National Roundup

Virginia
Judge: U.S. has jurisdiction in piracy murders
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — A federal judge has ruled Somalia’s territorial waters extend only 12 miles from shore, allowing the U.S. to continue its prosecution of the murders of four Americans aboard their pirated yacht.
The owners of the yacht and their friends were killed in 2011 about 40 miles off the coast of Somalia. A band of pirates had taken them hostage in hopes of ransoming them for millions of dollars.
Defense attorneys for the men charged in the killings contended Somalia’s territorial waters extend 200 miles from shore, based on its domestic legislation. But prosecutors noted Somalia signed a treaty agreeing to a 12-mile limit.
U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith denied a motion seeking to have the murder charges dismissed. If convicted, the men could face the death penalty.

Pennsylvania
Police: Man kills ex-wife in pew at church service
COUDERSPORT, Pa. (AP) — An elementary school music teacher walked into a church in the middle of Sunday services and shot and killed his ex-wife as she sat in a pew, police said.
Gregory Eldred, 52, of Coudersport, has been charged with first-degree murder, accused of twice shooting Darlene Sitler, 53, at the First United Presbyterian Church, where she served as organist and choir director. It wasn’t immediately clear if she was serving in those capacities when she was shot.
Witnesses told police they saw Eldred pacing outside the 180-year-old church before the service and that other members of the congregation grabbed Eldred after the shooting around 11:20 a.m., and held him until police arrived. Nobody else was injured.
The defense attorney listed in online court records did not immediately return a call for comment Monday.
Trooper Michael Knight told the Bradford Era newspaper on Sunday that Eldred allegedly walked down the church’s middle aisle and fired two shots at Sitler.
Trooper Knight told the newspaper there were no children in the church when the shooting happened, but that police bused all those who witnessed the shooting to a building which houses Potter County offices so they could be interviewed by police.
Potter County Commissioner Susan Kefover told the newspaper the shooting was “devastatingly tragic for the community.”
“It’s hard to even comprehend it. You just feel this tremendous grief and you’re trying to process what happened,” Kefover said.
In addition to her church duties, Sitler taught music at the Northern Potter Children’s School, an elementary school that neighbors the district where her ex-husband taught, for 30 years.
“She’s just the consummate professional,” Northern Potter Superintendent Scott Graham told The Associated Press on Monday. “The kids loved her. She just did so many things here for the school and the community.”
The Northern Potter School District is based in the tiny borough of Ulysses, very near the New York border. It’s about 20 miles northeast of Coudersport, where her ex-husband taught school and she attended church, Graham said.
Sitler taught music to all students in the Pre-K through 6th-grade school, and also headed the chorus and band for 5th and 6th graders. She’s taught at the district since 1982, so the staff and students throughout the district knew her well, Graham said.
Crisis counselors from surrounding districts and a member of the local pastors’ ministerium were at the district Monday.
“There’s a lot of good things about growing up and living in a small community, and I believe we have a lot of help for the children and the staff members who may need it,” Graham said.
Graham said the couple had been divorced for several years and offered no rationale for the shooting.
Superintendent Alanna Huck, who heads the Coudersport Area School District where Eldred taught since 1986, issued a statement expressing condolences to Sitler’s family and school district.
“There are no words that explain this event, however we will focus on moving forward and taking care of those students who are entrusted to our care each day,” the statement said.
Eldred also played clarinet for the Southern Tier Symphony Orchestra in Allegany, N.Y.

Connecticut
Neighbor: Killer was upset with dad over illness
VERNON, Conn. (AP) — A man who police say killed his father, a woman and himself in Wyoming on Friday told a neighbor in Connecticut weeks before the killings that he believed his father gave him Asperger’s syndrome and said his dad should be “castrated” to prevent him from having more children.
Neighbor Matt DiPinto of Vernon, Conn., told local reporters that Christopher Krumm made the comments while giving him a ride home a few weeks ago.
“He’s like, ‘So my dad gave me Asperger’s ... and my dad should have never had any kids. He should have never had me and passed it on to me, and the government shouldn’t have let him have kids,’” DiPinto told Fox affiliate WTIC-TV. “It was just out of nowhere ... but he seemed pretty livid about it.”
Police in Casper, Wyo., say Krumm shot an arrow into the head of his father, James Krumm, with a high-powered bow Friday while his father was teaching a computer science class at Casper College.
James Krumm, 56, managed to wrestle with his 25-year-old son and gave time for about six students to flee, an act police called heroic. Authorities say both men died after Christopher Krumm stabbed himself and then his father. Before the classroom attack, police say Christopher Krumm fatally stabbed his father’s live-in girlfriend, Heidi Arnold, 42, at the home she shared with James Krumm about two miles from campus.
The motive for the attack isn’t clear.
Vernon police searched Christopher Krumm’s apartment on Friday night. Officers didn’t disclose what they found, but said any items of interest would be turned over to investigators in Wyoming.
Neighbors say Christopher Krumm moved into the apartment building last summer and appeared to work in construction or for a utility, because he wore a neon safety vest, The Hartford Courant reported. They say he was quiet and appeared to be anti-social.
Mickie Goodro, of Twin Falls, Idaho, a friend of James Krumm and Arnold, told the Casper Star-Tribune that Christopher Krumm was in her Calculus class when she taught at Casper College. Krumm graduated from Natrona County High School in Casper in 2005 and studied electrical engineering at Colorado School of Mines, the newspaper reported.r