Nevada
Man indicted in brutal beatings of prostitute
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A North Las Vegas man has been indicted in the brutal beatings of a prostitute.
Twenty-eight-year-old Robert Sharpe III was indicted Friday on 17 counts, including kidnapping, assault and sex trafficking.
A prosecutor told KLAS-TV it was “one of the most brutal and depraved cases” he has ever seen.
The woman lost a finger and parts of her buttocks after the beatings that she said took place over the eight weeks she was held by him to work as a prostitute.
She also underwent 12 surgeries for injuries.
The woman told police she was beaten with a metal pole, burned with an iron and had lemon juice and Tabasco sauce poured into her open wounds.
The woman was found June 30 near a Las Vegas hospital.
Vermont
Jailed former death-row inmate addresses grads
PLAINFIELD, Vt. (AP) — A one-time death row inmate now serving a life sentence for the 1981 murder of a Philadelphia police officer spoke to students graduating from a Vermont college on Sunday, encouraging them to strive to transform the world.
Mumia Abu-Jamal spoke by video to 20 students receiving bachelor degrees from Goddard College in Plainfield. He earned a degree from the college in 1996.
“Think about the myriad of problems that beset this land and strive to make it better,” Abu-Jamal said in the video.
He said his studies at Goddard allowed him to learn about important figures in distant lands.
“Goddard reawakened in me my love of learning,” he said. “In my mind, I left death row.”
The former Black Panther did not address the crime for which he was convicted. He originally was sentenced to death for killing white police Officer Daniel Faulkner on Dec. 9, 1981, but he was resentenced to life in 2012.
His claims that he’s been victimized by a racist justice system have attracted international support. A radio show, documentaries and books have helped publicize his case. Goddard College describes him as “an award winning journalist who chronicles the human condition.”
But the decision to allow Abu-Jamal to speak angered police and corrections officials in Vermont and Pennsylvania. The Vermont Troopers Association said it showed a disregard for the victim’s family at a time when the nation is seeking solutions to gun violence.
Goddard, a low-residency school where students, staff and faculty spend eight days on campus twice a year, holds 20 commencement ceremonies every year, so students in each degree program can individualize their graduations and choose their speaker.
The school, which has about 600 students, says the graduates chose Abu-Jamal as a way to “engage and think radically and critically.”
Goddard students design their own curriculums with faculty advisers and do not take tests or receive grades.
Kansas
BTK serial killer says he’s helping writer with book
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The BTK serial killer said in a letter from prison that he is cooperating with a book about the 10 people he killed in the Wichita area to help the victims’ families monetarily.
“I can never replace their love ones, my deeds too ‘dark’ to understand, the book or movies, etc. is the only way to help them,” wrote Dennis Rader, whose self-coined moniker was BTK, which stood for “bind, torture, kill.”
In a four-page, handwritten letter labeled “From the Desk of: Dennis L. Rader,” the former Park City code compliance officer explained that he is barred from profiting from his crimes by a court settlement, The Wichita Eagle reported. He signed over his media rights to the families of his victims he killed from 1974 to 1991 after he was sent to the state prison in El Dorado in 2005.
Rader said the “the long work on a book is close to a deal.” A percentage of any profits will go to the families, said James Thompson, a Wichita lawyer and one of the attorneys representing most of the BTK victim families.
Katherine Ramsland, the author corresponding with Rader on the project, envisions an academic book that will help investigators and criminologists understand killers like Rader.
“I’m trying to make this a serious effort that will have some benefit for people who study this kind of crime,” said Ramsland, a forensic psychology professor at DeSales University in Pennsylvania who has written 54 mostly academic nonfiction books.
Rader wrote that he turned down many media attempts to talk with him in the past nine years because he was attempting to stay true to the court agreement with the victims’ families.
“I mean to burn no bridges,” Rader wrote, “and hope some day to open up. People like me, need to be under stood, so the criminal professional field, can better under stand, the criminal mind. That would be my way helping debt to society.”
Iowa
Man who posed as meteorologist sentenced, fined
DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — A Davenport man who posed as a local television meteorologist has been fined and given probation.
Online court records say 24-year-old Matt Wendt pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of identity theft. He was given a year of probation. He also was fined $625 on each count.
Wendt was accused of impersonating Greg Dutra, a meteorologist for KWQC-TV in Davenport, on social media accounts. Dutra has said he was contacted by a woman who said she and Dutra had communicated through several messages online.
Pennsylvania
Death row inmate seeks new trial
UNIONTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A man sentenced to death in the murder of his former girlfriend a decade ago is seeking a new trial on the grounds that some evidence wasn’t presented at his original trial.
Sixty-five-year-old James VanDivner Jr. of Brownsville was convicted in Fayette County of having gunned down 41-year-old Michelle Cable outside her Jefferson Township home in July 2004. Her teenage son was wounded.
His attorneys argued at trial that their client was intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for execution, but a judge rejected that contention.
The (Uniontown) Herald-Standard reports that defense attorneys are appealing to the state Supreme Court, citing a ruling that courts can use factors other than IQ scores in making that determination. They also say some evidence not presented may have changed the trial verdict.
