California
Girl laid to rest 145 years after first burial
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The body of a girl found last month inside a small metal casket still holding a rose was laid to rest 145 years after she was first buried under what now is a home in San Francisco.
Dozens of community members, cemetery workers and event organizers dressed in black attended her burial at Greenlawn Memorial Park in Colma, California, where about 30,000 people originally buried in San Francisco's Odd Fellows Cemetery were moved to in the early 1920s. The San Francisco Chronicle reported Sunday.
A local poet read an original work to honor the little girl, who appeared to be about 3 and was dubbed Miranda Eve, at the ceremony Saturday attended by about 100 people and led by a volunteer minister.
"I rejoice that you've found it in your hearts to come offer your love, your care and to be here for this little girl," retired Minister Allan Musterer told the crowd. "The discovery of Miranda is such a happening outside of what anyone could deem as normal."
The well-preserved body of the unidentified girl was found May 9 in an airtight coffin that helped preserved her golden locks of hair and even a rose she held in her hand. The metal and glass coffin was unearthed from under a concrete garage floor by workers doing remodeling work at a house in the city's Richmond District.
Since the girl's discovery, people across the county have worked on trying to find her identity and her DNA is being tested.
Elissa Davey, the founder of the Garden of Innocence charity, helped arrange the girl's reburial.
"It was tough, very tough," Davey said about the process, as she began to cry. "But she is not just our child. She is everyone's."
Barbara and Heather Reynolds traveled from Sacramento to attend the ceremony.
"I just felt that she needed to have people here," Heather Reynolds said. "The amount of people who came forward is amazing."
California
Five accused of stealing $4,700 in energy drinks
VACAVILLE, Calif. (AP) - Police in Northern California say they arrested five men for stealing $4,700 worth of energy drinks.
San Jose television station KNTV reports Vacaville police officers nabbed the four adults and one juvenile Friday night as they wheeled a cart full of Red Bull out of a grocery store and loaded it into a waiting U-Haul van.
The Vacaville Police Department says the grocery store was one of many places visited by the group. Police said the U-Haul van was packed with the energy drink.
Police say the four adults were booked into Solano County jail and the minor into a juvenile hall. All are from Oakland.
Missouri
St. Louis police pay $4.7 million for settlements
ST. LOUIS (AP) - The city of St. Louis has paid $4.7 million to settle 44 cases involving police filed since 2010 over injuries, wrongful imprisonment or death.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that number after reviewing settlements that were not previously publicized. The Missouri Attorney General's Office, which represented the police in civil cases until 2013, released the payout amounts after a public records request from the newspaper.
Two of the cases involving six-figure settlements were never reviewed by the city prosecutor's office and there are no plans to do so. Another case, the fatal shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith by a police officer in 2011, wasn't reviewed for more than four years. The former officer, Jason Stockley, was charged with murder in May.
Illinois
Prosecutors: Teen confessed to killing in video
CHICAGO (AP) - Prosecutors in Chicago say a 17-year-old accused in his 16-year-old friend's shooting death admitted to the killing in a Snapchat video.
The Chicago Tribune reports that Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Anna Sedelmaier said in court Sunday that the teen posted the video on the social media app from the back of a police car. He is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Christian Bandemer, who was shot in the chest Friday on the city's South Side.
Sedelmaier says the suspect said on Snapchat: "I killed Chris and now I'm going to kill myself."
Snapchat videos can be viewed once then disappear. A spokeswoman for the prosecutors' office said Monday she didn't know how authorities accessed his video.
Defense attorney Mike Johnson described the shooting as accidental.
Connecticut
Teen who killed classmate after prom rejection gets 25 years
MILFORD, Conn. (AP) - A teenager was sentenced Monday to 25 years in prison for fatally stabbing a classmate after she turned down his invitation to the junior prom.
A judge handed down the sentence to 19-year-old Christopher Plaskon in Milford Superior Court. He had pleaded no contest to murder in March in the killing of 16-year-old Maren Sanchez inside Jonathan Law High School in Milford on April 25, 2014, the day of the prom.
Sanchez's parents said after the hearing that they were frustrated that the prison sentence wasn't longer. Plaskon will be eligible for parole in 13 years under new state juvenile sentencing laws.
While prosecutors said there was evidence from several sources that the attack was prompted by Sanchez's rejection of Plaskon's prom invitation, Plaskon's lawyer, Edward Gavin, said the stabbing wasn't related to the prom. Family and friends of Plaskon told police he was upset with Sanchez for rejecting his invitation.
Plaskon's lawyers have said he showed signs of psychosis and they considered an insanity defense.
The attack happened in a first-floor hallway at about 7:15 a.m. Students described an emotional scene where people were crying as police and paramedics swarmed the school.
A witness tried to pull Plaskon off Sanchez during the attack, and another saw Plaskon discard a bloody knife, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. Plaskon was taken to the principal's office in bloody clothing and told police, "I did it. Just arrest me," according to the affidavit.
Staff members and paramedics performed life-saving measures on Sanchez, but she was pronounced dead at a hospital shortly afterward. The medical examiner's office said she was stabbed in the torso and neck.
Sanchez's parents are suing Plaskon, his parents and the Milford school system. The lawsuit says Sanchez told a guidance counselor that Plaskon was troubled and capable of hurting others. School officials have declined to comment.
Published: Tue, Jun 07, 2016
