New York
Man: Fire was started by meth, not chicken wing
AUBURN, N.Y. (AP) — A New York man has admitted the fire that damaged an apartment earlier this year started when he was making methamphetamine and not chicken wings as he originally told police.
The Citizen of Auburn reports that 44-year-old Daniel Van Luven, of Moravia, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Cayuga County Court to manufacturing meth.
The plea comes after he and 42-year-old Dawn Royea were charged earlier this month with making meth in Royea’s Auburn apartment in May. Police say Van Luven and Royea initially claimed a fire that broke out was sparked by grease from cooking the wings.
Police say their investigation and lab tests determined otherwise.
Van Luven faces a two-year prison sentence. Royea’s case is pending. She’s an inmate at a state prison where she’s serving a sentence for drunken driving.
California
Family: Police account of son’s death rings false
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — The family of a San Antonio university student shot and killed by a campus police officer says the police account is inconsistent with their son’s character.
Robert Redus, a 23-year-old student at the University of the Incarnate Word, was shot repeatedly Friday when he charged campus police Cpl. Chris Carter after a traffic stop, Alamo Heights police have said.
But in a statement to the San Antonio Express-News, the Redus family said they do not believe the report.
Redus “has never been an aggressive or confrontational person ... For him to confront a police officer would be completely out of his character,” the statement said.
Redus and Carter struggled when Carter tried to handcuff Redus during a traffic stop for speeding and erratic driving, Alamo Heights Police Chief Richard Pruitt said at a news conference Monday. Redus wrestled Carter’s baton away and hit him with it before Carter retrieved it and told Redus to stop or he would shoot, Pruitt said.
Redus turned around and charged Carter with an arm raised to strike him, Pruitt said. Carter fired his .40-caliber semi-automatic weapon six times, hitting Redus five times — in the chest, neck, eye, arm and thigh, Pruitt said.
“The investigating authorities quickly cleaned up the scene and even searched his apartment before we arrived in San Antonio,” the family said in the statement. They have not spoken directly with the media.
In the statement, the family also said that Redus, who grew up in the Houston suburb of Baytown, went out with friends on Thursday night to celebrate the end of the semester.
The patrol car’s dashcam was not working, Pruitt said. An audio recording of the shooting has not been released.
Montana
Friends: Bride was emotionless when body found
MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — A Montana woman on trial for the death of her new husband showed little emotion when she located his body in Glacier National Park days after she told authorities he had driven off with friends and disappeared, friends of the woman testified.
Jordan Graham, 22, said after finding Cody Johnson’s body that now a funeral could be held and “the cops can be out of it,” friend Hannah Sherrill testified Tuesday.
Graham, her mother, brother and friends drove to the park twice in the days after Johnson, 25, went missing on July 7. Graham climbed down a steep slope to a ledge below the roadway and she called out that she spotted the body in a ravine below the cliff.
“And then after that she didn’t really show any emotion,” friend Cecilia Lewellen said.
Prosecutors say Graham knew where the body was located all along. She deliberately pushed Jordan from that spot during an argument about her doubts over their 8-day-old marriage, when she could have walked away, prosecutors said.
Graham has been charged with first-degree murder, second-degree murder and making false statements to authorities.
Graham has pleaded not guilty, and her defense attorneys said the two got into a heated argument that ended when Johnson grabbed Graham’s arm, she pushed back to knock his hand off and he fell from the narrow ledge.
She lied about Jordan’s disappearance at first because she was afraid nobody would believe that it was an accident, her attorneys said.
Graham’s brother, Michael Rutledge, testified earlier Tuesday that he was angry with Graham because she had lied again and again.
“She could have told us the truth,” Rutledge testified, sobbing. “She told one lie, was asked to tell the truth, and she said it again. And she had to keep adding more lies to cover it up. And that’s maybe why I was mad.”
Graham cried quietly during her brother’s testimony.
Tennessee
Court reverses pastor’s 225-year sentence for rape
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee’s Court of Criminal Appeals has reversed a 225-year sentence for a former youth pastor convicted of raping three boys as a juvenile.
In an opinion filed on Tuesday, the court ordered that Tavaria Merritt be resentenced to 50 years in prison.
Merritt pleaded guilty to raping the boys, ages 10 and 11, while he was serving as a youth pastor at their Lebanon church in 2009. He was 17 years old when he committed the crimes.
On Tuesday, the appeals court ruled that the original sentence was excessive. The court found the trial court judge erred by substituting his own experience for the evidence in the record when determining the damage suffered by the victims.
One of the three appeals judges dissented, saying a 75-year sentence was more appropriate.
Texas
New penalty trial for man on death row since 1986
HOUSTON (AP) — An El Paso man convicted and sent to death row for the slayings of two women almost 30 years ago has won a new punishment trial.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday agreed with a trial judge’s findings that Angel Galvan Rivera had poor legal help at his 1986 trial in El Paso.
Rivera’s appeals lawyers argued his trial attorneys didn’t properly investigate Rivera’s background or present evidence that could have convinced jurors to decide on a sentence other than death.
The former cook was 27 when 62-year-old Iona Dikes and 82-year-old Julia Fleenor were found strangled at their El Paso home in October 1984. The house had been set on fire. Evidence also showed they both had been raped.
