Nebraska
Man convicted in 1985 cult killings dies in prison
TECUMSEH, Neb. (AP) - A man who had spent three decades on Nebraska's death row for the 1985 cult killings of two people, including a 5-year-old boy, has died in prison, officials said Monday.
Michael Ryan died around 5:45 p.m. Sunday at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institutional in southeast Nebraska, the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services said in a news release Monday. Tecumseh prison spokeswoman Jessica Houseman did not have a cause of death but said an autopsy would be performed.
At a hearing in March about legislation to repeal the state's death penalty, state Sen. Ernie Chambers said Ryan had terminal brain cancer. Houseman would say only that Ryan was being treated for a long-term medical condition.
Ryan was convicted in the torture and killing of 26-year-old James Thimm at a southeast Nebraska farm near Rulo, where Ryan led a cult, and in the beating death of Luke Stice, the 5-year-old son of a cult member. Ryan has been on death row since Sept. 12, 1985.
Over three days, Thimm was beaten, sexually abused, shot, stomped and partially skinned while still alive. His fingertips had been shot off on one hand.
The Ryans and about 20 cult members lived on the farm. The group hated Jews and stored weapons in preparation for a final battle between good and evil, authorities have said. Ryan told his followers that he heard the voice of God and that Thimm had angered God.
Ryan's son, Dennis Ryan, and cult member Timothy Haverkamp were sentenced to life in prison for second-degree murder in Thimm's death. Authorities said Dennis Ryan delivered the gunshot that killed Thimm after days of torture.
The younger Ryan was later released from prison after winning a new trial and being convicted of the lesser charge of manslaughter. Haverkamp was released from his prison in 2009 after serving 23 years of a 10-years-to-life sentence.
Nebraska has only carried out four executions since 1973, partly because of repeated legal challenges. Ryan's case came up repeatedly as the state debated its death penalty and method of execution.
Michael Ryan was sentenced to die in 1986. The state Supreme Court rejected his first appeal in 1989 and his second appeal in 1995. When he was sentenced, Nebraska's sole means of execution was the electric chair. But after the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that death via electrocution was cruel and unusual punishment, the Legislature changed Nebraska's method of execution to lethal injection in 2009.
In 2012 Ryan challenged how Nebraska obtained one of three drugs that would have been used to execute him. A lower court denied Ryan's request without holding a hearing, and in April last year the state Supreme Court rejected his appeal.
But Nebraska had no means to execute Ryan because one of three drugs needed for lethal injection expired in 2013.
On May 14, Gov. Pete Ricketts announced that state officials had obtained all three drugs required for executions. But less than a week later, the Legislature gave final approval to a bill abolishing Nebraska's death penalty. The governor has said he intends to veto the bill on Tuesday and has been searching to switch enough votes to sustain his veto.
California
Bones match student who vanished in 1982
FREMONT, Calif. (AP) - Bones found in the San Francisco Bay Area are those of a Swedish exchange student who disappeared more than 30 years ago, authorities said Monday.
The U.S. Department of Justice matched seven bones discovered in a canyon in Fremont five years ago to Elisabeth Martinsson, 21, who was going to the College of Marin and living with a family in nearby Greenbrae when she disappeared on Jan. 17, 1982, coroner's officials said.
Federal officials used dental records to identify the remains in November, Alameda County sheriff's Sgt. Patricia Wilson, an investigator in the coroner's division, told the Marin Independent-Journal.
No cause of death was determined, Wilson said, and Martinsson's remains were cremated and will be sent to her family in Uddevalla, a Swedish town about 50 miles from the Norwegian border.
It wasn't immediately clear why the information was released now instead of last year when the remains were identified.
Martinsson disappeared after going to a store in the Volkswagen Rabbit she borrowed from the family she was living with.
Ten days later, a 31-year-old convicted rapist was found with the car in Oklahoma. The man, Henry Coleman of Los Angeles, was wanted on a robbery warrant out of California. He was convicted of auto theft and sentenced to five years in prison, but was never charged with Martinsson's death.
Coleman told investigators he had bought the car from a man he met at a bar in San Francisco.
Montana
Court hears case for preserving judge's emails
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) - A federal judge heard arguments Tuesday over whether a court order is needed to preserve hundreds of racist and inappropriate emails sent by Montana's former chief U.S. District Court judge.
Attorneys for the judiciary want U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, to reconsider her March order to preserve the emails of former Judge Richard Cebull.
They've argued the order could harm future judicial misconduct investigations by making witnesses reluctant to participate. They say the emails would be retained regardless of Rogers' order, under the policies of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Cebull stepped down in 2013 after revelations he'd forwarded a racist email involving President Barack Obama. A group of American Indians want the emails preserved for potential challenges to Cebull's past rulings.
Wisconsin
Defense says adult charges unwarranted
WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) - Attorneys for one of two Wisconsin girls charged in adult court with trying to kill a friend to please a fictional horror character will argue her case belongs in juvenile court.
Lawyers for the 13-year-old girl will argue in court Tuesday that the law requiring adult charges for attempted first-degree intentional homicide is unconstitutional. That girl and a 12-year-old friend are accused of stabbing Payton Leutner in a Waukesha park last May to please Slender Man, a character they believed could kill them or their families. The 12-year-old victim survived 19 stab wounds.
State law requires children as young as 10 to be charged as adults for certain serious crimes. The defendants can try to have their cases moved to juvenile court where a sentence would not be as severe.
Published: Wed, May 27, 2015
