Break in boy's 1997 killing was long awaited by California officer
By: Associated Press
BEAUMONT -- Police Lt. Mitchell White says he can retire now that a suspect has been identified in the abduction and killing of 10-year-old Anthony Martinez, eight years after the crime convulsed his community.
And it doesn't bother White that a waitress a thousand miles away managed to do what dozens of local investigators couldn't -- deliver what authorities believe to be the major break in the case.
"That's what we figured would happen, that it would be a fluke," White said Thursday. "We always figured it would be some obscure (thing)."
Riverside County authorities said Wednesday that Joseph Edward Duncan III, 42, is linked by a fingerprint to the scene where Anthony was slain in 1997 after being taken by a man who got near him with a ruse about a lost cat.
Duncan was arrested in July when an Idaho waitress recognized the little girl with him as Shasta Groene, 8, who had been missing with her brother Dylan, 9, after a triple homicide at their home near Coeur d'Alene in May. Dylan's body was later found in Montana.
Duncan is charged in Idaho with kidnapping and killing Shasta's mother, Brenda Groene, 40, her boyfriend Mark McKenzie, 37, and Shasta's 13-year-old brother, Slade. Federal prosecutors plan to file charges in the abduction of the children and Dylan's death.
FBI agents contacted Riverside authorities on July 14 and said Duncan mentioned the name Martinez and the general area. This week, the side of one of Duncan's thumbs was matched to a print from Anthony's murder scene, Sheriff Robert Doyle said.
White calls the waitress "the real hero ... if not for her, this case would still be unsolved."
Anthony's mother, Diana Medina, now lives in the San Jose suburb of Morgan Hill with her children Marcos, 14, and Monica, 12. Over the years she hoped for a break in the case but "your mind tells you it has been too long," she told The Press-Enterprise of Riverside.
"Now, it's a person. A face," she said. "I've never had anyone to be angry at. It's not that way anymore."
Off Interstate 10 in San Gorgonio Pass some 90 minutes east of Los Angeles, Beaumont is now a town of 16,000, half again larger than in 1997. But Anthony has not been forgotten amid the town's changes.
"It brings back a lot of the memories and the feelings," said Shirley Walters, 70, a resident since 1983. "That little boy had every right in the world to grow up feeling loved and safe and (the kidnapper) took that away from him."
White, a resident since age 13, was the original investigator when word came on April 4, 1997, that a man with a knife had forced a boy into a white car as he was playing.
The community banded together and the City Council passed a resolution urging residents to leave their porch lights on each night until Anthony returned, "as a symbol to help light his way home."
The neighboring Morongo Indians bought an ad in USA Thursday that showed Anthony's picture and a sketch of the suspect. Anthony's classmates released more than 1,000 helium balloons with notes about his disappearance.
Hundreds of volunteers posted fliers and tied yellow ribbons around trees, utility poles and car antennas.
Sixteen days later a ranger found the boy's nude, bound body in a rocky desert area about 70 miles to the east. His head had been bashed in with a rock.
"Beaumont's a small town," White said. "This is not the kind of thing that people expect to happen here. It hadn't happened before and it hasn't happened since."
The impact was tremendous.
"Fear. Anger. Fear that you don't know who it was. Could it be your neighbor? Could it be the guy down the street?" he recalled.
White found himself working 18- to 20-hour days for a month. But he also worried about his two children.
"I told the wife, 'Keep 'em close to the house and keep 'em in your sight, because this guy's on the loose."'
Seemingly everyone knew someone who matched the composite picture of a blue-eyed man with a mustache.
The calls were "everything from 'I know who it is' to 'I think it's my neighbor' to 'there's this weird guy down the street," White recalled.
The mysterious fingerprint cleared many suspects, White noted.
White handled 900 leads the first week of the case. At the height of the investigation, 60 investigators from the FBI, state Department of Justice, Highway Patrol and other agencies were in the field, White said.
When it became a murder investigation, the Sheriff's Department took over, handling 15,000 leads over eight years.
White said he never grew discouraged.
"Every time I eliminate somebody, I'm one person closer to the killer," he said.
Now, White said, he is confident that authorities finally have the right man, although the investigation continues and Duncan has not been charged.
Now 50 and eligible for retirement, White held off because he was hoping the case would be cracked. He said he is now considering retiring next year.
"You don't like to go away leaving things unfinished and undone," he said. "And this was the only thing in my career that was undone."
Rescuers search for missing park ranger after reports of gunshots and smoke
DENVER (AP) -- Rescuers entering their sixth day of searching for a missing park ranger were focusing Thursday on an area where gunshots and smoke were reported the night before, officials said.
Jeff Christensen, 31, hasn't been seen since last Friday, when he left on what was supposed to be a routine patrol in Rocky Mountain National Park's vast and rugged Mummy Range some 65 miles northwest of Denver.
Park spokeswoman Kyle Patterson said rangers traveled to a part of the 26-square-mile search area after visitors reported hearing gunshots and seeing smoke. One ranger then fired his gun in a standard search tactic, and another ranger reported hearing a response shot a few minutes later.
They also heard clicking noises on their two-way radios, which may have been someone trying to communicate from a spot where the terrain blocked voice transmission.
"Our hopes have been raised and encouraged by this," park spokesman David Eaker said. "We hope this isn't a hoax. We really believe this could be Jeff."
Christensen's family and fellow rangers are optimistic: Christensen is an experienced mountaineer, extremely fit, capable of hiking far and fast. He spends his winters on the ski patrol. He's even an emergency medical technician.
"He had a map. He's good with maps," his mother, Chris Christensen, said Wednesday in this tourist town on the park's eastern edge. "We feel he would have walked out by now if he was able. We feel he's injured."
Rescuers planned to camp in the search area to lengthen the time they could work each day. More than 125 people, dog teams and a handful of helicopters worked Wednesday, with more people expected to arrive through the week.
Searchers began looking for Christensen after he failed to report for work Saturday. His parents arrived Tuesday from their home in Forest Lake, Minn.
An Oklahoma couple vacationing in Estes Park said they spoke with Christensen between noon and 1 p.m. Friday as they were coming down Mount Chiquita. Park officials were hoping to talk to other people the couple said were in the area.
The 26-square-mile search area in the Mummy Range has few designated trails and elevation ranging from 10,600 feet to more than 13,000. Eddie Lopez, the commander of the National Park Service team that has taken over the search and rescue operation, said the terrain is steep and treacherous.
Christensen, who has been a ranger for four seasons, had a radio and a backpack equipped with various gear, though he hadn't been planning to spend the night in the park, park officials said.
Phil Powers, executive director of the American Alpine Club in Golden, said medical emergencies leave even experienced hikers without recourse if they are alone in the wilderness. Allergies, heart attacks, a simple fall, a stumble while crossing a creek -- all can be fatal.
"When you're alone, there's no backup," Powers said. "If you're with one other person and have a fairly minor accident, that one other person can stop the bleeding or call for help."
'Muscle Cars' steal the show at Reno's Hot August Nights
RENO, Nev. (AP) -- When it comes to classic cars, it's the engine-roaring, gas-guzzling "muscle cars" of the mid-1960s and early '70s the fetch the most dough at the Hot August Nights Collector Car Auction.
More than 800 vehicles are up for sale during the four-day auction that runs through Saturday at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center.
The sale is part of Hot August Nights, the Reno-area's weeklong celebration of polished chrome, sock-hops, poodle skirts and rock 'n' roll.
Some of the gems on display include a 1969 Dodge Charger, 1964 Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu SS, 1970 Plymouth Roadrunner, 1964 Ford Galaxy 500, 1966 Pontiac GTO, 1964 Chevrolet Impala 409, 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS, 1971 Chevrolet Camaro Z28, 1969 Chevrolet Camaro SS and a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z28.
They're enough to make a car-lover drool.
"It's a car to watch," said Mark Young, a classic car dealer from Portland, Ore., pointing to the gold 1969 Camaro Z-28 at the end of the row.
Young is a muscle car specialist. He owns every car in the row. Last year, he sold a Z-28 for $121,000.
Muscle cars, he said, are valuable.
"They didn't build much in the way of muscle cars after 1970," he said. "That was the highest horsepower year. The style went away. The horsepower dropped in half."
The muscle-car era of big engines and high performance was brief, Young said, cut short by rising gas prices and growing requirements for smog controls and safety equipment.
"Muscle cars are extremely hot," agreed Mitch Silver, the auctioneer from Spokane, Wash., who runs the show at the convention center.
It will take plenty of cash to buy one at the auction.
Silver predicted total sales near $20 million in four days.
"Its fun and it's entertaining," said Silver, a former college speech communications professor who quit in 1979 to start Silver Auctions.
"I liked old cars," said Silver, 52, who learned to talk fast by listening to audio tapes he recorded of auctioneers.
Owners pay a fee, from $100 to $1,000, to put their cars in the auction. The highest fee is for the "prime time" sales Friday through Saturday afternoon.
Muscle cars, Silver said, are reserved for "prime time."
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- An aspiring model whose decomposing remains were believed found in a storage facility led a double life that she hid from her new husband -- a life that included an affair with a millionaire almost 40 years her senior, a gold Mercedes-Benz and a house that she and her lover were buying.
A woman's body, and a purse belonging to 21-year-old Iryna Singerman, were found Tuesday in the bed of a pickup truck owned by her lover, Brian Joseph Cullen, 59. Coroner's office spokesman Craig Harvey said Thursday that identification efforts were still under way and an autopsy was tentatively planned Friday.
Police are hunting for Cullen, who they believe fled to Mexico.
Iryna Singerman's husband, Ronald Singerman, only learned of her secrets last week, when she failed to return home and some of her financial documents turned up along with a bloody baseball bat in garbage bags that were dumped in a bin behind a Woodland Hills strip mall.
"The family didn't know anything about this," said Barry Greenberg, the Singerman family's spokesman. "(Ronald) had never heard of any of this until the case broke. He's devastated."
Iryna Singerman met her 50-year-old husband, who is a certified public accountant, a year ago through an agency that matches American men with Russian women, police said.
Cullen became a suspect in her disappearance because of surveillance camera images and a witness who reported seeing him toss bags into the strip mall trash bin on July 26. The next day, authorities found blood and other evidence of a struggle when they searched Cullen's Woodland Hills home.
Police believe Singerman's killing was a domestic violence incident.
Singerman spent most weekends at Cullen's house, his neighbors said. The pair were buying another house together in Northridge, according to Los Angeles police Detective Rick Swanston.
Singerman also drove a gold 2005 Mercedes-Benz registered to both her and her husband and kept the car at Cullen's home.
Ronald Singerman knew nothing about the car until insurance information arrived in the mail, Swanston said. His wife told him that her frequent absences from home were related to her modeling work, but Swanston said police were unaware of her holding any modeling jobs.
Neighbors and co-workers described Cullen as a physically fit, private man with a bit of a temper. He owns a coupon book business and is on parole for a federal wire fraud conviction in the 1980s.
Pope's brother gets pacemaker after irregular heartbeat
ROME (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI's older brother, the Rev. Georg Ratzinger, had a pacemaker implanted because of an irregular heartbeat and is recovering well, the Vatican said Thursday.
Ratzinger, who was visiting his brother at the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo south of Rome, was taken to Rome's Policlinico Gemelli on Wednesday evening after suffering "cardiac rhythm disturbances," Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in a statement.
After being diagnosed, Ratzinger was outfitted with a pacemaker, which regulates the heartbeat, the spokesman said. Ratzinger's postoperative recovery was "satisfactory," and he was expected to be released soon from Gemelli, Navarro-Valls said.
Ratzinger, 81, is music director of Regensburg Cathedral in Germany.
The two brothers have been seen in public on several occasions since Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected pontiff in April.
Hospital worker accused of stealing, selling medical equipment
EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) -- A nurse's aide was charged with stealing more than $200,000 in medical equipment from a hospital -- including replacement knees and a kit for spinal care -- and selling it on eBay.
Brian Pickens, 31, gradually accumulated thousands of pieces of equipment from St. Mary's Medical Center, police said.
He netted more than $12,000 on eBay sales in the U.S., Russia, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Mexico, police Detective Kirk Pritchett said.
The thefts went undetected until a vendor reported a surgical spine set -- valued at $116,000 -- missing, then spotted it on eBay, sold by the screen name "shaft44870." The online auction house connected the name to Pickens and gave the information to police.
Pickens was charged with theft and fired from his job.
Pickens' lawyer, Scott Danks, said the estimated value of the equipment was "hugely exaggerated." He said Pickens bought some of the equipment from yard sales and online, and picked up others after they had been discarded by the hospital.
Hollywood producer, daughter found dead in Northern California
CLEARLAKE OAKS (AP) -- A one-time Hollywood producer and his 9-year-old daughter were found dead in their car a day after they were last seen alive and Lake County authorities on Thursday were investigating what they called a bizarre case.
The bodies of Terry Martin Carr and his daughter, Arieka, were found in their Jeep after Carr abandoned his wife at a grocery store in Ashland, Ore. on Sunday and drove off with the girl.
The bodies, which were lying in the back of the Jeep parked outside a convenience store, showed no obvious signs of trauma and autopsies performed Wednesday were inconclusive, said Lake County Detective Tom Andrews. Toxicology results testing for the presence of drugs or alcohol are pending, he said.
He described the circumstances surrounding the deaths as "too bizarre."
Carr's wife, Chikako Carr, filed missing person reports Monday morning, the day after the two vanished, said Brent Jensen, an Ashland police detective.
The bodies were found Monday afternoon, but it took two days to link the cases. Clearlake Oaks, 110 miles north of San Francisco, is about 280 miles south of Ashland.
Carr, 62, took off with the girl while his wife was in a grocery store restroom Sunday afternoon, Chikako Carr told police. She said they had not been fighting.
"She said it was totally out of character, totally out of the blue. She was stunned," Jensen said. "She was stunned again when they delivered the news."
Carr's Hollywood credits include serving as producer of "An Almost Perfect Affair" and "Coast to Coast," co-producer of "Predator 2" and "The Boost," and writing and directing "Welcome to 18." He also worked as a production manager or supervisor for the films "Jagged Edge," "The River," and "On Golden Pond," according to the Internet Movie Database.
Jensen said the Carrs moved from Los Angeles in late June and had been looking at properties in southern Oregon before renting an apartment in Ashland on July 29.
That day, police received a call from a man who said that someone driving a Jeep had dumped bags and boxes of clothes and personal mementos into his pasture. The items have since been linked to Terry Carr.
"It's not stuff you would throw away -- 60-year-old photos, files -- and the way they were disposed off suggests some sort of closure or starting a new chapter in life," Jensen said.
Federal prosecutors: Mexican kidnapper says he helped abduct singer Thalia's sisters
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- A kidnapper arrested Thursday in Mexico City told federal officials he helped abduct two of pop singer Thalia's sisters in 2002, the federal Attorney General's office said.
Officials were investigating the man's claims, and one of Thalia's sisters, actress Laura Zapata, was working with police to help them determine if the man's confession was true, a federal spokeswoman said on customary condition of anonymity.
The man was among several people arrested Thursday at a house in Mexico City. Two kidnapping victims were also rescued.
Zapata visited the house to determine if it was the same she was kept at, but she didn't make statements to the press upon leaving.
Police have captured other suspects in the 2002 kidnapping of Zapata and her sister, writer Ernestina Sodi. Both were abducted from their car as they left a play Zapata appeared in, and they were released weeks later.
Zapata co-wrote a play about her ordeal that is set to open next month.
Thalia, a former Mexican soap opera actress, is married to music mogul Tommy Mottola.
School bus drivers, aides among 29 charged in OxyContin ring
MIAMI (AP) -- School bus drivers, attendants and other co-workers were charged by federal prosecutors Thursday with taking part in an illegal drug ring involving the powerful painkiller OxyContin.
According to the indictment, Miami-Dade school employees were among 29 people who used more than 100 forged or fraudulent prescriptions to obtain thousands of tablets of OxyContin from South Florida pharmacies.
No teachers were involved, and there was no evidence of drug sales to children, U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said.
The school workers were recruited to use their health-insurance cards as part of the scheme, prosecutors said.
Of those charged in the grand jury indictment, five are Miami-Dade school bus drivers, 13 are school bus attendants and one is a former school bus driver now driving a city bus. Two school custodians, a cook and a cashier were also charged, along with a Miami doctor and five other people.
Dr. Ronald E. Harris was also charged by state prosecutors last year with illegally selling OxyContin prescriptions to Medicaid recipients.
Miami-Dade school officials had no immediate comment on the 84-count indictment, which came days before classes begin Monday.
Those charged face up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine for each count of possession of OxyContin with intent to distribute, as well as additional prison time for fraud charges, prosecutors said.
OxyContin is legal if prescribed for treatment of severe chronic pain. But it has become an increasing problem on the black market because crushing the time-release tablets and snorting or injecting the powder yields an immediate, heroin-like high. Hundreds of deaths are blamed each year on overdoses.
Wisconsin man sentenced to 50 years in prison in child sex ring
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) -- A drifter who investigators say was the ringleader of a child sex and pornography ring that stretched across the nation via the Internet was sentenced Thursday to 50 years in prison.
William Martin, 34, lured boys to his home, sexually assaulted at least a dozen of them and invited men he met on the Internet to do the same, according to criminal complaints and federal affidavits. He also recorded the sex acts and sold the images.
Martin pleaded guilty in May to three counts of enticing a minor to engage in a sexual act for the purpose of producing pornography.
After moving to Beaver Dam in 2002, Martin befriended neighborhood parents and their friends in the Wisconsin town and encouraged them to let their children visit his home, stay overnight or go on trips with him, authorities have said.
The case developed after Michigan authorities searched the home of a man who was part of an Internet club whose members produced and shared photographs, videos and live broadcasts of children being sexually assaulted.
That man, Brian Urbanawiz, was sentenced in Michigan to at least 35 years in prison after pleading guilty last year.
Chief: Officers didn't violate rules by handcuffing kindergartner
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) -- Police officers committed an error of judgment when they handcuffed an unruly kindergartner at school in March but did not violate policy, the department's chief said Thursday.
Chief Chuck Harmon said the two officers who handcuffed the 5-year-old girl were reprimanded for minor errors in handling the situation, which gained worldwide attention when a videotape of the confrontation was released to broadcasters.
But Harmon said the officers were not punished for shackling the child, who had torn up a classroom and hit an assistant principal before the officers arrived.
Still, Harmon said, the officers should have done more investigation, explored ways to defuse the situation and allowed school officials to take the lead in handling it.
"This child needed some intervention, but I don't think it was by law enforcement," Harmon said, calling the handcuffing "premature."
The video of the March 14 confrontation prompted criticism of the police and school system, and charges of racism that brought the Rev. Jesse Jackson to town to meet with school officials. The girl is black, and the police officers are white.
Harmon said Thursday that the report found no evidence of racism by the officers.
A video camera captured images of the girl tearing papers off a bulletin board, climbing on a table and punching the assistant principal before police were called.
Then the tape shows the child appearing to calm down before officers approach, pin her arms behind her back and put on handcuffs as she screamed, "No!" and began to cry.
The girl was put in the back of a police car and had her feet restrained after she tried to kick out the window. She was released later without charges.
The girl's mother, Inga Akins, sold her story exclusively to a tabloid TV show, and her attorneys have notified the city that she plans to sue. A working phone number for Akins could not be located Thursday, and she could not be reached for comment. A call to her Stuart attorneys was not immediately returned.
Harmon said the incident prompted a policy change that will prohibit handcuffing children younger than 8 without a supervising officer being called to the scene. But officers need to retain the option of handcuffing children in "extreme situations," such as when a weapon is involved, he said.
Gang founder on death row gets presidential award for good deeds
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Convicted murderer Stanley "Tookie" Williams has received an award for his good deeds on death row, complete with a letter from President Bush praising the notorious gang founder for demonstrating "the outstanding character of America."
Williams, co-founder of the notorious Crips street gang, has been an anti-gang activist during his many years on death row at San Quentin State Prison, where he was sent after being convicted in 1981 for killing four people. He's authored 10 books, mostly warning young people to stay away from gangs.
The President's Call to Service Award arrived as Williams, 53, continues his final fight for clemency. His case is now being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
It was doubtful that the president, who oversaw 152 executions during his six years as Texas governor, knew that Williams had received a congratulatory letter bearing his signature.
More than 267,000 people have received the award, which costs $1 and includes a certificate of achievement and commendation letters from the president and former Sens. Bob Dole and John Glenn, honorary co-chairs of the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation.
Sandy Scott, a spokesman for the council, refused to address the fact that the award was given to a condemned killer. After nearly three days of attempts by The Associated Press to get a comment, Scott e-mailed a response saying the awards are approved by nominating organizations, not the council.
Williams was nominated for the award by William A. Harrison of West Monroe, La. a minister with The Old Catholic Orthodox Church.
"People can be redeemed. It doesn't matter where you come from," Harrison said. "You may be on death row, but to be able to lend something that people can say, 'This has inspired me to change my life."
Barbara Becnel, Williams' spokeswoman and co-author, said she believes he is the first death row inmate to receive the service award created in 2003 to honor Americans who inspire volunteerism.
One of Williams' books, 1998's "Life in Prison," led to the Internet Project for Street Peace, an afterschool violence prevention program.
In 1999, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, former African National Congress Women's League president, visited Williams at San Quentin because she was inspired by the Internet project.
In April, Williams' story was portrayed in an award-winning film starring Jamie Foxx called "Redemption: The Stan 'Tookie' Williams Story." Becnel said Williams has received tens of thousands of e-mails -- many from young gang members who said his life story helped them turn their lives around.
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