Around The Region

Judge sets deadline for solution for jail overcrowding\nINDIANAPOLIS -- A federal judge gave officials six weeks to find a solution to overcrowding at the Marion County Jail.\nU.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker set a June 4 date for a hearing to determine if Sheriff Frank Anderson can be held in contempt for violating a 1975 court order mandating safe and humane jail conditions.\nOfficials released about 3,500 inmates last year to avoid violating the order. Two of the prisoners were charged with murders after their release and were later convicted.\nBarker set the deadline Wednesday after a three-hour meeting involving Anderson, prosecutors, public defenders and the Indiana Civil Liberties Union.\nBarker proposed setting a permanent population cap of between 1,100 and 1,300 inmates at the jail, but she did not say when that cap might be initiated, The Indianapolis Star reported.\nA U.S. Department of Justice study released last year ranked Marion County's jail as the ninth most crowded in the country among the 50 largest local jail jurisdictions.\nOn April 13, the jail had 500 more inmates than it was designed to hold.\nThe state jail inspector warned officials against overcrowding in an internal report in February, and cited it for 79 violations including fire hazards, sanitation issues and security breaches that "pose a serious safety hazard to staff."\nState Supreme Court sets execution for triple murder\nLAFAYETTE, Ind. -- A man convicted of the 1988 slayings of his former girlfriend and her two young children now faces a June 13 execution date.\nThe Indiana Supreme Court issued the execution order Tuesday for Joseph L. Trueblood despite a motion filed last week's by his attorneys asking the court to defer action while they continue to press for further review of the case.\nTrueblood, 46, exhausted his last major avenue of appeal a few weeks ago when the U.S. Supreme Court denied his attempt at federal post-conviction relief, the Journal and Courier of Lafayette reported.\nTrueblood was convicted of murder in the Aug. 15, 1988, fatal shootings of Susan Bowsher Hughes, 22, and her children, Ashelyn, 2, and William, 1.\nAccording to trial testimony, Trueblood became enraged after learning Hughes planned to return to her ex-husband. He shot Hughes and her two children and buried their bodies in shallow graves in rural Fountain County in western Indiana.\nLease could speed development at Indiana Army site\nCHARLESTOWN, Ind. -- A tentative lease agreement is expected to clear the way for development at a 5,800-acre southern Indiana property that once served as the Indiana Army Ammunition Plant.\nThe property, about 10 miles north of Louisville, Ky. in Indiana's Clark County, is considered the most promising site for new industry in the Louisville metropolitan area.\nLocal Army officials on Wednesday agreed to a 50-year master lease for the property. Army officials in Washington, D.C. are expected to grant approval within weeks.\nThe Army reached the long-delayed agreement with the Indiana Army Ammunition Plant Reuse Authority, a local group responsible for developing the site now called the River Ridge Commerce Center.\nThe deal will enable the group to enter into long-term subleases with businesses.\n"The long-term lease gives them an opportunity to attract the major anchor tenants," said Lloyd Foe, head of real estate for the Army Corps of Engineers' Louisville office.\nThe agreement gives the reuse authority oversight of the land for the next 25 years, and an option to expand that to 50 years.