Sept.
Sept. 17, 2013 Seattle PI
A decade after he dodged a death sentence in the slayings of dozens of women, Green River Killer Gary Ridgway now sweetly claims in a series of interviews with KOMO Newsradio he wants to help lay his victims to rest.
Interviewed for the first time since his incarceration by KOMO’s Charlie Harger, Ridgway says he believes he killed 75 or 80 women – many more than the 49 slaying he pleaded guilty to in 2003.
Ridgway told KOMO he wishes he had wandered the sites where he dumped his victims’ remains. To assist investigators, he claims, and help set the women’s families at ease.
The detectives “should have had me get out at every site to show them where I put those bodies,” Ridgway told KOMO. “If I could do it all over again, I would say I want to get out at every single site.” Read More
Sept. 16, 2013 Washington Post
At least seven people are dead after as many as three shooters dressed in military style uniforms opened fire a rampage at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday, police said, spreading fear and chaos across the region as authorities tried to contain the incident.
D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said in a mid-day news conference that one of the suspected shooters is dead, while authorities are looking for two other possible suspects wearing military style clothing.
Sept. 11, 2013 Missoulian
A groomsman in Cody Lee Johnson’s wedding warned him not to marry Jordan Linn Graham, who authorities now say pushed her husband of one week off a cliff in Glacier National Park.
“Their interaction with each other, it didn’t seem like a happy, loving relationship that you would normally see. It was just very awkward, I guess,” said Cameron Fredrickson, who knew Johnson since 2006.
“She was just very distant and reserved,” said Fredrickson, who worked with Johnson at Nomad Global Communication Solutions in Kalispell.
On Monday, federal authorities took 22-year-old Graham into custody under a criminal complaint that contends she killed Johnson just days after their wedding, during an argument on a trail near Glacier’s iconic Going-to-the-Sun Road. Read More
Sept. 9, 2013 CNN
George Zimmerman was taken into custody Monday after an apparent domestic altercation with his wife and her father at a home in Lake Mary, Florida, police said.
"As of right now, (George Zimmerman) has been placed in investigative detention," Lake Mary police spokesman Zach Hudson said.
The incident comes two months after Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, was found not guilty of murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida.
Hudson said a gun was found in the Lake Mary home, but he added that it was not a part of the altercation.
Shellie Zimmerman, who filed for divorce last week, was the one to call 911, Hudson said.
Hudson added that police are following procedure by placing Zimmerman in investigative detention. Read More
Sept. 5, 2013 Huffington Post
Ten years after the passage of landmark legislation designed to curb and eventually eliminate rape behind bars, prisoner advocates remain confident the law can save lives.
The Prison Rape Elimination Act, signed into law by George W. Bush on Sept. 4, 2003, is the "first federal civil law to address sexual abuse in detention," according to a press release from Just Detention International.
"PREA stands today as one of the most significant human rights victories in modern U.S. history,” Lovisa Stannow, JDI’s Executive Director, said in the release. “The law acknowledged that prisoner rape constitutes a crisis – something many people denied at the time – and that the government has a duty to end this violence."
Stannow said the law has had a "transformative impact."
"Corrections facilities are more transparent, and are adopting policies and practices that were simply unheard of before PREA,” Stannow said.
The legislation mandated a nationwide survey, released in 2010, that showed the prevalence of prison rape and abuse across the country.
The survey showed that one in eight detained youths are sexually abused. That number is nine times greater for transgender youths. Overall, about 200,000 people are sexually abused behind bars every year. Read More
Sept. 4, 2013 ABC News
Ariel Castro, who was convicted of kidnapping, torturing and imprisoning three young women for over a decade in his Ohio home, committed suicide by hanging in his prison cell. He was characterized as a degenerate and a coward by the prosecutor from his case.
"These degenerate molesters are cowards," Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty said in a statement. "They con and capture vulnerable children. This man couldn't take, for even a month, a small portion of what he had dished out for more than a decade."
"Let this be a message to other child kidnappers: There will be a heavy price to pay when you are caught," he said. "You won't enjoy the captive side of the bars."
See the Evidence from the Ariel Castro Kidnapping Case
Castro, 53, died after being found hanging in his cell at Correctional Reception Center in Orient, Ohio, Tuesday at 9:20 p.m. local time, Ohio Department of Corrections spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said.
Facility staff tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate the prisoner, according to Smith. Castro was taken to Ohio State University Medical Center and was pronounced dead at 10:52 p.m. Read More
On the night of November 29, 1988, near the impoverished Marlborough neighborhood in south Kansas City, an explosion at a construction site killed six of the city’s firefighters. It was a clear case of arson, and five people from Marlborough were duly convicted of the crime. But for veteran crime writer and crusading editor J. Patrick O’Connor, the facts—or a lack of them—didn’t add up. Justice on Fire is OConnor’s detailed account of the terrible explosion that led to the firefighters’ deaths and the terrible injustice that followed. Also available from Amazon
