Tennessee
Not guilty plea in killing of Johnny Cash’s great-niece
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee man has pleaded not guilty to killing the great-niece of late country music singer Johnny Cash.
The Tennessean reports that 27-year-old Wayne Masciarella entered the plea Wednesday during a brief court appearance in Putnam County.
Police say they think Masciarella stabbed 23-year-old Courtney Cash to death after getting into an argument with her and her boyfriend.
Cash’s body was found March 19 inside a wooden box at her home in Baxter. Her boyfriend, William Austin Johnson, also suffered stab wounds.
A motive has not been released, but Putnam County Sheriff David Andrews has indicated the stabbings were likely connected to drugs.
Georgia
Soldier’s trial closes in clash over experts
FORT STEWART, Ga. (AP) — The fate of an Army soldier charged with killing his pregnant wife may hinge on whether a military judge accepts a single medical expert’s conclusion that she was strangled as sufficient evidence for a conviction.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys gave closing arguments Thursday in the court-martial of 22-year-old Pvt. Isaac Aguigui of Cashmere, Wash., who faces a life sentence if convicted of murder in the July 2011 death of Sgt. Deirdre Aguigui. Attorneys fiercely debated evidence given by medical experts in the case.
The military’s autopsy was inconclusive. But a Georgia state medical examiner later determined the woman was strangled after ruling out other potential causes.
Prosecutors said a certain chokehold would have left few marks. Defense lawyers argued the theory was just the opinion of a lone expert.
New York
AG settles probe of tanning salons’ health claims
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York’s attorney general has reached a settlement with a chain of tanning salons to stop making claims about the health benefits of tanning.
The agreement is with HT Franchising Management LLC, doing business as Hollywood Tans, and with Hollywood Tans NYC, its Manhattan-based franchise.
The parent corporation has six other franchises in New York state and more than 100 nationally.
Authorities say it prohibits New York franchises from offering “unlimited” tanning packages, targeting high school students, or making therapeutic claims such as “it can help your body create vitamin D to prevent cancer.”
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, citing concerns over the cancer risk of indoor tanning, started an investigation last year into misleading advertising.
A call to the company was not initially returned Thursday.
Missouri
Fugitive arrested after deputy sees him at restaurant
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A 30-year-old fugitive wanted in Kansas and Oklahoma is likely wishing he had decided to order delivery over the weekend.
Virgil Tillman, of Kansas City, Kan., was eating at a restaurant on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Mo., on Sunday when a U.S. Marshal who’d been looking for him since February decided to eat at the same restaurant.
Tillman has been wanted in Kansas since July 2013 on firearms, theft and drug charges, and Oklahoma officials had been seeking Tillman since March 2013 after he failed to appear in court on drug and illegal weapons charges.
Matt Cahill, acting deputy U.S. Marshal in Kansas, said the deputy was off-duty when he spotted Tillman at the restaurant, The Kansas City Star reported.
“He’d been chasing him around the city for quite a while but kept running into dead ends,” Cahill said. “Then, out of the blue.”
Cahill said the deputy also recognized Tillman’s dining companion as a woman who had denied knowing Tillman’s whereabouts. He said the deputy decided to wait with police for Tillman and the woman to leave so they wouldn’t create a disturbance in the restaurant, where dinner for two can cost more than $100.
“They let him finish his meal,” Cahill said.
The woman, who had a small child with her, left first. When Tillman started to leave, he noticed the officers and tried to hold the restaurant doors shut to keep the officers from entering. It didn’t work. Tillman was arrested on the spot.
“It was definitely one of those ‘oops’ moments for a fugitive,” Cahill said.
Colorado
Inmate serving life for murder as teen hangs self
DENVER (AP) — A man serving a life sentence for two murders he committed when he was a teenager has hanged himself, and a prison reform advocate says he had lost hope in a sentencing review process triggered by a Supreme Court decision.
The Denver Post reported Thursday that 38-year-old Gabriel Adams committed suicide in his cell at Pueblo’s San Carlos Correctional Facility on March 9. Barb Stephenson, a board member of the Colorado chapter of a grassroots prison reform group known as CURE, told the Post that Adams was losing hope his sentence would be reduced.
Adams had been due for a review after a 2012 Supreme Court ruling in an Alabama case that the Constitution forbids mandating a sentence of life in prison without parole for a juvenile offender.
Louisiana
Jefferson Davis Parish bans saggy pants
JENNING, La. (AP) — The Jefferson Davis Parish Police Jury has unanimously passed an ordinance making it illegal for any person to appear in a public place wearing pants below the waist and exposing the skin or undergarments.
Police Juror Steve Eastman initially asked the panel to consider banning saggy pants at the parish courthouse in January in response to courthouse employees’ complaints about having to see people’s underwear and body parts.
Juror Bryon Buller took the suggestion a step further and asked the panel to consider making it illegal for anyone to show their undergarments in public to limit indecent and lewd behavior.
“The guards that check people going into the courthouse complained about people coming into the courthouse dressed like that,” Eastman said.
Jurors approved the ordinance Wednesday.
The American Press reports those violating the law face a $50 fine for the first offense and a $100 fine for each subsequent violation.
Many municipalities have passed similar measures.
