Elkhart County resident dies after West Nile infection\nINDIANAPOLIS -- A person from Elkhart County has died after being diagnosed with the West Nile virus, state health officials said Thursday.\nThe person, from the county just east of South Bend, was one of three people in the state diagnosed with West Nile in Indiana so far this year, the state Department of Health said.\nNo identifying information was released on the person who died.\nThe two other cases in the state this year have been reported in northwestern Indiana's Benton County and central Indiana's Hancock County.\nSo far this year, 38 Indiana counties from all parts of the state have had positive test results for West Nile virus in birds and mosquitoes.\nThe virus can be transmitted to humans by mosquitoes that have first bitten infected birds.\nIndiana's first human cases of the disease were reported in 2002, when it was blamed for 293 illnesses and 11 deaths. Those instances dropped last year to 47 cases and four deaths.
Student returns to Gary school day after firing gun police say\nGARY -- A student who police say fired a handgun inside a high school during a lunch period fight remained at large Thursday even though he returned to the school with his mother.\nA surveillance tape showed that a fight broke out Wednesday in the Wirt High School commons area, with the student who shot three bullets into the ceiling then fleeing the school, police said. No injuries were reported.\nInvestigators identified the student who shot the gun, but he could not be found Wednesday.\nThe student returned to Wirt Thursday with his mother, and school officials showed the mother the videotape, police Lt. Roger Smith said. The mother then took her son from the school, evading police officers.\nSmith said the student would be charged with possession of a firearm on school grounds, criminal recklessness and possession of stolen property, since the gun had been reported stolen in Gary. Prosecutors also could file charges against the mother, he said.\n"If (the mother) knows about this and took her son, that is nothing more than obstruction of justice in my opinion," Smith said.\nOfficers arrested two other students Wednesday, including one teen who apparently tried to hide the handgun in bushes outside the school in the city's Miller neighborhood along Lake Michigan.\nSchool officials asked for additional police patrols as students left for the day, but police said classes were dismissed without incident.\nStudents enter the school through one door in the morning and pass through a metal detector, Smith said. But at lunch time, students can leave and enter through other doors without metal detectors, he said.
Police arrest one man for pair of New Albany killings\nNEW ALBANY, Ind. -- An assailant killed a man and a woman in the bedroom of the woman's home, police said.\nA man was arrested early Thursday after he called police from a telephone near a restaurant in Clarksville where the woman worked, police Capt. Keith Whitlow said.\nVickie Hunt, 38, and a man were found dead about 3 a.m. in Hunt's home in the city across the Ohio River from Louisville, Ky. The name of the man was not immediately released.\nHunt apparently died of stab wounds, Floyd County Coroner Greg Balmer said.\nKerry C. Wilson, 39, of Louisville, was arrested, and Whitlow said Wilson and Hunt may have had a previous relationship, he said.
Judge revokes bond for former drug task force leader's arrest\nELKHART, Ind. -- A judge revoked the bond of the former head of Elkhart County's drug task force Thursday after the man failed to show up for a hearing in his case.\nLarry Towns, former coordinator of the Elkhart County Drug Task Force, was indicted in May on 13 counts, including felony theft and misdemeanor charges of official misconduct and criminal conversion.\nHe surrendered to police after the indictments and had posted the $3,000 bond, which the judge revoked Thursday.\nThursday's hearing was intended to determine what Towns planned to do about an attorney because his first attorney, Steve Bowers, withdrew from the case last month.\nBowers' withdrawal from the case also delayed the deadline for possible plea deals.\nTowns, a former police officer, is accused of stealing a gun, drugs and $9,000 while he was head of the task force. He is also accused of failing to turn over records to his successor in a timely manner.\nTowns took the job in 1999, when he retired as detective captain at the Elkhart Police Department. The task force position paid $50,000 a year.
