Wisconsin
Woman in Slender Man attack drops release request
WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) — One of two Wisconsin women who were sent to a state mental health facility after a 2014 stabbing attack on a sixth-grade classmate that they claimed was to appease the horror character Slender Man has withdrawn her petition for release.
In June, Morgan Geyser, 20, asked Waukesha County Judge Michael Bohren to order her release as he did last year for her co-defendant, Anissa Weier, who spent nearly four years at a mental health facility in Oshkosh.
Bohren appointed three doctors to evaluate Geyser’s mental state. After receiving one doctor’s report, Geyser and her attorney sent a letter to the judge Tuesday.
The letter said: “We are requesting that the remaining examinations not be finalized and we will continue to revisit this issue as Ms. Geyser continues to make progress in treatment and advance with her recovery,” according to WTMJ-TV.
Her attorney, Anthony Cotton, has not returned a call for comment.
According to prosecutors, Geyser and Weier lured Payton Leutner to woods in a Waukesha park following a sleepover in May 2014, and Geyser repeatedly stabbed Leutner while Weier urged her on. All three girls were 12 at the time.
Geyser and Weier left Leutner for dead, but she managed to crawl out of the woods and was discovered by a passing bicyclist.
She suffered 19 stab wounds and barely survived, according to medical staff who treated her.
Police found Weier and Geyser later that day walking on Interstate 94 in Waukesha. They said they were traveling to Slender Man’s mansion in northern Wisconsin and attacked Leutner because they thought it would make them Slender Man’s servants and prevent him from killing their families.
Geyser pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree intentional homicide in a deal with prosecutors and a judge sent her to the Winnebago Mental Health Institute after determining she had a mental illness.
Weier pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree intentional homicide and was also sent to the psychiatric facility after a jury found she was suffering from a mental illness at the time of the attack.
Last September, Weier was granted a conditional release to live with her father and was ordered to wear a GPS monitor.
California
LA County deputy pleads not guilty to child sex assaults
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy pleaded not guilty Wednesday to sexually assaulting four girls between the ages of 7 and 13, prosecutors said.
Sean Essex, 51, was ordered held without bail.
The county district attorney’s office said he was indicted by a grand jury Tuesday on 47 counts including committing lewd acts on a child under the age of 14, oral copulation of a child, continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14 and possessing material depicting a child sex act.
The office didn’t provide details of the alleged assaults.
Essex could face multiple life sentences if convicted of all charges.
“Sexually assaulting a child not only robs them of their innocence but also leaves lasting mental trauma,” District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement. “This is one of the most egregious crimes my office encounters and it is made worse when the crime is committed by someone who has been entrusted to protect them and our community from harm.”
One alleged victim reported abuse in 2006 but the district attorney’s office declined to file charges at that time, prosecutors said.
Essex was assigned to the Sheriff’s Department training bureau. He was fired after a 2018 investigation but the county’s Civil Service Commission ordered him reinstated, the Sheriff’s Department said.
Essex has now been relieved of duty and the department “is in the process of removing his pay,” a department statement said.
“Department members who engage in misconduct, especially criminal misconduct that preys on a vulnerable population, will not be tolerated and will be investigated and fully prosecuted,” the department said. “Society expects peace officers to hold themselves to the highest moral and ethical standards, as does the Sheriff.”
Florida
Sheriff accused of pressuring candidates to drop races
TITUSVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A third candidate for public office has come to forward to say a sheriff on Florida’s Space Coast offered help in getting a job in exchange for leaving a race and backing his favored candidate.
Kimberly Musselman, an assistant state attorney in Brevard County, told Florida Today she was asked by Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey to bow out of her race for county judge and endorse a candidate backed by him. In exchange, the sheriff said he could use his influence to help her become the district’s top prosecutor, she said.
After she refused, Ivey urged some of her biggest donors to drop their support, Musselman told Florida Today.
“My donors dried up real quick,” Musselman said.
In response to an inquiry Wednesday, Tod Goodyear, a spokesperson for the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, said in an email, “We are not commenting at this time.”
Two other candidates for public office have made similar allegations to Florida Today.
Cocoa Beach police officer Chris Hattaway said the Republican sheriff asked him to step aside for former state Rep. Tom Goodson, another candidate in a county commission race. Shawn Overdorf, a former school resource officer, told a similar story about his race for school board. In exchange, both candidates were offered jobs in Goodson’s office if he won, Florida Today reported.
When contacted by Florida Today, Goodson denied involvement with any efforts to pressure candidates out of the election and said he had not spoken with Ivey about hiring anyone.
Ivey has gained national attention in recent years due to his weekly “ Wheel of Fugitive “ videos which feature the sheriff spinning a wheel with photos of 10 of the county’s most wanted.
“Everybody watches it. Even the fugitives watch it” to see who becomes “fugitive of the week,” said Ivey, who was elected sheriff in 2012.
Wisconsin
Jury convicts man in fatal hate crime crash
FOND DU LAC, Wis. (AP) — A jury in Wisconsin has convicted a man accused of intentionally targeting a motorcyclist in a fatal crash because of the victim's race, in a two-phase trial that will eventually determine the defendant's mental state at the time.
Daniel Navarro, a 27-year-old Mexican American from Fond du Lac, was convicted Wednesday of first-degree intentional homicide as a hate crime in the July 3, 2020 crash that killed Phillip Thiessen, who was white, in Fond du Lac County.
He was also convicted of first-degree recklessly endangering safety as a hate crime.
Thiessen, 55, was a retired special agent with the Wisconsin Department of Justice and a former police officer.
Because Navarro pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, his trial moves to the next phase to determine his mental state at the time of the fatal crash. That will help determine whether he is sentenced to prison or a mental health facility.
Prosecutors say Navarro struck Thiessen's motorcycle head-on in the town of Taycheedah near Fond du Lac, about 67 miles (108 kilometers) north of Milwaukee. Authorities said Navarro didn't know Thiessen.
Navarro told investigators he had been harassed by co-workers and neighbors, and poisoned, drugged and verbally attacked by white people because of his race, officials said.
During an interview at the sheriff's office, Navarro said he wanted to go to prison for the rest of his life so he could be free from his neighbors, who he could hear making racist comments through the walls of his house, according to a criminal complaint.
Pennsylvania
Murder charges reinstated in crash that killed troopers, man
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A judge has reinstated third-degree murder charges against a woman in a crash on a Philadelphia interstate that claimed the lives of two Pennsylvania troopers and a civilian earlier this year.
Common Pleas Court Judge Lillian Ransom’s decision Wednesday comes more than a month after a municipal court judge dismissed the charges against 22-year-old Jayana Tanae Webb of Eagleville, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Ransom cited previous witness testimony and tweets Webb is alleged to have sent that night along with video footage played in a previous hearing of the time-frame of the early morning crash on March 21 on Interstate 95.
Police said Troopers Martin Mack III and Branden Sisca were trying to get a man to safety after he was reported walking in the southbound lanes of I-95 near the sports stadiums in south Philadelphia. Police said a vehicle “traveling at a high rate of speed” struck all three, and all died at the scene. Mack enlisted in 2014 and Sisca did so last year. The other victim was identified as 28-year-old Reyes Rivera Oliveras of Allentown.
Defense attorney Michael Walker said he would seek reconsideration of the ruling, which he said had “deeply saddened” his client’s family.
Webb is also charged with vehicular homicide, involuntary manslaughter and vehicular homicide while driving under the influence. The judge denied a motion by prosecutors to revoke bail for the defendant, which was set at $600,000 at a June hearing.
Washington
Man charged with fatally beating man with rifle butt
AUBURN, Wash. (AP) — King County prosecutors have charged an Auburn man with first-degree murder, alleging he beat a man to death with a rifle.
Francisco Ochoa-Prado, 31, is accused of entering Daniel Parkinson’s Auburn home on the night of Aug. 1 and fatally beating him with the stock of an AR-15 rifle, the Seattle Times reported.
The King County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Parkinson’s death a homicide due to severe blunt force trauma to his head. Ochoa-Prado is being held in the King County Jail as he awaits an Aug. 18 arraignment. His bail was set at $2 million.
Ochoa-Prado knew Parkinson owned an AR-15 rifle and kept it in his home, according to court documents. Ochoa-Prado told investigators he intended to use Parkinson’s rifle to kill him, court documents say.
Ochoa-Prado entered Parkinson’s home through sliding doors, found the AR-15 and entered Parkinson’s room with the rifle, according to the documents. He then pointed the rifle at Parkinson, who was asleep, and twice tried pulled the trigger, the documents said.
The gun did not fire, and Ochoa-Prado proceeded to beat Parkinson to death with the butt of the rifle, according to the documents.
Auburn police learned through interviews that Ochoa-Prado’s girlfriend had broken up with him that morning. His girlfriend lived in the same house as Parkinson, documents say, and Ochoa-Prado assumed the two were in a relationship.
She told police she ended her relationship with Ochoa-Prado because he was abusing drugs, according to court documents.
