiles is facing a list of charges for allegedly breaking state election laws because of the money the defendant paid the candidate.

The ghost candidate, who shared a last name as incumbent Democratic Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez, got more than 6,000 votes. 

Rodriguez, the sitting senator, lost the election and his seat to Republican candidate Ileana Garcia by 32 votes.

'Ghost candidate' coverage

Crime and Courts Sep 23

‘Because of your lies': Ex-Sen. Frank Artiles' attorneys try to discredit ghost candidate

Crime and Courts Sep 20

‘I needed the money': ‘Ghost candidate' says he was offered $50k to run for office

Before and after the election, Rodriguez told jurors on Tuesday that Artiles gave him thousands of dollars. At one point, he paid for Rodriguez’s daughter’s tuition. After the election, Rodriguez stated the defendant also gave him money to lawyer up and “protect himself.”

“You didn’t use any of that money for any campaign stuff, correct? You just paid a lawyer,” asked Frank Quintero, defense attorney representing Artiles.

“No sir, no campaign stuff,” Rodriguez said.

The defense calls the money Artiles gave Rodriguez as “business transactions” or “loans,” but prosecutors hope jurors consider them campaign contributions and convict the former lawmaker.

“Did you consider the payments and the loans that he made to you as a pretext for money he had promised you for being a candidate?” asked Timothy VanderGiesen, an Assistant State Attorney.

“Yes, that’s exactly right,” Rodriguez answered.

For the past three days, attorneys have spent countless hours questioning Rodriguez, an indicator of just how critical his testimony is for the jury to reach a verdict.

Jurors were also allowed to submit questions for the key witness and Judge Miguel M de la O read them out loud with the attorneys’ approval.

“Why did Rodriguez repeatedly ask the defendant for money?” Judge de la O asked on behalf of jurors.

“Because I had a need. It was the only reason I ran or the only reason I agreed to do this because I had a need for the money,” Rodriguez replied.

Another question jurors submitted to the court was about a meeting the defendant and the candidate had in the parking lot of a Citi National Bank. Records show they both met to open a campaign bank account.

“What funds were used to open the account at Citi National and who provided them?” Judge de la O asked on behalf of jurors.

 “The 2,000 we used to open the account, Mr. Artiles gave them to me in the parking lot,” Rodriguez answered.

The three men, Jason Carlson, 49, Sherell Allen, 48, and Luke Anaya, 41, are now in custody, facing charges including attempted murder, assault, false imprisonment and kidnapping, court records show.

The 45-year-old man told deputies he’d lived in the house in Jefferson County, just west of Denver, for only a few weeks when he overheard his three housemates talking about attacking him at about 2 a.m. on Sept. 15, the court records said.

The man tried to barricade the door, but the three busted it down, shooting him with rock salt loaded into “Airsoft-type firearms,” assaulting him and stepping on his neck until he went unconscious, the man told law enforcement.

The man said he was tortured for 14 hours before two other people showed up to the home and helped him. He was taken to a hospital.

Carlson, Allen and Anaya face cash bails between $150,000 to $300,000, and are being represented by the public defenders office, which does not comment on cases.

Carlson and Allen are due in court on Oct. 15, and Anaya on Tuesday.

The alleged sham candidate, Alex Pedro Rodriguez, under oath, said Artiles was behind his ghost campaign where the plan was not to win, but only to disrupt the race. Republicans ended up flipping the Senate seat from Democrat to Republican.

“You claim that you were offered 50,000 by Mr. Artiles?” asked Frank Quintero, an attorney representing Artiles.

“Yes I was,” Rodriguez replied.

“To run as candidate?” Quintero asked.

“Yes I was,” Rodriguez said.

Crime and Courts Sep 20

‘I needed the money': ‘Ghost candidate' says he was offered $50k to run for office

Miami-Dade County Sep 17

‘Ghost candidate' trial of Ex-Florida Senator Frank Artiles begins

The ghost candidate, who shared a last name as incumbent Democratic Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez, got more than 6,000 votes. 

Rodriguez, the sitting senator, lost the election and his seat to Republican candidate Ileana Garcia by 32 votes.

Prosecutors say Artiles broke campaign finance laws and other committed election-related crimes. His lawyer told jurors backing a ghost candidate is not against the law.

On Monday, defense attorneys brought up how Artiles and the ghost candidate had business deals, but denied they were payments made for him to run for senate. 

“So because of your lies, Mr. Artiles is sitting in court fighting for his liberty, sir. Do you understand that? Does that bother you?” Quintero asked Rodriguez while on the stand. 

Defense attorneys are trying to paint Rodriguez as a liar, dishonest, and untruthful person. For example, they showed jurors a profile of Rodriguez’s Belen Jesuit Preparatory School alumni page, where the man lied about owning a business and having a college degree. 

Rodriguez stated he lied because he needed to get any business he could get. 

In the end, it will be up to jurors to decide whether or not the money Artiles paid Rodriguez in their transactions, broke any state election laws. 

Rodriguez pleaded guilty and got probation in exchange for his testimony against Artiles. 

The trial continues Tuesday.

Victims’ relatives recounted in pained testimony the lives gunman Ahmad Alissa destroyed in the 2021 attack in the college town of Boulder.

“To the person that’s done this, we hope that you suffer for the rest of your life. You are a coward,” said Nikolena Stanisic, whose only sibling, Neven, was killed. “I hope this haunts the defendant until the end of time. The defendant deserves the absolute worst.”

She recalled going out to ice cream with her brother the night before he was shot and how he would sometimes help her with bills. Their household — once filled with talk and laughter — is now mostly silent, she told the court.

Defense attorneys did not dispute that Alissa, who has schizophrenia, fatally shot 10 people including a police officer. But the defense argued he was insane at the time of the attack and couldn’t tell right from wrong.

In addition to 10 counts of first-degree murder, the jury found Alissa guilty on 38 charges of attempted murder, one count of assault, and six counts of possessing illegal, large-capacity magazines.

Judge Ingrid Bakke sentenced him to 10 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.

“This was not about mental illness. This was about brutal, intentional violence,” District Attorney Michael Dougherty said.

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Alissa and his attorneys declined an opportunity to speak during his sentencing.

The courtroom was packed largely with victims’ families and police officers, including those who were shot at by Alissa. Several members of Alissa’s family sat just behind him.

Alissa started shooting immediately after getting out of his car in a King Soopers store parking lot in March 2021. He killed most of the victims in just over a minute and surrendered after an officer shot him in the leg.

The daughter of killed Officer Eric Talley lamented the life milestones they would not be able to share. Madeline Talley and her mother said they would not hold onto bitterness, extending their forgiveness to Alissa.

“He taught me to believe that God brings good out of evil,” Madeline Talley said of her father.

Others weren’t ready to forgive. Robert Olds — whose niece, Rikki, was killed — said Alissa’s family should have been held criminally responsible because their “ignorance, inattentiveness and inaction” led directly to the attack.

Alissa did not visibly react as the guilty verdicts were read. During the sentencing part of the hearing, he looked at times toward the victims’ relatives as they spoke, but for much of the time sat hunched over, talking to his attorney or writing.

Prosecutors had to prove Alissa was sane. They argued he didn’t fire randomly and showed an ability to make decisions by pursuing people who were running and trying to hide from him. He twice passed by a 91-year-old man who continued to shop, unaware of the shooting.

He came armed with steel-piercing bullets and illegal magazines that can hold 30 rounds of ammunition, which prosecutors said showed he took deliberate steps to make the attack as deadly as possible.

Several members of Alissa’s family, who immigrated to the United States from Syria, testified that he had become withdrawn and spoke less a few years before the shooting. He later began acting paranoid and showed signs of hearing voices, they said, and his condition worsened after he got COVID-19 in late 2020.

Alissa was diagnosed with schizophrenia after the attack, and experts said the behaviors described by relatives are consistent with the onset of the disease.

State forensic psychologists who evaluated Alissa concluded he was sane during the shooting. The defense did not have to provide any evidence in the case and did not present any experts to say that Alissa was insane.

Despite the fact that he heard voices, the state psychologists said, Alissa did not experience delusions. They said his fear that he could be jailed or killed by police revealed Alissa knew his actions were wrong.

Alissa repeatedly told the psychologists that he heard voices, including “killing voices” right before the shooting. But Alissa failed during about six hours of interviews to provide more details about the voices or whether they were saying anything specific, forensic psychologist B. Thomas Gray testified.

Mental illness is not the same thing as insanity. Colorado law defines insanity as having a mental disease so severe that it’s impossible for a person to tell right from wrong.

Family members of the victims attended the two-week trial and watched graphic surveillance and police body camera video. Survivors testified about how they fled and in some cases helped others to safety.

Prosecutors did not offer any motive for the shooting. Alissa initially searched online for public places to attack in Boulder, including bars and restaurants, then a day before the shooting focused his research on large stores.

On the day of the attack, he drove from his home in the Denver suburb of Arvada and pulled into the first supermarket in Boulder that he encountered. He shot three victims in the parking lot before entering the store.

An emergency room doctor said she crawled onto a shelf and hid among bags of potato chips. A pharmacist who took cover testified that she heard Alissa say, “This is fun” at least three times as he went through the store firing his semi-automatic pistol that resembled an AR-15 rifle.

Alissa’s mother told the court that she thought her son was “sick.” His father testified that he thought Alissa was possessed by a djin, or evil spirit, but did not seek any treatment for his son because it would have been shameful for the family.

Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement justice had been served. “Loved ones, friends, and neighbors were taken from us far too soon by an act of pure evil,” he said.

Violent crime was down about 3% from 2022 to 2023 and property crime took a similar drop of 2.4%, the FBI reported in its annual “Summary of Crime in the Nation.” The most serious crimes went down significantly: Murder and non-negligent manslaughter were down an estimated 11.6% — the largest single year decline in two decades — while rape decreased by an estimated 9.4%, NBC News reports.

Preliminary numbers showed that 2024 crime numbers were also dropping for the early part of this year, continuing a trend of crime easing as America has come out of the pandemic.

Among property crimes, burglary decreased by an estimated 7.6%. Motor vehicle theft, however, was up by an estimated 12.6% between 2022 and 2023. Recorded incidents of shoplifting were also up: from 999,394 in 2022 to 1,149,336 in 2023, which is roughly the same level of incidents reported in 2019, before the pandemic. (Store closures and COVID-19 security measures likely decreased shoplifting in 2020 and 2021, and may have affected 2022 incidents as well.)

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Public perception of crime is often out of step with the facts, especially in the age of social media, ease of digital communications between neighbors and doorbell cameras when Americans may be more aware of individual crimes than they would have been in the past.

But the violent crime rate dropped from 2022 to 2023, from 377.1 violent crimes per 100,000 people in 2022 to 363.8 violent crimes per 100,000 people in 2023, the new FBI data shows.

As part of his 2024 campaign, former President Donald Trump has tried to spread the notion that the United States is undergoing a crime wave, and he called the FBI’s prior numbers a “fraud” during his debate with Kamala Harris, saying that some cities weren’t included. But the FBI factors in the information gaps into their estimates. The bureau noted that its 2023 data included full-year numbers from “every city agency covering a population of 1,000,000 or more inhabitants.”

Overall, the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) collected information from 700 additional agencies in 2023 compared to 2022. The total population covered by the report is more than 315 million people, or 94.3% of the country.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com.  More from NBC News:

The alleged sham candidate, Alex Pedro Rodriguez, under oath, said former state Sen. Frank Artiles was behind his ghost campaign. Rodriguez never planned on winning, only disrupting the race – which ended up flipping the Senate seat from Democrat to Republican.

“The Democratic candidate had the same last name as me, and it would help save in votes away in exchange for me running, so he would give me $50,000, $25,000 before the election and 25 after,” Rodriguez told the court.

“I agreed to do it, I needed the money. I am ashamed, but I needed the money, so I said yes,” he said.

Miami-Dade County Sep 17

‘Ghost candidate' trial of Ex-Florida Senator Frank Artiles begins

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Rodriguez pleaded guilty to election fraud charges and agreed to testify against Artiles. He was on house arrest for six months and on probation for three years.

Prosecutors say Artiles, a staunch Republican, convinced Rodriguez to change his party affiliation to independent and run against the incumbent Democratic Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez in November of 2020. The two share a last name.

Rodriguez, the sitting senator, lost the election and his seat to Republican candidate Ileana Garcia by 32 votes.

“We should get involved in the process,” the former state senator said in a prerecorded interview. “We should learn the issues, learn more about the candidates and put a stop to these tactics.”

Prosecutors say Artiles broke campaign finance laws and other committed election-related crimes. His lawyer told jurors backing a ghost candidate is not against the law.

“If you conclude that Alex Rodrguez was a ghost candidate, we are telling you he is. Ghost candidate, that in it itself is not a crime. Nor is it a crime to encourage to assist to support or contribute with legal limits to such a candidate,” defense attorney Frank Quintero said.

Rodriguez will continue his testimony on Monday.

Junior Rafael Arias, 22, was ordered to remain in jail on charges of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon with a hate crime enhancement and resisting an officer without violence, court records show.

The attack happened Wednesday morning when the victim was going for a swim on South Beach. While attempting to change into his swimwear under a beach umbrella tent, Arias approached him aggressively and told him to leave, according to an arrest report.

The victim refused, and the two got into an argument and eventually a physical altercation. Arias allegedly hit the victim with a wooden stick on his thighs, calling him homophobic slurs and telling him, “I will kill you (expletive).”

The victim tried defending himself with a beach umbrella pole, but Arias ended up beating him with the pole until the victim was able to run away, the arrest report said.

The victim, covered in blood, tracked down police officers, and they were able to locate Arias on the beach.

After Arias was handcuffed, police say he was “extremely uncooperative” with detectives and did not want to answer any questions.

Miami Beach City Commissioner Alex Fernandez appeared in Arias’ bond court hearing on Thursday, calling for justice for the LGBTQ community.

“This is nothing short of hate and violence … I only ask you for that justice,” he said.

Arias, who is homeless and has a violent criminal history, had been out on felony bond for an unrelated case. He was appointed a public defender in court.

Marcellus Williams, 55, was convicted in the 1998 killing of Lisha Gayle, who was stabbed during the burglary of her suburban St. Louis home.

Williams was put to death despite questions his attorneys raised over jury selection at his trial and the handling of evidence in the case. His clemency petition focused heavily on how Gayle’s relatives wanted Williams’ sentence commuted to life without the possibility of parole.

“The family defines closure as Marcellus being allowed to live,” the petition stated. “Marcellus’ execution is not necessary.”

As Williams lay awaiting execution, he appeared to converse with a spiritual adviser seated next to him. Williams wiggled his feet underneath a white sheet that was pulled up to his neck and moved his head slightly while his spiritual advisor continued to talk. Then Williams’ chest heaved about a half dozen times, and he showed no further movement.

Williams’ son and two attorneys watched from another room. No one was present on behalf of the victim’s family.

The Department of Corrections released a brief statement that Williams had written ahead of time, saying: “All Praise Be to Allah In Every Situation!!!”

Republican Missouri Gov. Mike Parson said he hoped the execution brings finality to a case that “languished for decades, revictimizing Ms. Gayle’s family over and over again.”

“No juror nor judge has ever found Williams’ innocence claim to be credible,” Parson said in a statement.

The NAACP had been among those urging Parson to cancel the execution.

“Tonight, Missouri lynched another innocent Black man,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement.

It was the third time Williams faced execution. He got reprieves in 2015 and 2017, but his last-ditch efforts this time were futile. Parson and the state Supreme Court rejected his appeals in quick succession Monday, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene hours before he was put to death.

Last month, Gayle’s relatives gave their blessings to an agreement between the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney’s office and Williams’ attorneys to commute the sentence to life in prison. But acting on an appeal from Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s office, the state Supreme Court nullified the agreement.

Williams was among death row inmates in five states who were scheduled to be put to death in the span of a week — an unusually high number that defies a yearslong decline in the use and support of the death penalty in the U.S. The first was carried out Friday in South Carolina. Texas was also slated to execute a prisoner on Tuesday evening.

Gayle, 42, was a social worker and former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter. Prosecutors at Williams’ trial said he broke into her home on Aug. 11, 1998, heard the shower running and found a large butcher knife. Gayle was stabbed 43 times when she came downstairs. Her purse and her husband’s laptop were stolen.

Authorities said Williams stole a jacket to conceal blood on his shirt. His girlfriend asked him why he would wear a jacket on a hot day. She said she later saw the purse and laptop in his car and that Williams sold the computer a day or two later.

Prosecutors also cited testimony from Henry Cole, who shared a cell with Williams in 1999 while Williams was jailed on unrelated charges. Cole told prosecutors that Williams confessed to the killing and provided details about it.

Williams’ attorneys responded that the girlfriend and Cole were both convicted of felonies and wanted a $10,000 reward. They said that fingerprints, a bloody shoeprint, hair and other evidence at the crime scene didn’t match Williams’.

A crime scene investigator had testified the killer wore gloves.

Questions about DNA evidence also led St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell to request a hearing challenging Williams’ guilt. But days before the Aug. 21 hearing, new testing showed that DNA on the knife belonged to members of the prosecutor’s office who handled it without gloves after the original crime lab tests.

Without DNA evidence pointing to any alternative suspect, Midwest Innocence Project attorneys reached a compromise with the prosecutor’s office: Williams would enter a new, no-contest plea to first-degree murder in exchange for a new sentence of life in prison without parole. A no-contest plea isn’t an admission of guilt but is treated as such for the purpose of sentencing.

Judge Bruce Hilton signed off, as did Gayle’s family. But Bailey appealed, and the state Supreme Court blocked the agreement and ordered Hilton to proceed with an evidentiary hearing, which took place last month.

Hilton ruled on Sept. 12 that the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence would stand, noting that Williams’ arguments all had been previously rejected. That decision was upheld Monday by the state Supreme Court.

Attorneys for Williams, who was Black, also challenged the fairness of his trial, particularly the fact that only one of the 12 jurors was Black. Tricia Bushnell of the Midwest Innocence Project said the prosecutor in the case, Keith Larner, removed six of seven Black prospective jurors.

Larner testified at the August hearing that he struck one potential Black juror partly because he looked too much like Williams — a statement that Williams’ attorneys asserted showed improper racial bias.

Larner contended that the jury selection process was fair.

Williams was the third Missouri inmate put to death this year and the 100th since the state resumed use of the death penalty in 1989.

___

AP writer Mark Sherman contributed from Washington. Salter reported from O’Fallon, Missouri.

And according to an arrest affidavit, it wasn’t the first time the suspect, 29-year-old Damon Smith, showed up to the victim’s home.

It was on Thursday, Sept. 12 when a man and his wife sitting on their backyard porch in Palm Coast, about 25 miles south of St. Augustine, first noticed a man creeping through the trees near their home, the affidavit states. 

The couple yelled at the man and he took off, the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office said. 

But the father was uneasy, and the next night, sat in a dark space of his yard to keep watch. 

Smith allegedly returned, and started peeking through the teen’s bedroom window. 

“He literally just went out there to make us feel safe and it just so happens that [the suspect] came back,” the teen’s mother, who did not want to be identified, told NBC affiliate WESH. “Who comes back two nights in a row after being busted, you know? But he did… He came sneaking around the house, came right up to my daughter’s window–so I have a feeling that he knows that that’s her window–so he came up and he cupped his hands around his eyes and was looking in, and so my husband came up and was like, ‘Surprise expletive!’ And then whacked him with the bat, and then he ran.”

The father told authorities that he immediately struck Smith with a baseball bat in between his shoulder blades, according to the affidavit. The suspect allegedly took off running, and the father chased but eventually lost sight of him.

Video captured two people running from the home as the victim’s father yells, “Call the cops, call the cops!”

NBC affiliate WESH said investigators later went to Smith’s residence, which is just a block away from the victim’s. The suspect told officials he was chased that night by “some guy” who “said something about by his window, I guess.”

In bodycam video, deputies ask Smith if he has any questions before arresting him. “No,” he replies.

The teen’s mother said she’s seen Smith before.

“We see him walking around the neighborhood, walking his little dog,” she said.

The affidavit states that Smith admitted to being between two homes and near a window, but said he was not being nosey.

Additionally, Smith allegedly told deputies: “Most of the time, I’m not gonna lie, I do run through yards and other than that, I work my way back on the roads.”

Authorities said Smith told them he gets a thrill out of going around people’s homes.

“I have to anticipate what he meant by that was sexual gratification, and that’s usually what Peeping Toms are, especially when they’re looking into young children or even adults,” said Sheriff Rick Staly. “Who knows how long he’s been doing that?… This is, in my opinion, a textbook sex offender on the escalation.”

Smith faces charges of prowling, voyeurism and aggravated stalking of a person under 16. He’s being held on an $86,000 bail. He was also arrested in 2013 for making a bomb threat at Flagler Palm Coast High School, when he was 18, records show.

The theft happened at around 10:30 a.m. on Sept. 14, when a couple dressed in all black and baseball caps sat down next to a pair of women having breakfast at a restaurant.

“When the gentleman comes in, he automatically starts looking at the victim’s purse, so he knew what he was gonna do,” South Miami Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Fernando Bosch said. “Moments later, you see him moving the table towards the victim to get closer.”

The surveillance video shows how the man discreetly inched his body, chair and table closer to the woman on his left, who was chatting with her friend. 

“He does several attempts to try to take the victim’s wallet out of the purse, but there’s people walking around, so he’s unable to do it,” Bosch said. 

But he keeps trying, until eventually, it appears he’s able to sneak the wallet out of the victim’s purse, which is hanging on the chair, and quickly hide it under the menu in his hands, video shows. 

Then the man gets up, goes to the bathroom, comes back for a moment and then leaves the restaurant. His companion leaves shortly after.

Twenty minutes later, the pair went to Brickell City Centre and tried to purchase two Apple computers, Bosch said. 

“Fortunately for the victim, she had canceled that credit card, but our investigation has revealed that they tried in several other stores, including Saks Fifth Avenue,” Bosch said. 

That’s where a third suspect tried to make a purchase, according to police. 

“We’ve kind of, during our investigation, learned that there’s approximately six individuals involved in this crime. Unfortunately, one of the credit cards was used for $2,900,” Bosch said.

Police are urging the community to do two things: keep a watchful eye on your belongings, and report the suspects if you see them. 

“They were right next to the individual. They were talking to each other and not paying attention. And that happens.  You know, unfortunately, nowadays, we have to be more aware of what’s around us,” Bosch said. “It’s a crime of opportunity.”

Anyone with information on the suspects should contact South Miami Police Department or Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477 or visit http://CrimeStoppers305.com.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Thursday that Margera was arrested by state police Monday in Fulton County — in the south central part of Pennsylvania — for misdemeanor driving under the influence and that the bench warrant in Chester County was for a violation of his drug and alcohol treatment.

“Currently there are no pending charges filed,” attorneys Michael T. van der Veen, William J. Brennan and Adam Leasure of Philadelphia-based Van der Veen, Hartshorn, Levin & Lindheim said. “We are in the process of straightening this all out. Just like every citizen in this country, Mr. Margera is presumed innocent.”

Back in June, Margera was sentenced to six months on probation after pleading guilty to disorderly conduct over an altercation at his home near Philadelphia.

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Margera had been charged with assaulting his brother and making threats to other family members during what the brother called a “frightening and unpredictable” two-week visit home last year.

The plea ended a long legal case that spun out of his stay at the Chester County home known as Castle Bam. At a hearing last year, Margera told the judge he was getting drug and alcohol treatment.

Jess Margera, at the same court hearing, called his brother “a good dude when he’s not messed up,” but said he had exhibited troubling behavior for two decades and, while home, had been awake for days. Jess Margera suffered a ruptured eardrum in the altercation, while Margera’s girlfriend called police when he kicked in her bedroom door, the brother testified.

At the time of Margera’s June plea, lawyer William J. Brennan said Margera pleaded guilty to two summary offenses, and was clean, sober and productive a year after the arrest.

“You can really say he won his case before today just by turning his life around,” Brennan said.

The Justice Department will investigate whether the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department has engaged in a pattern or practice of excessive force and unlawful stops, searches and arrests, and whether it has used racially discriminatory policing practices, according to Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke.

Five Rankin sheriff’s deputies pleaded guilty in 2023 to breaking into a home without a warrant and engaging in an hourslong attack on Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker. A sixth officer, from the Richland Police Department, was also convicted in the attack.

Some of the officers were part of a group so willing to use excessive force they called themselves the Goon Squad. All six were sentenced in March, receiving terms of 10 to 40 years.

The charges followed an Associated Press investigation in March 2023 that linked some of the officers to at least four violent encounters since 2019 that left two Black men dead.

“The concerns about the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department did not end with the demise of the Goon Squad,” Clarke said Thursday.

The Justice Department has received information about other troubling incidents, including deputies overusing stun guns, entering homes unlawfully, using “shocking racial slurs” and employing “dangerous, cruel tactics to assault people in their custody,” Clarke said.

The attacks on Jenkins and Parker began on Jan. 24, 2023, with a racist call for extrajudicial violence, according to federal prosecutors. A white person phoned Deputy Brett McAlpin and complained that two Black men were staying with a white woman at a house in Braxton.

Once inside the home, the officers handcuffed Jenkins and Parker and poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup over their faces while mocking them with racial slurs. They forced them to strip naked and shower together to conceal the mess. They mocked the victims with racial slurs and assaulted them with sex objects.

Locals saw in the grisly details of the case echoes of Mississippi’s history of racist atrocities by people in authority. The difference this time is that those who abused their power paid a steep price for their crimes, attorneys for the victims have said.

In addition to McAlpin, the others convicted were former deputies Christian Dedmon, Hunter Elward, Jeffrey Middleton and Daniel Opdyke and former Richland police officer Joshua Hartfield.

U.S. District Judge Tom Lee called the former officers’ actions “egregious and despicable” and imposed sentences near the top of federal guidelines for five of the six.

“The depravity of the crimes committed by these defendants cannot be overstated,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said after the sentencing.

Malik Shabazz and Trent Walker, the attorneys for Jenkins and Parker, said in a statement Thursday that Rankin County has a “long and extremely violent legacy of departmental abuse under Sheriff Bryan Bailey” and that they applaud the Justice Department for opening the civil rights investigation

“This is a first, critical step in cleaning up the Sheriff’s Department and holding Rankin County legally accountable for the years of constitutional violations against its citizenry,” Shabazz and Walker said. “All of this took place because, despite innumerable warnings, Rankin County and Sheriff Bailey belligerently refused to properly monitor and supervise this rogue department.”

The Rankin County Sheriff’s Department is the 11th law enforcement agency in the U.S. to come under a Justice Department investigation since 2021, Clarke said.

The U.S. attorney for the southern district of Mississippi, Todd Gee, said text messages between Goon Squad members, including officers who were not present during the January 2023 assault, showed that deputies “routinely discussed extreme, unnecessary uses of force and other ways to dehumanize residents of Rankin County.” He said deputies shared a video of an officer defecating in the home of one resident.

“In Mississippi and throughout the nation, we have learned over and over that real change in civil rights sometimes requires us to dig up the past, tell painful facts and offer new ways of doing things,” Gee said. “We intend for this investigation to do that same work in Rankin County.”

____

Associated Press writer Michael Goldberg contributed.

Judge Kevin Mullins was in his district office when he was shot shortly before 3 p.m., and Letcher County Sheriff Mickey Stines has been detained in the slaying, Kentucky State Police said Thursday night.

Stines, a two-term sheriff, is expected to be charged with murder, state police said.

No motive in the shooting was disclosed.

Investigators were “trying to get answers to what led up to the actual shooting,” State Trooper Matt Gayheart said at an evening news conference.

The judge was shot multiple times after an argument with Stines, state police said.

Other people were in the building when the shooting occurred, but nobody else was in the judge’s chambers, Gayheart said. Stines turned himself in to authorities at the scene, Gayheart said, adding that he believes there is surveillance video within the courthouse.

The Letcher County Courthouse is in Whitesburg, about 200 miles southeast of Louisville.

The small community was “shook” by the deadly violence, Gayheart said.

“We could use everybody’s prayers. Say prayers for the family that they get through this difficult time,” he said.

Relatives for Mullins and Stines were not reached for comment Thursday.

According to a Letcher County website, Mullins was a judge in the 47th Judicial District, overseeing juvenile matters, city and county ordinances, misdemeanors, traffic offenses, arraignments, felony probable cause hearings, claims involving $2,500 or less, civil cases involving $5,000 or less, voluntary and involuntary mental commitments and domestic violence cases.

The Kentucky Court of Justice, the state court system, said it is working with the state police.

“While the investigation is ongoing, we are committed to providing assistance in any way that we can,” the court said in a statement. “Our deepest sympathies go out to all those impacted by this tragic event, and our thoughts and prayers are with the community during this challenging time.”

Attorney General Russell Coleman promised a full investigation.

“Following the deadly shooting in Letcher County, our Office will collaborate with Commonwealth’s Attorney for the 27th Judicial Circuit Jackie Steele as special prosecutors in this case. We will fully investigate and pursue justice,” Coleman said on X.

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Erwin Rommel Recinos Zuniga was arrested and charged in 2022 with 10 counts, including three DUI manslaughter and three reckless vehicular homicide charges. Police say he tested positive for THC and was driving at a speed of 126 mph when he crashed.

Paola Sabillon, her boyfriend Jason Meza, and his cousin Giselle Reyes were passengers who died from their injuries when police say Zuniga crashed into a gasoline station sign in Miami.

However, NBC6 exclusively reported last week that after two years of hoping for some justice, the victims’ families were stunned to learn that immigration officials deported the alleged drunk driver.

“He gets deported. He’s living. He’s sleeping. He is seeing his family. My sister stopped growing at 19 years old,” said Miriam Castillo, Sabillon’s sister.

Judge Laura Cruz, the presiding judge on Zuniga’s case, said Thursday that no one from the corrections department notified her, state, or defense attorneys about the release to ICE, as protocol demands.

Records obtained by NBC6 show Zuniga “violated the rules and regulations of the Monitored Release Bureau – House Arrest Program, to wit.” He was arrested on new charges of immigration status. The details of those charges were not revealed.

On Thursday, despite Judge Cruz ordering corrections to provide the families and the court answers on why no one was notified to prevent the deportation, jail staff sent their attorneys to court, who failed to answer, quoting statutorily limitations, departmental procedures, and collective bargaining agreements, among other excuses.

County and corrections attorneys added there is a pending investigation on the matter.

When asked by Assistant State Attorney Shawn Abuhoff if the officer supposed to monitor Zuniga was on some sort of desk duty job or administrative leave pending the investigation, Patricia A. Jones Cummings, an attorney representing the Miami-Dade Corrections responded, “Yes, he’s still an officer with the department.”

During Thursday’s hearing, state attorney Christine Zahralban told Judge Cruz that Zuniga is not the first defendant to be released from the jail and handed off to immigration officials, despite their pending local charges.

Zahralban claims a man by the name of Cesar Julian Gonzalez Alvarado, facing a sexual battery on a minor charge was, “released from house arrest. Sent to Louisiana. Someone tipped me off and I had him brought back from Louisiana right as he was getting on the flight.”

Gonzalez Alvarado has pleaded not guilty, according to records.

Corrections told the court they would be able to provide an update in 180 days.

“There were three lives. They were not animals. They want to give time a period of six months that’s not right we want answers now,” Castillo said. “They know what happened they know where the ball was dropped and they don’t want to admit it.”

The shooting happened around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in the area of Northwest 14th Street and 1st Court, authorities said.

The victim, 47-year-old Johnny Lewis Stevenson Jr., went to the area to try to intervene in a fistfight involving his daughter and other girls, an arrest report for the suspect said.

That’s when Kentarian Cross, 22, pulled out a gun and shot Stevenson, the report said.

Stevenson was shot in the stomach and driven to the hospital in a private vehicle, and then flown to Jackson South Medical Center, where he died.

Cross is accused of second-degree murder with a weapon.

Video from the scene appeared to show the fight in question starting on a bus and then moving onto a street.

Witnesses identified Cross as the suspect, and a photo showed him in possession of a firearm before the fight, police said.

Prosecutors say that over the course of 14 years, Brian Jeffrey Raymond, 48, sexually assaulted victims in multiple countries during various overseas postings. He also recorded and photographed the nude or partially nude victims when they were unconscious or otherwise “incapable of consent,” and could be seen in the recordings “touching and manipulating the victims’ bodies,” they said.

Brian Jeffrey Raymond kept nearly 500 videos, including many in which he can be seen opening the victims’ eyelids, groping or straddling them, prosecutors say. The images date to 2006 and track much of Raymond’s career, with victims in Mexico, Peru and other countries.

Raymond formerly worked for the CIA and at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico. When he was arrested three years ago, during his last assignment when he was stationed in Mexico City, he would meet women on dating apps and invite them back to his embassy-leased apartment for drinks. During that posting, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, a nude woman was spotted on the balcony of his apartment on May 31, 2020, “screaming for help.” She told investigators she met Raymond over a dating app, but blacked out after having food and drinks that he provided, according to court documents.

The investigation revealed photos and video on Raymond’s cell phones and other electronic devices, according to the Department of Justice. A search of his internet history found an incriminating online search history for phrases such as “Ambien and alcohol and pass out” and “vodka & valium.” In one email to an online pharmacy, Raymond wrote, “Hello, do you have chloral hydrate for insomnia?,” according to the DOJ.

Prosecutors described the 47-year-old Raymond as an experienced sexual predator who kept a detailed accounting of potential victims organized by name, ethnicity and notes on their physical characteristics.

Prosecutors say Raymond tried to delete the photographs and videos he took of the women after learning he was under investigation.

He was arrested in La Mesa in fall 2020 and pleaded guilty to four federal counts last year, including abusive sexual contact and transportation of obscene material.

His plea agreement includes admissions to drugging and “creating obscene material depicting 28 women without their knowledge or permission,” nonconsensual sexual acts with four women, and nonconsensual sexual contact with six women, the DOJ said.

Along with prison, Raymond is required to register as a sex offender and must pay $260,000 in restitution to the victims.

“When this predator was a government employee, he lured unsuspecting women to his government-leased housing and drugged them,” District of Columbia U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves said. “After drugging these women, he stripped, sexually abused, and photographed them. Today’s sentence ensures that the defendant will be properly marked as a sex offender for life, and he will spend a substantial portion of the rest of his life behind bars.”

A Lancaster County judge sentenced Zachary Scheich last week after he pleaded no contest in July to first-degree sexual assault, attempted first-degree sexual assault, generation of child pornography — age 19 or over — and child enticement with electronic communication, according to a sentencing order and plea agreement.

Scheich’s sentence runs a maximum of 120 years in prison, according to the order. He won’t be eligible for parole for 40 years, according to NBC affiliate KOLN of Lincoln.

During his sentencing hearing, Lancaster County Deputy County Attorney Amber Scholte said Scheich “targeted, groomed and lured” students via social media while pretending to be their peer or boyfriend, the station reported.

The public defender’s office that represented Scheich did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday night.

Scheich identified himself as “Zak Hess,” 17, and attended two high schools in Lincoln — Northwest High School and Southeast High School — for 54 days in the 2022-23 school year, officials previously said.

He was admitted to the schools using fake documents, including a birth certificate, immunization records, a transcript and medical records, the officials said.

A spokesperson for the district where Scheich attended high school also did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Authorities began investigating Scheich in June 2023 after a concerned parent contacted the school district. Police announced his arrest in July.

Charging documents show the crimes he pleaded guilty to mostly occurred in 2022 and 2023. Several victims were under the age of 16, the documents show. Another was 13 or older.

One of the sexual assault charges was from 2019 and involved two people whose ages are not included in the documents.

In September, authorities accused a 23-year-old woman of criminal impersonation after she allegedly posed as Scheich’s mother and helped him get enrolled in the schools, according to KOLN. She pleaded not guilty and the case is ongoing.

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Brian Jeffrey Raymond, with a graying beard and orange prison jumpsuit, sat dejectedly as he heard his punishment for one of the most egregious misconduct cases in the CIA’s history. It was chronicled in his own library of more than 500 images that showed him in some cases straddling and groping his nude, unconscious victims.

“It’s safe to say he’s a sexual predator,” U.S. Senior Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said in imposing the full sentence prosecutors had requested. “You are going to have a period of time to think about this.”

Prosecutors say the 48-year-old Raymond’s assaults date to 2006 and tracked his career in Mexico, Peru and other countries, all following a similar pattern:

He would lure women he met on Tinder and other dating apps to his government-leased apartment and drug them while serving wine and snacks. Once they were unconscious, he spent hours posing their naked bodies before photographing and assaulting them. He opened their eyelids at times and stuck his fingers in their mouths.

One by one, about a dozen of Raymond’s victims who were identified only by numbers in court recounted how the longtime spy upended their lives. Some said they only learned what happened after the FBI showed them the photos of being assaulted while unconscious.

“My body looks like a corpse on his bed,” one victim said of the photos. “Now I have these nightmares of seeing myself dead.”

One described suffering a nervous breakdown. Another spoke of a recurring trance that caused her to run red lights while driving. Many told how their confidence and trust in others had been shattered forever.

“I hope he is haunted by the consequences of his actions for the rest of his life,” said one of the women, who like others stared Raymond down as they walked away from the podium.

Reading from a statement, Raymond told the judge that he has spent countless hours contemplating his “downward spiral.”

“It betrayed everything I stand for and I know no apology will ever be enough,” he said. “There are no words to describe how sorry I am. That’s not who I am and yet it’s who I became.”

Raymond’s sentencing comes amid a reckoning on sexual misconduct at the CIA. The Associated Press reported last week that another veteran CIA officer faces state charges in Virginia for allegedly reaching up a co-worker’s skirt and forcibly kissing her during a drunken party in the office.

Still another former CIA employee — an officer trainee — is scheduled to face a jury trial next month on charges he assaulted a woman with a scarf in a stairwell at the agency’s Langley, Virginia, headquarters. That case emboldened some two dozen women to come forward to authorities and Congress with accounts of their own of sexual assaults, unwanted touching and what they contend are the CIA’s efforts to silence them.

And yet the full extent of sexual misconduct at the CIA remains a classified secret in the name of national security, including a recent 648-page internal watchdog report that found systemic shortcomings in the agency’s handling of such complaints.

“The classified nature of the activities allowed the agency to hide a lot of things,” said Liza Mundy, author of “Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA.” The male-dominated agency, she said, has long been a refuge for egregious sexual misconduct. “For decades, men at the top had free rein.”

CIA has publicly condemned Raymond’s crimes and implemented sweeping reforms intended to keep women safe, streamline claims and more quickly discipline offenders.

But a veil of secrecy still surrounds the Raymond case nearly four years after his arrest. Even after Raymond pleaded guilty late last year, prosecutors have tiptoed around the exact nature of his work and declined to disclose a complete list of the countries where he assaulted women.

Still, they offered an unbridled account of Raymond’s conduct, describing him as a “serial offender” whose assaults increased over time and become “almost frenetic” during his final CIA posting in Mexico City, where he was discovered in 2020 after a naked woman screamed for help from his apartment balcony.

U.S. officials scoured Raymond’s electronic devices and began identifying the victims he had listed by name and physical characteristics, all of whom described experiencing some form of memory loss during their time with him.

One victim said Raymond seemed like a “perfect gentleman” when they met in Mexico in 2020, recalling only that they kissed. Unbeknownst to the woman, after she blacked out, he took 35 videos and close-up photos of her breasts and genitals.

“The defendant’s manipulation often resulted in women blaming themselves for losing consciousness, feeling ashamed, and apologizing to the defendant,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing. “He was more than willing to gaslight the women, often suggesting that the women drank too much and that, despite their instincts to the contrary, nothing had happened.”

Raymond, a San Diego native and former White House intern who is fluent in Spanish and Mandarin, ultimately pleaded guilty to four of 25 federal counts including sexual abuse, coercion and transportation of obscene material. As part of his sentence, the judge ordered him to pay $10,000 to each of his 28 victims.

Raymond’s attorneys had sought leniency, contending his “quasi-military” work at the CIA in the years following 9/11 became a breeding ground for the emotional callousness and “objectification of other people” that enabled his years of preying upon women.

“While he was working tirelessly at his government job, he ignored his own need for help, and over time he began to isolate himself, detach himself from human feelings and become emotionally numb,” defense attorney Howard Katzoff wrote in a court filing.

“He was an invaluable government worker, but it took its toll on him and sent him down a dark path.”

___

Goodman reported from Miami. Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org.

Multiple cellphone videos captured the chaos back in June as customers punched each other, grabbed each other’s hair, and threw syrup bottles.

The 14-year-old victim told police she and her family were eating inside the restaurant when Precious Williams approached them in an aggressive manner because they were “talking badly.”

“My son said one of them said something,” a woman is heard yelling.

Williams appears to grab and fight the minor. The table argument escalated tremendously when several customers attacked each other.

Williams was arrested and charged with child abuse causing no harm.

However, the 34-year-old defendant denied all the allegations and told police the alleged victim’s table said a racial slur to her children, which is why she approached the table.

According to Williams, the teen pushed her first, at which time she responded by grabbing the victim by the hair, starting the fight.

In court on Wednesday, state attorneys offered Williams one year of probation and to take anger management courses, as well as a no-drink order and parenting course in exchange for a guilty plea.

However, Williams denied the offer and demanded a trial.   

Judge William Altfield warned William that if she were to go to trial and jurors convicted her, she could be facing up to five years in prison.

“The video shows somebody putting their hands on my client Mrs. Williams and then Mrs.Williams striking back,” said Matthew Goldkind, the attorney representing the defendant.

A trial date has not been scheduled.

The teenager disappeared from her home in Plant City, about 25 miles east of Tampa, when she left on Saturday without permission between 1 and 3 a.m., according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.

The sheriff’s office listed her as an endangered missing juvenile, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement issued a statewide missing child alert, NBC affiliate WFLA reported.

Four days later, she was found in Broward County with 38-year-old Edward Rodriguez, who authorities said she met online.

Investigators say Rodriguez picked the teen up and drove her four hours to his home.

According to the arrest report, the suspect met her through a gaming app in April and had been messaging her for months.

The teen told police she and the suspect were planning to run away together and live in his apartment forever, and that he told her he loved her.

Investigators say one message from the suspect to the teen stated that he was going to lock her in his basement so that no one could take her away. She also told police he kissed her mouth and throughout her body.

Rodriguez was arrested and faces charges of molestation, interference with child custody and providing aid to a minor without notifying a parent.

“We are immensely grateful that this young girl has been found,” Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said in a statement. “I want to extend my deepest thanks to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. Marshals for their quick and effective support. Our joint efforts have brought a young girl home to her family, and that is what truly matters.”

Rodriguez was being held on $32,500 bond. A judge ordered a long list of restrictions, including no contact with minors and the victim.

According to the Miami-Dade County Corrections and Rehabilitation Department, Savalas Cigar started house arrest on Saturday, after being held in jail since Aug. 12. 

“During his assignment to house arrest, Offender Cigar set off a tamper alert on his ankle monitor,” the department said in a statement on Monday. “Despite attempts to reach him, contact could not be established.” 

Cigar, 46, is facing grand theft and fleeing and aggravated eluding a police officer after he allegedly carjacked a woman and the next day led a pursuit that ended in a rollover crash in Miami Beach on Aug. 11.

More details on how or when Cigar tampered with the monitor, or where he could be, were not immediately available.

At the time of the crime, the victim told NBC6 that she was parking her SUV in Miami when a man asked her for money. When she told the man she didn’t have any money, he approached her with a hammer and threatened her, she said.

“I was shaking because the guy was threatening me with a hammer,” Glenda Defas said. “(I said) ‘You’re going to destroy yourself for this and you’ll destroy my life?'”

The victim walked away, but moments later, the man got inside her SUV and took off. Her brother, who is disabled and deaf, was inside the vehicle but got out when the man hopped in.

“My brother came running and said, Glenda, the guy took the car,” she said. “It took seven years to pay this car and finally I had no more payments and this happened… I feel hopeless, I feel destroyed.”

Weeks later, she received the surprise of a lifetime when Rita Case, CEO of Rick Case Automotive, decided to gift her a car after seeing her story on NBC6.

But the peace of mind was short-lived, now that she knows Cigar is not reachable. She told NBC6 that detectives called her early Monday to notify her, and she felt afraid.

Court documents indicate that 43-year-old Levar Fountain entered the pleas to third-degree murder charges in York County Court earlier this month, avoiding a trial that was to have begun this week. First-degree murder counts that would have carried a mandatory life without parole term were dismissed. Fountain is scheduled for sentencing Nov. 8.

Authorities said Fountain told them he was off his schizophrenia medication at the time that John Fountain, 74, and Mary Fountain, 65, were killed in December 2019 in the York home the three shared. The sword authorities believe was used in the killings was found in his bedroom, authorities said.

Officials said he moved the bodies to the basement, put a note on the front door saying the couple had moved back to Florida and went to his room for three days. They say he also killed dogs owned by the victims, telling authorities they were “known as ‘God’ but spelled backwards, which made them lower class dragons and they had to be killed.”

The York Dispatch reported that several relatives told the newspaper that they didn’t believe their mentally ill relative was the culprit. His sister Caren Fountain said he told her a few days before his plea that he didn’t remember committing the crime and “would never” have hurt the victims.

Defense attorney Clasina Houtman declined comment but pointed out that her office had filed paperwork to use an insanity defense if the case had gone to trial, but it was her client’s decision not to go to trial.

Under a no-contest plea, a defendant does not acknowledge having committed the crime but agrees that prosecutors have enough evidence to secure a conviction. Attorneys agreed during the legal proceedings that Fountain doesn’t remember the deaths due to his mental condition at the time.

David Rerko, 61, was accused of 10 counts of depiction of child sexual conduct and one count of gathering child pornography on a computer. 

Rerko worked at Broward Health Medical Center. 

“We were dismayed to learn that an anesthesiologist provided to our system by a third-party contractor has been arrested,” the hospital said in a statement. “Upon learning the nature of the charges, we immediately notified his employer that the physician’s privileges were revoked and that he is not permitted on any of our properties. As the investigation continues, we are fully cooperating with Broward Sheriff’s Office and thank our law enforcement partners for their relentless commitment to protecting our community.”

Rerko will be allowed bond provided he wears a GPS monitor, has no contact with minor, no devices with internet access and surrenders his passport.

Kadel Piedrahita is accused of killing 48-year-old Alexis Palencia and assaulting another cyclist on the Rickenbacker Causeway back in 2019.

Prosecutors showed video in the courtroom showing Piedrahita live streaming, screaming and cussing. In the video, he addresses Palencia, saying he wants to break him in two.

In the courtroom, Piedrahita admitted to stating those words. After questioning from prosecutors, he also admitted to having a gun and multiple rounds in his backpack the day of the shooting.

Miami-Dade County Sep 12

Man charged in 2019 murder of cyclist on Rickenbacker Causeway takes stand at trial

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Piedrahita claimed his bike had a malfunction and that he was hit in the back by Palencia. Video shows what looks to be an altercation. Another video shows a group off on the side of the highway. Piedrahita claimed he was attacked by three cyclists and feared for his life.

Prosecutors claimed that there were no injuries from the incident. Piedrahita told the jury that while there were no physical injuries that you could see on his face, he was hurt.

Prosecutors also showed multiple video evidence, claiming Piedrahita could’ve walked away but didn’t. Instead, they claimed he engaged with the group.

Video shown in the courtroom shows him saying in Spanish, “saca,” calling for his gun.

Once both sides were finished with questioning, the defense attorneys wanted to bring back one of the witnesses. The attorney claimed there was a second gun on scene.

The judge did not allow the defense attorney’s request.

The jury is set to return Monday to finish deliberations and hear closing arguments.

Marcellus Williams, 55, was convicted in the 1998 killing of Lisha Gayle, who was stabbed during the burglary of her suburban St. Louis home.

Williams was put to death despite questions his attorneys raised over jury selection at his trial and the handling of evidence in the case. His clemency petition focused heavily on how Gayle’s relatives wanted Williams’ sentence commuted to life without the possibility of parole.

“The family defines closure as Marcellus being allowed to live,” the petition stated. “Marcellus’ execution is not necessary.”

As Williams lay awaiting execution, he appeared to converse with a spiritual adviser seated next to him. Williams wiggled his feet underneath a white sheet that was pulled up to his neck and moved his head slightly while his spiritual advisor continued to talk. Then Williams’ chest heaved about a half dozen times, and he showed no further movement.

Williams’ son and two attorneys watched from another room. No one was present on behalf of the victim’s family.

The Department of Corrections released a brief statement that Williams had written ahead of time, saying: “All Praise Be to Allah In Every Situation!!!”

Republican Missouri Gov. Mike Parson said he hoped the execution brings finality to a case that “languished for decades, revictimizing Ms. Gayle’s family over and over again.”

“No juror nor judge has ever found Williams’ innocence claim to be credible,” Parson said in a statement.

The NAACP had been among those urging Parson to cancel the execution.

“Tonight, Missouri lynched another innocent Black man,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement.

It was the third time Williams faced execution. He got reprieves in 2015 and 2017, but his last-ditch efforts this time were futile. Parson and the state Supreme Court rejected his appeals in quick succession Monday, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene hours before he was put to death.

Last month, Gayle’s relatives gave their blessings to an agreement between the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney’s office and Williams’ attorneys to commute the sentence to life in prison. But acting on an appeal from Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s office, the state Supreme Court nullified the agreement.

Williams was among death row inmates in five states who were scheduled to be put to death in the span of a week — an unusually high number that defies a yearslong decline in the use and support of the death penalty in the U.S. The first was carried out Friday in South Carolina. Texas was also slated to execute a prisoner on Tuesday evening.

Gayle, 42, was a social worker and former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter. Prosecutors at Williams’ trial said he broke into her home on Aug. 11, 1998, heard the shower running and found a large butcher knife. Gayle was stabbed 43 times when she came downstairs. Her purse and her husband’s laptop were stolen.

Authorities said Williams stole a jacket to conceal blood on his shirt. His girlfriend asked him why he would wear a jacket on a hot day. She said she later saw the purse and laptop in his car and that Williams sold the computer a day or two later.

Prosecutors also cited testimony from Henry Cole, who shared a cell with Williams in 1999 while Williams was jailed on unrelated charges. Cole told prosecutors that Williams confessed to the killing and provided details about it.

Williams’ attorneys responded that the girlfriend and Cole were both convicted of felonies and wanted a $10,000 reward. They said that fingerprints, a bloody shoeprint, hair and other evidence at the crime scene didn’t match Williams’.

A crime scene investigator had testified the killer wore gloves.

Questions about DNA evidence also led St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell to request a hearing challenging Williams’ guilt. But days before the Aug. 21 hearing, new testing showed that DNA on the knife belonged to members of the prosecutor’s office who handled it without gloves after the original crime lab tests.

Without DNA evidence pointing to any alternative suspect, Midwest Innocence Project attorneys reached a compromise with the prosecutor’s office: Williams would enter a new, no-contest plea to first-degree murder in exchange for a new sentence of life in prison without parole. A no-contest plea isn’t an admission of guilt but is treated as such for the purpose of sentencing.

Judge Bruce Hilton signed off, as did Gayle’s family. But Bailey appealed, and the state Supreme Court blocked the agreement and ordered Hilton to proceed with an evidentiary hearing, which took place last month.

Hilton ruled on Sept. 12 that the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence would stand, noting that Williams’ arguments all had been previously rejected. That decision was upheld Monday by the state Supreme Court.

Attorneys for Williams, who was Black, also challenged the fairness of his trial, particularly the fact that only one of the 12 jurors was Black. Tricia Bushnell of the Midwest Innocence Project said the prosecutor in the case, Keith Larner, removed six of seven Black prospective jurors.

Larner testified at the August hearing that he struck one potential Black juror partly because he looked too much like Williams — a statement that Williams’ attorneys asserted showed improper racial bias.

Larner contended that the jury selection process was fair.

Williams was the third Missouri inmate put to death this year and the 100th since the state resumed use of the death penalty in 1989.

___

AP writer Mark Sherman contributed from Washington. Salter reported from O’Fallon, Missouri.

Carlos M. Garcia-Ajete, 40, and Nivaldo J. Garcia-Vento, 41, were suspects in the ring, which has been stealing from major retailers including Publix, Walmart, CVS, Walgreens and Winn Dixie, the Collier County Sheriff’s Office said.

Before their arrests, authorities had been informed that the men might have left Martin County to commit similar thefts in Collier. 

On Wednesday afternoon, deputies found a vehicle matching the description of the brown GMC SUV that the suspects were believed to be driving leaving a Walmart at 6650 Collier Boulevard. 

Deputies said the driver ran a red light, and they conducted a traffic stop. That’s when Garcia-Ajete allegedly ran from the vehicle. He was caught after a short chase. 

“The pair told deputies they were coming from Fort Myers. Suspecting that was a lie and that the pair had just committed retail theft at the Walmart, deputies reviewed the store’s security video footage,” a statement from the sheriff’s office details. “The video showed Garcia-Vento in the personal care section of the store, grabbing a Gillette Razor pack which he concealed on his person, and then leaving the store without paying.”

Both men were arrested. 

When authorities checked the vehicle, they found quite the haul: six large trash bags filled with suspected stolen merchandise, including 400 sticks of deodorant, razor blades, razors, fishing gear, cosmetics and other items valued at nearly $5,000.  

Deputies also allegedly found a device commonly used to remove magnetic store security devices.  

Garcia-Vento and Garcia-Ajete are both charged with multiple felonies, including grand theft. Garcia-Vento is currently out on bond on retail theft charges out of Palm Beach County, the Collier County Sheriff’s Office said. 

Participating in a court hearing through a Spanish-language interpreter, Zambada gave yes-or-no answers to a magistrate’s standard questions about whether he understood various documents and procedures. Asked how he was feeling, Zambada said, “Fine, fine.”

His lawyers entered the not-guilty plea on his behalf.

Outside court, Zambada attorney Frank Perez said his client wasn’t contemplating making a deal with the government, and the attorney expects the case to go to trial.

“It’s a complex case,” he said.

Sought by U.S. law enforcement for more than two decades, Zambada has been in U.S. custody since July 25, when he landed in a private plane at an airport outside El Paso, Texas, in the company of another fugitive cartel leader, Joaquín Guzmán López, according to federal authorities.

Zambada later said in a letter that he was kidnapped in Mexico and brought to the U.S. by Guzmán López, a son of imprisoned Sinaloa co-founder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Mexico Jul 27

A look at ‘El Mayo' Zambada, the kingpin of Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel who is now in US custody

Texas Jul 25

US arrests 2 leaders of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel: ‘El Mayo' Zambada and son of ‘El Chapo'

Zambada’s lawyer did not elaborate on those claims Friday.

U.S. Magistrate Judge James Cho ordered Zambada detained until trial. His lawyers did not ask for bail, and U.S. prosecutors asked the judge to detain him.

“He was one of the most, if not the most, powerful narcotics kingpins in the world,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Francisco Navarro said. “He co-founded the Sinaloa cartel and sat atop the narcotics trafficking world for decades.”

Zambada, 76, used a wheelchair at a court appearance in Texas last month, and U.S. marshals steadied him Friday as he walked into a federal courtroom in Brooklyn. He appeared to accept some help getting out of a chair after the brief hearing, then walked out slowly but unaided.

Perez said after court Friday that Zambada was healthy and “in good spirits.”

Sketch artists were in the small courtroom, but other journalists could observe only through closed-circuit video because of a shortage of seats.

In court and in a letter earlier to the judge, prosecutors said Zambada presided over a vast and violent operation, with an arsenal of military-grade weapons, a private security force that was almost like an army, and a corps of “sicarios,” or hitmen, who carried out assassinations, kidnappings and torture.

His bloody tenure included ordering the murder, just months ago, of his own nephew, prosecutors said.

“A United States jail cell is the only thing that will prevent the defendant from committing further crimes,” Navarro said.

Zambada also pleaded not guilty to the charges at an earlier court appearance in Texas. His next court appearance is scheduled for Oct. 31.

According to authorities, Zambada and “El Chapo” Guzmán built the Sinaloa cartel from a regional syndicate into a huge manufacturer and smuggler of cocaine, heroin and other illicit drugs to U.S. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has described defeating the cartel as one of the agency’s top operational priorities.

Zambada has been seen as the group’s strategist and dealmaker and a less flamboyant figure than Guzmán. Zambada had never been behind bars until his July arrest.

His “day of reckoning in a U.S. courtroom has arrived, and justice will follow,” Brooklyn-based U.S. Attorney Breon Peace declared in a statement Friday.

Zambada’s arrest has touched off fighting in Mexico between rival factions in the Sinaloa cartel. Gunfights have killed several people. Schools in businesses in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa, have closed amid the fighting. The battles are believed to be between factions loyal to Zambada and those led by other sons of “El Chapo” Guzmán, who was convicted of drug and conspiracy charges and sentenced to life in prison in the U.S. in 2019.

It remains unclear why Guzmán López surrendered to U.S. authorities and brought Zambada with him. Guzmán López is awaiting trial on a separate drug trafficking indictment in Chicago, where he has pleaded not guilty.

Associated Press video journalist David R. Martin contributed to this report.

The man accused of being drunk when his car struck and killed NHL star Johnny Gaudreau and brother Matthew as they biked near their South Jersey hometown the night before their sister’s wedding will remain jailed awaiting trial as it was revealed he had a blood alcohol level above the legal limit and a history of road rage.

The decision to continue Sean Higgins’ detention in Salem County Jail was made during a Friday, Sept. 13, Zoom detention hearing in front of Superior Court judge Michael Silvanio.

“I believe the state has convinced this court by clear and convincing evidence that there is no amount of monetary bail, or non monetary conditions, or combination thereof, that I could put in place that would ensure the statutory goals,” Silvanio said. “For those reasons I am going to grant the state’s motion to detain Mr. Higgins pending the further outcome of this case.”

The case is being closely followed far beyond South Jersey. Johnny Gaudreau, known as “Johnny Hockey,” played 10 full seasons in the league and was set to enter his third with the Columbus Blue Jackets after signing a seven-year, $68 million deal in 2022. He played his first eight seasons with the Calgary Flames, a tenure that included becoming one of the sport’s top players and a fan favorite across North America.

“This is a highly-publicized case, it’s an emotionally-charged case and one in which everybody has lost and is losing,” Higgins’ attorney Matthew Portella said Friday.

Higgins could be seen on screen Friday morning with facial hair and wearing a green shirt. At the start of the hearing, Silvanio made the South Jersey resident aware of his rights and made sure that Higgins was aware of his rights. “Yes your honor,” Higgins replied to the judge’s instructions.

Prosecutor, defense team lay out what happened on night of deadly crash, argue over detainment

The Gaudreau brothers grew up in the Philadelphia suburb of Carneys Point, New Jersey, where they spent their childhoods on the ice. They played at Gloucester Catholic High School, with Team Comcast and with the Philadelphia Little Flyers. Johnny went on to an All-Star career in the NHL.

Johnny, 31, and brother, Matt, 29, were set to serve as groomsmen at their sister Katie’s wedding that was scheduled for Friday, Aug. 30, in nearby Philadelphia, according to family.

The Gaudreaus were cycling on a road in Oldmans Township on Thursday, Aug. 29, when a man driving an SUV in the same direction attempted to pass two other vehicles and struck them from behind at about 8 p.m., according to New Jersey State Police. They were pronounced dead at the scene.

Police said the striking driver, 43-year-old Higgins, was suspected of being under the influence of alcohol and charged with two counts of death by auto, along with reckless driving, possession of an open container and consuming alcohol in a motor vehicle.

Another driver had slowed down and pulled into the opposing lane of traffic to safely pass the Gaudreau brothers, First Assistant Prosecutor Jonathan Flynn of Salem County said Friday. The driver behind that driver followed suit — bother moving slightly above the 50 mph posted speed limit.

It is alleged that Higgins came speeding up behind the two other drivers and decides to overtake both cars. Higgins said he saw the driver moving to left lane as that driver trying to block him, Flynn said. Higgins then reacted by accelerating past one of the other driver on the right hand side, striking the Gaudreau brothers.

Higgins later claimed to have not seen the bikes.

Higgins told a responding officer he had five or six beers prior to the crash and admitted to consuming alcohol while driving, according to the criminal complaint obtained by The Associated Press.

Higgins told state police that he was also drinking in the car while driving, Flynn said Friday.

Higgins’ attorneys pointed out that a Sept. 5 report on Higgins’ blood alcohol at the time of the Aug. 29, 2024, wreck was .087% — just above the legal limit.

Higgins’ attorney said the BAC showed that Higgins was right around the intoxicated driving legal limit and that shouldn’t be a mitigating circumstance in keeping him jailed.

However, the state argued that Higgins had made statements about ending his life and was known to drink and drive angrily.

“The whodunit and what happened is pretty well documented in the record,” the prosecuting attorney said.

The judge noted the facts of the case while making his ruling after the prosecuting attorney and lawyers representing Higgins argued over if Higgins should remain jailed ahead of trial.

To be detained, the state had to display probable cause and prove that any bail offered wouldn’t be sufficient enough for Higgins to appear in court for his trial.

“This is a serious crime,” argued the prosecuting attorney, saying that Higgins’ “impatience, anger and recklessness” led to the Gaudreau brothers’ deaths.

Higgins is a married father to two daughters, ages 8 and 10, and a law-abiding citizen before the crash, his defense argued.

“He’s an empathetic individual and he’s a loving father of two daughters,” Portella said. “He’s a good person and he made a horrible decision that night.”

Higgins’ attorney noted he has no previous record and shared letters on his behalf. Portella added that Higgins was low risk to not show up for court. His team also offered a breath monitoring machine on Higgins’ car should he be released.

The prosecution painted another picture of Higgins.

Driving drunk and upset is not out of character for Higgins, prosecutors alleged.

Flynn argued that the locking device would not stop what he called “the fundamental issue” of Higgins’s “angry and aggressive driving,” exacerbated that day by alcohol.

Higgins wife told investigators that he had been working from home and that had a negative effect on him that led drinking at his house. The prosecutor on Friday said he had been drinking at home after finishing a work call at about 3 p.m., and having an upsetting conversation with a family member.

He then had a two-hour phone call with a friend while he drove around in his Jeep with an open container, Flynn said.

“’You were probably driving like a nut like I always tell you you do. And you don’t listen to me, instead you just yell at me,’” his wife told Higgins when he called her from jail after his arrest, according to Flynn.

“There simply is no condition that the court can place on Mr. Higgins that is going to control — not only the aggressive driving, but unfortunately the drinking during the driving — getting on the road and having this happen again,” Flynn said while arguing Higgins should remain jailed.

NHL Sep 9

Johnny Gaudreau's widow reveals she is pregnant with 3rd child at funeral for NHL star, brother

In arguing for Higgins to remain behind bars, the state also argued that he could hurt himself if he is freed from behind bars as he could face up to 20 years behind bars.

“Clear intent to self-harm over the regret of what happened,” the prosecuting attorney said.

“They’re concerned that Mr. Higgins is going to put himself beyond the reach of the court… committing suicide,” Portella said.

Higgins’ attorney acknowledged that at the scene Higgins was upset and that he did say his life was over. However, he was no longer on suicide watch as of Friday’s hearing.

He was “freaking out” and a recent knee surgery that caused a limp contributed to Higgins “not to be able to do the field sobriety test properly,” Portella said.

Higgins will remain jailed ahead of his next court date on Oct. 15, for an in-person hearing.

Higgins has seven days to appeal the decision.

Higgins had previous driving violations

NBC10 obtained the New Jersey driver history for Higgins. Our investigators found that Higgins had previously been stopped by police for unsafe driving and other violations.

Through an open records request to New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle Commission, we were able to see that Higgins was involved in two car crashes: One in 2016 and the other in 2021.

He was also cited between 2003 and 2014 for improper operation in a highway with marked lines, improper display of plates, speeding and unsafe operation of a motor vehicle.

The state of New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission had Higgins listed “in good standing” at the time of last week’s fatal crash.

We also found two violations in North Carolina that included driving while intoxicated in 2005 and a speeding ticket in 2021. Both were dismissed.

According to court records, the DWI was dismissed because the officer did not show up for the court date.

Higgins was an Army veteran who worked at an alcohol treatment center

He is a graduate of Drexel and Rutgers universities and a U.S. Army veteran who served in Iraq, his attorneys said. Higgins worked in finance for an addiction treatment company.

Higgins was an employee at Gaudenzia, a nonprofit drug and alcohol treatment center, at the time of the crash. He was at first placed on leave by the organization before being fired last week.

“Our thoughts and condolences remain with all those impacted by the tragedy that resulted in the loss of Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau,” a statement from the Norristown-based company said. “Sean Higgins is no longer an employee of Gaudenzia.”

Higgins’ service time in Iraq — which left him honored with a Bronze Star — left his mentally scared, his attorney said.

Gaudreau family, hockey community, remember brothers, share message

The funeral for the Gaudreau brothers took place Monday at St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church in Media, Pennsylvania.

Widows Meredith and Madeline Gaudreau described their husbands as attached at the hip throughout their lives. John was 31 and Matthew 29.

“Everything was always John and Matty,” said Meredith, John’s wife, who revealed she was pregnant with the couple’s third child. “I know John would not have been able to live a day without his brother.”

“I urge everyone to not drink and drive,” said Madeline Gaudreau, Matthew’s pregnant wife. “Find a ride. Please don’t put another family through this torture.”

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or chat live at 988lifeline.org. You can also visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional support.

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Eric Gerod Robinson, 24, is facing charges of burglary to an occupied dwelling, third-degree grand theft and petty theft for robberies that took place between Sept. 9-11 at the Axis apartment building at 79 SW 12th Avenue and one earlier incident. 

He was in bond court on Thursday.

“In just three days he committed between 10 and 12 home robberies and in the majority of these houses or apartments, there were people inside when he would come in,” City of Miami police spokesperson Mike Vega said. 

He described it as a crime of opportunity, saying Robinson turned door handles, checking for those left unlocked. Once inside, he allegedly would take the easiest thing to swipe, almost always a purse. 

“In this case, thank God he didn’t confront anyone inside the apartment, but let’s suppose someone sees him coming inside,” Vega said. “It could’ve been something more serious.”

But Robinson’s crimes allegedly began in May, when he met a victim on the building elevator. 

According to the arrest report, Robinson and the victim, a man, started talking, and he agreed to show Robinson his rental car and “even took the defendant for a drive.”

After that, Robinson allegedly asked the man if he could see his gold chain with a gold pendant worth about $1,500. The man agreed, but when he gave Robinson the necklace, the suspect allegedly took off. 

The victim in that case picked Robinson out of a photo line-up while police investigated the burglaries in September, according to an arrest report. He did not get his gold chain back. 

Robinson was ordered held on $30,000 bond and house arrest.

Authorities are shedding light on the gruesome death of Miss Switzerland finalist Kristina Joksimovic.

The 38-year-old was found dead in her Swiss home this February, with her husband, 41, arrested on accusations of her murder, according to BBC.

In a recently released autopsy report, investigators said Joksimovic was strangled before her body was dismembered in the laundry room with a jigsaw power tool, knife and garden shears, per local news outlet BZ Basel.

Her remains were then “pureed” with a hand blender, the report said, before being dissolved in a chemical solution.

A federal court ruling stated that Joksimovic’s husband — whose name has not been disclosed — confessed to investigators in March that he had killed the model, according to BZ Basel. The admission allegedly came after a forensic report contradicted his previous claim that he acted in self-defense and dismembered Joksimovic’s body “in a panic,” per the outlet.

In the ruling, prosecutors said that the suspect displayed a “noticeably high level of criminal energy, lack of empathy and cold-bloodedness” following the pageant queen’s death.

The public prosecutor’s office also alleged that Joksimovic’s husband had a history of violence, per BZ Basel.

The federal court denied a request from Joksimovic’s husband to be released from custody.

Joksimovic won the title of Miss Northwest Switzerland in 2007. She entered the nationwide competition that same year, losing the crown to Amanda Ammann.

The model tied the knot with her husband in 2017, according to Swiss newspaper 20 Minuten. They shared two daughters.

Joksimovic’s death has rattled family and friends, including former Miss Switzerland Christa Rigozzi.

“I’m really shocked,” she told the publication in February. “I’m thinking of her two daughters. She was such a beautiful and kind-hearted woman.”

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline by calling 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), visiting www.thehotline.org or texting LOVEIS to 22522.

Jose Luis Pacheco pleaded guilty to second-degree murder charges in the killing of his estranged wife Mimose Dulcio.

The sentencing comes nearly two years after the 39-year-old went missing from her Broward County home back in November of 2022. 

Days later, investigators found a woman’s body in a wooded area near the 5500 block of Northwest 204th Street in Miami-Dade County.

The family suspected Pacheco early on, pointing to the couple’s messy divorce.

Broward Sheriff’s Office officials said the couple were in the process of getting a divorce but had been sharing a home.

A search warrant was obtained for the couple’s home and shared vehicle. During the search, investigators found evidence that suggested Dulcio had been murdered in the couple’s home, and that her body had been transported in the couple’s vehicle and disposed of in an unknown location, officials said.

In court on Thursday, Pacheco initially pleaded no contest, but after listening to family impact statements, the judge decided he would only accept a guilty plea.

Pacheco accepted.

Pacheco was sentenced to 55 years in state prison with a minimum term of 30 years.

The settlement stems from a civil complaint brought by the District Attorney’s offices of San Diego, Alameda, Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Sonoma counties.

Prosecutors allege Home Depot customers were charged more than the posted prices on items due to what’s known as “scanner violations.” This is when the prices listed for items on shelves are different from prices seen when the items are scanned at the register.

Home Depot entered into the settlement without admitting any liability or wrongdoing.

As part of the agreement, the company will pay $1,700,000 in civil penalties, plus $277,251 to cover the prosecutors’ investigatory costs and fund other consumer protection enforcement efforts. Home Depot will also implement new price accuracy procedures that eliminate price increases on weekend days and establish audits and training on state pricing accuracy requirements.

Carlos Mendez, 43, was in jail for armed sexual battery against a 44-year-old woman. He was arrested in Lake Hills, Texas, and extradited to Miami.

Another inmate alleged that Mendez told them in early August that he was facing the rest of his life in prison and “was desperate to find a solution to avoid going to trial,” Miami-Dade County police said. 

“[Mendez] asked [the inmate] if he knew someone or if he could assist him in murdering the victim of the armed sexual battery,” the arrest report details. 

Mendez allegedly provided the other inmate with the victim’s day-to-day activities, schedule and whereabouts, even drawing a map to show where she lived and parked her car. 

Police said the inmate told authorities they discussed how to approach the victim without being seen, and how to kill her. 

“[Mendez] told the witness that the victim always keeps a jacket inside her vehicle on the passenger seat, which he could use to strangle her,” an arrest report describes. “The defendant and the witness agreed on an alternative method to murder the victim and using a handgun instead.”

Mendez allegedly said he could get a family member to pay the inmate $1,500 so he could buy a gun and kill the victim. 

Later, police said they interviewed the victim and she confirmed the information the inmate provided about her activities and whereabouts. 

Mendez faces charges of murder solicitation and tampering with a victim.

He is being held without bond.

David Knezevich’s defense presented a motion to have access to medical records, witness identities and the Madrid apartment where the victim, Ana María Knezevich Henao, was living when she vanished on Feb. 2, after a man in a motorcycle helmet spraypainted the lens of a security camera outside her residence. She had moved there from South Florida late year after her split from Knezevich.

The judge granted that motion.

Criminal defense expert Erick Cruz, who has no connection to the case, says this may make it easier to fight the case.

“In this case, the Spanish laws do permit a lot of secrecy surrounding evidence of criminal wrongdoing and evidence that’s going to be used in a criminal investigation, and so that has hampered the defense’s ability to obtain that evidence. And so that’s why they are asking Judge Williams to have the US Attorney’s Office assist them in obtaining that evidence,” Cruz explained.

Federal prosecutor Lacee Monk said in court in May that prosecutors believe Ana is dead and that the FBI and Spain’s national police have substantial evidence that Knezevich is behind his wife’s disappearance, which happened five weeks after she left him and moved to Madrid.

She said the couple had been going through a nasty divorce after 13 years of marriage, fighting over how to split a substantial fortune they had amassed from their computer firm and real estate investments. He didn’t want her to have an equal share, Monk said.

Monk said Knezevich flew to Turkey from Miami six days before Ana’s disappearance, then immediately traveled the 600 miles (950 kilometers) to his native Serbia — she said he was covering his tracks. There, he rented a Peugeot automobile.

On Feb. 2, security video shows him 1,600 miles (2,600 kilometers) from Serbia in a Madrid hardware store using cash to buy duct tape and the same brand of spray paint the man in the motorcycle helmet used on the security camera, Monk said. His cellphone connected to Facebook from Madrid. The man in the motorcycle helmet is the same height and has the same eyebrows as Knezevich, she said.

License plates that were stolen in Madrid in that period were spotted by police plate readers both near a motorcycle shop where an identical helmet was purchased and on Ana’s street the night she disappeared. Hours after the helmeted man left the apartment, a Peugeot identical to the one Knezevich rented and sporting the stolen plates was recorded going through a toll booth near Madrid. The driver could not be seen because the windows were tinted.

The morning after his wife disappeared, Knezevich texted a Colombian woman he met on a dating app to translate into “perfect Colombian” Spanish two English messages, Monk said. After she sent those back, two of Ana’s friends received those exact messages from her cellphone. They said she was going off with a man she had just met, something they say she would have never done. Monk said that proves Knezevich had his wife’s cellphone.

Finally, when Knezevich returned the Peugeot to the rental agency five weeks later, it had been driven 4,800 miles (7,700 kilometers), its windows had been tinted, two identifying stickers had been removed and there was evidence the license plate had been removed and then put back.

She said Knezevich has a strong incentive to flee as he is looking at a potential life sentence if convicted of kidnapping and death if it can be be shown his wife has been killed.

Knezevich’s defense attorney Jayne Weintraub said at the time that the government’s case is “built on assumptions.”

Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 71, made a deal in May with federal prosecutors, who agreed to recommend the 10-year term in exchange for his guilty plea to a count of conspiracy to gather or deliver national defense information to a foreign government. The deal also requires him to submit to polygraph tests, whenever requested by the U.S. government, for the rest of his life.

A U.S. judge approved the deal Wednesday and handed down the agreed-upon sentence, according to court records.

“I hope God and America will forgive me for what I have done,” Ma, who has been in custody since his 2020 arrest, wrote in a letter to Chief U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Honolulu ahead of his sentencing.

Without the deal, Ma faced up to life in prison. He would have been allowed to withdraw from the agreement if Watson rejected the 10-year sentence.

Ma was born in Hong Kong, moved to Honolulu in 1968 and became a U.S. citizen in 1975. He joined the CIA in 1982, was assigned overseas the following year, and resigned in 1989. He held a top secret security clearance, according to court documents.

Ma lived and worked in Shanghai, China, before returning to Hawaii in 2001, and at the behest of Chinese intelligence officers, he agreed to arrange an introduction between officers of the Shanghai State Security Bureau and his older brother — who had also served as a CIA case officer.

During a three-day meeting in a Hong Kong hotel room that year, Ma’s brother — identified in the plea agreement as “Co-conspirator #1” — provided the intelligence officers a “large volume of classified and sensitive information,” according to the document. They were paid $50,000; prosecutors said they had an hourlong video from the meeting that showed Ma counting the money.

Two years later, Ma applied for a job as a contract linguist in the FBI’s Honolulu field office. By then, the Americans knew he was collaborating with Chinese intelligence officers, and they hired him in 2004 so they could keep an eye on his espionage activities.

Over the following six years, he regularly copied, photographed and stole classified documents, prosecutors said. He often took them on trips to China, returning with thousands of dollars in cash and expensive gifts, including a new set of golf clubs, prosecutors said.

At one point in 2006, his handlers at the Shanghai State Security Bureau asked Ma to get his brother to help identify four people in photographs, and the brother did identify two of them.

During a sting operation, Ma accepted thousands of dollars in cash in exchange for past espionage activities, and he told an undercover FBI agent posing as a Chinese intelligence officer that he wanted to see the “motherland” succeed, prosecutors have said.

“Let it be a message to anyone else thinking of doing the same,” FBI Honolulu Special Agent-in-Charge Steven Merrill said in a statement after Ma was sentenced. “No matter how long it takes, or how much time passes, you will be brought to justice.”

The brother was never prosecuted. He suffered from debilitating symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and has since died, court documents say.

“Because of my brother, I could not bring myself to report this crime,” Ma said in his letter to the judge. “He was like a father figure to me. In a way, I am also glad that he left this world, as that made me free to admit what I did.”

The plea agreement also called for Ma to cooperate with the U.S. government by providing more details about his case and submitting to polygraph tests for the rest of his life.

Prosecutors said that since pleading guilty, Ma has already taken part in five “lengthy, and sometimes grueling, sessions over the course of four weeks, some spanning as long as six hours, wherein he provided valuable information and endeavored to answer the government’s inquiries to the best of his ability.”

Prosecutors recently charged Maecee Marie Lathers with DUI manslaughter in the August 10 crash after toxicology reports found a variety of drugs in her system. She also faces charges of vehicular homicide, reckless driving, driving with a suspended license, and causing injury.

The bodycam footage shows Lathers, 24, face down on the ground, topless, screaming and vomiting after she allegedly crashed her white Mercedes into two other vehicles and killed Abraham Molina and Jesus Rubio.

Crime and Courts Sep 10

Social media model sent back to jail, now facing DUI manslaughter in deadly Miami crash

Crime and Courts Aug 22

Social media model had ‘accelerator at 100%' when she crashed and killed 2: Police

Records show Lathers tried leaving the scene without helping or calling 911, but bystanders confronted her.

“I’m from the future,” she’s heard telling officers in the bodycam.

At one point, an officer asks, “Are you on drugs?”

The officer later radios in: “She just told us now she’s on tusi.”

Tusi, also known as pink cocaine, is a party drug usually made of ketamine and other substances.

Soon after, paramedics arrive to transport her to the hospital.

“The aliens…they’re coming,” Lathers says as they load her onto a stretcher.

Lathers, who had been on house arrest, returned to jail Tuesday after prosecutors tacked on new DUI manslaughter charges. She will get a chance to ask for a bond next week, while state attorneys will oppose any form of release.

Courtney Clenney faces a second-degree murder charge in the death of her boyfriend, 27-year-old Christian Obumseli, who was stabbed to death in the couple’s Edgewater condo in April 2022.

Clenny claims she killed in self-defense. 

Two years after the murder, Courtney Clenney and her parents, Kim and Deborah Clenney, were also accused of illegally accessing the victim’s laptop after prosecutors accessed the couple’s iCloud accounts and found what they believed were incriminating messages. 

However, in June, Judge Laura Cruz ruled to exclude the messages and determined Miami-Dade prosecutors violated attorney-client privilege by accessing private family conversations with their attorneys. 

The laptop-related charges were eventually dropped in July. 

Now, the Clenney parents want their iCloud data, which is being held in hard drives by the court, returned. 

“That’s private financial record. Medical records. Communication with your spouse. Communication with attorney. Photographs. The idea the State of Florida is allowed to look through it because your daughter is charged with a crime is insane,” said Jude Faccidomo, the attorney representing the Clenney parents. 

However, prosecutors claim there could be more digital evidence against Clenney, within the parents’ iCloud accounts, regarding the murder case. 

“Obumseli’s mom wasn’t on the phone with him when he was killed. The defendant’s mother was,” said Khalil Quinan, an Assistant State Attorney responding to defense attorneys claim prosecutors haven’t requested to see cellphone data from the victim’s family. 

After hearing arguments, Judge Cruz ruled against the defense attorneys. The judge stated police seize cellphones all the time, while they look for evidence and make their case. 

Faccidomo stated he plans to appeal the judge’s ruling.

Courtney Clenney is in jail until trial.

Maecee Marie Lathers now faces 10 criminal charges for allegedly driving drugged on a substance known as “pink cocaine” and causing a deadly crash that killed two people in downtown Miami. Her charges include vehicular homicide, reckless driving, and driving with a suspended license and causing injury.

According to state attorneys, the toxicology report revealed a variety of drugs in the defendant’s system. No alcohol was found.

In response, prosecutors charged the 24-year-old with two new DUI manslaughter charges for allegedly driving drugged and causing a crash that killed Abraham Molina and Jesus Rubio. Lathers also faces DUI charges for causing injury to Juanita Hernandez, a passenger and Molina’s girlfriend.

On Tuesday, Hernandez went face-to-face with the woman who killed her soon-to-be husband and her friend.

“It was a horrible feeling,” Hernandez told NBC6 in response to seeing Lathers in court. “She did not look remorseful.”

Police found Lathers vomiting in downtown Miami on Aug. 10, minutes after she crashed her white Mercedes into a black Range Rover and silver Suzuki, killing two people, an arrest report said. One of them needed to be extricated but died at the hospital. The other victim was killed on the spot.

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Lathers told police that she was under the influence of the party drug tusi and that she was from the future and had a crystal ball.

After her arrest last month, Lathers was granted house arrest. However, on Tuesday state attorneys asked for Lathers to be detained until trial.

Lathers looked surprised and was ordered to sit with the other inmates. At times, she placed her head down and shook her head.

Lathers, who pleaded not guilty on all 10 charges, will get a chance to ask for a bond next week, while state attorneys will oppose any form of release. Until then Lathers will be held in a county jail.

“She is a danger to society,” Hernandez told NBC6.

Records show Lathers was traveling approximately 57 mph five seconds before the crash with the accelerator at 100%. The car, according to records, then increased to 78 mph at the moment it crashed into another vehicle.

The defendants, identified as Dallas Erin Humber and Matthew Robert Allison, face 15 federal counts in the Eastern District of California, including charges that accuse them of soliciting hate crimes and the murder of federal officials, distributing bomb-making instructions and conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.

Humber, 34, of Elk Grove, California, and Allison, 37, of Boise, Idaho were arrested Friday. Humber pleaded not guilty in a Sacramento courtroom Monday to the charges. Her attorney Noa Oren declined to comment on the case Monday afternoon after the arraignment.

It was not immediately clear if Allison had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

The indictment accuses the two of leading Terrorgram, a network of channels and group chats on Telegram, and of soliciting followers to attack perceived enemies of white people, including government buildings and energy facilities and “high-value” targets such as politicians.

“Today’s action makes clear that the department will hold perpetrators accountable, including those who hide behind computer screens, in seeking to carry out bias-motivated violence,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, the Justice Department’s top civil rights official, said at a news conference.

Their exhortations to commit violence included statements such as “Take Action Now” and “Do your part,” and users who carried out acts to further white supremacism were told they could become known as “Saints,” prosecutors said.

Justice Department officials say the pair used the app to transmit bomb-making instructions and to distribute a list of potential targets for assassination — including a federal judge, a senator and a former U.S. attorney — and to celebrate acts or plots from active Terrorgram users.

Those include the stabbing last month of five people outside a mosque in Turkey and the July arrest of an 18-year-old accused of planning to attack an electrical substation to advance white supremacist views. In the Turkey attack, for instance, prosecutors say the culprit on the morning of the stabbing posted in a group chat: “Come see how much humans I can cleanse.”

A 24-minute documentary that the two had produced, “White Terror,” documented and praised some 105 acts of white supremacist violence between 1968 and 2021, according to the indictment.

“The risk and danger they present is extremely serious,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, the Justice Department’s top national security official. He added: “Their reach is as far as the internet because of the platform they’ve created.”

Telegram is a messaging app that allows for one-on-one conversations, group chats and large channels that let people broadcast messages to subscribers. Though broadly used as a messaging tool around the world, Telegram has also drawn scrutiny, including a finding from French investigators that the app has been used by Islamic extremists and drug traffickers.

Telegram’s founder and CEO, Pavel Durov, was detained by French authorities last month on charges of allowing the platform’s use for criminal activity. Durov responded to the charges with a post last week saying he shouldn’t have been targeted personally and by promising to step up efforts to fight criminality on the app.

He wrote that while Telegram is not “some sort of anarchic paradise,” surging numbers of users have “caused growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform.”

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Marcellus Williams, 55, was convicted in the 1998 killing of Lisha Gayle, who was stabbed during the burglary of her suburban St. Louis home.

Williams was put to death despite questions his attorneys raised over jury selection at his trial and the handling of evidence in the case. His clemency petition focused heavily on how Gayle’s relatives wanted Williams’ sentence commuted to life without the possibility of parole.

“The family defines closure as Marcellus being allowed to live,” the petition stated. “Marcellus’ execution is not necessary.”

As Williams lay awaiting execution, he appeared to converse with a spiritual adviser seated next to him. Williams wiggled his feet underneath a white sheet that was pulled up to his neck and moved his head slightly while his spiritual advisor continued to talk. Then Williams’ chest heaved about a half dozen times, and he showed no further movement.

Williams’ son and two attorneys watched from another room. No one was present on behalf of the victim’s family.

The Department of Corrections released a brief statement that Williams had written ahead of time, saying: “All Praise Be to Allah In Every Situation!!!”

Republican Missouri Gov. Mike Parson said he hoped the execution brings finality to a case that “languished for decades, revictimizing Ms. Gayle’s family over and over again.”

“No juror nor judge has ever found Williams’ innocence claim to be credible,” Parson said in a statement.

The NAACP had been among those urging Parson to cancel the execution.

“Tonight, Missouri lynched another innocent Black man,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement.

It was the third time Williams faced execution. He got reprieves in 2015 and 2017, but his last-ditch efforts this time were futile. Parson and the state Supreme Court rejected his appeals in quick succession Monday, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene hours before he was put to death.

Last month, Gayle’s relatives gave their blessings to an agreement between the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney’s office and Williams’ attorneys to commute the sentence to life in prison. But acting on an appeal from Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s office, the state Supreme Court nullified the agreement.

Williams was among death row inmates in five states who were scheduled to be put to death in the span of a week — an unusually high number that defies a yearslong decline in the use and support of the death penalty in the U.S. The first was carried out Friday in South Carolina. Texas was also slated to execute a prisoner on Tuesday evening.

Gayle, 42, was a social worker and former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter. Prosecutors at Williams’ trial said he broke into her home on Aug. 11, 1998, heard the shower running and found a large butcher knife. Gayle was stabbed 43 times when she came downstairs. Her purse and her husband’s laptop were stolen.

Authorities said Williams stole a jacket to conceal blood on his shirt. His girlfriend asked him why he would wear a jacket on a hot day. She said she later saw the purse and laptop in his car and that Williams sold the computer a day or two later.

Prosecutors also cited testimony from Henry Cole, who shared a cell with Williams in 1999 while Williams was jailed on unrelated charges. Cole told prosecutors that Williams confessed to the killing and provided details about it.

Williams’ attorneys responded that the girlfriend and Cole were both convicted of felonies and wanted a $10,000 reward. They said that fingerprints, a bloody shoeprint, hair and other evidence at the crime scene didn’t match Williams’.

A crime scene investigator had testified the killer wore gloves.

Questions about DNA evidence also led St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell to request a hearing challenging Williams’ guilt. But days before the Aug. 21 hearing, new testing showed that DNA on the knife belonged to members of the prosecutor’s office who handled it without gloves after the original crime lab tests.

Without DNA evidence pointing to any alternative suspect, Midwest Innocence Project attorneys reached a compromise with the prosecutor’s office: Williams would enter a new, no-contest plea to first-degree murder in exchange for a new sentence of life in prison without parole. A no-contest plea isn’t an admission of guilt but is treated as such for the purpose of sentencing.

Judge Bruce Hilton signed off, as did Gayle’s family. But Bailey appealed, and the state Supreme Court blocked the agreement and ordered Hilton to proceed with an evidentiary hearing, which took place last month.

Hilton ruled on Sept. 12 that the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence would stand, noting that Williams’ arguments all had been previously rejected. That decision was upheld Monday by the state Supreme Court.

Attorneys for Williams, who was Black, also challenged the fairness of his trial, particularly the fact that only one of the 12 jurors was Black. Tricia Bushnell of the Midwest Innocence Project said the prosecutor in the case, Keith Larner, removed six of seven Black prospective jurors.

Larner testified at the August hearing that he struck one potential Black juror partly because he looked too much like Williams — a statement that Williams’ attorneys asserted showed improper racial bias.

Larner contended that the jury selection process was fair.

Williams was the third Missouri inmate put to death this year and the 100th since the state resumed use of the death penalty in 1989.

___

AP writer Mark Sherman contributed from Washington. Salter reported from O’Fallon, Missouri.

Hector Ramon Martinez-Ayala, 54, of Tooele, confessed in a text message to his brother of making “a big mistake” before fleeing the country and using his daughter’s bank card to withdraw money, prosecutors said in court documents.

The victim was Marbella Martinez, 25, said Tooele Police spokesman Colbey Bentley.

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Martinez had started working as a corrections officer with the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office in January. The department had memorialized her in a Facebook post Thursday, noting her death was being investigated as “suspicious” by Tooele police.

She had lived with her father in Tooele, west of Salt Lake City, until her father’s escalating series of obsessive texting, surveillance and stalking drove her to move into a hotel for a few days, according to court documents.

The charges alleged her the stalking behavior had gone on for months, and that the “text messages from the defendant to the victim are more of the nature of a jealous lover than a father.” Martinez also found a bag of her underwear in his room, prosecutors said. Then, in mid-July he placed a tracking device on her vehicle while she was out of the country and later used it to find her and a romantic interest out by a hiking area, according to the charges.

When she returned to their house on the morning of July 31, her father strangled her, investigators said. Cameras on the property were quickly disabled or disconnected, but Martinez-Ayala left plenty of digital footprints, including location data on his phone and his daughter’s phone, as well as a text message to his brother that afternoon, according to investigators.

“My brother, you know much I love you, I made a big mistake, an unforgivable sin, now I’m too scared and I don’t know what to do. I think I will never come back,” the message said, according to the charging documents.

He flew to California, then Texas, before his cell records ceased, prosecutors said. He was then filmed passing through customs in an undisclosed country where he used his brother’s identification.

Martinez’s body was found on Aug. 1 in her bedroom after police were called to do a welfare check.

In addition to murder, Martinez-Ayala is charged with felonies related to obstruction of justice, stealing a bank card, and stalking, as well as misdemeanor identity theft.

Martinez-Ayala does not have an attorney listed in Utah online court records, and attempts to find alternative methods to contact him were unsuccessful.

Officers with the Beaverton Police Department responded to 32-year-old Melissa Jubane’s home at 1050 SW 160th Avenue in Beaverton Wednesday to conduct a wellness check after she didn’t report for her morning shift at St. Vincent Hospital, the department said Thursday in a Facebook post.

Police searched Jubane’s apartment but did not find her, calling her absence and lack of communication “unusual and alarming.”

“Efforts by officers and family members to contact Melissa throughout the day were unsuccessful, as her phone appeared to be turned off,” police said. “Additionally, searches of Melissa’s bank and credit card records yielded no new information regarding her location.”

Following the investigation, one of Jubane’s neighbors, 27-year-old Bryce Johnathan Schubert, was arrested and charged with her murder, police said in an update Saturday.

Schubert was charged with murder in the second degree and is being held at the jail in Washington County, Oregon, according to online records. It’s not clear if he has an attorney at this time.

Jubane’s body was also recovered. Police have not shared any details regarding how Schubert was allegedly involved in Jubane’s murder, where her remains were found, or who found them.

“This is an active investigation,” police said. “While we acknowledge the significant community interest and concern, we must withhold further details to preserve the integrity of the investigation.”

The Beaverton Police Department is asking anyone with information on Jubane’s death to contact them at 503-526-2280.

“We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the community members who have assisted with the search for Melissa. Our deepest condolences go out to Melissa’s family, friends and co-workers,” police said.

This article first appeared on NBCNews.com. Read more from NBC News here:

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James “Jamie” Grover, 62, was arrested Thursday after special agents searched his home in Deltona, about 30 miles northeast of Orlando. They also searched his workplace at the Seminole Town Center Mall in nearby Sanford, NBC affiliate WFLA reported.

It was not immediately clear what materials were found at those locations.

Grover founded the Special Needs Advocacy Program (SNAP), and worked as the group director of Autism of the Seas, which according to its website offers vacations for adults and families living with disabilities.

“The FBI believes he primarily targeted boys between the timeframe of 2010 to the present” while working with these programs, authorities said.

The FBI mentions three victims, according to NBC affiliate WESH. Two are teenagers and the other is now an adult, but investigators say he operates as if he’s a pre-teen.

Grover allegedly denied the allegations in an interview with authorities.

Autism of the Seas CEO Michael Sobbell said in an email to WESH that at the time of the allegations of impropriety on cruises in 2022 and 2023, James Grover was not working with Autism on the Seas. Sobbell said the last time Grover cruised on an event they sponsored was 2013.

Anyone who believes they have been victimized, or has any information on this investigation is asked to fill out this form. Victims’ identities will remain confidential.

Yeison Jose Bolivar, 25, was arrested Thursday after police said he and two other suspects robbed a man at gunpoint for his $50,000 Patek Philippe watch back in April on Biscayne Boulevard.

Miami Police also discovered Bolivar was allegedly involved in robberies in Port St. Lucie, New York, New Jersey and California.

Detectives recovered another Patek Phillipe watch worth approximately $1 million that was stolen from Beverly Hills as well as a rifle stolen from Port St. Lucie.

Bolivar remains booked in Miami-Dade jail on charges of armed robbery with a firearm. He is also wanted on a warrant out of New Jersey.

The two men who allegedly helped Bolivar in the April robbery – Kerwin Campos and Yiefer Capote Diaz – were also arrested on Thursday.

Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, 20, a Pakistani national living in Canada, was taken into custody on Sept. 4 and “charged with attempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO), the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS),” federal prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said Khan wanted to plan the attack around Oct. 7, 2024, the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ attack on a music festival in Israel that killed at least 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

“The defendant is alleged to have planned a terrorist attack in New York City around October 7th of this year with the stated goal of slaughtering, in the name of ISIS, as many Jewish people as possible,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland in a statement.

According to the criminal complaint, Khan told undercover law enforcement officers he was planning to target a Jewish center in Brooklyn saying “‘New York is perfect to target Jews because it has the ‘largest Jewish population In America.'”

Khan attempted to cross the U.S.-Canada border where he planned to use automatic and semi-automatic weapons to carry out a “mass shooting,” prosecutors said. The complaint alleges Khan looked for rental properties close to his proposed target in Brooklyn and was planning to pay a human smuggler to help him get into the United States.

Khan was arrested 12 miles from the border with the United States.

During one communication to the undercover officers, Khan said “if we succeed with our plan this would be the largest Attack on US soil since 9/11,” the complaint alleges.

A senior official told NBC New York that Khan had been under 24/7 surveillance and that he did not have any means of carrying out the attack on his own.

If convicted, Khan faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

The FBI is continuing its investigation into Khan’s alleged actions. It’s unclear if Khan has a lawyer, the Associated Press reported.

In 2013, Jackson Jr. pleaded guilty to conspiring with his then-wife, Sandi Jackson, to illegally use $750,000 in campaign funds for personal purposes. He was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and served about half of that term behind bars before being released to a halfway house in March 2015 to finish the sentence.

“We worked with him on a regular basis. His concern and care for his constituents’ needs were always present,” the mayors of South Chicago suburbs wrote. “Like you, we also make decisions that affect people in their everyday life. Oftentimes we must reflect upon ‘never judging a man based on his worst day.’ We believe that Congressman Jackson has better days ahead.”

The push for a pardon comes the day after Biden’s son, Hunter, pleaded guilty to federal tax charges. Earlier this year, the younger Biden was convicted on three counts related to his illegal purchase of a handgun. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Thursday that the president remains committed to his promise not to pardon his son.

The White House declined to comment on the mayors’ request that Biden pardon Jackson Jr.

This is not the first time elected officials have appealed to Biden on Jackson Jr.’s behalf. Several members of Congress — including Jackson Jr.’s successor, Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill. — have encouraged the president in recent years to use his pardon power to help the former lawmaker. So has Jackson Jr.’s father.

The 82-year-old Reverend Jesse Jackson, who is battling Parkinson’s Disease, appeared on stage in a wheelchair at the Democratic convention Aug. 19. Surrounded by fellow civil rights leaders, he received a long standing ovation.

Biden issued blanket pardons for certain marijuana offenses in 2022 and 2023, moves that together affected thousands of people who were convicted on drug-related charges. Outside of that, he has been sparing in his use of the constitutional power to grant pardons.

The Justice Department lists 25 people who were pardoned by Biden since he took office in January 2021. Donald Trump pardoned more than 140 people, including former members of Congress, political allies and Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law. Presidents often issue bursts of pardons in their final days in office, and most of Trump’s were granted between his November 2020 defeat and his departure from the White House a little more than two months later.

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The men paid cash thinking they were going to have sex with children, but when they showed up, they were taken down by law enforcement instead, prosecutors said.

Last month, a variety of law enforcement agencies conducted an operation with undercover officers posing as underage minors on an advertisement used to solicit prostitution and human traffickers.

The men allegedly responded to ads with images of young girls using a phone number and met up at a hotel with who they thought were the mothers of the victims, prosecutors said.

Once they met in person, they allegedly discussed pay and what they were going to get in exchange — and the age of the victims, which ranged from 13-15 years old.

As they were given a key to the room and entered, police were inside instead and arrested the men on the spot.

“What I think is so important about this case is there wasn’t any victims – there were no 13, 14, 15-year-olds that had to suffer through this, and yet we were able to catch 10 predators who are now prevented and who are in jail…and are not out there looking for the real 13, 14, 15-year-olds to exploit,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said.

All nine were charged with human trafficking, which comes with life in prison if convicted. They’re all being held in jail with no bond and face a variety of other charges.

If you are a victim of human trafficking or would like to report human trafficking, call Miami-Dade’s task force at 305-FIX-STOP or the national hotline at 1-888-373-7888.

Chad Richards made an initial appearance Friday via video in Walworth County Court.

Kara Welsh, 21, suffered multiple gunshot wounds following an altercation Aug. 30, according to a criminal complaint.

She was found in a pool of blood after Richards called 911. He told investigators the two were arguing when he said Welsh grabbed his gun from a nightstand. Richards said he wrestled the gun away and shot Welsh because he “feared for his life,” the complaint continued.

Police found a handgun and shell casings on the apartment floor. Richards later was arrested. He told investigators that Welsh was his girlfriend.

The Associated Press left a message Friday afternoon seeking comment from Richards’ attorney, Gibson Hatch.

Richards was being held on a $1 million bond. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Oct. 28.

Richards, of Loves Park, Illinois, was listed on the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater 2021-22 wrestling team roster.

Welsh, who was from Plainfield, Illinois, was majoring in management in the school’s College of Business and Economics. She was a member of the Warhawk gymnastics team and last year took the individual national title on vault at the NCAA Division III championships.

The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater campus is about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Milwaukee.

A child was found with cocaine and meth in their system at a motel in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, police said.

The police department said they were notified of a Department of Children and Families (DCF) investigation at Bradley Inn on Ella Grasso Turnpike Thursday.

Authorities said they removed a child from a motel room and later discovered that there were drugs in the child’s system, including cocaine and methamphetamine.

Windsor Locks police obtained a search warrant for the motel room and found what appeared to be narcotics and fentanyl inside.

“Suspected narcotics and fentanyl were found in the room – all of which have to be tested as fentanyl is deadly and potentially fatal, this best handled in a controlled laboratory,” the police department said on Facebook.

A building inspector responded to the scene and said the room was in deplorable condition, according to police.

It’s unclear if any arrests have been made in connection to this incident.

Three people were arrested on drug charges after authorities conducted an undercover operation at Bradley Inn on Thursday.

In a separate incident on Aug. 31, police arrested a man and woman for allegedly robbing a person with a machete.

The police department said they also made numerous arrests at the motel about a year ago.

“Unfortunately, this location has persisted in maintaining a high level of criminal activity and calls for service to the WLPD,” the police department said in a statement.

The investigation remains ongoing.