Colorado
Man sentenced in shooting of federal park ranger
DENVER (AP) — A Colorado man has been sentenced to more than 23 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to shooting a ranger at Rocky Mountain National Park last year. The ranger was wearing a bulletproof vest and wasn’t seriously injured.
Daron Ellis, 29, of Aurora was sentenced Monday in federal court in Denver after pleading guilty to attempted murder of a federal officer and brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence, The Denver Post reported.
The Dec. 8 shooting occurred after a Colorado State Patrol officer tried to stop Ellis outside the park for speeding. The trooper learned the car was stolen and ordered Ellis to leave the car, but Ellis sped off, authorities said.
A National Park Service Law Enforcement ranger spotted the car at the Fall River entrance to the national park in Colorado and ordered Ellis to show his hands. Ellis shot the ranger in the chest with a semiautomatic handgun; the ranger returned fire, wounding Ellis, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado.
The ranger’s identity hasn’t been released.
Rocky Mountain National Park is about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Denver.
Wisconsin
Ballot Facebook photo results in felony charge
PORT WASHINGTON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin man accused of posting his marked election ballot on social media has been charged with a felony that carries possible incarceration if he’s convicted in what a prosecutor calls a “test case.”
Paul Buzzell, 52, of Mequon, appeared in Ozaukee County Circuit Court Monday where a judge found probable cause to proceed with the case and set a $500 signature bond.
According to a criminal complaint, Buzzell, a Mequon-Thiensville School Board member, posted a photo of his completed April ballot on his Facebook page. It resulted in a voter fraud charge that includes a maximum 3 ½ years behind bars and up to $10,000 in fines upon conviction.
Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol, a Republican, says he is trying to use the criminal complaint to resolve an issue.
“You could say it’s a test case,” Gerol said. “The best thing that could come of this would be an appellate decision as to whether it violates the First Amendment or not.”
There have been contradicting court rulings in other states following the 2016 election, including in New Hampshire where a federal judge held that a state law barring an individual’s right to publish their ballot violated the First Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of that ruling.
Wisconsin law says it’s illegal for anyone to show a marked ballot to anyone else or to place a mark on a ballot that identifies it as that person’s ballot. The state Senate in 2020 passed a bill to legalize the taking of so-called ballot selfies, but it died in the Assembly. County election clerks opposed changing the law, saying the ban is intended to protect ballot secrecy. Neighboring Michigan changed its law in 2019 to legalize ballot selfies.
Candidates for office in Wisconsin and others have sporadically posted photos of their completed ballots over the years, in apparent violation of the law, but charges were not brought.
Gerol said that while the felony doesn’t necessarily fit the behavior, a prosecutor can’t choose the penalties to apply. That’s up to legislators.
“There’s greater flexibility to resolve cases after they’re charged when the parties might agree to a different statute to plead to for the sake of resolution,” Gerol told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Mequon police contacted the Republican businessman about the post based on citizen complaints.
“Buzzell stated that his understanding was that it was not illegal to post a photo of a ballot with his name on it,” the complaint stated.
A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for Dec. 15.
Arizona
Man gets 6 years in prison for dumping body parts
PRESCOTT, Ariz. (AP) — The former operator of a Seattle donated-cadaver business who callously dumped numerous body parts around central Arizona was sentenced to more than six years in prison Monday.
A Yavapai County Superior Court jury in September convicted Walter Harold Mitchell III on 29 felony counts of concealing or abandoning a dead body.
Judge Krista Carman sentenced Mitchell to concurrent 2.5 year prison terms for 24 counts and a concurrent but consecutive 3.75-year term for the other five counts for a total of 6.25 years.
Mitchell, 61, will be credited with 671 days served since his arrest nearly two years ago.
Prosecutors were seeking a prison term of “no less than 18 years” for Mitchell.
“I take responsibility for what I did,” Mitchell said at his sentencing. “Whatever the court sees fit, I will live or die by. I am sorry.”
Mitchell was arrested in December 2020 at his Scottsdale apartment after the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office reported finding 24 human body limbs and five heads in a remote forest area north of Prescott, which is 99 miles (159 kilometers) north of Phoenix.
Prosecutors said the human remains — mostly body parts of women — were linked to as many as 12 people.
Two woodcutters found a human arm and leg on Dec. 26, 2020 and responding county sheriff’s deputies discovered nearly two dozen body parts.
The next day, prosecutors said two hunters came upon two severed heads and that led to the recovery of three other heads.
Investigators said most of the body parts had tags and serial numbers indicating they were donated for medical research.
That evidence along with a label for the name of Mitchell’s whole-body donation business led law enforcement to him.
Authorities learned Mitchell had permanently closed his business in Washington state in April 2020.
Prosecutors said Mitchell took the donor parts packed in dry ice with him in a U-Haul truck when he moved to Arizona.
He kept the parts in a freezer in a shed north of Prescott in Chino Valley and told authorities later that he dumped them in late November 2020.
Mitchell was arrested after selling the freezer and moving to the Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale.
Colorado
Man convicted of killing girl who vanished in 1984
GREELEY, Colo. (AP) — A former longshot Idaho gubernatorial candidate was convicted Monday of kidnapping and killing a 12-year-old Colorado girl who went missing nearly 40 years ago.
Jurors found Steve Pankey, 71, guilty of felony murder, second-degree kidnapping and false reporting in the disappearance and death of Jonelle Matthews in 1984, the office of district attorney Michael Rourke said. A judge then sentenced him to life in prison with the possibility of parole, the Greeley Tribune reported.
It was Pankey’s second trial in the case. Last year, jurors were unable to reach verdicts on the kidnapping and murder charges and prosecutors decided to put him on trial again.
Pankey was a neighbor of Jonelle and her family when she vanished after being dropped off at her empty home by a family friend after performing at a Christmas concert in Greeley, Colorado, a city about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Denver. He emerged as a person of interest in the case three decades later — shortly before Jonelle’s body was found in 2019 — after claiming to have information about what happened to her and asking for immunity from prosecution.
Pankey’s lawyers said his behavior may have seemed unusual but they argued police did not secure hard evidence against him and failed to clear an alternate suspect who died in 2007, the Tribune reported.
Prosecutors said Pankey kept up to date on the case throughout the years even as he moved his family to several states before settling in Idaho where he ran unsuccessfully as a Constitution Party candidate for Idaho governor in 2014 and in the Republican gubernatorial primary in 2018, the year that authorities said he was named as a person of interest in the girl’s death.
Jonelle’s case came to the attention of then-President Ronald Reagan as his administration launched a national effort to find missing children. Her picture was printed on milk cartons across the United States as part of a project by the National Child Safety Council.
She was considered missing until workers digging a pipeline in a rural area near Greeley in July 2019 discovered human remains matching her dental records.
Her death was then ruled a homicide. She died from a single gunshot wound to the head, prosecutors said.
Oregon
U.S. man accused of abducting, sexually abusing Canadian girl
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — U.S. prosecutors have accused an Oregon man of abducting a Canadian child he met online, taking her across the border and into the U.S. his vehicle’s trunk and sexually abusing her.
Gladstone resident Noah Madrano’s lawyer pleaded not guilty on his behalf Monday to multiple charges during his first appearance in federal court in Portland, The Oregonion/OregonLive reported.
He’s charged with traveling in interstate or foreign commerce with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, sexually exploiting a child, transporting a child interstate with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and possessing child pornography.
Madrano, 41, allegedly traveled to Canada to meet the girl in person twice before taking her into the United States. According to the charges, she was younger than 14.
He took her to a hotel room in Canada, sexually abused her and made videos of the abuse, according to an affidavit in support of a criminal complaint. Madrano on a second trip allegedly abducted the girl from near her school, took her to a hotel room and sexually abused her for several days.
After briefly returning to the United States, Madrano went back to Canada, picked up the child and drove her in the trunk of his vehicle to a hotel in Oregon City, where he continued to abuse her, prosecutors allege.
On July 2, FBI agents and Oregon City police found Madrano and the girl in the Oregon City hotel.
Madrano was arrested and the girl was returned to her parents in Edmonton, Canada, according to prosecutors and court records.
Indiana
Man gets 95 years in stabbing death of woman, 82
ANGOLA, Ind. (AP) — A man who pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing an 82-year-old woman after breaking into her northeastern Indiana home has been sentenced to 95 years in prison.
A Steuben County judge sentenced Matthew R. Hoover, 30, after the Yorktown man pleaded guilty to murder and burglary while armed with a deadly weapon in Wilma Ball’s killing.
Hoover broke into Ball’s home near Lake James in Steuben County in June 2021 and killed her, prosecutors said. Investigators linked him to the killing from DNA on two empty beer cans he left at Ball’s house, court records show.
Hoover was sentenced last week to 65 years for his murder conviction and 30 years for his burglary conviction. The sentences will be served consecutively, The Herald Republican reported.
Hoover’s attorney had sought a total sentence of 50 years on the two charges.
Under the terms of his plea agreement, two other charges — attempted rape and attempted abuse of a corpse — were dismissed.
Neighbors told WANE-TV that Ball was a former home economics teacher, a mother with two children and two stepchildren, and that she was loving, caring, active and athletic.
