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(10/10/07 3:51am)
RICHMOND, Ind.–The boyfriend of a 19-year-old woman who was found dead six days before the death of her younger sister was arrested Tuesday on a preliminary charge of murder.\nWayne County Jail in Richmond was holding James McFarland, Jr., 23, on one count of murder.\nMcFarland was the boyfriend of Erin Stanley, 19, who died Sept. 1 at her parents’ home in Centerville, just west of Richmond in east-central Indiana. Her sister, Kelly Stanley, 18, was found dead in the home on Sept. 7.\nA Centerville police dispatcher said McFarland was charged in Erin Stanley’s death.\nMcFarland was the father of Erin’s infant daughter and lived with the Stanleys in Centerville. He was arrested about 4 p.m. Tuesday at a residence in nearby Cambridge City, police said.\nMcFarland denied any involvement in either woman’s death in an interview last week with the Palladium-Item of Richmond. He said he planned to marry Erin Stanley and was devastated by her death.\nA pathologist’s analysis of autopsy evidence showed that Erin Stanley was strangled, Wayne County Prosecutor Mike Shipman said Tuesday.\n“It is not new, but it is finalized in a report,” Shipman said. “Having the pathologist’s report is very critical to this investigation.”\nA phone rang unanswered after hours Tuesday at the prosecutor’s office. There was no private number under Shipman’s name listed for Wayne County, and he could not be reached for additional comment.\nOfficials had released little information about the deaths in the town about 60 miles east of Indianapolis. Erin’s death was ruled a homicide, and a search warrant affidavit suggested officers suspect that Kelly also may have been killed.\nCenterville Police Chief Larry Hart told the Palladium-Item that Kelly Stanley’s death was still under a separate investigation but declined further comment.
(10/10/07 3:50am)
The Bloomington Police Department is investigating a burglary at the Sunny Palace restaurant, 1143 S. College Mall Road.\nBPD received a call early Monday from restaurant employees who said that when they arrived at the business, it appeared that someone had thrown a rock through the front door, BPD Capt. Joe Qualters said, reading from a police report. \nWhen officers arrived, a cash drawer was sitting on the counter in the restaurant. Officers located a rock in the restaurant that seemed to have been used to break down the front door, according to the report.\n Employees told officers that a cash bag containing an undisclosed amount of money was taken from the restaurant, Qualters said. \nQualters asked anyone with information regarding the burglary to call BPD at 349-4477.
(10/10/07 3:49am)
Former Rep. Mike Sodrel announced Tuesday that he will run for Indiana’s 9th District Congressional House seat in 2008. \nIt will be his fourth election running against current 9th District Rep. Baron Hill. Sodrel, a Republican, ran against Hill, a Democrat, in 2002, 2004 and 2006. Hill defeated Sodrel in 2002, though Sodrel won the seat in 2004. Hill was reelected in the last election, winning by a margin of less than 5 percent, according to a press release from Dr. Eric Schansberg, the third 9th district congressional seat candidate.\n“A lot of voters voted for change in 2006,” Sodrel said in a press release. “I don’t think higher taxes, more spending and more programs were what they had in mind. I’m not running for Congress to be important, I’m running to do some things that are important.”\nSodrel ran in 2006 on the platforms of “protecting traditional marriage,” “protecting the flag” and creating jobs in Indiana, according to advertisements listed on Sodrel’s Web site.
(10/09/07 9:56pm)
The Bloomington Police Department is investigating a burglary at the Sunny Palace restaurant, 1143 S. College Mall Road.\nBPD received a call early Monday from restaurant employees who said that when they arrived at the business, it appeared that someone had thrown a rock through the front door, BPD Capt. Joe Qualters said, reading from a police report. \nWhen officers arrived, a cash drawer was sitting on the counter in the restaurant. Officers located a rock in the restaurant that seemed to have been used to break down the front door, according to the report.\n Employees told officers that a cash bag containing an undisclosed amount of money was taken from the restaurant, Qualters said. \nQualters asked anyone with information regarding the burglary to call BPD at 812-349-4477.
(10/09/07 4:15am)
Today is the deadline to register to vote in Monroe County for the Nov. 6 municipal election. Those submitting an application in person must print it out and take it to the Monroe County Board of Voter Registration at 301 N. College Ave., Room 202 by 4 p.m. Those mailing the application must have it postmarked by 5 p.m. today. Applications can be found at http://image.exct.net/members/5501/Voter%20Reg.pdf.\nTo check your voter registration or the location of your polling place, visit www.IndianaVoters.com or call the Hoosier Voter Hotline at \n866-461-8683.\nTo contact the Monroe County Board of Voter Registration, call 349-2690.
(10/09/07 4:02am)
Farm Bureau has a property tax restructuring plan. So does the Indiana Association of Realtors. So does conservative activist and lobbyist Eric Miller. So do some individual legislators.\nGov. Mitch Daniels hopes to present his own proposal by the end of the month. And a legislative panel has examined just about every aspect of the current system, discussed a specific scenario for changing it and hopes to have an overhaul proposal drafted in November.\nOther plans could be piled on the table by the time lawmakers begin their session in earnest in early January.\nWith so many ideas on a very complex subject, will Daniels and a divided General Assembly be able to find consensus on a plan that can be enacted into law?\nIt’s a question that Senate Tax Chairman Luke Kenley, who also is chairing the bipartisan interim commission on property taxes, has thought about.\n“You can get to the point where you get to overload with respect to information, but I think there is some distilling going on,” said Kenley, a Noblesville Republican who will play a key role in trying to pass a restructuring plan. “The danger is that people could get fixated on their idea and they don’t keep the goals in mind.”\nKenley believes there is general consensus on the goals: providing significant property tax relief, particularly for homeowners; developing a new system that is fair and reasonable; tax assessments that can be relied upon and bills being sent out on time; and having bills that Hoosiers can understand.\nDaniels says his plan is likely to include proposed amendments to the state constitution so reductions on the reliance on property taxes cannot be undone. Lawmakers have at times raised state taxes to pay for property tax relief, but the relief has always eroded while the higher state tax rates have remained.\n“I have said that what we do has to be fair, far-reaching and final, and final means that I will be looking for ways to make this last,” Daniels said.\nKenley and Republican Rep. Jeff Espich of Uniondale,Ind., the fiscal leader for House Republicans, said they are glad Daniels will have his own plan. Both noted that the governor has a huge bully pulpit and said it was important that he advance his own ideas. They could provide some needed direction, Espich said.\n“You (a governor) can’t just throw it to the Legislature because there are so many competing interests,” Espich said.\nBut will Daniels’ plan overshadow any proposal the interim commission comes up with? After all, if members of all four caucuses on the commission can agree on a proposal, it could boost its chances of getting through the General Assembly.\nKenley says he’s not worried about that.\n“The governor proposes and the Legislature disposes,” Kenley said, noting that the Legislature made some major changes to some of Daniels’ past proposals.\n“I think the governor has learned that flexibility is the key to working with us,” he said. “He had to learn that just like I had to learn that when I first got here.”\nIt could be a good thing that so many will have weighed in on the issue before the session begins. In a way it shows the level of concern that special interest groups, Daniels and many lawmakers have about restructuring property taxes. It shows a sense of urgency, and urgency is often what it takes to get major, complex legislation enacted into law — especially in an election year.\n“By the time we get to get to the solution people ought to be so sick and tired of talking about it,” Kenley said. “I think that will demonstrate just how much they know.”\nLike a sense of urgency, being sick and tired of debating an issue in the General Assembly can also help pave the path to getting something passed. When mental fatigue sets in, lawmakers are often more likely to soften their positions and compromise.\nThe art of passing legislation is compromise, and when it comes to something like overhauling the property tax system, it will take a lot of compromising.
(10/09/07 4:01am)
FRANKLIN, Ind. – Jurors found a central Indiana school district was not responsible for the emotional distress a student newspaper article caused a student who recently had reported she was raped.\nHeide Inman, formerly Heide Peek, sought $800,000 in damages as a result of the 2002 article, which described her as having the worst reputation among Whiteland Community High School’s senior class and made a joking reference to rape and bestiality.\nA six-person Johnson Superior Court jury deliberated for about seven hours Friday before finding Clark-Pleasant Community School district officials were not responsible for the statements and awarding no money to Inman.\nInman’s attorney, Kevin Betz, said she was considering an appeal.\nThe lawsuit stemmed from statements in the 2002 senior edition of Smoke Signals, a student publication. Attorney James Stephenson, representing the district, said the faculty adviser removed the offensive remarks during editing, but the changes were not saved.\nBetz said the family had asked the principal and school officials to help shield the girl after the reported rape, and that the statements in print made it appear as if she had lied about the rape.\n“That’s what she gets from her school,” Betz said. “We know what those words meant to everyone in that high school setting and what it did to her emotional state.”\nThe publication was subject to review and oversight by school officials, the lawsuit alleged. Betz said officials were reckless for allowing the statements to be published.\nStephenson, however, argued that the adviser at the south suburban Indianapolis school made a mistake when she didn’t find the statements in a final edit, but that was not enough to prove recklessness.\n“Even though Heide Peek was wronged, we’re not here to award damages to wronged plaintiffs unless they prove their claims,” he said.\nStephenson also questioned whether the publication really added to the distress already caused by the rape, and whether it had done lasting damage to her reputation.\n“She could move into Whiteland now, and I doubt anyone would have a recall of this publication or know who she is,” he said.\nBetz said Inman has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder since the rape, but Stephenson said she had not sought counseling. Stephenson said if jurors held the school responsible they should award up to $50,000 to be used for five years of counseling
(10/09/07 4:00am)
INDIANAPOLIS – The family of a soldier who died in a medical transition program is raising questions about the care he received after he was wounded in Iraq.\n“I think the Army’s lack of care and lack of medical treatment killed my son,” Kay McMullen of Carmel, mother of 32-year-old Sgt. Gerald J. Cassidy, said Friday.\nCassidy was found in his room at Fort Knox in Kentucky and pronounced dead at about 6:50 p.m. Sept. 21., the military said. At the time of his death, Cassidy was in the Warrior Transition Program, an outpatient program that helps injured soldiers prepare to return to duty or be evaluated for disability. He was buried this week.\nFort Knox spokeswoman Connie Shaffery said Friday that Cassidy’s death is being investigated by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, which investigates all unattended deaths. Officials are awaiting lab results from a military autopsy, which could take several weeks, she said.\n“This is something that is serious to Fort Knox and to the Army,” Shaffery said. She said the well-being of soldiers in the Warrior Transition Unit was a particular concern.\n“Every aspect of his death is being investigated,” she added.\nMcMullen said the transition unit is not equipped to handle all the wounded soldiers it receives.\n“They have more patients and more wounded soldiers than they have the facilities and the doctors to take care of them,” she said.\nMcMullen said she had been trying to get her son transferred to an Indianapolis hospital where he could receive care she believed would be more adequate. Cassidy’s family said he had suffered migraine headaches and other symptoms after suffering a severe head injury from a roadside bomb in June 2006.\nAn independent autopsy found Cassidy could have been dead 15 hours before he was discovered, the family said, and they believe he may have been unconscious as long as two days. His wife had not had a phone call from him for three days when she called Fort Knox on Sept. 21 and pleaded with the Army to check on his condition, McMullen said.\n“She started calling the Fort early Friday morning begging for help. She said please, please find my husband,” McMullen said.\nShaffery said the days before Cassidy’s death also were being investigated.\nCassidy, of Westfield, was a member of the Lebanon-based Battery C of the 2-150th Field Artillery Battalion. He was deployed to Iraq with a brigade combat team from the Minnesota National Guard.
(10/05/07 3:55am)
The Monroe County Sheriff’s Department is investigating a group of people who claim to work for a company called Integrity Program, due to questions arising from local donors. \nThe group goes door-to-door in rural Monroe County requesting cash donations to charity, according to a Monroe County Sheriff’s Department press release. But residents complained that the group changed its story at different houses, saying donations would go to different charities.\nOne complainant believed the donations would go to Riley Hospital for Children, Chief Deputy Scott Mellinger said in the press release. The other said she was told her donation would help U.S. troops in Iraq.\nThe group has visited many homes in rural Monroe County, Mellinger said in a press release. Solicitors typically requested donations in cash, telling residents that cash donations gave the solicitor more “points” for rewards from the company, according to the press release.\n“We cannot verify criminal activity at this point,” Mellinger said in the press release. “However, we would caution the public that there are inconsistencies with this group.”
(10/04/07 5:02am)
Former patients at the Bloomington Surgery Clinic are encouraged to get tested for Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and HIV because of unsafe practices possibly used by an anesthesiologist at the practice. \nAnyone who had surgery at the center between February 2004 and May 2006 may have been exposed to these diseases because an anesthesiologist used a practice of replacing only the needle, not the syringe, between patients. It is currently recommended that physicians replace both needles and syringes used on other patients. However, the actual risk of infection is “extremely low,” Douglas Webb, the doctor hired to investigate the situation, said in a letter to each patient’s primary physician. \nWebb, a specialist in infectious disease practicing in Indianapolis, was hired in independently to review the potential for infection. In a letter sent to each patient’s primary physician, Webb said it was theoretically possible that patients were exposed to infection by “a minute intermixing of blood and medication in the syringe that was shared by other patients.” However, Webb stressed that the risk of infection was minimal. \nLiza Dittoe, spokesperson for the Bloomington Surgery Center, said “an extensive investigation was performed with no finding of infection.” \nThe anesthesiologist in question is no longer with the practice, Dittoe said. All 1,880 patients treated by the anesthesiologist were offered free testing for the diseases at the Internal Medicine Associates’ laboratory in Bloomington, Webb said in the letter.
(10/03/07 4:06am)
FLOYDS KNOBS, Ind. – The number of people infected with E. coli in Floyd County, Ind., has jumped to 10, including seven schoolchildren who suffered kidney failure and required dialysis machines, health officials said Tuesday.\nAll of the people infected are linked to Gelena Elementary School, about 15 miles northwest of Louisville, Ky. Three of the cases are not students.\nBrian Rublein, spokesman for Kosair Children’s Hospital in Louisville, said seven children were hospitalized for E. coli infections, but he said federal privacy laws prohibited him from identifying them or describing their conditions.\nA release Tuesday from county health officials also did not indicate progress toward identifying the source of the infection, but said officials were waiting on lab results for other suspected infections.\nEpidemiologists with the Indiana State Department of Health identified the strain responsible for infections in southeastern Indiana as 0157:H7, which produces a \npowerful toxin.\nAccording to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States has about 73,000 cases of E. coli infection and 61 deaths each year. Most cases are caused by eating \ncontaminated hamburger.\nGalena Elementary has remained open since the first infection Sept. 21, though officials say it has been cleaned regularly.\nDr. James Howell, an epidemiologist for the state, said Monday the Indiana State Department of Health saw no reason to close the school or quarantine the area.\n“It appears there is no ongoing transmission within the school,” he said.\nTom Harris, the county’s top medical officer, has defended the decision to keep Galena open and said there was no indication that E. coli was being transmitted at the school. Closing it “would not have been appropriate,” he said.\nTelephone messages were left Tuesday with Dave Rarick, spokesman for New Albany-Floyd County Schools.
(10/03/07 4:05am)
INDIANAPOLIS – A former lab technician faces a battery charge after she was accused of biting a 3-year-old boy’s shoulder during a blood test.\nAnne McGlorthon, 53, of Indianapolis, could face six months to three years in prison if she’s convicted. The charge was filed Tuesday, the Marion County prosecutor’s \noffice said.\nThe Associated Press left a phone message seeking comment Tuesday night at an Indianapolis number listed under McGlorthon’s name.\nThe boy’s mother, Faith Buntin, said she took her son Victor to St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis on Sept. 21 because of recent recalls of toys involving lead. She said the worker later identified as McGlorthon put her mouth on Victor’s shoulder while restraining him so another lab worker could draw the blood. McGlorthon allegedly called it “just a play bite.”\nAfter they returned home, Buntin said she saw teeth marks on his left shoulder. Her husband then drove the child back to the hospital, where he was prescribed antibiotics.\nPolice said McGlorthon told them she bit the boy because he bit her as she restrained him.\nMarion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi said self-defense was not a defense in this type of case.\n“A 3-year-old can’t have the requisite intent to harm you,” he told Indianapolis television station WRTV. “Therefore, you can’t defend yourself in that way.”\nBrizzi said he would ask the court to require McGlorthon to provide a blood sample so tests can be done to determine if she might have transmitted any disease to the child.\n“For someone to do something as nasty as put their mouth on a baby, bite a baby and break the skin and transfer bodily fluid into this child ... that’s a big concern for us,” James Buntin said. “We don’t want our baby to die.”\nA St. Vincent spokesman said McGlorthon was fired last week. She worked for a subcontractor for St. Vincent.\nBrizzi said McGlorthon was expected to surrender Tuesday or Wednesday. She was not in custody at Marion County Jail on Tuesday evening.
(10/03/07 4:04am)
The Associated Press\nINDIANAPOLIS – International Automotive Components will close a central Indiana factory that employs nearly 400 people next spring in a move the company said was needed to trim excess capacity.\nThe factory in Edinburgh, Ind., about 50 miles northeast of Bloomington, supplies car makers General Motors and Chrysler with components like door trim and instrument panels. It opened in 1939 as \nAmos Plastics.\nThe company announced Tuesday it would close the plant by middle of next year, though company spokeswoman Emily Drake said no specific date has been set.\nDrake also said details on employee severance packages have yet to be worked out. She declined to comment on the closing outside a brief statement issued by the Dearborn, Mich.-based company.\nInternational Automotive Components, which is partially owned by Lear Corp., has 25 design, production and testing locations in North America. It also runs a factory in Greencastle, Ind., in western Indiana that employs about 975 people and makes door panels and hard trim components.\nDrake said no cuts are planned for the Greencastle plant or other company locations. She said it was uncertain whether the work performed at Edinburgh will be \ntransferred elsewhere.\n“We’ve got a lot of work to do between now and then to figure that sort of thing out,” she said. “At this point, we’re not announcing anything.” \nIndiana has seen a string of plant shut downs or closing announcements in the automotive industry this year. In January, Pendleton-based Guide abruptly closed its Anderson, Ind., taillight plant. Delphi Corp. also stopped production this summer at a factory in \nAnderson.\nFord and BorgWarner have announced plans to close plants in Indianapolis and \nMuncie, respectively.\nIn February, Visteon Corp. announced the closing of its Connersville, Ind., factory, which employed 890 people at the time. It also plans next year to shut down its 600-employee factory in Bedford, Ind., about 25 miles south\nof Bloomington.\nThe state, however, is expecting a boost from Honda Motor Corp. as it has started construction on a new factory in Greensburg, Ind., that will employ about 2,000 people when it reaches full capacity. Toyota also has started producing cars at a new assembly line in the Subaru of Indiana Automotive Inc. plant near Lafayette.
(10/02/07 4:04am)
FORT WAYNE – A Mexican national sentenced last month to life in prison for the abduction and slaying of a 10-year-old neighbor girl had four more life sentences added on Monday for killing his family. All five sentences are without the possibility of parole.\nSimon Rios, 35, pleaded guilty in August to four counts of murder and two counts of moving a body from the scene of a violent or suspicious death in the beating and strangulation death of his wife, Ana Casas-Rios, 28, and the strangling deaths of their three daughters, Liliana, 10, Katherinne, 4, and 20-month-old Thannya.\nThey were killed Dec. 13, 2005, in their Fort Wayne home.\nDuring an emotional sentencing hearing Monday in which Rios, defense attorney Michelle Kraus and Allen County Prosecutor Karen Richards all shed tears, Superior Judge Fran Gull accepted the plea agreement that allowed Rios to avoid facing the death penalty.\nBefore agreeing to a plea, defense attorneys had been seeking to have Rios declared mentally retarded, which would have made him ineligible for the death penalty or a life sentence.\nHe pleaded guilty after a forensic psychologist testified that Rios was not mentally retarded and therefore competent to enter a plea.\nCasas-Rios’ family members, including her mother, traveled from Mexico to attend the hearing. They said they did not want to see Rios put to death. Marcos Casas, Rios’s brother-in-law, told the court that his family had forgiven Rios but was not sure God would.\nRios told Gull he came to the United States to fulfill his dreams, “but I allowed the forces of evil to take over and I’ll always regret it.”\nHe did not say why he had killed his family.
(10/02/07 4:03am)
Production workers at Honda Motor Corp.’s new factory will start at a lower hourly wage than their counterparts in Marysville, Ohio, but the car maker will pick up the tab for health insurance.\nHonda will pay $14.84 an hour and provide an annual performance bonus to workers starting at the $550 million factory under construction in southeastern Indiana.\nThe wage will gradually rise to $18.55 by 2009 and eventually pass $20 an hour as workers gain experience and the plant becomes established, Honda spokesman David Iida said.\nHonda received more than 30,000 online applications for production jobs at the plant. It expects to fill about 2,000 positions when the factory reaches full capacity.\nThe company will start conducting interviews in late November. Iida said some employees may be hired at the end of this year, but most will start in 2008.\nThe factory will produce 200,000 Civic sedans annually after it reaches full production. It is being built on 1,700 acres along Interstate 74 and is expected to open in fall 2008.\nHonda set the starting wage in Greensburg based on the product the factory makes and pay in the region, among other variables, Iida said.\nThe wage, which totals about $31,000 annually before taxes, trails top pay at other factories like the Toyota plant in Princeton or Honda’s Marysville, Ohio, location.\nNew Toyota workers start at $17.91 an hour. Hourly pay for the 4,800 workers there averages $25.98, according to company officials.\nWages at Honda’s Marysville plant start at $15.35 an hour and top out at $24.40 an hour, Iida said. He also noted the plant has been in operation for 25 years.\n“There are some small differences between each plant, it’s not a cookie-cutter approach,” he said.\nIida said he thinks Honda’s Greensburg pay package will be attractive to potential workers.\n“It will move up pretty quickly when you combine the wage with the performance bonus and the accompanying health care package,” he said.\nHonda will pay the entire premium for employee health insurance.\nThat bucks the current trend, said Andrea Cranfill, vice president of FlashPoint Human Resource Consulting in Indianapolis. She said employers are asking employees to pay more for insurance to control costs and make them more accountable “for their health care decisions.”
(10/02/07 4:01am)
State Senate Minority Leader Richard Young, the first Democrat to join the 2008 race for governor, dropped out on Monday.\nYoung, 64, said it would take at least $20 million to mount a successful race and he realized he could not raise that much. He also said that getting out would give the other two Democrats seeking the nomination — former U.S. Rep. Jill Long Thompson and Jim Schellinger, president of an Indianapolis architecture firm – more room to compete for the party’s nod.\nHe said both were outstanding candidates and hoped the party would coalesce behind one of them so a primary contest next May could be avoided.\n“It became clear to me that if we’re going to defeat (Gov.) Mitch Daniels, and that should be our ultimate goal, we needed cohesion within the party to make that possible,” said Young, a farmer from the southern Indiana city of Milltown.\nYoung got into the race in January by forming an exploratory committee, but said he had raised only about $200,000 and was not sure if his campaign was in the black. Schellinger got into the race in March, and as of June 30 had raised about $1.2 million and spent very little of that.\nLong Thompson joined in July, after the midyear campaign finance reporting deadline. Daniels ended the first six months of this year with $4.1 million.\nDaniels is widely expected to get the Republican nomination in his run for re-election. He is being challenged by retired Bedford firefighter La Ron Keith, whose only foray into politics was an unsuccessful run for a seat on the Lawrence County Council in the late 1990s.\nYoung said he got into the race because he wanted to improve the lives of all Hoosiers, “not just a small percentage.” He alluded to Daniels’ moves and proposals to outsource state assets and services and said they were shortsighted.\n“My campaign has always been about the politics of empowerment, one that is inclusive rather than exclusive,” he said. “The kind of politics that is considered and considerate, not the politics of power that is dictatorial, demanding and ultimately destructive.”\nYoung was first elected to the Senate in 1988 and has been minority leader for the past 10 years.\nA statewide WISH-TV Indiana poll released last month showed Long Thompson with 41 percent of support from 400 likely Democratic primary voters. Young was second with 16 percent, while Schellinger had 10 percent. The subgroup poll had a margin of error of plus or minus five percentage points.\nState Democratic Chairman Dan Parker, who attended Young’s announcement at the Statehouse, has long said that he hoped the party would support one candidate so a costly primary could be avoided. But he said it was not his role to try to talk Long Thompson or Schellinger into getting out of the race.\nHe said the governor’s race was really just beginning because many people are still focused on the upcoming November municipal races.\n“I think the Democrats are going to look forward to a vigorous campaign and we’ll see where we are at the end of the year,” he said.
(10/01/07 2:04am)
The Monroe County Sheriff’s Department is investigating a report of gunfire in Bloomington Saturday night.\nMonroe County deputies were dispatched to the 4200 block of Garrison Chapel Road after a resident reported that a bullet broke a window in her home, according to a Monroe County Sheriff’s Department press release. \nDeputies determined that at least one bullet broke the double-paned window.\nThe resident and her neighbors reported hearing several shots, according to the press release. Witnesses saw a small compact car leaving the area of the shooting just after \nthe gunfire.\nDeputies found several empty 9mm casings near the road close to the victim’s home. \nA 9mm bullet was also extracted from an interior wall in the home.\nSheriff Jim Kennedy is asking anyone with information about this crime to contact the Sheriff’s Department at 812-349-2780.
(09/30/07 8:14pm)
MARTINSVILLE – An attorney for the man convicted of killing Indiana University student Jill Behrman has filed an appeal arguing that jurors misbehaved and that pretrial publicity tainted the trial.\nThe 75-page brief in support of the appeal also questions whether the judge should have allowed damaging testimony from defendant John Myers II’s grandmother and a\nformer girlfriend. It also questions a forensic pathologist’s opinion that Behrman had been raped, even though there was no evidence of sexual assault.\nAttorney Patrick Baker filed for an appeal with the Indiana Court of Appeals on Sept. 21.\nThe appeal takes Morgan Superior Court Judge Christopher Burnham to task for not granting a change of venue from a community that Baker argued was bent on revenge after Behrman’s disappearance and slaying gripped south central Indiana.\n“From the day that John Myers was arrested for a crime which he did not commit, a public outcry for his conviction has steadily influenced an attitude of unfairness and bias against him,” the appeal said.\nMyers, 31, of Ellettsville, was convicted last year of killing Behrman. The 19-year-old IU freshman had vanished during a morning bike ride in Bloomington in May 2000, and her fate remained a mystery until her remains were found in a remote Morgan County field in April 2003.\nBaker, in his brief, argued the public was influenced “by the media hysteria, which memorialized Ms. Behrman, while demonizing and displaying Mr. Myers as an evil person.” He said the trial should have been moved to a county far from Morgan County.\nMyers’ former girlfriend testified at the trial that he took her to the spot where Behrman’s body was later found. The grandmother testified Myers told her he had done a very bad thing that could send him to jail for life.\nThe jurors’ conduct during the trial included racing in women’s high-heel shoes down a hotel hallway and having alcoholic drinks nightly at dinner.\n“Is this the type of conduct expected from grown adults involved in such an important case, deciding a man’s liberty?” Baker asked.\nThe state has 30 days to respond to Baker’s petition. Then, members of the Indiana Court of Appeals will consider the case and issue a ruling. If they agree with Baker, Myers’ conviction could be set aside and a new trial ordered. If the appeals court denies Baker’s petition, he can seek a reversal from the Indiana Supreme Court.\nMyers is serving a 65-year sentence.
(09/28/07 3:08am)
GARY – Police radio recordings show that officers had been told that two teenage passengers were missing from a car crash even though officials have said that fact was unclear before family members found their bodies hours later in nearby brush.\nThe Sept. 15 crash injured two teenagers and killed Brandon Smith and Dominique Green, both 18. The injured teens were taken to the hospital, but the whereabouts of Smith and Green were presumably unknown until Smith’s father went to the crash site and found their bodies.\nDispatch recordings obtained from the Gary Police Department by the Merrillville Post-Tribune show that officers were told that Smith and Green were in the car when it crashed.\n“He says he had two other guys with him,” an unidentified officer said on the recording at about 1:45 a.m. “They might still be in the car. You might want to check.”\nAnother officer responded: “Yeah, I’m headed there right now.”\nThe recording has an exchange between officers a few minutes later:\n“He said if they’re not in the car, then they had to have gotten out on their own and walked off,” one said.\n“If you’ve seen the vehicle, I don’t know how anyone would have walked off,” another responded.\nA 911 call at about 9 a.m. reported that the bodies of Smith and Green were found after Smith’s father went to the scene. Wails from the victims’ families can be heard over the police radio as officers call for assistance.\nGary police Cmdr. Sam Roberts, a department spokesman, said last week that officers searched the site, but that the survivors told officers they might have dropped off their two friends earlier. Roberts declined to comment Wednesday on the dispatch recording or the investigation into how officers handled the scene.\nPolice have said the driver Darius Moore and passenger DeAndre Anderson, 17, had alcohol in their systems at the time of the crash.\nThe Lake County coroner’s office has said Smith and Green died instantly, but the families have sought independent autopsies.
(09/28/07 3:07am)
BROWNSTOWN, Ind. – Attorneys for a Muncie-area teenager accused of killing a truck passenger in a sniper shooting from an Interstate 65 bridge said key evidence against him should be thrown out because investigators obtained it illegally.\nZachariah Blanton’s attorneys told Jackson Circuit Judge William Vance that his confession and a .270-caliber Remington rifle seized from his home should be ruled inadmissible at his trial, scheduled to begin Oct. 31.\nBlanton, 18, of Gaston, Ind. faces charges of murder, attempted murder and criminal recklessness. He’s accused of shooting at traffic from the bridge near Seymour on July 23, 2006, fatally wounding Jerry Ross, 40, of New Albany as he rode in a truck.\nThe rifle found at Blanton’s home matched bullet fragments pulled from vehicles shot along I-65 about 60 miles south of Indianapolis and on I-69 near Muncie a few hours later. Investigators said Blanton’s confession to the I-65 gunfire came as they questioned him in connection with the I-69 shootings.\nDefense attorney Alan Wilson told Vance during a hearing Wednesday that there was “absolutely no probable cause to arrest Zach Blanton” in connection with the I-69 shootings.\nState police Detective Daryl Thornburg testified a man who had been hunting with the Blanton family in southern Indiana reported the teen, armed with a .270 Remington rifle, had left the hunting party in anger. He said Blanton told him that he took a route home to Gaston that put him in the area at the time of the shootings.\nWilson and co-counsel Bruce Mactavish argued that was not enough probable cause for an arrest. They also said the rifle was seized from the Blanton home without a search warrant and that Blanton was arrested without a warrant.\nJackson County Prosecutor Richard Poynter countered that Blanton’s grandparents, with whom he lived, consented to the search that turned up the rifle and to the questioning of the youth, who was then 17.\nBlanton’s grandmother, Patricia Blanton, testified that police officers told her and her husband that they just wanted to see the rifle and never said they were going to take it.\n“I asked them, ‘Where are you going with that?’” she said. “And he told me, ‘To the lab.’ I said, ‘You lied to us.’”\nThornburg, though, testified that he and other investigators were clear with the Blantons about the reason for the search.\n“We told them we were there to look for the rifle and asked for permission to look for the rifle,” Thornburg said. “She gave us permission to take the rifle.”\nVance gave both sides until Oct. 9 to submit written arguments before he rules on the evidence.