Saturday, April 19, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
LOS ANGELES: TWO OLD WOMEN GUILTY OF KILLING TWO OLD MEN
Luis Sinco / APHelen Golay, 77, listens as guilty verdicts are read against her in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom on Wednesday.
Pool / Getty Images fileOlga Rutterschmidt walks into Criminal Court last Thursday in downtown Los Angeles.
Elderly women guilty of conspiring to murder
Calif. jury convicts pair in scheme to insure homeless men, run over them
Associated Press / updated 2 hours, 9 minutes ago
LOS ANGELES - An elderly woman was convicted Wednesday of murdering two homeless men to collect insurance payouts, and she and a co-defendant were found guilty of counts involving conspiracy to murder for financial gain.
Partial verdicts were being read in the case against Helen Golay, 77, and Olga Rutterschmidt, 75. The judge decided to take five initial verdicts as the jury struggled with Rutterschmidt's murder counts.
Golay was convicted of the first-degree murders of Kenneth McDavid, 50, in 2005 and Paul Vados, 73, in 1999. Golay was also convicted of the conspiracy counts in both killings.
Rutterschmidt was convicted of conspiracy to murder McDavid for financial gain.
During the verdict readings, the jury was sent back into deliberations to clear up a finding. The panel had asked earlier in the day for readings of testimony by three witnesses, and jurors also asked for a laptop so they could review DVDs entered into evidence.
Prosecutors said the women collected $2.8 million from insurance policies on the lives of two homeless men who were killed in staged hit-and-runs.
Prosecutors said the women recruited their prey from among the homeless of Hollywood, invested thousands of dollars in insurance policies on them and in putting them up in apartments, then drugged them and ran them over in secluded alleys.
Calif. jury convicts pair in scheme to insure homeless men, run over them
Associated Press / updated 2 hours, 9 minutes ago
LOS ANGELES - An elderly woman was convicted Wednesday of murdering two homeless men to collect insurance payouts, and she and a co-defendant were found guilty of counts involving conspiracy to murder for financial gain.
Partial verdicts were being read in the case against Helen Golay, 77, and Olga Rutterschmidt, 75. The judge decided to take five initial verdicts as the jury struggled with Rutterschmidt's murder counts.
Golay was convicted of the first-degree murders of Kenneth McDavid, 50, in 2005 and Paul Vados, 73, in 1999. Golay was also convicted of the conspiracy counts in both killings.
Rutterschmidt was convicted of conspiracy to murder McDavid for financial gain.
During the verdict readings, the jury was sent back into deliberations to clear up a finding. The panel had asked earlier in the day for readings of testimony by three witnesses, and jurors also asked for a laptop so they could review DVDs entered into evidence.
Prosecutors said the women collected $2.8 million from insurance policies on the lives of two homeless men who were killed in staged hit-and-runs.
Prosecutors said the women recruited their prey from among the homeless of Hollywood, invested thousands of dollars in insurance policies on them and in putting them up in apartments, then drugged them and ran them over in secluded alleys.
MY, WEREN'T THESE BUSY LADIES!
ORDWAY, COLORADO: HUNDREDS FLEE FIRES, THREE KILLED
Thick, black smoke rolls across a road near Ordway, Colo., during a grass fire whipped by high winds into a massive blaze that destroyed homes and fields in and around the small southeastern Colorado town on Tuesday. April 15, 2008. 12:44 a.m. ET, 4/16/08
Colorado Wildfires Kill 3, Force Evacuation of 1,100
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
ORDWAY, Colo. — Wildfires in warm, windy weather burned into a southeast Colorado town and on an Army post Tuesday, and a firefighting pilot and two other people died.
All 1,100 residents of the town of Ordway were told to leave because of a fire that burned across 7,100 acres, or 11 square miles, authorities said. By 9 p.m. Tuesday, firefighters had contained about 50 percent of the fire, which damaged at least 20 buildings, four within town town limits, fire spokesman Chris Sorensen said.
Crowley County sheriff's deputy Bill Hamilton said late Tuesday he didn't immediately have details on the two deaths.
The pilot died when the crop duster-type plane crashed along a highway just east of Fort Carson, said Mike Fergus of the Federal Aviation Administration. A fire there had burned about 9,000 acres, or 14 square miles.
The Army said some evacuations were forced by the fire near Fort Carson, about 60 miles south of Denver. A shelter was being set up at a special events center on base, Capt. Gregory Dorman said.
One state highway was closed. The cause of that fire hadn't been determined.
Much of the state was under a National Weather Service red flag warning, signifying high fire danger. Gov. Bill Ritter declared a state of emergency, freeing up state resources to help fight the fire.
On the southeastern plains around Ordway, winds were gusting to 50 mph, humidity was low and temperatures reached into the 80s. Dry conditions on the plains and in some mountain valleys contrasted with deep snow at higher elevations.
Two state highways were closed to the town, 122 miles southeast of Denver.
READ MORE ABOUT THESE DANGEROUS FIRES...
ALASKA RANGER: SHIP SANK OFF ALASKA, INVESTIGATION HEATS UP
The Alaska Ranger is seen at a port in Dutch Harbor, Jan. 2006. The Coast Guard said four crew members died Sunday, March 23, 2008, and another was missing after the 184-foot Alaska Ranger began sinking in high seas off Alaska's Aleutian Islands. (AP Photo/Jim Paulin) (AP)Company officials grilled in Alaska Ranger sinking investigation
By DAN CATCHPOLE
Associated Press Writer/ April 16, 2008
Federal investigators on Tuesday grilled two officials of the company that owned a fishing vessel lost in the Bering Sea, asking about previous reports of drinking on board, rips in survival suits and the condition of the ship's watertight doors.
The Seattle-based Fishing Co. of Alaska, which owned the Alaska Ranger, followed safety regulations to the best of its ability, the witnesses told the Marine Board of Investigation, which included Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board officials.
"We're fishermen but we're not dummies, and the North Pacific is a rough place to make a living," said William McGill, a former captain of the Alaska Ranger and now operations manager for the Fishing Co. of Alaska.
The investigation, which resumed Tuesday in Seattle after earlier hearings in Alaska, focused on technical issues and questions raised in previous hearings.
Five people died when the Seattle-based ship went down in rough seas about 120 miles west of Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands on March 23. The vessel was on its way to mackerel grounds when it began taking on water through the rudder room.
Forty-two crewmen were rescued by the Coast Guard and the Alaska Ranger's sister ship, the Alaska Warrior.
The Fishing Co. of Alaska also faces legal action, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported, noting five survivors of the sinking filed personal injury lawsuits Monday in King County Superior Court.
Some survivors had testified that there were rips in survival suits. There has also been conflicting testimony about drinking on board.
STAY TUNED FOR MORE INVESTIGATION NEWS...
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004351935_%20apwaabandonedship1stldwritethru.html
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
MICHEL VEILLETTE, KILLED FAMILY: COMMITS SUICIDE IN JAIL
Michel Veillette, a Quebec man accused of killing his wife and causing the death of his four children, enters an Ohio municipal court Wednesday.(Malinda Hartong/Associated Press/The Cincinnati Enquirer)
Michel Veillettte, the Mason, Ohio father accused of killing his wife and causing the death of his four children appears before Judge D. Andrew Batche in Mason Municipal Court.CNS file photo
Autopsy confirms Quebec man committed suicide in Ohio prison
Denise G. Callahan, Cox News ServicePublished
Denise G. Callahan, Cox News ServicePublished
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
MASON, Ohio - Michel Veillette, accused of killing his wife and children in their Mason home, frequented a strip club in Canada and even asked one of the strippers to move to South Carolina with him, the Mason city prosecutor said Tuesday.
Prosecutors in Mason, Ohio Tuesday released details of some of the evidence they had planned to present at Veillette's murder trial, just hours after Veillette hanged himself in his cell with bed sheets early Tuesday morning.
Prosecutor Robert Peeler said Veillette, 34, also told another stripper in Canada he planned to leave his wife and their children.
Veillette, a Canadian citizen, had been in the jail since Jan. 18, after being charged with stabbing his wife, 33-year-old Nadya Ferrari-Veillette on Jan. 11. Police alleged that Veillette also started a fire in the house, killing their four children who were asleep upstairs.
His children - Marguerite, 8, Vincent, 4, and 2-year-old twins Mia and Jacob - died of carbon monoxide poisoning, according to coroners' reports.
Police said the couple had argued about Veillette's mistress and financial problems.
Records from the murder investigation remain sealed by court orders, but Peeler talked about some of the evidence after Veillette's death.
"There were two strippers at a club he frequented," Peeler said. "One of them said he creeped her out and she told him to knock it off. The other one said he was helping her get a divorce and bought her some expensive jewelry and he was getting a job in South Carolina, I think he wanted her to go down there with him."
READ SHOCKING UPDATE...
Monday, April 14, 2008
CHRIS PITTMAN: SHOT GRANDPARENTS AT AGE 12, APPEAL DENIED
Janet Sisk, founder of the Juvenile Justice Foundation of the Carolinas, shows a Free Christopher Pittman pin in Matthews, N.C., Friday, April 6, 2007. Sisk is an advocate for Christopher Pittman, a South Carolina teen imprisoned for murdering his grandparents when he was 12. (AP Photo/Jason E. Miczek). 
(AP Photo/MARY ANN CHASTAIN)
Defense attorney Karen Barth Menzies contends the antidepressant Zoloft drove Christopher Pittman to kill his grandparents.
Supreme Court Won't Hear Young Killer's Appeal
Monday, April 14, 2008
Monday, April 14, 2008
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court refused Monday to review a 30-year prison sentence for a teen who was 12 when he killed his grandparents in South Carolina.
Lawyers for Christopher Pittman wanted the justices to examine whether the long prison term for a child violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. With no possibility of parole, he will be 42 before he is released, they said.
Pittman is the only inmate serving such a lengthy sentence for a crime committed at such a young age, his lawyers said. The judge who sentenced him was prohibited by law from taking his age into account.
South Carolina contended the punishment is proportionate to the crime and said there is a national trend of increased punishment for young violent criminals.
Pittman used a shotgun to shoot Joe and Joy Pittman in their bed and then set fire to their home in 2001. During his trial four years later, Pittman's attorneys unsuccessfully argued the slayings were influenced by the antidepressant Zoloft — a charge the maker of the drug vigorously denied.
The Supreme Court appeal dealt only with the length of Pittman's sentence.
READ RECENT UPDATE...