Indiana
Families of dead sue funeral home being investigated
Two families are suing a southern Indiana funeral home where police found more than 30 bodies, including some that were badly decomposed.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Clark Superior Court No. 6, Cynthia Faye Cook and Jeffrey Lorey allege that Lankford Funeral Home in Jeffersonville gave misleading information about the cremated remains of their daughter, Nicole Dallas Lorey. They say the funeral home’s director, Randy Lankford, told them the company didn’t have a container in which to send her remains.
The family of James “Mike” Settle alleges Lankford gave them similar reasons for not sending them his remains.
“I have heard, you know, over and over and time again from these families, the expression of the feeling that they failed, you know, to fulfil their last obligation,” the families’ lawyer, Larry Wilder of Jeffersonville, told The Associated Press by phone Thursday.
Wilder said the Clark County coroner’s office told Settle’s family that his body was among those found decomposing in the funeral home. He said Cook and Lorey haven’t been told if her body was among them.
Lankford didn’t immediately reply to an email and voicemail left Thursday seeking comment, and the coroner didn’t respond to requests for further information about the case.
Police began investigating the funeral home last Friday and found 31 bodies, including some that were badly decomposed, and 16 sets of cremated remains. Some of the bodies had been there since March.
Jeffersonville police Maj. Isaac Parker said Tuesday that further information would be released after investigators identified the bodies and notified the families of the dead. He also said criminal charges haven’t been ruled out.
Parker didn’t immediately reply to a message left Thursday seeking an update.
County prosecutor Jeremy Mull said via email that he was waiting for the police report to determine whether charges are warranted.
The plaintiffs are seeking financial compensation and a jury trial. Wilder said other families of the dead are expected to join the lawsuit.
Wisconsin
Man accused of damaging Capitol statues receives probation
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Madison man charged with helping tear down two statues outside the state Capitol during a string of protests over racial injustice two years ago has been sentenced to three years of probation.
Jacob Capps, 28, pleaded guilty to one count of felony criminal damage to property Wednesday and was also ordered to pay $5,000 in restitution.
In an agreement with prosecutors, Capps entered the guilty plea to toppling the “Forward” statue on Capitol Square on the night of June 23, 2020. A second felony count for helping take down the statue of abolitionist Col. Hans Christian Heg that same night was read at sentencing and dismissed.
Both statues have since been repaired and replaced.
Capps declined to comment on his plea when given the chance in court, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.
Protests in Madison over the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police began in late May 2020. Protests the night of June 23 were in response to the arrest earlier in the day of local activist Devonere Johnson. He has since been convicted in federal court of extortion involving a Madison business.
At least four other people have been charged in connection with the statues’ destruction. At least three of their cases remain open.
South Dakota
Man sentenced to 40 years for fatal attack
ST. FRANCIS, S.D. (AP) — A man accused of a fatal attack after breaking into a St. Francis home last year has been sentenced to 40 years in federal prison.
U.S. District Court Judge Roberto Lange also ordered 23-year-old Isaiah Young to serve five years of supervised release for second-degree murder. Lange on Thursday imposed a 10-year sentence for assault with a dangerous weapon to run concurrently with the 40-year term.
Young was indicted by a grand jury in February 2021 and pleaded guilty in March.
Prosecutors say Young broke into a house in St. Francis on Jan. Arkansas
24, 2021 with intentions of stealing electronics. He entered a bedroom, turned on the light and after grabbing a hammer assaulted a couple who had been sleeping. The indictment said that Young then picked up a knife and repeatedly stabbing both victims.
The woman died of her injuries. The man was hospitalized for his injuries, but survived.
This case was investigated by the FBI and the Rosebud Sioux Tribe Law Enforcement Services. Young has been turned over to the U.S. Marshals Service.
Wisconsin
Man given 8 years in prison for fatal ambulance crash
FOND DU LAC, Wis. (AP) — A drunken driver who caused a fatal crash with an ambulance in Fond du Lac has been sentenced to eight years in prison.
A judge in Fond du Lac County also ordered David Worley to spend seven years on extended supervision Thursday.
Prosecutors say the 30-year-old Theresa man ran a red light on Sept. 15, 2020 and hit the ambulance. A 21-year-old passenger in Worley’s vehicle, Jonathan Bruemmer of Fond du Lac, was killed.
Worley had to be extricated from the vehicle and was transported by helicopter to Theda Clark Regional Medical Center in Neenah for life-threatening injuries. A patient in the ambulance and two of its medical crew members were also injured.
“The world lost a great soul that night due to my poor choices,” Worley said at his sentencing hearing Thursday. “I’m forever sorry for what I’ve done, and with the chance at a second life, I hope my scars and pain will influence others not to make the same mistakes I have.”
A blood test showed Worley’s blood alcohol concentration at 0.21%, WLUK-TV reported. The legal limit for operating a vehicle in Wisconsin is 0.08%.
Worley pleaded no contest to one count of homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle last April. Two other counts were dismissed.
Arkansas
Family sues over man’s fatal shooting by officer
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The family of a man who was fatally shot near an Arkansas hospital while trying to drive away in a stolen truck filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against the officer who shot him and several others.
Relatives of Tyrone Washington filed the lawsuit over the 39-year-old’s fatal shooting by a University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences officer near the university hospital’s emergency department on Dec. 3, 2020. The lawsuit accuses former UAMS officer Krystal Watson of wrongful death and using excessive force in the shooting.
Watson shot Washington when he began driving off after another officer had reached inside the vehicle, dragging the officer. According to the lawsuit, Watson did not warn Washington of her intent to use deadly force.
The lawsuit said that Washington had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and had gone to UAMS to seek mental health treatment after being discharged from another hospital.
“A reasonably well-trained medical professional who encountered Tyrone around this time would know or should know that Tyrone was in the midst of a mental health crisis and in need of professional help,” the lawsuit said.
Arkansas State Police investigated the shooting and the local prosecutor found no evidence of wrongdoing by Watson or UAMS, a hospital spokeswoman said.
“Our hearts go out to the family of Tyrone Washington,” UAMS Spokeswoman Leslie Taylor said in a statement. “Officer Watson believed the life of her fellow officer, who was being dragged by a stolen vehicle driven by Mr. Washington, was in danger. She acted to save her fellow officer’s life.”
Watson has resigned from UAMS since the shooting, Taylor said. The lawsuit also names as defendants several other officers, UAMS Chancellor Dr. Cam Patterson and St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center, where Washington had been evaluated and discharged before he walked to UAMS.
The family’s lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages, and is requesting a jury trial.
Massachusetts
Ex-prison guard pleads not guilty in 1988 murder of girl
SALEM, Mass. (AP) — A retired corrections officer charged in the decades-old killing of a New Hampshire girl in Massachusetts pleaded not guilty Thursday.
Marvin C. McClendon Jr. was also ordered to remain in custody. He’s due back in Essex County Superior Court in Salem, Massachusetts, late next month.
The 75-year-old Alabama resident has been charged with fatally stabbing Melissa Ann Tremblay on Sept. 12, 1988.
The 11-year-old from Salem, New Hampshire, had been playing outside in Lawrence, Massachusetts, while her mother was inside a local social club. Tremblay’s body was found in a nearby railway yard the following day.
McClendon’s lawyer, C. Henry Fasoldt, said after Thursday’s arraignment that his client “looks forward to holding the government to its very high burden of proof.”
Tremblay’s cousin, Daneille Root, said the family never gave up hope the young child’s killer would eventually be found and face judgment.
“Over the years, some people have said that we didn’t care about her, but that is not true,” she said in a statement provided by the Essex District Attorney’s Office. “She has always been in our thoughts.”
“Many people have blamed my aunt for Missy’s death,” Root added. “While I don’t believe she made the right decision that night, that is between her and God. Ultimately the only person responsible for Missy’s death is the man we saw in court today.”
McClendon has been held without bail since May, when he was extradited from Alabama, where he lives.
Prosecutors have said the state crime lab generated a DNA profile from Tremblay’s body, leading them to McClendon. They also said the former corrections officer, who retired in 2002, had worked and attended church in Lawrence at the time of the killing.
California
Jamaican man sentenced for LA, NY airport drug smuggling
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Jamaican man who provided nearly 60 pounds of cocaine to a flight attendant to smuggle aboard a flight from Los Angeles International Airport was sentenced Thursday to nearly 14 years in federal prison.
Gaston Brown, 42, of Clarendon, Jamaica, received a 165-month sentence, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office.
He was convicted in 2018 of charges that included identity theft and conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine.
On six occasions in 2015 and 2016, Brown paid JetBlue flight attendant Marsha Gay Reynolds to smuggle drugs and cash in suitcases through crewmember checkpoints at LAX and at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, prosecutors said.
“As a known crewmember, Reynolds was subjected to much lighter screening at airport security checkpoints and would be able to transport the cash and cocaine without being stopped,” the statement said.
Brown, a convicted felon who was in the U.S. illegally, then met Reynolds and retrieved the suitcases at the airport, using identities he had stolen from two mentally disabled men to avoid detection, prosecutors said.
Brown was charged with providing Reynolds with 59.5 pounds (27 kilograms) of cocaine that she tried to smuggle in a suitcase at LAX in March 2016. Prosecutors said she dropped the carry-on bag after being randomly selected for additional screening, kicked off her heels, then fled down an upward-moving escalator and out of the terminal. She surrendered in New York days later.
She pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine and was sentenced to time served, leaving prison in 2018.
