|
Post by Sher on Jun 15, 2005 15:36:01 GMT -5
MIDDLETOWN, Connecticut (AP) -- A man killed his ex-wife, wounded her lawyer and then shot himself Wednesday morning in a parking lot outside Middletown Superior Court, law enforcement officials said.
State police confirmed that one woman was killed and a man and a woman were wounded in the shooting in a city-owned parking lot behind the courthouse. The three had been headed to court for a civil matter, said state police Sgt. J. Paul Vance.
"There does not appear to be any shooter that we are looking for other than the people involved," Vance said.
One woman, identified by a law enforcement source as the ex-wife, was pronounced dead at the scene. The injured woman and the apparent shooter were taken to a local hospital, police said.
Authorities kept those inside from leaving the courthouse for more than an hour after the shooting, court spokeswoman Rhonda Stearley-Hebert said. But by 11 a.m. the lockdown was lifted, and the court had resumed normal operations by Wednesday afternoon, Stearley-Hebert said.
Middletown is about 20 miles south of Hartford.
|
|
|
Post by Sher on Jun 24, 2005 12:49:10 GMT -5
WATERBURY -- Todd Rizzo's second sentencing Thursday for the deadly 1997 bludgeoning of a 13-year-old neighborhood boy seemed like a footnote in the child killer's criminal case.
Family members of Rizzo's victim, Stanley Edwards IV of Waterbury, did not attend the hearing in Superior Court. Prosecutors said little. There were no harsh words for Rizzo from the three-judge panel that heard the evidence in the second penalty phase.
But the day's proceedings - while deja vu to those who saw Rizzo first sentenced to death in 1999 - ultimately solidified Rizzo's seat in the state's most notorious place: death row.
"You will be sentenced to death by lethal injection," Judge Thomas V. O'Keefe Jr. told Rizzo, as his mother, Joyce Moffatt, sobbed loudly in the courtroom gallery. Rizzo shook his head at his mother and mouthed the words, "Don't cry."
O'Keefe scheduled Rizzo's execution for Sept. 23, though an automatic appeal of the death sentence required by state law will postpone the execution indefinitely.
"It was a random murder committed for no other reason than to quench the curiosity of a person who wanted to know what it felt like to kill someone," said Waterbury State's Attorney John Connelly, who pushed for the death penalty for Rizzo.
Outside the Waterbury courthouse, about a dozen death penalty opponents, led by members of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty, protested Rizzo's return to death row.
The signs they carried Thursday - "Execution is Murder" and "Abolish State-Sponsored Murder" - were the same messages they took to a Somers prison last month to decry the May 13 execution of serial killer Michael Ross, the state's first execution in 45 years.
"If you look at Michael Ross' death certificate, the manner of death listed is homicide," said John Cummings, president of the Connecticut Network. "That speaks volumes. It's not the state's role to seek revenge and take lives. We see this as a solemn occasion as the state plans to take another life in our name."
Stanley's mother, Jeanne Edwards, wanted to be in court Thursday, but couldn't endure another hearing, Assistant State's Attorney Maureen M. Keegan said.
"Mrs. Edwards and the victim's sister suffered physical and mental problems as a result of this retrial," Keegan told O'Keefe and Judges Salvatore C. Agati and William T. Cremins. Edwards had testified in the second penalty phase.
Rizzo, 26, pleaded guilty to capital murder in 1999 for killing the teen. A jury then sentenced Rizzo to die, but the state Supreme Court in October 2003 overturned the death sentence.
The high court ruled that jurors during the penalty phase were not instructed that they had to determine beyond a reasonable doubt that aggravating factors - such as the heinousness of Stanley's murder - outweighed mitigating factors such as Rizzo's childhood and work he had done for a church.
The trial judge told the jury about considering aggravating and mitigating factors, but did not say anything about reasonable doubt.
After Thursday's hearing, prosecutors said Edwards was upset with the high court's decision.
"She felt that the jury's decision was appropriate," Connelly said. "She couldn't understand why he was getting a new penalty phase. It got to be a little too much for her the second time around."
"How can you blame her?" Keegan added.
Rizzo told police he lured Stanley to his yard to look for snakes and then battered Stanley with a 3-pound sledgehammer because he wanted to see what it felt like to kill someone. Rizzo, an ex-Marine who once described himself as a fan of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, struck Stanley 13 times with the sledgehammer.
Initially, Rizzo told police he didn't know anything about Stanley's killing. But when investigators found a blood smear in the back of his car, Rizzo confessed. Rizzo led police to the crime scene in his backyard and to the trash bins where he dumped the boy's body, his bloody clothes, and the weapon.
Rizzo's lawyers tried to convince the jury in the first penalty phase and the judges in the second hearing that Rizzo's troubled childhood should spare him from the death penalty.
Wearing black pants, a taupe, collared shirt, and black-rim glasses, Rizzo, a slight man with sideburns and a tuft of chin hair, used Thursday's sentencing to apologize again for the murder. His earlier show of remorse came on June 7 during the second penalty phase when Rizzo claimed full responsibility for the crime that Keegan said "struck fear in the hearts of parents everywhere."
On Thursday, Rizzo apologized not only to Stanley's family, but also to the Waterbury community of Bunker Hill, the neighborhood where he and Stanley lived.
"I don't know how to word how I feel. All I can say is that I am sorry and I do regret it. I apologize to the victim's family, to my own, and to the people of Bunker Hill," Rizzo said.
In the middle of jury selection in April for the new hearing, Rizzo decided he wanted to have three judges determine whether he should return to death row or spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Rizzo's public defender, Ronald Gold, said he disagreed with Rizzo's decision. "I tried to talk him out of it. I thought that we had a better shot with a jury," Gold said.
The judges denied Gold's attempts Thursday to get Rizzo a life sentence or a new sentencing hearing.
Seven inmates face the state's death chamber. Ivo Colon, 24, who beat his girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter to death on July 17, 1998, was sentenced to die on Dec. 5, 2000, but his death sentence was overturned. Connelly and Keegan said Colon's case will come up this fall.
|
|
|
Post by Sher on Jun 24, 2005 12:50:21 GMT -5
(New Haven-WTNH, June 24, 2005 6:00 AM) _ A string of shootings in New Haven on Thursday leaves one person dead and three injured.
by News Channel Eight's Leigh Frillici The first shooting occurred outside a package store at the corner of Read and Newhall Street this evening. Police tell News Channel 8 the store owner was grazed in the head, and another man was shot in the leg.
Police say the shooter may have been had some kind of beef with the person who was shot in the leg. The store owner was likely an innocent victim.
The second shooting happened about a half hour later at Canal Street and Gregory Street. A 21-year-old man was killed by a gunshot wound to the chest. Both the victim and the shooter were on bicycles.
The third shooting happened just after 11:00 p.m. on Newhall and Lilac Streets, leaving the victim with a bullet wound to the groin. His injury is not life-threatening.
All of the shootings took place within hours of each other, but police aren't sure of they are related.
"We have not tied these together," says Lt. Herman Badger. "I've been on the phone with the chief and the chief has ordered more resources into both areas, extra patrol beats out there. We have undercover units and we're going to try to identify some of the people out here now."
Police say the recent snap of hot weather and the end of the school year may have been contributing factors in the violence.
"When the weather gets hot more people are out. People who have had problems in the past see each other," Lt. Badger said.
Police are beefing up patrols as they continue to investigate.
|
|
|
Post by Sher on Sept 20, 2005 11:35:00 GMT -5
BRIDGEPORT, Connecticut. -- A 30-year-old woman said in court yesterday that she had a lengthy sexual relationship with an eight-year-old neighbour.
In a deal with prosecutors, Tammy Imre pleaded guilty to a charge of risk of injury to a minor. She faces six years in prison when she is sentenced Nov.
Imre was arrested last November on sexual assault charges after the boy's mother found a letter Imre allegedly had written to him, police said.
In the letter, police said Imre told the boy that she didn't "want anyone but you. Now tomorrow it's supposed to rain, you can come over and we can (you know what). Love ya! I want you!"
|
|