California
Killer diagnosed with cancer to be released
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Southern California motorcycle club founder who killed three people in 1980 has been ordered to be released this week, following a terminal cancer diagnosis, prosecutors said Thursday.
Thomas Maniscalco, 77, has been incarcerated for nearly 40 years after his 1994 conviction on three counts of second-degree murder, with enhancements for being armed with a firearm, according to state prison officials. He was sentenced to life in prison and has been denied parole twice.
He was ordered released under California’s compassionate release law, which was amended last year and allows for incarcerated people to be freed if they have a serious and advanced illness with an end-of-life trajectory.
Maniscalco was the co-founder of the Hessian Motorcycle Club. Prosecutors said Maniscalco thought Richard Rizzone, another Hessian, was ripping him off in a counterfeiting and meth distribution ring.
Rizzone, his 19-year-old girlfriend Rena Miley and his bodyguard Thomas Monahan were killed in the 1980 Memorial Day attack in Rizzone’s home in Westminster, which is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of downtown Los Angeles. All three were shot multiple times at close range.
Prosecutors said Miley, a police officer’s daughter, and Monahan were slain so the killers could avoid witnesses.
Maniscalco and a fellow Hessian were convicted in the massacre. A third biker was killed by police in Oklahoma before charges could be brought.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said Maniscalco, who will be released to his daughter who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, poses a threat to public safety.
“He has taken no responsibility for the lives he destroyed and soon he will be a free man with nothing to lose,” Spitzer said in a news release.
The state corrections department declined to comment Thursday. It was not immediately clear whether Maniscalco had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
California
Worker pleads not guilty to killing 7 at farms
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP) — A farmworker charged with killing seven people last month in back-to-back shootings at two Northern California mushroom farms pleaded not guilty Thursday.
Chunli Zhao, 66, is charged with seven counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.
Prosecutors said that on Jan. 23 he opened fire at the Half Moon Bay mushroom farm where he worked, killing four co-workers and wounding another one. They said he then drove to a mushroom farm he was fired from in 2015 and shot to death three former co-workers.
Zhao admitted to the shootings during a jailhouse media interview days after the shooting. Zhao told KNTV-TV he was bullied and worked long hours on the farms and that his complaints were ignored.
Dressed in a red jail uniform on Thursday, Zhao appeared behind a glass partition in the courtroom with his head bowed and spoke only when a Mandarin translator relayed questions from the judge, the Mercury News reported. At a hearing last week, Zhao sobbed so loudly that the judge called for a brief recess.
The judge last week issued a gag order prohibiting prosecuting and defense attorneys, as well as Zhao and the county sheriff’s office, from talking to reporters about the facts of the case or sharing opinions about what happened. They can still discuss rulings that were made in open court and the procedural status of upcoming hearings.
Earlier, the judge granted a request from defense attorneys to restrict remote access to court records.
Ohio
Family of man shot by police while in bed sues officers
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Nearly six months after a Black man was fatally shot by a white officer while lying in bed, his family sued the officer and four others in the Columbus Police Department, calling his killing senseless and completely preventable.
The family of Donovan Lewis is seeking accountability, according to the complaint announced Thursday. Their lawyers said neither Columbus police nor Ohio’s capital city has acknowledged responsibility, and reforms are needed to prevent similar deaths.
The lawsuit also accuses longtime police officer Ricky Anderson of battery, breach of duty, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, failure to render aid and violating Lewis’ constitutional rights. Anderson and the other four officers are white.
Lewis, 20, died at a hospital following the shooting in the early morning hours of August 30, 2022. Police bodycam footage shows he was shot once in the abdomen, less than a second after an officer opened his bedroom door. Lewis appeared to be holding a vape pen, but no weapon.
Columbus police said officers had come to arrest Lewis on multiple warrants, including domestic violence, assault and felony improper handling of a firearm. No weapon was found in his home.
“This police officer fired his weapon less than a second after the door opened. That is about as reckless as a police officer can get,” Rex Elliott, the family’s attorney, said.
More than two months have passed since prosecutors were selected in December to review the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation’s independent investigation into Anderson’s shooting of Lewis and bring it before a grand jury. Lewis’ mother, Rebecca Duran, said she’s frustrated at how long that
process is taking.
A separate lawsuit against the city of Columbus could be filed in the near future in federal court, according to Elliott.
“We now need the city to step up,” he said.
Messages left with the city and the police union seeking comment were not immediately returned.
The complaint also accuses all five officers of violating Andre’s Law, which was passed in 2021 by the Columbus City Council. It was named for Andre Hill, a Black man who was visiting a friend when he was fatally shot by an officer investigating a noise complaint in 2020. That officer, Adam Coy, pleaded not guilty to murder charges.
The law requires Columbus police officers to render immediate medical attention to an injured suspect. Officers failed to do that for Hill, and, according to the complaint, for Lewis as well.
After Lewis was killed last year, the city did stop serving overnight warrants for certain misdemeanor and non-violent felony suspects.
Illinois
Speedy trial sought for suspect in freezer body case
CHICAGO (AP) — The attorney for a woman accused of killing and dismembering the owner of a Chicago boarding house has requested a speedy trial for her.
Sandra Kolalou, 36, has pleaded not guilt y to murder and other charges in the slaying of 69-Frances Walker, whose partial remains were found in a freezer in the boarding house on Chicago’s northwest side.
Kolalou’s attorney, Sean Brown, demanded her right to a speedy trial during a hearing Tuesday after a Cook County judge denied his motion to set bail for the woman, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
Outside the courtroom, Brown said Kolalou is innocent and wants to prove it quickly.
Brown said he believes the demand for trial, if granted, would result in the state bringing its case against Kolalou before the end of April.
Prosecutors have said Walker had served Kolalou with an eviction notice before she was killed in October.
Kolalou was arrested after police said she pulled a knife on a tow truck driver who had driven her to a beach on Chicago’s lakefront. Prosecutors said Kolalou dumped a heavy bag into a garbage can and then pulled a knife on the 24-year-old driver after he refused to take her to another location.
Officers obtained a search warrant and found part of Walker’s remains in a freezer and blood throughout the home, including on two knives.
Minnesota
Woman sentenced to life for 6-year-old son’s death
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minnesota woman convicted of fatally shooting her 6-year-old son just days after regaining custody was sentenced Thursday to life in prison.
Julissa Thaler, 29, was convicted last week of first-degree murder in the October 2022 death of Eli Hart, who prosecutors said was shot nine times by his mother as he sat in his booster seat.
Officers found the boy’s body in the trunk after a traffic stop.
Eli’s father, Tory Hart, has sued Dakota County Social Services, alleging that employees returned his son to Thaler despite concerns about her alleged drug use and deteriorating mental health.
In closing arguments during the trial, Thaler’s defense attorney, Bryan Leary, acknowledged she participated in the boy’s death but said she was not the one who shot him.
Eli’s stepmother, Josephine Josephson, said in a victim impact statement for herself and Tory Hart that “the pain is so deep you can’t breathe.”
“You can’t explain the loss of your only son ... then to have lost him in such a horrible way, you just can’t explain how that changes your life,” she said.
When given a chance to respond after victim impact statements, Thaler said she was innocent and directed an expletive toward those in the courtroom, The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.
New Mexico
Man sentenced in murder of Army vet girlfriend
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A New Mexico man was sentenced to 33 years in prison Thursday for the 2019 murder of his girlfriend, a retired U.S. Army veteran whose remains were found nearly two years later in the Nevada desert.
The New Mexico Attorney General’s Office said 61-year-old Jerry Jay of Farmington was sentenced after pleading guilty to second-degree murder and kidnapping.
They said it was the first case prosecuted under the murdered and missing indigenous person bill passed last year.
Prosecutors said Cecilia Finona, a 59-year-old Farmington resident of Navajo descent, was reported missing by her family in June 2019.
Her remains were found in February 2021 in a remote desert culvert just outside of Las Vegas and identified through DNA testing.
Finona’s family says she retired in 2019 as an Army master sergeant after 31 years of service and Jay was her boyfriend.
Authorities said Jay struck Finona on the head with a blunt object after an argument on May 31, 2019 and he put the victim in the backseat of her truck.
Finona bled to death as Jay drove through Arizona, Nevada and California, using her debit card along the way to pay for new truck tires and gas before dumping the body, according to prosecutors.
They said Jay was later arrested for stealing the debit card and allegedly told a jailmate that he had killed Finona.
Financial records plus video and forensic evidence connected Jay to the murder, authorities said.
