National Roundup

Kansas
Man sentenced to 4 years in butter knife attack
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Wichita man has been sentenced to four years and three months in prison for attacking a police officer with a butter knife at a homeless shelter.

The Wichita Eagle reports that 54-year-old Darren Lee Hutcherson was sentenced Friday for aggravated assault of a law enforcement officer, aggravated assault and interference with law enforcement.

Prosecutors say Hutcherson lunged at an officer in October when police were dispatched to the Union Rescue Mission to arrest him. The knife fell to the floor after it struck the officer’s ballistic vest. The officer wasn’t hurt.

Kansas Department of Corrections records show Hutcherson has a lengthy criminal history that includes convictions dating back to 1990. The most recent prior conviction was in 2017 for fleeing and eluding law enforcement.

Louisiana
Deputy accused of trading freedom for child sex abuse
ST. GABRIEL, La. (AP) — A Louisiana deputy is accused of coercing a woman to sexually abuse her 1-year-old son in exchange for her freedom.

Deputy Shaderick Jones is accused of recording the abuse on his cellphone. St. Gabriel Police Chief Kevin Ambeau tells news outlets that Jones was arrested Friday.

His charges include principal to first-degree rape and pornography involving juveniles. Jones’ electronic devices have been seized, and Ambeau said “there’s going to be other victims.”

Ambeau says 26-year-old Iyehesa Todd told detectives that Jones asked her to perform the act in exchange for not arresting her on a warrant for a traffic ticket. Todd is charged with incest and rape.

Iberville Parish Sheriff Brett Stassi said Jones has been fired.

South Dakota
No prison time for mom who pepper sprayed son
RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) — A Rapid City woman who used pepper spray on her 11-year-old son won’t spend any time in prison if she follows terms of her probation.

Thirty-three-year-old Ashley Ellis could have been sentenced to five years in prison. A judge instead gave her four years in prison, but suspended the entire sentence.

The Rapid City Journal says Ellis pleaded guilty to attempted child abuse. She will have to spend seven days in the Pennington County Jail and serve 18 months of probation.

Ellis and her son argued in the parking lot of the Club for Boys in April 2018 before she pepper sprayed him. He was taken to a hospital for treatment.

Georgia
Pretrial appeal dismissed in 2005 slaying of teacher
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s highest court has ruled that it lacks authority to hear a pretrial appeal from a man charged with killing a high school teacher whose disappearance remained a mystery for more than a decade.

The state Supreme Court in March delayed Ryan Duke’s murder trial so it could consider whether it had jurisdiction to hear his emergency pretrial appeal. In a unanimous opinion published Monday, the high court concluded it does not.

Jury selection had been scheduled to begin April 1 in Duke’s trial. He’s charged with murder in the October 2005 death of teacher and beauty queen Tara Grinstead in rural Irwin County.

Duke’s attorneys had sought to overturn the trial judge’s decision to deny Duke funding to pay for expert witnesses in DNA, false confessions and psychology.

Virginia
Man bit off and swallowed ­grandfather’s ­fingertip
ROANOKE, Va. (AP) — A Virginia man has been tried by a judge after biting off his grandfather’s fingertip and swallowing it during an argument. The digit was never recovered.

The Roanoke Times reports 23-year-old Aaron Michael Adams was charged with malicious wounding and aggravated malicious wounding in the attack on Mark Douglas Lyle.

Judge Chris Clemens found sufficient evidence to convict Adams on Thursday, but said he’ll wait until sentencing in September to determine whether to apply the tougher charge.

Roanoke police responding to the December 2017 attack said they found Lyle with his left hand bleeding and the tip of his index finger missing.

The left-handed grandfather testified that the two men argued that night and Adams bit his fingertip clean off. Adams testified that he was defending himself.

California
Verdict in case of a family found dead in desert
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) — The disappearance of a couple and their two children puzzled California investigators for years.

The McStay family vanished suddenly in 2010, with bowls of popcorn left uneaten in their house and no sign an attacker forced their way inside. Three years later, their bodies were found in shallow desert graves more than 100 miles (161 kilometers) away.

Now, a jury has reached a verdict in the murder case against 62-year-old Charles “Chase” Merritt, who authorities say killed the family with a sledgehammer after his business associate Joseph McStay tried to cut him out of a business making and selling custom water fountains.

Jurors’ decision came Friday after about a week of deliberations, and it will be read in court Monday in San Bernardino.

While many questions remain about the killings, prosecutors argued that evidence from the family’s car, financial accounts and cellphone towers linked Merritt to the deaths of McStay, McStay’s wife, Summer, and the couple’s 3- and 4-year-old sons.

Merritt’s attorneys said the two men were best friends and investigators overlooked another possible suspect. They said the evidence doesn’t add up, noting there were no signs of an attack inside the family’s house.

After the McStays disappeared from their home in San Diego County, investigators couldn’t immediately determine what had happened. Their car was found parked at a strip mall near the Mexican border, and at one point, investigators said they believed the family had gone to Mexico.

In 2013, the family’s bodies were found in shallow graves in San Bernardino County, along with a rusty sledgehammer, after an off-road motorcyclist discovered skeletal remains in the area.

Merritt was arrested in 2014.

Authorities said they traced Merritt’s cellphone to the area of the desert gravesites in the days after the family disappeared and to a call seeking to close McStay’s online bookkeeping account. They also said Merritt referred to McStay in the past tense in an interview with investigators after the family vanished.

If Merritt is convicted of the murders, prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty.