Cartel turns over 5 men, apologizes after Americans kidnapped, killed

A Mexican drug cartel claiming its members were behind the brazen kidnapping of four Americans last week handed over five of the members and left a note of apology, Mexican media outlets and The Associated Press reported Thursday.

Photos circulating on social media show five men on the pavement with their hands tied – four of them shirtless – in front of a pickup truck, which has a handwritten letter of apology on the windshield.

The AP reported obtaining a copy of the letter from a law enforcement source in Tamaulipas, the Mexican state where the American travelers were attacked. Two of them were killed and another one wounded in a shooting Friday shortly after arriving in the border city of Matamoros for cosmetic surgery.

Authorities have said cartel members probably mistook them for drug smugglers and abducted them after shooting their van.

In the letter, the Scorpions faction of the Gulf cartel apologized to the residents of Matamoros, a Mexican woman who was killed by a stray bullet and the four Americans and their families.

“We have decided to turn over those who were directly involved and responsible in the events, who at all times acted under their own decision-making and lack of discipline,” the letter reads, adding that those people had gone against the cartel’s rules.

Is Mexico travel safe? What to know about visiting Cabo, Cancun, Playa del Carmen and more

Two Americans killed in Mexico:Two survivors have returned to the US; victims identified: Updates

The AP also obtained the photo of the men face-down on the ground and reported that they had been found tied up inside one of the vehicles authorities had been seeking, along with the letter, according to an official not authorized to speak about the case.

Bodies returned to US authorities

Tamaulipas officials have not publicly confirmed having new suspects in custody, but earlier Thursday the attorney general’s office said it had seized an ambulance and medical clinic in Matamoros that were used to provide first aid to the injured Americans.

Authorities located them Tuesday morning on the outskirts of the city, guarded by a man who was arrested. Zindell Brown and Shaeed Woodard died in the attack; Eric Williams survived with a leg wound and Latavia McGee was physically unharmed.

The two survivors were returned to the U.S. and are receiving medical care. The remains of Woodard and Brown were handed over to U.S. authorities Thursday after undergoing autopsies.

Apology won't take away the suffering

Jerry Wallace, a cousin of Williams, told the AP the family's happy he's alive but does not accept the cartel's apology.

“It ain’t going to change nothing about the suffering that we went through,” said Wallace, 62, who called for the American and Mexican governments to better address cartel violence.

Jerry Robinette, a former special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in San Antonio, said he wasn’t surprised the cartel handed to Mexican authorities the five men it claims were involved in the attack.

“Many times we’ve seen the cartel will police themselves,” he said. “It’s not good for their business. They’ll clean up their own mess.”

Next, there will be warrants for their extradition to the U.S. to face criminal charges, Robinette said. Federal investigators will still try to determine what role, if any, the men played in the shooting. And U.S. authorities may not be satisfied by the men’s capture, he said.

“It’s one thing to identify the individuals most directly involved with the violence, but that’s only part of it,” Robinette said. “It’s imperative the investigation goes above and beyond the individuals who actually pulled the trigger.”

Fifth member of group stayed behind and grew concerned

Police in Brownsville, Texas, where the travelers crossed into Mexico, said they were aware of developments in Matamoros.

Police spokesman Martin Sandoval said the FBI was attempting to confirm whether the men in the photo were the actual suspects. The FBI did not immediately comment Thursday.

Sandoval confirmed police had located a fifth member of the traveling party, Cheryl Orange, who stayed behind in Brownsville because she had forgotten required travel documents. The group had driven from South Carolina to Mexico for one of the members, Latavia McGee, to undergo what was initially reported as a tummy tuck, although Orange told police it was actually for "gluteal augmentation.''

Orange first alerted authorities to concerns about their safety when she called police Saturday, the day after the other four had crossed the border. Orange told police she had last seen the group at 8 a.m. Friday, when they left a Brownsville motel for Matamoros in a rented white minivan bearing North Carolina plates.

The group had planned to return in time to check out of the motel Saturday, according to the police report.

"(Orange) stated that she has not heard from them since (Friday)," the report said.

Ex-Mexican intelligence official on cartel: 'Bunch of unsophisticated thugs'

Alejandro Hope, a former Mexican intelligence official, told USA TODAY that various factions of the Gulf cartel are at war with each other in Matamoros due to arrests and splintering into competing groups vying for control of the lucrative northbound plazas used to traffic drugs into the U.S.

In recent years, the warring factions have also made a lot of their money from extortion, robberies and other violent crime, he said, operating with impunity because of the ineffectiveness and corruption of local authorities in Mexico.

Hope speculated the attack on the Americans may have started as a robbery before escalating into an international incident, prompting cartel leaders to offer the five men as scapegoats.

“They call themselves a cartel, but they’re just a bunch of unsophisticated thugs,” said Hope, a security consultant and partner at GEA Grupo de Economistas y Asociados in Mexico.

He added that front-line law enforcement officials on both sides of the border work closely together and would likely continue to do so.

Contributing: The Associated Press

Americans kidnapped in Mexico went for a BBL? There's a bigger ...

When two Americans ended up dead, and two others kidnapped, amid a shootout just south of the U.S.-Mexico border, the initial questions were myriad: What happened? Who killed them? And what was the group of four people from South Carolina doing in a minivan in Matamoros?

On the last point, an explanation from relatives quickly emerged. One woman in the group, Latavia McGee, was going to Mexico for cosmetic surgery, and the other friends had joined her for a road trip.

That surgery was first described as a tummy tuck. Later, relatives and friends said the procedure was a "gluteal augmentation."

And even though more than a million Americans annually seek medical care on the other side of the border, getting a "gluteal augmentation" – in a place where the State Department warns Americans not to travel at all – certainly struck a lot of people as strange.

If you know, though, you know.

First, let us call this whole popular-empowering-controversial-notorious procedure what people call it in real life: the Brazilian butt lift, or BBL.

Next, let me tell you the same thing I told some of my colleagues this week. Whether or not you like this, whether or not you understand this, people do this, and especially, a lot of Black people do it.

If you are a woman, and especially if you're Black, and if you are on, say, Instagram, I'm going to go out on a limb not very far at all and guess that you've had this targeted at you in your social media feed. Especially if you follow beauty and pop culture influencers. You don't have to scroll too long to see it; it simply becomes a part of your algorithm.

The BBL is a thing.

It's also very expensive. And that's the next thing you learn if you are having this idea pushed at you in your social feeds week after week: It's a whole lot less expensive in Mexico.

So the idea that someone – it could be anyone, but for sake of discussion, let's say it's a Black woman and her Black friends from Lake City, South Carolina – would drive across six states to the tip of Texas to have this surgery? If true, it is not shocking. At all.

But that doesn't address the underlying question bandied about on social media: Is it worth it?

More:With 2 Americans dead in Matamoros, a cartel-scarred Mexican border town wonders what's next

More:Mexican cartel apologizes for kidnapping, killing Americans, turns over 5 it says responsible

What is this surgery?

A BBL involves harvesting fat from other areas of the body and injecting it into the buttocks and hips. (Often, that fat is removed from the belly in the process through liposuction. So those early reports that the group went to Matamoros for a tummy tuck may also be essentially correct.)

Results often mean a tiny, or snatched waist, and a curvier, fuller behind. It's the extreme hourglass aesthetic. Slim-thick.

Usually, it requires general anesthesia. Initial recovery can take weeks.

I've watched for years on social media as these clinics target Black women in ads that show before and after pictures, while touting prices that are usually half of what the cost would be in America – around $10,000-$15,000 and not covered by insurance.

It's called medical tourism. Popular destinations for a discounted procedure include Turkey, South America and Mexico. So-called recovery houses also offer patients post-op care and a place to heal.

The New York Times reported this week about the Matamoros clinic that had been expecting McGee. The clinic "reaches out to potential American clients with targeted ads on Instagram," according to an employee who spoke to a reporter, and posts before-and-after pictures of clients online. She said about half the clinic's patients are American.

So whether or not we fully understand the story of how Latavia McGee and three friends came to be in a white minivan in Matamoros in a hail of gunfire, we can accept that the idea of such a trip makes sense in a world where people travel the world – in sometimes questionable locales – for affordable cosmetic surgery.

It turned out there was a fifth person on the trip, Cheryl Orange, who later told police she had forgotten her travel documents and couldn't cross the border that day. She had stayed behind in Brownsville, Texas, when the rest of the group left on Friday morning to cross into Matamoros.

The group had planned to return in time to check out of the motel Saturday, according to the police report, though I wonder how McGee could have made such a quick turnaround after an invasive procedure. Instead, one came back wounded and two are dead.

“She simply went for a cosmetic surgery, and that’s it," Orange told the Associated Press. "That’s all, and this happened to them.”

Whatever truly happened to McGee and her friends that day, let us agree that any broader discussion about the risks or problems with BBLs is not so much about possible cartel violence.

But let's also be clear: There is a discussion.

More:Retracing the steps of a violent kidnapping after 2 Americans found dead in Mexico

So how should we feel about this surgery?

Even if you think you don't know anything about BBLs, you have seen BBLs.

I know, I'm out on a limb there, but not very far. The look has become increasingly popular among celebrities. Think the Kardashians (though they have denied undergoing the procedure), or Nicki Minaj.

So yes, Black women do it, white women do it, Kardashian women (maybe) do it.

Whoever they are, more women are doing it. According to a 2021 survey by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, the number of buttock augmentations performed globally increased by 41% from 2017 to 2021, and buttock lifts increased by 46%.

A quick search for "BBL" on TikTok will tell you a lot about what's going on.

Some women will chronicle their journeys to bigger, perkier butts, explaining the process, recovery time, cost and what doctors they would recommend.

It's a mainstream conversation if you know where to look.

Rapper Cardi B. is another one of those women you've seen with a BBL. But she has since warned women of the dangers and had most of her augmentation – she also had silicone injected in her buttocks – removed.

What's "dangerous" may be up to each person to decide. A 2017 report, published in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal, noted that BBLs have the highest mortality rate compared to any other cosmetic surgery.

These kinds of surgeries also raise all kinds of risks, including at clinics in Florida investigated by our newsroom several years ago.

So the procedure is widely discussed and widely debated on Instagram.

Some women defend their decision or desire to make a change. ("Treat yourself, sis! Get a snatched waist and a fat booty.") Others condemn the trend as dangerous and a slap to body positivity. ("Fake curves aren't worth the time, money or endangering your life. Love the body God blessed you with.")

This discussion goes on particularly in Black corners of the platform.

But let me be clear one more time: women of all races and ethnicities are seeking this surgery. So some of this discourse is about non-Black women culturally appropriating the often-natural body shape of Black women with curves and larger derrières. Bootylicious.

These are Black women, like Beyoncé, who were once shunned when "thin" was in. Now, people will pay money to take on the same physique that was once part of Black women's identity. (By the way, the "Brazilian" part isn't about Brazilian culture, just the doctor who first did the procedure.)

Then there's the long-term question. Any trend comes an end. Many on social media have already declared that the BBL craze is dead after speculating that the Kardashians have, ahem, downsized.

That means women may have put themselves at risk to take on a shape they only thought they wanted.

I don't profess to know what McGee wanted. And we still don't know everything about how she came to be on that street in Mexico. More than anything, I'm saddened that McGee was in harm's way if it was for a BBL. I'm saddened to think that she now knows two of her friends are dead.

Authorities say they're still investigating in Matamoros. Yes, perhaps the group would never have been there if not for a BBL. No, it also may not be fair to blame anything on that.

But put aside what happened in Mexico.

Whoever you are, if you are white or Black – but maybe especially if you are a Black woman, scrolling through your social media feed and seeing BBL posts yet again – there are plenty of other reasons to ask. Is it worth it?

Suzette Hackney is a national columnist. Reach her on Twitter: @suzyscribe.

Serial Shooter and Baseline Killer in Phoenix: Summer of Fear

Michael Kiefer

The Republic | azcentral.com

Paul Patrick wanted a pack of cigarettes.

He knew there were two different serial killers criss-crossing the Phoenix area, one of them a sniper prowling Patrick's neighborhood at night, shooting people out of car windows. But the mini-mart was just blocks away, within sight of his house. He was craving a smoke.

So at 11:30 on that hot evening, June 8, 2006, the 45-year-old Army veteran who worked as a supermarket stocker ventured out on Indian School Road in west Phoenix.

He didn’t hear the shotgun blast so much as feel it slam into him.

Before he fell to the ground, he stood for a moment frantically trying to hold his entrails in his hands to keep them from spilling onto the street.

He screamed for help.

When he looked up, he saw a Hispanic man standing over him holding a pistol. He expected the gunman to finish him off.

Patrick thought, “Please make it fast.”

Instead the man said, “No one’s going to hurt you.”

The man was Saúl Guerrero, an Army National Guard, a combat veteran of the Iraq war. He worked as an MP at the Phoenix Armory and lived in the neighborhood.

When he heard the shot, Guerrero thought, “It’s Maryvale,” a tough west Phoenix neighborhood where shots are heard frequently.

Summer of Fear: A timeline of events

Then his mother asked him to come outside. A man was screaming on the sidewalk across the street.

Guerrero called 911.

But when he saw that people were only walking up to look at the screaming man, then walking away, he told the 911 operator, “You’re going to have to talk to my mom. She only speaks Spanish.”

Guerrero ran into his apartment, got his gun and a simple first-aid kit. Then he ran, barefoot and bare-chested through the traffic on Indian School Road.

He identified himself to Patrick and used what he could from his first-aid kit. He held Patrick’s guts in to stanch the bleeding until the ambulance and police showed up.

The police took Guerrero's gun from him until they were sure he was not a threat; then they took his name and told him they would contact him if they needed him.

They never did.

Ten years later, another killer is stalking victims in Phoenix, several of them in the Maryvale area where Paul Patrick was shot.

Police are baffled, much as they were in the summer of 2006.

Two separate sets of serial killings had plagued the Valley for more than a year. Over 16 months in 2005 and 2006, at least 17 people were killed, and dozens more were assaulted and injured before police arrested suspects in August and September.

One of the killers was referred to as the "Serial Shooter," though eventually two men were convicted in the killings, and a third was convicted of crimes related to the carnage. They were sniping out of cars at transients, prostitutes, immigrants or people they mistook for any of the above.

The other was called the "Baseline Killer." He snatched women off the street, often in broad daylight. If they didn’t give in to his sexual demands, he shot them in the head and left them tauntingly near to where he had taken them in the first place, then disappeared like a wraith.

Guerrero had never heard of the Serial Shooter, who cut down Paul Patrick that summer night.

He learned only months later, when Patrick’s family came looking for him to thank him.

By the end of the summer of 2006, nearly everyone in metropolitan Phoenix knew about the murders.

It was a summer of fear.

I covered the killings as a reporter for this newspaper, from the shootings to the eventual arrests, the murder trials and sentences, the appeals, even the death of one of the killers.

I knew the judges, the prosecutors, the defense attorneys, the police officers, the victims, the bad guys, the families of the victims as well as the families of the accused. I visited the sites where the crimes took place, searching for clues.

And now, a decade later, I still drive the streets of the Valley thinking: “Someone was shot on that bench, in front of that store,” or “Someone was abducted at that ATM,” or “They found a body there by that building.”

There are stories about victims and survivors that I still cannot tell out loud without my voice cracking.

And this summer, I find the same reactions — in many cases stronger — from the police officers who cracked the cases, the judges who tried them, the lawyers who defended and prosecuted them.

And from the victims, whether the family members left behind, or those who weren’t killed, who all remain permanently scarred.

Paul Patrick survived — barely.

The shooting took his legs and his livelihood from him. For years he rode a scooter-wheelchair to get around.

He attended every day he could of the trials and waited patiently for the testimony of the man who shot him.

When he finally heard it, the realization came over him: There was no reason.

Near the end of the first trial, Patrick had a massive stroke that nearly killed him. Doctors could not measure the extent of the brain damage by MRI because the magnetic force would have pulled the buckshot pellets that remained in his body and sliced him to pieces.

I remember visiting him in the hospital then. A piece of his skull had been removed to ease the swelling. Just a flap of skin covered his brain.

He had several more strokes over the years and came so close to dying that his family was called to come see him for a last time before he died.

Each time he pulled through.

Recently, I visited him in the nursing home where he is confined to a hospital bed, able to move only his left arm and leg.

I was surprised he remembered me, and he smiled, and I realized I was part of the life he used to have.

We talked about the day he went out to buy a pack of cigarettes against his better judgment.

He grinned.

“Smoking can kill you,” he said.

The first ominous signs were dogs, horses and other animals found shot to death in West Valley yards in mid-2005.

Then there were immigrants on bicycles, transients sleeping on benches in west Phoenix or panhandling under an overpass in Tolleson, all of them shot dead with .22-caliber slugs.

In August 2005, the sexual assaults started along Baseline Road, from Tempe to Laveen. A group of teenagers. A mother assaulted in front of her daughter then forced to drive while the daughter was molested.

The events seemed isolated at first. They spanned multiple jurisdictions, so police departments would not immediately see a pattern.

There was no Twitter, no Instagram, fewer Facebook users. Information — and fear — took longer to take hold in those days.

But the bodies added up.

Georgia Thompson was 19, an exotic dancer from Idaho. On Sept. 9, 2005, she was found on her back in the parking lot of a Tempe apartment complex with a bullet in her head.

Her keys were still clutched in her hand. She wore an orange T-shirt that said, "Better luck next time."

Her pants were unbuttoned, but she had not been sexually assaulted. The only evidence found at the scene was a spent .380-caliber cartridge casing.

Ballistics experts needed months to link that casing to other murders.

At about 7:30 in the evening of Dec. 29, 2005, someone started shooting from a car at a Tempe bartending school.

Over the next five hours, the car meandered through central Phoenix. The shooting continued: A dog was killed as it was being walked by its owner; then a man named Jose Ortis was murdered; then a second man, Marco Carillo, was shot to death.

A block and a moment later, Timmy Tordai had just gotten off the bus after working a shift at the post office. He was walking home when he felt a pop under his collarbone and fell to the ground, paralyzed.

"I thought I was having a heart attack," he said later in court. "And then I saw the blood."

Before the night ended, three more dogs were shot dead in central Phoenix.

Sometime after 1 a.m., now Dec. 30, a woman was turning tricks on Van Buren Street.

She had just gotten out of one john's car and was scanning the street for her next when a light-blue, four-door car passed her and made a U-turn. She thought it might be her next john until she saw the gun barrel come out the driver's side window.

She lived; a passerby stopped his car and drove her to a hospital.

Just as police realized that the car-sniper incidents were linked to a “serial shooter,” they stopped for five months.

Police had not yet connected any murders to the rapes along Baseline Road.

In February 2006, Romelia Vargas and Mirna Palma Roman were found dead in a lunch wagon in southwest Phoenix with gunshots to the head, their pants unbuttoned and pulled down slightly. At first police thought it was a drug deal gone bad.

Then in March, Chao Chou and Liliana Sanchez Cabrera were abducted at gunpoint as they got into a car behind the restaurant where they worked at 24th Street and Indian School Road. Both were found dead within a mile of each other.

Police now knew they had two serial killers on the streets and began sounding the alarm in the media. One killer was shooting out of cars. The other was on foot, appearing out of nowhere to assault women, and shooting them in the head if they resisted.

“The police chief and the city manager asked to see me, and they closed the door,” said Phil Gordon, who was mayor of Phoenix at the time.

“We made a public-policy decision,” Gordon said. “Nothing was going to be spared."

More attacks, more bodies: A dead prostitute, Kristina Nicole Gibbons, was found stuffed between a building and a shed on 24th Street in Phoenix.

A woman was abducted at gunpoint at 32nd Street and Thomas Road by a black man wearing a fright mask and pushing a shopping cart.

She was forced to drive to a secluded area nearby and strip naked. When she refused to perform oral sex on her abductor, he put the gun to her head and told her that her parents would read about her in the newspaper the next day. He pulled the trigger, but the gun misfired.

As soon as she heard the click, she leaned on the door handle and fled naked to the nearest house.

Then the shootings from cars picked back up in central Phoenix, in South Scottsdale, in Maryvale and near Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

But now the shooter was using a shotgun instead of a .22 rifle, which cannot be traced as easily as a rifle's bullets. Investigators wondered at first if it was yet another assailant.

The police came up with nicknames for the killers.

They named the car-window sniper the "Serial Shooter.” They had no descriptions of the driver/shooter, they knew he drove a light-colored sedan.

The other suspect was first known as the "Baseline Rapist,” because of his early victims near Baseline Road. Then when police connected the rapes to the murders, they changed his handle to the "Baseline Killer,” even though many of his targets were in the square-mile area between Indian School and Thomas Road and 24th and 32nd Streets.

Police circulated a sketch of a suspect: A light-skinned black man who wore a Gilligan-style fishing hat and a dreadlocks wig.

On June 29, 2006, the Baseline Killer struck again, in a terrifying lightning-quick attack that was caught on video and rocked the city of Phoenix.

At around 9:30 p.m., a woman named Carmen Miranda was talking on the phone to her boyfriend as she vacuumed her car at a car wash on Thomas Road at 29th Street. She told the boyfriend that a panhandler was approaching her. She screamed and the phone went dead.

The boyfriend called police. He called Miranda’s sons. They all raced to the car wash. Miranda was gone.

Hours later, Miranda was found dead in her car behind a building next door to the car wash: a bullet between her eyes and her pants unbuttoned.

But there was a surveillance camera at the car wash. Police woke the owner late at night to get at it. They shared the video with the media the next day.

Blurrily onscreen, a man wearing a Gilligan hat and a dreadlocks wig shuffles up to Miranda. He abruptly grabs her and throws her into the back seat of the car. Then he gets in and drives off.

When TV stations broadcast the video, people realized the sudden ferocity of the attacks, and it fueled the city's terror.

Over the next days, I walked the streets of the neighborhood where Miranda had been snatched. I talked to women waiting for buses or tending shops along what should have been a peaceful neighborhood.

There had been robberies at the stores and restaurants and an ATM at 32nd Street and Thomas, murders up and down 24th Street, rapes along 32nd Street.

And the people I spoke to could recite every incident and every rumor that seemed to fit the pattern, but the police could not or would not confirm the information.

That made them only more worried. The neighborhood was working-class. The women, especially those who worked at night, were watching over their shoulders.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Valley wondered if that car coming down the street while they were walking the dog was going to slow down so someone could shoot. And if so, where would they run?

Police held meetings to talk to neighborhoods affected by the killings.

“We were speaking to a community of people who were so fearful for their families that it felt like an epidemic,” former Phoenix police Officer Paul Penzone said.

Police held regular press conferences to share information with the media.

Still, the public remained confused about the two killers.

“I spent months trying to explain the differences between the two cases,” said Andy Hill, a retired Phoenix police sergeant, who became the public face of the investigation.

Phoenix Detective Clark Schwartzkopf added, “You couldn’t have two more different dynamics in these two murderers, but the public was mixed up.”

Camille Kimball, who wrote the book "A Sudden Shot" about the Serial Shooter case, summed it up

“That was part of the terror,” she said. “We didn’t know one from the other. The cops didn’t know one from the other."

To keep the cases straight, law enforcement came together across the Valley and created not one, but two task forces.

“There were 375 people involved in the Serial Shooter case,” Schwartzkopf said, and 100 on the street for the Baseline Killer.

Officers were working double shifts and overtime.

The Republic, like most media outlets, had its own task force. At least six reporters covered the cases full time. Others would be called in as things happened.

But neither the police nor the media knew enough. The public was terrified, because the killers struck in every kind of neighborhood, good and bad, rich and poor.

The Serial Shooters worked from Tolleson and Avondale to Mesa and Chandler.

The Baseline Killer even assaulted people in a parking lot used by patrons of a wine bar in the tiny Arcadia neighborhood of Phoenix.

And they struck without warning.

“There was an acknowledged crises,” Phil Gordon recalled. “Should we take our children to school? Should we go out at night? Should we cancel the Fourth of July?”

Billboards bearing the police sketch of the Baseline Killer went up all over the metro area. A reward of $100,000 was offered for information leading to either suspect.

But he remained at large.

Carmen Miranda would be the last of the Baseline Killer victims. After June 29, the killer went into hiding.

But the Serial Shooter amped up in July 2006, wounding eight more people and killing the last victim on July 30, a young woman talking on the phone while walking to a friend’s house in Mesa. She felt so safe that she was wearing pajamas.

By then, the Baseline Killer had forced himself on at least 33 victims over 13 attacks and killed eight women and one man.

The Serial Shooter case had eight dead — though police still suspect at least four more murders that they could never conclusively prove were related. Eighteen more had been wounded, and at least 10 animals had also been killed.

Police worked around the clock. The public waited fearfully.

By the end of the month, there had been no arrests.

Five hundred to a thousand people a day called in to the Silent Witness hotline with tips on the Serial Shooter and the Baseline Killer.

“We got calls from every part of society, and we took it seriously,” said former Phoenix police Officer Paul Penzone, who ran Silent Witness at the time.

He called the $100,000 rewards for information leading to the arrest of either “two lottery tickets."

In the case of the Serial Shooter, the lottery paid out.

A man named Sam Dieteman was a regular at a northwest Phoenix tavern called the Star Dust Inn. And once when he was drunk — and he was always drunk — he became remorseful, and he confessed to some of the shootings to his friend Ron Horton.

On July 30, 2006, a young woman named Robin Blasnek was shot and killed as she walked in her Mesa neighborhood. Horton felt responsible and realized he might have been able to prevent her death if he had called police.

Horton dropped a dime. He gave police Dieteman’s cellphone number, which they traced. And he also provided them with the name of a man with whom Dieteman had once lived: Jeff Hausner. Police put Hausner's apartment under surveillance.

And they asked Horton to arrange to meet Dieteman for drinks.

On Aug. 1, 2006, the task force staked out the Star Dust Inn, with undercover officers inside and out. Phoenix police Detective Clark Schwartzkopf was sitting in an unmarked car in the parking lot when a light-blue Toyota Camry pulled in.

“That’s our car,” he recalled thinking. “It was an enormous relief. I’ve got the car. I’ve got the guys.”

The officers ran the plates. The number came back to Dale Hausner.

They had already heard of Jeff Hausner, but it was the first police became aware of his younger brother Dale.

Hausner dropped off Dieteman at the bar, then drove away. Officers followed Hausner as he drove to the Metrocenter mall. When Hausner went into the mall, the officers put a GPS device on his car.

Then Hausner drove to Mesa, where he and Dieteman shared an apartment, taking the long way down Van Buren, as if casing out future victims, Schwartzkopf said.

Horton stayed behind at the bar with Dieteman, calling police detectives when Dieteman went to the bathroom, according to Camille Kimball's book "A Sudden Shot."

Then Horton drove Dieteman to Wild Horse Pass Hotel and Casino on Interstate 10. Horton tactfully asked Dieteman if he could find another way home. Dieteman told him Dale Hausner was coming to pick him up. Horton left.

Undercover police were there to watch Dieteman and Hausner as they talked inside the casino. Then they left for Hausner's car in the parking lot, stopping to open the trunk and take out a bag that was about the length of a shotgun.

Instead of heading directly for the apartment in Mesa, the Camry wandered into Chandler.

There were nine surveillance vehicles following, including from the air. The police officers in them realized with shock that Hausner and Dieteman were on the hunt, looking for victims, slowing down when someone passed on a bike.

They would make U-turns and wander into neighborhoods that were not on the way to anywhere.

“For an hour and a half we followed them as they cruised,” Schwartzkopf said. “It was the worst night of my law-enforcement career.”

Schwartzkopf and the other officers worried that the gun could come out of the window at any moment, and they would would not be able to intervene.

Hausner and Dieteman could kill someone right in front of them.

The undercover cars strategically passed one another, switching positions to avoid detection and also to foil the shooters.

After the Camry would pass by, one of the officers would shout out the window at people on the street and tell them to go home and take cover, he later told author Kimball.

“We were hoping and praying to God they wouldn’t shoot anybody,” Schwartzkopf said.

Dieteman and Hausner never got off a shot that night. The Camry drove back to the apartment in Mesa under the watchful eye of undercover officers.

The task force needed to act fast.

The next day, Aug. 2, 2006, Phoenix police investigators met with County Attorney Andrew Thomas and his executive staff. Thomas approved their request for an emergency wiretap through a process that allows law enforcement to begin surveillance before a judge has signed off.

"The sun was starting to go down, and I did not want to take that chance of another loss of life," Thomas later testified in court when the legality of the wiretap was challenged.

At 11 p.m., detectives drove to the home of then-presiding criminal judge James Keppel to sign off on the emergency wiretap warrant and bugged Dieteman and Dale Hausner through a next-door apartment and recorded their conversation.

The officers couldn’t believe what they heard.

On the recording, according to transcripts, Dieteman tells Hausner, "On the 5 a.m. news, it was when they first said .... Phoenix and Mesa police have now officially linked the shooting death of a young Mesa woman to the serial killer, which now brings their total to six."

Hausner says, "It's higher than that. What about the guy I (expletive) shot on 27th Avenue ... ?"

Dieteman continues to tell Hausner that the police are working with the feds in other states looking for similar crimes and evidence.

Hausner: "So we're being copy-catted, Sam? We're pioneers, Sam? We're leading the way for a better life for everybody, Sam?"

As police listened to the wiretap, Hausner talked about wanting to be the best serial killer ever. The two joked about the most recent murder, that of Robin Blasnek, and made cartoonish, mocking voices as he described her reaction.

Officers could hear the movie "The Jungle Book" in the background, playing for Hausner's toddler daughter.

Hausner says, "I love shooting people in the back. That's so much fun. That (expletive) old man I shot in the back."

Dietman says, "My favorite thing is, you know, when somebody is walking away ... it gives me... an extra couple seconds to aim. I don't have to worry about them looking."

That night, Aug. 3, police made their move.

Dieteman and Hausner were inside the apartment.

Because the child was there, too, police did not rush the building. They waited for an opportunity.

Finally, near midnight, Dieteman came outside to throw out the trash, carrying a garbage bag that contained a shotgun shell and a map of the shootings. SWAT team officers in helmets and body armor confronted him. When Dieteman saw the guns, he surrendered. He gave them a key to the apartment.

The police entered quietly. Hausner was preoccupied with something on the counter, and didn't notice. But when the police announced their presence, he was startled and shouted, "Jesus Christ!"

Then he fell to the floor.

Police bound his wrist with zip ties.

At 5 p.m. Aug. 4, 2006, I sat on a bench in the Initial Appearance Court in the Fourth Avenue Jail in downtown Phoenix, waiting for a first glimpse of the Serial Shooters.

Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies led Dale Hausner, short, blond and scruffy-bearded, into the initial appearance courtroom inside the jail.

He was wearing only a pair of green gym shorts and a pair of pink handcuffs. His hair was mussed. His love handles hung over the elastic waistband of his shorts as he shivered from the air-conditioned cold. His eyes were red-rimmed from weeping and sleeplessness and police questioning.

The hearing was short and sweet. Hausner was charged with murder.

An hour later, deputies led Dieteman in. He was tall and dark-haired, and he wore a rugby shirt and a worried expression. There was a large skull tattoo on his arm.

His attorney Maria Schaffer said he was “hungover out of his mind.”

Hausner never admitted a thing, though he was clearly the mastermind.

But Dieteman let it all spill out the day he was arrested. He and Dale Hausner, he told police, were engaged in what they called “random, recreational violence.”

There were muggings, stabbings, palm trees lit, stores set on fire, tires slashed.

And the shootings: Essentially they were playing video games in real time while smoking meth.

“Everything they did was about creating havoc,” Phoenix police Detective Schwartzkopf said.

Once they even shot a man, then parked the car and went to look at the damage they had done. Police were already on the scene. They questioned Dieteman and Dale Hausner, who gave their names and made up stories about what they had seen and heard.

Then the officers let them go.

Dale Hausner was glib. He was a janitor at Sky Harbor Airport and had clearance to secure areas at the facility.

He was so arrogant and so certain he would not be caught that in April 2006, in the midst of the hunt for the Serial Shooter, he did an interview with The Arizona Republic about his job. In the interview, he gushed about the old Terminal 2 where he worked, saying he hoped to retire there.

Hausner also freelanced as a photographer and was involved in the Phoenix boxing scene as a promoter and a photographer. He had a public-access TV show and had done a TV commercial for a law firm that specialized in personal-injury cases.

And he ran a lucrative steal-to-order shoplifting service. He would take orders from fellow workers on the types of alcohol or music or movies they wanted, go out and steal it and then sell it to them at a discount.

“He was Jekyll and Hyde,” said Roland Steinle, the Maricopa County Superior Court judge who presided over his trial. He noted that Hausner was dating a woman who holds a doctorate, then going out to kill people after seeing her.

And unexpectedly, he was a ladies man who kept journals about his dates with multiple women, as he said later in court, so that he could keep his stories straight.

He used many of them as alibis, saying he had been with them on nights he was supposed to have committed crimes, stories that fell apart when the women took the witness stand.

“He was always pleasuring some lucky woman,” or so he told his defense attorney, Tim Agan.

“He was easy to get along with,” Agan said.

But Hausner had dark secrets and came from a troubled and abusive family background, which Agan could not share because Hausner had not allowed it to be used as mitigation during his trial.

He was also a doting father, but a heartbroken one.

In 1994, Hausner was married and living in Texas with his wife and two young sons. One night, while the family was on a road trip, Hausner’s wife fell asleep at the wheel and their car catapulted into a river.

Hausner was sleeping in the passenger seat, but awoke and managed to get out of the sinking car. Then he repeatedly dived down to the submerged vehicle to try to rescue his sons, who were trapped in car seats in the back seat. Both died.

The wife survived, and the two divorced.

Hausner fathered another child, whom he also doted on. On the night police bugged his apartment, they heard Hausner talking to the child, and then heard her telling Dieteman good night.

“Don’t kill anybody,” she said in a tiny voice.

"Oh, all right," Dieteman replied. "Since you asked."

Sam Dieteman was an electrician by trade, but unable to hold down a job because of his substance-abuse problems.

He grew up in Minnesota, married young, fathered a child, and then drifted off into entropy, amassing a long record of petty criminal arrests.

He was unemployed and homeless and ended up living with Dale Hausner’s older brother Jeff in west Phoenix. The two would go out and shoplift bottles of booze so that they could get drunk, testimony later revealed.

Jeff introduced Dieteman to Dale Hausner, telling him that Dieteman was as good a shoplifter as Dale was.

Dieteman and Dale Hausner became fast friends and partners in crime, shoplifting at first, earning hundreds of dollars from the enterprise.

But they also reveled in vandalism.

They drove to local casinos to gamble, and when they left the parking lots, they often slashed the tires of cars parked near them. They set fire to palm trees or garbage piles. And, before they were caught, they were photographed on surveillance video as they set fires in two separate Walmarts. Dieteman was even arrested once for shoplifting at a Walmart.

“Sam was looking for a place to stay and booze to drink and drugs to take,” said his attorney Maria Schaffer. He needed “someplace to lay his head after the drugs and booze.”

They did meth all night, and then Dieteman would be dropped off at the bars that opened early in the morning so he could drink some more.

Most of what police and prosecutors know about the early stages of the Serial Shooters came from Dieteman. As he drank and did drugs with Jeff and Dale Hausner, they would regale him with their exploits. He later related those stories to police.

At first, he told them, Dale and Jeff Hausner drove together shooting animals and people.

Once, for example, in November 2005, Dieteman said, Jeff was drawing a bead on a dog in an alley near 20th and Monroe streets, when a transient cussed them out. His name was Nathaniel Schoffner. He threw a beer can to keep them from shooting and called Dale Hausner a “Bill-Clinton-looking mother-f---er.”

Dale Hausner grabbed his .22 rifle and pulled the trigger, but it misfired. Then he grabbed a .410 shotgun and, according to Dieteman, he and Jeff argued over whether you could kill anyone with such a small gauge. Dale Hausner fired anyway, killing Shoffner.

But after an overnight shooting spree in late December, 2005, they shut down.

Jeff Hausner got a job. And the brothers likely destroyed the .22 rifle.

Five months later on May 2, 2006, Dale Hausner was driving down Van Buren Street with his new bestie, Sam Dieteman. He turned left on 44th Street, powered down the passenger window and told Dieteman to lean back.

Then Hausner pulled a sawed-off shotgun out from between the car seats and pointed it across Dieteman's body, aiming out Dieteman's window.

A teenager named Kibili Tamadul was on his way to a convenience store to pick up milk for his mother. Hausner fired, striking him, but not knocking him down. Tamadul jumped and shouted, and Dieteman and Hausner laughed like they were watching a Warner Bros. cartoon.

Fifteen minutes later, they turned onto Thomas Road. Hausner handed the shotgun to Dieteman and said, “Your turn.”

A young woman named Claudia Gutierrez Cruz was walking on the sidewalk near 61st Street; she had just missed her bus connection as she tried to get home from work. Hausner did a U-turn to give Dieteman a good shot. He fired and blew her off the sidewalk.

They passed by again to see where she was. She was found by a passerby; in the 911 call, Gutierrez Cruz could be heard pleading for someone to call her sister. She died at the hospital.

As Dieteman would later testify in trial, the next day, Dale Hausner put the morning newspaper on the kitchen table.

"Hey, dude, you got the first murder of the year in Scottsdale,” he said. “I’m jealous.”

He probably was.

Hausner later told detectives about his fascination with Charles Starkweather, a teen from Hausner’s native Nebraska, who killed 11 people in 1958.

And after Dale Hausner's arrest Aug. 3, police found scrapbooks filled with newspaper articles about the Serial Shooters, and about the Baseline Killer, and they realized that Hausner was actually competing with his rival murderer.

The Baseline Killer hadn’t struck in nearly two months, but he was still on the loose.

The Serial Shooters were caught because one of them confessed to a friend and the friend had a guilty conscience.

There was no such tip to catch the Baseline Killer, so the police had to depend on old-fashioned legwork.

Police had a video of him, a composite sketch, and they were canvassing the neighborhoods where the killer had struck. They had suspects under surveillance. They were searching for DNA matches. And though they had calls to Silent Witness — and a $100,000 reward for information leading to his capture — none was enough to make an arrest.

One woman, who is still afraid to give her name, remembers an encounter in her print shop on Thomas Road near 24th Street.

A man who fit the killer’s description walked into the shop and started to come over the counter toward her.

He had a very strange voice, she said. He was wearing a black, long-sleeved T-shirt and khaki pants. The rubber edge of his sneakers was so white that it looked bleached.

“He was so clean. There was no wrinkle in his clothes,” she said, and although it was a hot day in Phoenix, there was no smell to him and not a trace of sweat."

“I was terrified,” she said. “This is 10 years later, and I am shivering just bringing it up.”

She was able to scare the man away when the phone rang and she pretended it was workmen in the back of the shop.

The man ran out the door and disappeared. She called police, but the information was of little use.

The sexual attacks began in August 2005, the first of the murders that September. They were attempted rapes that turned fatal if the women refused to comply.

Even if the women did comply, the Baseline Killer never completed sexual intercourse with any of his victims, which made it more difficult for police to track him with DNA.

None of the women he murdered had been raped. Instead, they were posed, as retired Phoenix police Detective Benny Piña told The Republic. Their pants were pulled down slightly, the zippers undone.

“It’s not about the act,” Piña said. “It’s about remembering the act later with mementos in quiet time back home.”

Among the suspects was an ex-con construction worker named Mark Goudeau, who lived with his wife in a house on Pinchot Avenue near 28th Street in Phoenix, at the epicenter of one of the neighborhoods that was preyed on.

Goudeau had a past: He had been accused of rape as a teenager, but was not charged when the woman refused to press charges.

In 1989, Goudeau was arrested in the same neighborhood for raping and beating a woman senseless with a shotgun and a barbell, then chasing two witnesses and threatening them with the gun.

He entered into a plea agreement, but a year after the assault, before he was even sentenced, he robbed a supermarket at Thomas Road and 30th Street to get money to buy crack cocaine. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison.

But in 2004, after 13 years, however, he was granted clemency and released. Among the people testifying on his behalf was Wendy Carr, who had married him while he was in prison.

Goudeau went home to live an outwardly quiet and lawful life.

When he came under suspicion in 2006, police put him under surveillance, Piña said. They watched him meet with women in the park. But as the police moved in, he would disappear, perhaps up a tree, maybe down an alley.

“That whole surveillance was a nightmare for us,” Piña said.

Detectives finally broke the case with DNA, though not from semen.

In September 2005, a man matching the description of the Baseline Killer jumped two sisters in their 20s as they walked from a water-play fountain in a city park near Baseline Road in south Phoenix. They were forced into the bushes at gunpoint, ordered to the ground and forced to disrobe. One of sisters was six months pregnant.

The assailant tried several times to have intercourse with the younger sister, who was not pregnant, but he could not stay erect. He fumbled with a condom.

He told the women not to look at his face. One sister noticed that he had put the gun down. She grabbed it and tried to shoot but could not figure out how to fire it. The attacker wrestled with her and the other sister seized the gun. She could not figure out how to shoot it either.

The attacker got the gun back and touched it between the pregnant sister’s legs. He ordered her to beg for her own life and the life of her unborn baby, according to testimony.

Then he decided to let them live.

But first, he made both women spit into his hand. Then he stirred in mud and rubbed the mess on the breasts of the sister he tried to rape in an attempt to cover the DNA he had left there in saliva.

The ploy almost worked.

Technicians at the Phoenix police lab were unable to pull a DNA profile out of the gumbo. Detectives then sent the remaining sample swabs to the state Department of Public Safety lab for a new DNA test that isolated the Y chromosome, or male hereditary genes.

It took nearly a year but they came back with a hit: Mark Goudeau.

Police wasted no time. On Sept. 6, 2006, they arrested him in front of his house as he got out of his pickup truck on the way home from work.

It was his 42nd birthday.

Sept. 6 was my daughter’s birthday, too, and we had celebrated at a restaurant in Scottsdale. I had only been asleep for a half hour when the phone rang.

It was my editor, and she asked if I could go down to 28th Street and Thomas Road because the police had just arrested a man they thought was the Baseline Killer.

It was about 11 p.m. I took a shower and went to work for the next straight 48 hours.

My colleague Judi Villa was already there, in front of a little house in a neighborhood that would have been quiet, if not for the TV trucks and the police evidence vans and squad cars.

We quickly figured out the name of the suspect.

The neighbors were shocked. At least one of them recounted that Goudeau told him that he was under police suspicion. The next afternoon, I was back in the Initial Appearance Court at the jail when they led him in.

He wore a black long-sleeve T-shirt and khaki pants, the same blend-in-with-the-background outfit that his surviving victims described, except that it was flecked with cement dust.

He bore a strong resemblance to the composite sketch that police had circulated, a light-skinned and muscular black man with a mustache, except he was not wearing the dreadlocks wig or the fishing hat he wore during some of his attacks.

Goudeau gave his name and address and no more. He was charged with two counts of aggravated assault, two counts each of sexual abuse and sexual assault, and two counts of kidnapping, stemming from the sexual attack on the two sisters walking home from the water park near Baseline Road the year before.

Police suspected Goudeau of all the Baseline Killer crimes, but at the time, they had DNA from only that single incident. They didn’t have enough evidence to charge him with any of the murders.

But the sexual-assault charges would make sure Goudeau stayed in jail as police continued to work the case.

What was perhaps most frightening about Dale Hausner, the mastermind of the Serial Shooters, and Mark Goudeau, the Baseline Killer, was that they did not seem frightening.

If either one sat down next to you at a bar or coffee shop, you might end up in conversation with him, even buy him a drink.

“That’s how psychopaths live among us,” said Phoenix police Detective Schwartzkopf, who first identified Hausner as a killer.

By coincidence, Schwartzkopf had arrested Goudeau 13 years earlier after he committed the 1989 assault and robbery that sent him to prison for 13 years.

Goudeau was handsome, with an athlete’s figure and an upright carriage.

At the time of his arrest in 2006, his neighbors called him “sweet” and "hard-working.” They saw him with his wife, or out tending his yard on the little house they shared.

Goudeau’s wife, Wendy Carr, still professes her husband’s innocence. She said over and over that her husband wasn’t evil or violent, that he was kind and funny and hardworking.

“The guy I saw, he never came off as a jackass,” said one of his defense attorneys, Corwin Townsend. “He always was cordial to everyone on our team.”

Goudeau worked as a concrete finisher for a company that set foundations, and it took him to construction sites all over the Valley — including several near to where his attacks took place, the two women killed in the lunch truck, for instance.

Detectives remember that Goudeau would go there to buy breakfast for his crew, and that in itself points out the yin and yang of his being.

When police finally searched Goudeau’s home, they found mementos of his crimes, like jewelry taken from his dead victims. And they found traces of blood.

But they didn’t have enough to charge him with murder.

The break came accidentally from a murder that seemed unrelated to the Baseline Killer attacks.

On April 10, 2006, Sophia Nuñez was found dead in the bath tub of her west Phoenix home by her 7-year-old son. She had taken the day off from work, and she and her family attended a giant march through downtown Phoenix, which was part of a national day of protest in favor of immigration reform.

When she failed to pick up her son at school, he walked home and crawled under the garage door, which had been left open about a foot.

The water was running in his mother’s bathroom, so he assumed she was in the shower. But she didn’t come out, and he saw that water was running under the bathroom door and soaking the bedroom carpet.

He walked in and found her half-dressed and under the water, with a bullet in her cheek under one eye, which was open.

The boy valiantly tried to administer CPR, and then ran to a neighbor’s house to call police.

At first, police suspected Nuñez’s ex-husband, but they cleared him. They took DNA swabs, collected the bullet, but had no leads.

The connection came when they went through Goudeau’s phone records and checked a number he had called repeatedly: Nuñez's.

Nuñez's aunt and best friend, Alicia Bell, said that Nuñez and Goudeau met at a bar in northwest Phoenix.

He told her he was a professional baseball player on the disabled list, but she didn’t believe him, partly because of the old truck he drove. He called her repeatedly, then apparently gave up on her.

“She just thought he was weird and married,” Bell told me some months after Nuñez' death.

He called her over and over, but she was not interested.

One afternoon, Nuñez was with her teenage daughter, Unique Martinez, at Arizona Mills mall and they ran into Goudeau at an arcade.

“He seemed like a friendly guy,” Martinez remembers. “I wasn’t skeptical of him.”

They all chatted and Nuñez remembered that Goudeau said he did odd jobs, so she asked if he could install a security door at her house.

When he came to the house, she didn’t want to be there with him to hit on her, but she didn’t think he was a threat, and left her children as he worked. He never finished the job.

On April 10, 2006, he came back to the house uninvited and killed her.

After Goudeau was arrested for the rape of the two sisters in south Phoenix, Unique Martinez saw him on TV. “Hey, that’s my mom’s friend,” she thought.

She called the detective on her mother’s case.

Investigators realized they had lifted Goudeau’s DNA from saliva on her breast. The bullet in her head matched the ballistics of the other murders.

On Jan. 16, 2007, Phoenix police called Sophia Nuñez’s mother, Maria, and asked her to come to police headquarters on East Washington Street, and they broke the news. Families of other victims were there too.

Goudeau was already charged with 19 counts including sexual assault, sexual abuse, kidnapping and aggravated assault for the attack on the two sisters, and one charge of possessing cocaine when he was arrested.

Now he was indicted on 74 more counts including nine murders, which would go forward as a second case.

Maria Nuñez came out of police headquarters and handed a photo of Sophia to a television cameraman, who taped it to the side of a TV live truck to photograph it.

I took my cellphone out of my pocket and snapped a photograph of Sophia’s image and e-mailed it to the newspaper’s photo editor.

It ran on the front page of The Arizona Republic the next day.

How does a jury respond in a case where a rapist presses a gun to a pregnant woman’s private parts and asks her to beg for the life of her unborn baby?

Predictably, with horror.

At first, Mark Goudeau was charged in the only attack for which police and prosecutors had sufficient evidence, the sexual assaults on two sisters in south Phoenix in September 2005.

They had been playing with friends and family at a water feature in a public park just north of Baseline Road, and because it was a nice evening and a good neighborhood, they decided to walk home instead of drive with their companions.

Goudeau dragged them into the bushes and repeatedly assaulted them sexually, then uncharacteristically let them go free.

But investigators were able to lift Goudeau’s DNA from saliva on one woman’s breast, and he was charged with 19 counts including sexual assault, sexual abuse, kidnapping and aggravated assault.

He was charged with the murders under a different case number that would be tried separately.

The rape case went to trial fairly quickly, July 23, 2007, a little more than 10 months after he was arrested. The jury knew nothing about the murders.

In fact, the words “Baseline Killer” were never mentioned in the entire trial, so as not to prejudice the jury. It may well have been the last super-high-profile case in Maricopa County in which the jury was not already knowledgeable about the defendant. Social media has changed that.

Corwin Townsend and his co-counsel, Cary Lackey, fought with prosecutors Suzanne Cohen and Bill Clayton over how the DNA was obtained and whether it was a true match.

Goudeau had made the women spit in his hand and rubbed it on the woman’s breast in an attempt to foil DNA testing. And it almost worked. Phoenix police, however, sent the sample out for a new sort of testing that was able to isolate a profile they said matched Goudeau.

The defense attorneys objected.

For one thing, the police labs had consumed all of the sample swabs, leaving nothing for the defense to test independently. For another, Townsend and Lackey argued that because the experimental DNA testing focused only on the Y chromosome, which is passed genetically among males in a family, the DNA could have been from any one of Goudeau’s male relatives, including brothers and nephews, some of whom had criminal records.

The sisters bravely took the stand, though one of them mistakenly identified the attorney, Lackey, also a light-skinned African-American, as her attacker.

But the testimony was horrid, and in the end, the jury found Goudeau guilty.

On the day the verdict came in, I had pre-written my story and needed only to text the decision to my editor. The story was posted online before the jury had even left the courtroom to gather their thoughts in the jury room before coming back out to talk to the media.

While in the jury room, one juror took out his phone and called up azcentral.com and learned for the first time that Goudeau was also suspected of being the Baseline Killer.

Goudeau had tried numerous times to sexually penetrate the sisters, and in many different ways. Each of those attempts was considered a separate crime with a separate sentence that could be run consecutively with all the others. And that is what happened.

On Dec. 14, 2007, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Andrew Klein sentenced Goudeau to 438 years in prison.

And he still had to stand trial for 74 more crimes, including the nine murders.

One week earlier, Dale Hausner, the accused mastermind of the Serial Shooters, attempted suicide in jail by hoarding over-the-counter medications and taking them all at once. He was revived so that the authorities could try to get a death sentence against him and kill him with different drugs.

His attorneys, Tim Agan and Ken Everett, tried to exclude the damning tapes from police wiretaps, in which they were overheard bragging about their prowess as serial killers. They lost the bid, and the case lumbered on toward trial.

In April 2008, Sam Dieteman, who had already confessed everything, pleaded straight up to the two murders he took part in. He killed Claudia Gutierrez Cruz on his first night shooting with Dale Hausner. And he was in the car when Hausner shot and killed Robin Blasnek.

Dieteman testified that he deliberately missed other times he was handed the shotgun.

But Dieteman’s plea agreement did not include an exemption from the death penalty. He still needed to stand trial so that a jury could decide whether to sentence him to death or to life in prison.

The next month, Jeff Hausner, Dale’s older brother, was finally publicly identified as a participant in the Serial Shooter crimes.

He was indicted for two incidents that occurred while all three were joy-riding in Dale’s car. Dale Hausner would create a distraction and Jeff would sneak up behind the victim and stab him. He pleaded guilty to one stabbing and faced trial for the second. Police believed he had taken part in some of the shootings, but could never come up with enough evidence to charge him with murder.

By then, I had received the first letter from Dale Hausner, though it came signed, “A Loyal Reader; (Name withheld for fear of ridicule by co-workers and family members for not jumping on the ‘guilty’ bandwagon.)”

In it, he accused Dieteman and his brother of the crimes. The letter painted Dieteman as a violent criminal with a long rap sheet. It ridiculed County Attorney Andrew Thomas’ assertion that the shootings had stopped since Dieteman and Hausner had been arrested.

Dale Hausner claimed that Dieteman bragged to friends: “They’ll never pin that retarded bitch (Robin Blasnek) on me. Can’t do ballistics on shotguns.” That's the reason Dale Hausner stopped using .22-caliber rifles.

In the letter, Hausner tried to say that police had misunderstood his statement on the wiretap tapes — “It feels good doesn’t it?” — as referring to scratching an itch. And the letter writer knew all this because, he wrote, he had written to Hausner, who told him he was being framed.

The next letter was dated May 22, 2008.

Hausner continued to place blame on Dieteman. And though the letter was signed only with the letter “D,” he wrote about inaccuracies in my coverage.

“Last, could you possibly put a worse photo of me in the paper?” he wrote. “Maybe you should photo-shop one of me with devil horns. That would sell a lot of papers!!”

A day later, I received a letter from Dieteman to clear up the general perception that he had been present at all of the Serial Shooter crimes, which most media outlets assumed, not yet knowing precisely how the attacks had played out.

“I did not even know Dale Hausner until April of 2006,” he wrote.

He denied ever using the phrase “random recreation violence.”

“I am in no way trying to play ‘Mr. Innocent,’ as Dale Hausner is,” Dieteman wrote. “I have taken responsibility for my crimes. I signed a plea agreement to where I’m still going to death row, the only benefits I get out of that deal are avoiding an unnecessary trial and being able to put Hausner away.”

Dale Hausner’s trial started in September 2008 in front of Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Roland Steinle.

A jury panel of 20 was seated with the expectation that some would drop out along the way, and by the time it came to trial, the charges had been winnowed to eight counts of first-degree murder, 25 counts of drive-by shooting, 17 counts of aggravated assault, 18 counts of attempted first-degree murder, nine counts of cruelty to animals, three firearms violations, two conspiracy charges and one for arson.

The trial would last seven months.

"This is going to be a long painful, bloody road," Deputy County Attorney Vince Imbordino told the jury as he showed them photographs of the victims. "This is not a crime show. People were actually killed. The bullets were real, the blood was real. The fear was real. The pain was real."

Much of the case was built on Dieteman’s statements, but he was present with Dale Hausner only after April of 2006; many of the crimes were committed before that time. So investigators had to establish Hausner’s presence, using cellphone records to show he was in the area of a crime, surveillance cameras, shell casings found in his car and other evidence.

Imbordino and his co-prosecutor, Laura Reckart, laid out their proof.

Hausner’s attorneys, Ken Everett and Tim Agan, countered with Hausner’s side of the story, basically that he had an alibi, usually involving a woman, disputing each and every charge.

But over the next seven months, those alibis melted away.

The surviving victims testified, and the prosecutors played the wiretap tape for the jury. Ron Horton, who had initially called police on Dieteman, had died of a bacterial infection eight months before the trial began.

Then Dieteman took the stand for three days. He admitted killing Claudia Gutierrez Cruz and being present when Hausner shot Robin Blasnek.

But he didn’t know the names of their other victims.

This one was shot point-blank in the neck while talking on his cellphone; that one fell back against the wall of a building and slowly slid down to a sitting position; another turned around and screamed at them; yet another kept walking as if nothing happened.

The trial droned on. At Christmastime I received a Christmas card from Hausner.

He wrote a message inside: “My wishes for you is that the lord bless you in all you do.”

He signed it “Dale.”

In February 2009, Dale Hausner took the witness stand and denied any involvement in the shootings. When he and Dieteman were arrested, he said, he thought police were coming to arrest them for possessing methamphetamine.

But Dale Hausner said enough on the stand to “open doors,” that is, to bring up issues that had been judged off-limits to prosecutors. His girlfriends and an ex-wife were all brought to testify to refute his alibis.

The ex-wife told of an enraged Hausner taking her to the desert near Wickenburg. While she shivered in the cold wearing only a T-shirt and panties, Hausner threatened to shoot her with a shotgun. He paused when people passed nearby. They drove back to Phoenix.

On another occasion, the ex-wife said, Hausner stopped her in her car, made her get out and ripped her skirt from her right in the street because he was angry that she had worn it on a date with another man.

In his closing statement, on the last day of the trial, Vince Imbordino, the lead prosecutor, drew in the jury in a soft voice.

"He doesn't look like much," Imbordino said as he pointed at Hausner. "You might have passed him on the street and not noticed him. He doesn't look like a killer. Evil doesn't have a face."

Imbordino asked the jury the same question Paul Patrick, one of Hausner's victims, had asked over and over: What could be the reason for the shooting spree?

"Unfortunately, there's not always a reason," the prosecutor said.

He held up the box of newspaper clippings that Hausner kept of the crimes.

Imbordino recalled his own childhood growing up on a ranch in Texas and wondered who could ever shoot a horse, or a dog.

"Ever have a puppy lick your face?" he asked. "You couldn't kill one."

Then he pointed to a stack of pink folders, one for each of the victims.

"This is what their lives have been reduced to," he said.

"When this trial is over, whatever the result, I hope people will remember (Dale Hausner) for what he is," he said. "A coward. An ordinary coward committed an extraordinary series of crimes."

The jury found Hausner guilty — but not of everything he was charged with. The jurors felt there was not enough evidence to find beyond a reasonable doubt that he was guilty of two of the murders and five of the other crimes.

The jury also found Hausner eligible for the death penalty. During the final sentencing stage, Hausner waived mitigating testimony his attorneys hoped would dissuade the jurors from death sentences.

Two weeks after the conviction, the families of the victims made their statements.

Adriana Cruz, whose sister Claudia had been killed by Dieteman, read an impassioned speech about having to call her parents in Mexico to tell them Claudia was dead.

“I wanted to tell them Claudia had left Arizona and I didn’t know where she was. But losing a daughter is worse than losing a sister,” she said in Spanish.

Her father’s response to her was, “You come home, and bring your sister with you.”

Then Claudia raised her voice and her eyes to the ceiling and said, "I wonder if I will ever again be able to tell her that I love her and I need her. If you can hear me, please forgive me for not being able to defend you."

The entire courtroom was in tears.

I went out in the hallway and found Tony Long, one of the shooting victims. On better days, Long would lift up his shirt to show the buckshot still embedded in his torso.

On that day he was looking ashen, and I asked if he were all right.

"They're gone, I'm still here," he answered. "I couldn't stay there. I had to come out of there."

Then he added: “But I still don’t believe in the death penalty.”

Hausner also addressed the jury, and, still harboring illusions of serial-killer fame, he compared himself to 1960s cult leader and murderer Charles Manson.

"When you think of Manson, 50 years from now you'll think of Hausner," he said.

But he did not try to talk anyone out of a death sentence.

"I died Nov. 12, 1994, when my children died," he said, referring to the traffic accident that killed his two sons.

"I've been waiting to die since then, so if you want to kill me, go ahead," he said.

And though he apologized to the families of the people he killed, he did not confess.

"I'm willing to accept the punishment," he said. "And I firmly believe, to help the victims heal, that it should be the death penalty."

He got his wish.

After the jury foreman read the death verdicts, Hausner gave a thumbs-up to the media in the back of the court room. And he said “thank you” to the jurors as he walked past them on the way to death row.

One of them answered, “You’re welcome.”

Dale Hausner’s trial was drawn out and exhausting. The rest of the Serial Shooter trials were short and anti-climactic by comparison.

Jeff Hausner went on trial next, and in June 2009, he was found guilty of attempted murder and aggravated assault for one of the stabbings. He was given 11- and 18-year sentences to be served simultaneously, and he was already serving 7½ years for the other stabbing. He was never charged in any of the shootings.

Dieteman had his sentencing trial a month later. The jury considered his testimony against Dale Hausner and spared his life. He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of release.

The final and most dramatic trial from the Summer of Fear did not start until June 2011, nearly five years after Mark Goudeau was arrested.

Goudeau had been cordial and seemed sincere in the first trial; in his second he was a simmering ex-con already facing five lifetimes in prison.

Suzanne Cohen, one of the prosecutors who had tried him in his rape trial, invoked the Bible in her opening statements.

“Beware of the predator who comes to you dressed in sheep's clothing but inside is a ravenous wolf with an appetite to rape," she said, paraphrasing a verse from the Book of Matthew. "You shall know him by his deeds."

She showed photos of the raped women to the jurors.

Then she showed photos of those who died, smiling and alive — then dead and bleeding on the ground or in the backseat of cars. Sophia Nuñez was shown where her son found her, blood dripping down the side of the bathtub.

"He took what he wanted," Cohen said.

The trial lasted four months. Cohen and her co-prosecutor, Patricia Stevens, deftly organized the case into 13 chapters, each one focusing on a scene or a murder.

A woman testified as to how she and her 12-year-old daughter were taken in her car at gunpoint from the parking lot of a south Phoenix taco stand. Goudeau made her strip naked and sexually assaulted her, then made her drive around while he assaulted the daughter. Then he jumped out of the car and ran.

"His voice always stuck in my head," the mother said on the witness stand. "It's something I hear over and over. That's been my nightmare."

Indeed, Goudeau does have a distinctive voice, creaky, almost twangy, and in a pitch that defies description as high or low, but sort of modulated in between.

The woman who had been ordered to strip naked in her Volkswagen but refused to perform oral sex on Goudeau took the stand. She told of the terror of having a gun pushed to her head and being told she would die, then hearing the click of a misfire and bolting from the car and running to safety.

The two sisters from Goudeau’s first trial also testified. So did another rape victim who said she was hysterical and called her brother instead of police. The brother told her to calm down and he came to her, and together they called police.

Then, as she told the court, when the reporting officer arrived he told her, “You don’t look like you just got raped.”

At that moment in testimony, the case agent, Alex Femenia, a former Phoenix police detective who helped spearhead the Baseline investigation, sat up in his chair at the prosecutors’ table.

His eyes got big and he took his phone out of his pocket and started dialing as he stormed out of the courtroom to find out who that officer was.

In August 2011, a dairy worker told how he found the bodies of Romelia Vargas and Mirna Palma Roman in the lunch wagon where they cooked and sold breakfast burritos to workers at a west Phoenix housing development under construction.

He had arrived before dawn and saw that the lights were on in the truck, but he didn’t see the ladies who worked in it. When he finally went in and found them dead, he tried to administer CPR, but it was too late. They had been posed like the other female murder victims, their pants unbuttoned and pulled down slightly; they had bullets in their heads.

When the dairy worker finished and left the court room, I saw Vargas’ husband, Alvin Hogue, get up and follow him out. I followed Hogue.

Outside the two men stood awkwardly in the courthouse hallway. They were both enormous. Hogue extended a hand and said, “I want to thank you for what you tried to do for my wife.”

Hogue’s voice cracked as he explained that he had been told that someone had tried to save her, but he didn’t know who it was.

“I wish I could have done more,” the dairyman said.

The two giant men embraced.

At the end of October 2011, the jury found Goudeau guilty of 67 crimes, including nine murders.

He refused to cooperate with his lead attorney, Randall Craig, and when a mitigation expert began testifying about Goudeau’s impotence during the sentencing phase of the trial, Goudeau pulled the plug and would go no further.

Still he asked the jury to spare his life.

"The only reason I'm standing here in front of you is because of my past," Goudeau said, referring to his 1989 convictions.

"People can change," he said. "I changed. ... I got out of prison and never looked back."

He criticized his attorneys for not representing him adequately.

"You know I can't talk about the crimes you found me guilty of,” he said. Defendants are not allowed to claim innocence after being convicted.

“But I can look you in the eyes and say, 'Mark Goudeau is no wolf in sheep's clothing.' And I can't blame you for the decision you made,” he continued. “But I pray that one day you learn the truth about this case and the crimes I have been accused of.

"They assassinated my character. They painted me as a monster. I am no monster. Mark Goudeau is no monster. I am no monster."

The families of Goudeau's victims got to speak, too.

Liliana Sanchez's mother, Juana, a quiet woman who had attended every day of the trial, spoke to the jurors in Spanish. A court translator repeated her words in English.

"For a moment I thought that if I could pull out my heart with my hand, I could show you my pain," she said.

On Nov. 30, 2011, the jury sentenced Goudeau to death nine times.

In late July 2012, Dale Hausner wrote me a letter from death row.

The Arizona Supreme Court had just upheld his death sentences and he wanted to give up and die. He had asked the high court to waive further appeals and speed up his execution.

Ironically, such requests make authorities question the sanity of the prisoner asking to die, and so Hausner was assigned an attorney to represent him against himself.

"The state of Arizona wanted me to get the death penalty before and during my trial," he wrote. "I was found guilty and given six death sentences. Now that I want to get executed, suddenly my mental state is in question. So, if I am found incompetent to waive my appeals, does that mean I was also incompetent to stand trial? That's something to think about, isn't it? I am not insane. I am of sound mind. I simply wish to get the punishment handed down to me, but more quickly.

“I mean really, what's a guy got to do to get snuffed out?"

He figured it out.

Nearly a year later, on June 19, 2013, Hausner was found in his cell at the Eyman Prison in Florence. He had overdosed on the antidepressant amitriptyline, also known by the brand name Elavil, which he had obtained from another prisoner.

At the time, Arizona Department of Corrections officials said that Hausner died at a hospital in Florence after he was found unresponsive in his cell. They asked The Arizona Republic to write a correction saying Hausner had not died in his cell.

Then it took a year before they released details requested under the Arizona Public Records Act.

Among the items released was a 30-minute-long video of correctional officers putting Hausner’s inert body, blood dripping from a corner of his mouth, on a gurney and administering CPR as they wheeled him to a first-aid room where paramedics took over. Then they rolled him out of the building to an ambulance.

One of Hausner’s cell-block neighbors wrote me a letter saying that he had tried for hours to get someone to investigate the snoring and choking coming from Hausner’s cell.

Sam Dieteman and Jeff Hausner are both serving their prison sentences. Neither would agree to be interviewed.

Nor would Mark Goudeau, whose nine death sentences were just affirmed by the Arizona Supreme Court on June 17 of this year.

Even after 10 years, the emotion has not subsided.

When reached by phone, Goudeau’s wife, Wendy Carr, said she did not want to talk about “the summer they railroaded my husband.”

Dale Hausner’s brother Randy, who had been a family spokesman during the trial, also declined an interview. I ran into him by chance at Sky Harbor Airport and he looked at me sideways, lowered his voice and said, “Why do you want to bring that up again?”

Prosecutors Suzanne Cohen and Laura Reckart are now Maricopa County Superior Court judges and felt they could not talk about those or any other cases. Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery would not allow prosecutor Vince Imbordino or investigator Alex Femenia to talk to me.

Judge Warren Granville, who tried the second Goudeau case, also declined because he will likely get it back in his courtroom for an appeals process called post-conviction relief.

Judge Roland Steinle has since retired from the bench, and he recently posted on Facebook that he turned to yoga for healing and eventually became an instructor.

Demetris Coachman, who was a juror during Mark Goudeau’s death-sentence trial, told The Republic, “I think about it on a day-to-day basis.”

When he goes by a car wash, Coachman thinks of Carmen Miranda. When he goes by a charity donation box, he thinks of a woman abducted at 32nd Street and Indian School Road. When he goes by bushes, he thinks of the two sisters raped in south Phoenix.

“I think about the girl in the Volkswagen who heard the gun click and ran; she testified and could hardly talk,” he said.

Paul Patrick, who was going to buy a pack of cigarettes when he was shot by Sam Dieteman, waits out the days in his hospital bed on the west side of Phoenix.

Saúl Guerrero, the combat veteran who saved Patrick's life by holding in his guts after he was shot, was inspired to become a paramedic.

I honestly still start crying every time I try to repeat aloud Adriana Gutierrez Cruz’ plaint to her sister Claudia, who was killed by Dieteman, calling to her in heaven to please forgive for not being there to protect her.

Sophia Nuñez’s daughter, Unique Martinez, posted a rap video called “Last Words” on You Tube to commemorate her mother.

Suzanne Cohen, who prosecuted the Goudeau case and is now a judge, let her film part of the video in her courtroom.

The video is cut in with news footage of the time, plus tender home movies of the attractive and charismatic woman her mother was.

Sophia’s mother, Maria, lives in a house in south Phoenix. Inside the living room, the walls are covered with framed photographs of Sophia.

“The life sentence isn’t just for Mark,” she said. “All of us, our lives changed. He might be sitting in a 6-by-6 cell, but we don’t have Sophia anymore, and the kids don’t have their mom."

Former Phoenix police Sgt. Andy Hill, who was the public face of both investigations, handed me a copy of an email he sent out about the two cases in 2011 when Mark Goudeau was still on trial.

The last words of this tale are his:

“A city, a metropolitan area in fear. Two serial-killer cases at the same time in the same city; one a lone predator and the other with two suspects arrested and possible third investigated.

“Seventeen murder victims ...

“A child raped.

“Women raped, sodomized, shot and killed; men shot and killed or paralyzed or permanently injured.

“A child came home to find his mother brutally raped and murdered, a mother watched her daughter raped, a woman forced to undress and when she refused her attacker’s attempted rape, had the gun pointed to her head and the trigger pulled. It clicked and she ran.

“Finally arrests.

“But years of suffering still lay ahead for the victims and the families. One child raped still remains institutionalized. … Many other children of victims have endured years of loneliness, without help, trying to grow up, live, provide for themselves. ...

“Then the trials: rehashing the horrible events, hoping for justice, knowing nothing can change what happened. ...

“Except for a few, the media has long forgotten the victims. …

“Surely the victims who survived and all the family members and loved ones don’t forget. Even a conviction will not stem the tide of the torture of the memories of the evil acts. But a loving and caring community can help comfort.

“Don’t forget them, don’t forget them, don’t forget them.”

Animal rescue, flesh-eating bacteria, child marriage: News from ...

From USA TODAY Network and wire reports

Alabama

Birmingham: A judicial panel convicted a judge of violating ethics rules by failing to return to work and serve without pay following her conviction in an earlier ethics case, court documents show. Jefferson County Circuit Judge Tracie Todd was given a 120-day suspension without pay in an order filed Monday following a trial that lasted five days over three months before the Alabama Court of the Judiciary. Todd was convicted last year of violating orders of an appellate court and, as punishment, ordered to work for 90 days without pay beginning last Dec. 6, news outlets reported. Rather than reporting for duty at the courthouse in Birmingham, Todd remained for most of the period in Chicago, where her husband and children live, evidence showed. Todd, who testified in her own defense, claimed she worked remotely while in Chicago and couldn’t return to Alabama because of illness and COVID-19 quarantines that restricted her from travel. The court could have permanently removed Todd, and one of her lawyers, Edward J. Ungvarsky, said the decision to only suspend her for four months represented a vindication. “Judges, lawyers, and court personnel consistently testified that Judge Todd displays the greatest of integrity, honesty, and compassion,” Ungvarsky said. The Court of the Judiciary convicted Todd in December 2021 of violating judicial ethics by disregarding decisions by higher courts and inserting her own opinions into rulings, including one that declared Alabama’s death penalty statute was unconstitutional. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals and the Alabama Supreme Court overturned the decision.

Alaska

Anchorage: The Anchorage Assembly leadership is condemning remarks made by a member of the public during last week’s Assembly meeting, Alaska Public Media reports. When testifying on an ordinance about designating a former hotel as a temporary emergency shelter, a man made racist and derogatory comments about Alaska Native people, according to the news outlet. East Anchorage Assembly member Forrest Dunbar swiftly rebuked the comments. In a statement Tuesday, Assembly chair Suzanne LaFrance and vice-chair Chris Constant said they wanted to “speak out against the racist and offensive statements made by the member of the public. Unfortunately, this is not the first time racist views have been expressed in the Assembly Chambers.”

Arizona

Tucson: A man convicted last month in the first of two murder cases is seeking a new trial, according to authorities. Christopher Clements was convicted Sept. 30 of first-degree murder and kidnapping in the death of 13-year-old Maribel Gonzalez. He was scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday in Pima County Superior Court, but the date has been moved to Nov. 14. Court officials also said Clements’ attorneys have filed a motion for a new trial and a motion for judgment of acquittal not withstanding the verdict. A Nov. 7 hearing is set for both motions. A judge also will hear testimony Nov. 14 for a possible change of venue for Clements’ other murder trial, scheduled for Feb. 2 involving the death of 6-year-old Isabel Celis. Clements, a 40-year-old convicted sex offender with a long criminal record, is facing life in prison when he’s sentenced in the Gonzalez case. Clements was arrested in 2018 and indicted on 22 felony counts including two counts each of first-degree murder and kidnapping in the girls’ deaths.

Arkansas

Fort Smith: Fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid that is often mixed with illegal drugs such as methamphetamine or heroin, is continuing to cause more overdoses and deaths in Fort Smith and the state. Fort Smith emergency responders have saved the lives of 66 people who overdosed on fentanyl this year with the life-saving Narcan drug that can counter the deadly effects of fentanyl and opiates. Fort Smith police report that paramedics, firefighters and others have given 194 doses of Narcan that could have resulted in deadly overdoses. Of those lives that have have been saved, 66 people were confirmed to have fentanyl in their system with an additional 31 people overdosing on unconfirmed substances and pills possibly with fentanyl.

California

San Diego: A motorcyclist and Navy veteran who lost a leg in a 2019 chain-reaction crash started by a Navy sailor driving a military van near San Diego has won a $10.8 million settlement against the United States. Attorneys for the motorcyclist, Peter Arthur, said the settlement is one of the largest against the federal government in the San Diego area for a suit involving a vehicle collision, the San Diego Union Tribune reported. Arthur, a 49-year-old who served 20 years in the U.S. Navy, underwent multiple surgeries following the Sept. 13, 2019, crash. Arthur was thrown from his motorcycle, causing the femur, tibia and fibula in his right leg to shatter, according to his civil lawsuit. Doctors eventually had to amputate the leg above the knee. Navy sailor Michael Stanley Reynolds was driving a large passenger van on Interstate 5 when he “suddenly and without warning” swerved into the next lane to his left, causing several vehicles to crash, according to the lawsuit. Reynolds did not face criminal charges in connection with the crash. A Navy spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment by the Union-Tribune. Arthur’s civil lawsuit against the federal government alleges his injuries were “permanent, disfiguring, and disabling” and “will require extensive future medical care, life care, and vocational rehabilitation.”

Colorado

Fort Collins: Colorado State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences recently announced a $278million upgrade and expansion of its current vet school facilities on the university’s south campus. The new veterinary health complex, which is scheduled to break ground in early 2023 and be completed in 2028, will include an expansion of more than 300,000 square feet. The complex will have a veterinary education center and primary care clinic, and there will be renovations or expansions of current facilities, including a livestock teaching hospital and an animal specialty hospital. The school’s current teaching hospital off of Drake Road and College Avenue will be remodeled to become the animal specialty hospital. All work will be done in phases, so some elements will be completed prior to 2028. “Our college ranks among the world’s top institutions in veterinary and biomedical education and research,” said Sue VandeWoude, dean of the college, in the university’s release. “Our expansion plan for the south campus … will help us continue our tradition of excellence in the academic mission of teaching; the assessment of novel methods for training clinical students; and our research and service to the community.” With the new buildings come curricula changes, too. The new facilities will give CSU what it needs to implement a new curriculum focused on educating “day one-ready” veterinarians using medical training along with training in “problem-solving, conflict resolution, decision-making and mental, physical and financial wellbeing,” according to a release from the university.

Connecticut

Waterbury: Less than a week after two police officers were killed in an ambush, U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes called for a national ban on assault weapons, while her Republican challenger, George Logan, stressed that more needs to be done to support law enforcement. The two are locked in a closely watched race for the state’s 5th Congressional District that has attracted more than $5 million in outside money. Appearing in their first televised debate, the pair was asked about a shooting that left two officers dead in Bristol, about 20 minutes away from where the debate was held. Hayes said officers like her husband, a 25-year-veteran of the Waterbury Police Department, can be outgunned. Noting that the state already has an assault weapons ban, Logan criticized Hayes for voting in favor of what he called an “anti-police bill.” He was referring to the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021, which banned chokeholds and “qualified immunity” for law enforcement while creating national standards for policing in a bid to bolster accountability. The bill was later blocked in the Senate.

Delaware

New Castle: A state trooper indicted last year for a fraudulent traffic warning scheme pleaded guilty to falsifying business records and official misconduct in New Castle County Superior Court on Monday, the Delaware Department of Justice said. Cpl. Edwin Ramirez, who was stationed at Troop 9 before his suspension in May 2021, was sentenced to a year of probation and 33 hours of community service – one hour for every false e-warning he filed. He also had to surrender his Council on Police Training certifications. Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings called Ramirez’s traffic warning scheme an “abuse of power” and said it “victimized innocent motorists,” some of whom did not even know they had received an e-warning. Others weren’t even driving when the fraudulent traffic stop supposedly occurred. Ramirez was officially sentenced to two concurrent yearlong prison sentences. It was suspended for a year of probation. Delaware State Police Superintendent Colonel Melissa Zebley noted in a written statement that Ramirez is no longer employed by the statewide police department.

District of Columbia

Washington: Metro Transit Police investigators are looking into an incident captured on video in which a woman was attacked and thrown off a bus, WUSA-TV reports. The woman said she was on the bus, which was headed to Deanwood on Monday afternoon, with her two children when a group of kids got on the bus and started cursing and acting rowdy, according to the news outlet. Things escalated and eventually turned physical when the woman asked the kids to stop cursing, according to the person who filmed the footage. At least three people can be seen grabbing the woman and pushing her out the door when the bus came to a stop, the news outlet reports.

Florida

Fort Myers: The state has seen an increase in cases of flesh-eating bacteria this year driven largely by a surge in the county hit hardest by Hurricane Ian. The state Department of Health reports that as of Friday there have been 65 cases of vibrio vulnificus infections and 11 deaths in Florida this year. That compares with 34 cases and 10 deaths reported during all of 2021. In Lee County, where Ian stormed ashore last month, the health department reports 29 cases this year and four deaths. Health officials didn’t give a breakdown of how many of the cases were before or after Ian struck. Lee County health officials earlier this month warned people that the post-hurricane environment – including warm, standing water – could pose a danger from the potentially deadly bacteria. “Flood waters and standing waters following a hurricane pose many risks, including infectious diseases such as vibrio vulnificus,” the county health department said in a news release Oct. 3 that urged the public to take precautions. The advisory said that people with open wounds, cuts, or scratches can be exposed to the bacteria through contact with sea water or brackish water. People with open wounds should avoid such water and seek medical care immediately if an infection is apparent.

Georgia

Atlanta: Two former jail detainees testified that deputies of a sheriff charged with violating their civil rights kept them in restraint chairs for hours, causing them to urinate on themselves while they were bound. Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill is standing trial on federal charges that he violated the rights of seven detainees. Prosecutors say their placement in restraint chairs was unnecessary, was improperly used as punishment and caused pain and bodily injury. Hill is widely known as one of metro Atlanta’s most flamboyant lawmen. He calls himself “The Crime Fighter” and uses Batman imagery to promote himself on social media and in campaign ads. This is his second trial on criminal charges. Clayton County voters reelected Hill in 2012 while he was under indictment the first time, accused of using his office for personal gain. He beat those charges. Hill has pleaded not guilty to the civil rights charges, which his attorneys say are politically motivated. Drew Findling, one of Hill’s lawyers, cross-examined both men Tuesday about what he said where inconsistencies between their trial testimony and what they had previously told investigators.

Hawaii

Pearl Harbor: The Navy said Tuesday it was still fixing an underground water pipe that ruptured last week and interrupted the supply of water to about 93,000 people at Pearl Harbor. The bursting of the 36-inch water main has also forced the Navy to postpone plans to remove 1 gallon of fuel from three pipelines at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility, the tank farm that leaked petroleum into Pearl Harbor’s tap water last year. Navy Capt. Mark Sohaney, the commander of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, said crews were on schedule to finish fixing the broken water main in about one week. When the water main burst last Friday, officials had to divert water to the west side of the base. That increased pressure in smaller water lines there, leading to additional pipe breaks in Pearl City Peninsula and West Loch. These two smaller breaks have since been repaired. The Navy issued a boil water advisory for affected areas last Friday, and gyms and child care centers have been closed.

Idaho

Boise: A legal loophole in the state that allows parents of teens to nullify child custody agreements by arranging child marriages will remain in effect, under a ruling from the state Supreme Court on Tuesday. In a split decision, the high court declined to decide whether Idaho’s child marriage law – which allows 16- and 17-year-olds to marry if one parent agrees to the union – is unconstitutional. Instead, the justices said that once a child is emancipated by marriage, the family court loses jurisdiction over custody matters. The case arose from a custody battle between a Boise woman and her ex-husband, who planned to move to Florida and wanted to take their 16-year-old daughter along. The ex-husband was accused of setting up a “sham marriage” between his daughter and another teen as a way to end the custody fight.

Illinois

Chicago: Democrat Gov. JB Pritzker and Republican challenger Darren Bailey traded barbs at the final gubernatorial debate Tuesday. The debate held at the WGN-TV studios featured many of the same topics as the prior debate at Illinois State University including crime, abortion and the SAFE-T Act. However, new wrinkles were added in the hourlong back and forth such as school curriculum and the possibility of a new stadium for the Chicago Bears. While questions primarily focused on the issues, both candidates landed punches with Pritzker calling Bailey a “threat to democracy” and Bailey labeling Chicago “Pritzkerville” because of crime in the city. It was the last scheduled televised debate between the candidates and possibly the last time they shared venues, giving Bailey perhaps his last chance to cut into Pritzker’s lead in the polls. Recent polling conducted by The Chicago Sun-Times/WBEZ found the Democrat with 49% of voters supporting him compared to 34% for Bailey.

Indiana

Indianapolis: A man has been convicted of reckless homicide in the fatal 2020 shooting of a young Black man during unrest sparked by outrage over George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police. Prosecutors had charged Tyler Newby, 32, with murder, but after a one-day bench trial a Marion County judge found Newby, who is white, guilty Monday of the lesser crime of reckless homicide in Dorian Murrell’s death. His sentencing was set for Nov. 10. Murrell, 18, died from a single gunshot wound to the heart after being shot in downtown Indianapolis on May 31, 2020, during violence that followed protests over the death of Floyd, a Black man. Newby’s first trial in Murrell’s killing ended in a mistrial last year after jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict following several hours of deliberation. Newby turned himself in shortly after the shooting. He claimed self defense, saying the shooting took place after he was approached by a group of people and shoved to the ground. Newby said he saw someone standing over him and fired. Prosecutors argued that being shoved to the ground wasn’t justification to take someone’s life. Three people who had been with Murrell when he was shot have been charged in connection with the robbery and killing of Chris Beaty, a businessman and a former Indiana University football player. Beaty, 38, was fatally shot in downtown Indianapolis hours before Murrell was slain.

Iowa

Des Moines: Gov. Kim Reynolds now has the support of a majority of likely Iowa voters – and a sizable lead over her competitors with just over three weeks until Election Day. A Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll finds Reynolds at 52% support, holding a 17-percentage point advantage over Democrat Deidre DeJear, who has 35%. Libertarian Rick Stewart trails at 4%. Another 4% of likely voters say they are not sure for whom they would vote, 3% say they would vote for “someone else,” and 1% say they would not vote. Reynolds is holding her large lead even as more Iowans solidify their support behind one of the two major-party candidates. Reynolds also enjoyed a 17-point margin in the previous Iowa Poll in July, even though her overall support was lower in that poll, at 48%, versus 31% for DeJear. Fewer Iowans now say they’re undecided or would vote for “someone else,” but support for both Reynolds and DeJear increased equally – by 4 percentage points – since the July poll. And Reynolds maintains a significant advantage over DeJear in name recognition: Among all Iowans, more than half, 51%, still don’t know enough about DeJear to form an opinion about her, versus only 3% for Reynolds, the poll found. Reynolds also enjoys her highest approval rating since fall of 2021, at 53%.

Kansas

Lawrence: The University of Kansas has begun the process of returning Native American remains and other sacred objects that were recently discovered in its museum collections, the university said. University officials said in a statement posted online that “culturally unidentified individual remains,” funeral objects and other sacred objects were found in Spooner Hall and Lippincott Hall Annex on the Lawrence campus. The university is verifying its inventory of Indigenous artifacts it holds across campus. A spokesperson did not respond Tuesday to questions about the number of artifacts, specifically how and when they were found, or to which tribes they belong. The announcement comes 32 years after the passage of the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which sets out criteria for tribal nations to reclaim human remains and other objects related to burials. Kansas Chancellor Douglas Girod initially announced the discovery in a message to the campus Sept. 20. The university had begun efforts to repatriate some items in the past, but the process was not completed, he said. The university said its repatriation efforts will include forming an advisory committee, consulting with tribal nations, auditing all university collections, securing space for the Indigenous Studies Program, supporting gathering opportunities for the university’s Native American community, and instituting repatriation policies and procedures. “The intent in sharing this announcement is to publicly apologize to Native communities and peoples, past, present, and future, and to apologize to the tribal nations across North America,” the university’s statement said.

Kentucky

Burkesville: The state’s 26th Trail Town has been certified, and it is in Cumberland County, the Department of Parks said. “Trail Towns are ideal destinations for outdoor recreation lovers,” Parks Commissioner Russ Meyer said in a news release Tuesday. “The program helps drive local and state economies and is an ever-increasing component of the nation’s economic impact. It also brings about more healthy activities and vibrant communities and parks.” The program is designed to provide a strategic plan that communities can use to capitalize on travel opportunities, the agency said. It also works to create healthy physical activities with access to trails and recreational areas. The Burkesville Trail Town offerings feature the Cumberland River and the connection to the downtown area. The river offers boating, fishing, and paddling. Burkesville is also home to Dale Hollow Lake State Resort Park.

Louisiana

New Orleans: An outage involving a Coast Guard marine warning system and “data gaps” in radar systems were factors in last year’s deadly capsize of an oil industry vessel during severe storms off of Louisiana’s coast, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a report issued Tuesday. Thirteen of the 19 people aboard the Seacor Power died after the offshore vessel capsized in the Gulf after leaving Port Fourchon. Known as a lift boat, the vessel had three legs that could be lowered to the sea floor, converting the ship to an offshore platform for servicing oil and gas facilities. It had been chartered by Talos Energy LLC for work on a Gulf platform when it was hit by high winds in rough seas and capsized on April 13, 2021. An NTSB preliminary report had said the Seacor Power had begun to lower its stabilizing legs and was trying to turn to face heavy winds when it flipped in the Gulf of Mexico. Six people were rescued. The NTSB said in Tuesday’s report that the captain of the Seacor Power made a “reasonable” decision to get underway the day of the disaster. But he didn’t have sufficient weather information from the lift boat company. “Additionally, due to a Coast Guard broadcasting station outage, the SEACOR Power crew did not receive a National Weather Service Special Marine Warning notifying mariners of a severe thunderstorm that was approaching,” the report said.

Maine

Machias: A longtime law enforcement officer and former candidate for sheriff in Washington County has been sentenced to four years in prison for drug- and gun-related charges. The case against Jeffrey Bishop, 55, unfolded with his arrest for providing opioid pills to a teenage girl last year in a high school parking lot. Prosecutors said the drugs were meant for the girl’s mother. He told the judge Monday that he was “very humble” and a “very broken man” but said he wasn’t fully satisfied with the plea agreement, the Bangor Daily News reported. He also said he was “baffled” that his police background was considered an aggravating factor when it came to his sentencing. He was arrested less than a week after he retired from the Calais Police Department last year. In his resignation letter, Bishop said he “decided to go out on top,” after a long career in law enforcement.

Maryland

Hagerstown: Gov. Larry Hogan and other political and business leaders Tuesday toured the Hitachi Rail factory being built in Washington County. “The job creation potential and associated economic benefits are an absolute game-changer for this region and for the entire state,” the Republican governor said in remarks before the tour. “This project is further proof that the Hagerstown region is a major logistical center for transportation with unparalleled connections to the northeastern United States.” Hitachi also unveiled the final design of the $70 million factory, which will employ about 460 people and help sustain a total of 1,300 jobs in the region. The 307,000-square-foot facility is being build at the west end of Halfway Boulevard, which the county plans to extend to Greencastle Pike (Md. 63). The 41-acre site also will include an 800-foot test track. Hogan called it a “transformative project.” Construction is slated to be finished in the first quarter of 2024.

Massachusetts

Salem: A Hindu rights activist is calling on a museum to stop selling children’s plush toys representing three Hindu deities. Toys depicting Lord Krishna, Lord Ganesh and Lord Hanuman were available on the Peabody Essex Museum’s online shop last week but had been removed by Tuesday, Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, said in a statement. The deities are “greatly revered in Hinduism and were meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not to be thrown around loosely on the floor, bathrooms, cars, etc.” Zed said. He also called for a formal apology from the museum. The Peabody Essex Museum halted sales of the toys while it reviewed the complaint, spokesperson Whitney Van Dyke said in an email. “These items will be back on sale shortly,” she said. The museum pointed out that the toys are widely available and are manufactured by New Jersey-based Modi Toys, founded by an Indian American family. They are intended to spark curiosity in Hindu culture and heritage, company co-founder Avani Modi Sarkar said in a statement.

Michigan

Mount Pleasant: A man who got out of his car after striking a deer was killed by another vehicle, authorities said. The 33-year-old Shepherd man was hit Monday when the driver of the second car swerved to avoid a crash on U.S. 127, near Mount Pleasant, investigators said. Conditions were dark and misty. The lights on Joshua Davis’ Ford Focus “had been disabled from the deer accident and were not working,” the Isabella County sheriff’s office said. The driver of the other vehicle, a 77-year-old woman from Lansing, was taken to an emergency room for an evaluation, the sheriff’s office said.

Minnesota

Bloomington: The Mall of America is testing metal detectors at one entrance following two incidents of gunfire and an armed robbery within the last year. Mall spokeswoman Laura Utecht said Tuesday the trial is taking place over the next month at the mall’s north doors, although that could change as testing continues. She declined to say what shoppers should avoid trying to carry through the metal detectors, the Star Tribune reported. “With Mall of America being such a unique property, it is important to thoroughly evaluate this technology onsite to ensure its accuracy, effectiveness and efficiency,” Utecht said in a statement, adding that the mall is testing a variety of security options. The Mall of America bans guns, according to its website, but the shopping center has never had metal detectors or searched bags. The mall, which opened in 1992, is the largest in the U.S. and is a tourist destination and community gathering spot. Two gun incidents took place in August. In one, a man robbed two stores and was apprehended with a loaded rifle. About three weeks earlier, a man fired shots in the midst of a fight among four other people. There were no injuries in either case. A shooting last New Year’s Eve left two people wounded following a dispute on the mall’s third floor.

Mississippi

Jackson: An employee of a wastewater hauling company pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday for his part in illegally discharging industrial waste into the capital city’s sewer system. William Roberts, an employee of Partridge-Sibley Industrial Services, admitted to supervising the improper disposal of industrial waste at a commercial entity in Jackson. As a result of Roberts’s negligence, the waste was trucked and hauled to a facility that was not a legal discharge point designated to receive the waste, federal prosecutors said. “The defendant’s negligent conduct contributed to the discharge of millions of gallons of untreated industrial waste into the Jackson water system,” said Chuck Carfagno, a special agent for the Environmental Protection Agency’s criminal investigations division. Jackson’s water and sewer system has been beset by troubles dating back years. The water system was recently engulfed in a crisis that forced people in the city of 150,000 to go days without running water in late August and early September. An attorney for Roberts did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He will be sentenced on December 14, 2022.

Missouri

Kansas City: Six students and two adults were taken to a hospital for evaluation after a carbon monoxide leak was detected Wednesday at an elementary school, officials said. The eight people taken to hospitals from Longfellow Elementary School suffered nausea and dizziness but none suffered life-threatening issues, Assistant Fire Chief Jimmy Walker said. Emergency responders went to the school after several students reporting feeling ill. Firefighters found “extremely high” levels of the lethal gas inside the building, Walker said. The level of carbon monoxide reached 2,000 parts per million, which was the maximum for monitors used by firefighters at the scene, Walker said. The cause of the leak is under investigation. Firefighters were ventilating the building but it was unclear when students could return to Longfellow. School district spokesperson Elle Moxley said the district had contractors check its heating systems last week, including at Longfellow, in anticipation of colder weather. No problems were detected, she said. Moxley said every child was checked and the district will work with the fire department before determining where Longfellow students will attend school this week.

Montana

Great Falls: A suspect who is accused of leading law enforcement on a vehicle chase through two counties on Monday has been charged with five felonies in Cascade County District Court. He is being held on a $500,000 bond. Santana Ledeau is charged with two counts of robbery, two counts of assault on a peace officer and one count of criminal endangerment. Cascade County Attorney Josh Racki said on Monday that Ledeau will likely face more charges as the investigation continues. That investigation, Cascade County Sheriff Jesse Slaughter said, will be conducted by the Montana Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation due to the many agencies involved.

Nebraska

Lincoln: Officials say improperly discarded cigarettes led to a fire in a home’s garage and caused $75,000 worth of damage, the Lincoln Journal Star reports. Lincoln Fire and Rescue Capt. Nancy Crist said the fire started after the resident emptied an ashtray into a garbage can. The blaze was contained to the garage and no one was injured, according to the news outlet.

Nevada

Reno: Republican Secretary of State candidate Jim Marchant is the only statewide candidate who has yet to file his campaign finance report, having missed Monday’s deadline. A central duty of the secretary of state’s office is administering elections, handling campaign finance reports and enforcing reporting deadlines for contribution and expenditure reports. The secretary of state also registers corporations and limited liability companies and represents the third highest ranking state official behind the governor and lieutenant governor. Marchant’s campaign did not immediately respond to an email request for comment Tuesday. The secretary of state’s office declined to comment. Campaign reporting deadlines normally fall on the 15th of the month for April, July, October and January. But since it fell on a Saturday this month, the deadline was moved to Monday at 5 p.m. Marchant had not filed by late afternoon Tuesday. If the report is filed one to seven days late, the candidate must pay a $25 daily fee. For eight to 15 days late, the penalty is $50 a day. And if the report is filed more than 15 days late, it is $100 a day the up to a maximum of $10,000. Marchant is among the America First Secretary of State Coalition candidates who deny the legitimacy of the 2020 election and vow to scrap early voting and vote-counting tabulators.

New Hampshire

Londonderry: The publisher of a weekly newspaper has waived her arraignment, pleading not guilty to charges that she published advertisements for local races without properly marking them as political advertising, the state attorney general’s office said. The six misdemeanor charges allege that Debra Paul, publisher of The Londonderry Times, failed to identify the ads with “appropriate language” indicating that they were ads and saying who paid for them as required by state law, the attorney general’s office said in August after reviewing cases that go back to 2019. Paul, who’s also a member of the town council in Londonderry, said in a statement at the time, “This is clearly a case of a small business needing to defend itself against overreaching government.” A police affidavit said altogether, nearly 60 violations in the Times and a related publication were counted between 2020 and this year. Paul, who along with her husband are the only two employees at the paper, said she originally believed the state’s complaint involved advertising rates, the affidavit said. Her attorney did not return a message seeking comment.

New Jersey

Madison: A former federal prosecutor-turned-producer and a media production company who used Drew University as their backdrop to film a movie about a prestigious college littered with hazing and prejudice is being sued by the school, who claims they filmed and dashed without paying their bill. Executive producer Traci Bransford and her production company Meadowcrest Films and Think Global Media, a company with studios across the nation, used the Morris County private school earlier this year to film “The Choices We Make.” But when it was time to remit payment of over $130,000, Bransford apparently had plenty of excuses why the money was being delayed, according to the lawsuit filed in state Superior Court in Morris County earlier this month. The university names Think Global Media owner Nathan Scinto in the suit due to his partnership with Bransford, but Scinto’s attorney Richard Roth said Tuesday it was “aggressive lawyering” and that there is “absolutely no basis” to go after his client or his company. The facilities and services agreement, which Roth said he obtained, was with Meadowcrest Films. Roth said he plans to file a motion to remove his client from the suit if the university’s attorney does not agree to remove him prior. He also noted that he does not believe there is jurisdiction in New Jersey since his client’s company is not connected to the state. A number listed for Bransford was disconnected and there was no response to an email request for comment. No attorney is listed for her.

New Mexico

Winston: Environmentalists are pushing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to do more to protect Mexican gray wolves after one of the endangered predators was found dead in southwestern New Mexico. The Western Watersheds Project is among the groups that have been critical of the agency’s management of wolves in New Mexico and Arizona, saying illegal killings continue to hamper the population. However, the Fish and Wildlife Service says there have been fewer wolves found dead this year than in previous years. The agency also pointed to a revised recovery plan for the wolf that was released in early October. The agency was under a court order to revamp the plan to address the threat of human-caused mortality as one of the ways to increase survivability for wolves in the wild. Federal officials said they could not provide any details about the circumstances of the latest death since it was an ongoing investigation. It’s rare that such investigations are ever closed. Environmentalists described the male wolf recently found dead near Winston as one of the most genetically-valuable Mexican wolves in the wild. It had been released in 2018 after being born in captivity and then cross-fostered into a wild wolf den as part of an effort to increase genetic diversity.

New York

Miller Place: Authorities rescued nearly 300 rabbits, birds and other animals from a filthy home and charged a self-help book author with cruel confinement of animals, prosecutors announced. “Operation Open Cage” started Oct. 1 when investigators were contacted by animal control officers who reported a hoarding situation in the hamlet of Miller Place on Long Island, the Suffolk County district attorney’s office said. Officers wearing hazardous material suits found a total of 118 rabbits, 150 birds, 15 cats, seven tortoises, three snakes and several mice living among filth, many surrounded by their own feces and urine and covered with cockroaches, the district attorney said. The owner of the home, Karin Keyes, 51, was charged with multiple counts of cruel confinement of animals. She’s a social worker and the author of a self-published book titled “Journey Into Awareness: Reclaiming Your Life.” Information on Keyes’ attorney wasn’t available. A phone message was left at a number listed for her. Teams from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals helped the district attorney’s Biological, Environmental and Animal Safety Team and local officers in removing and transporting the animals to animal welfare organizations around New York for medical care.

North Carolina

Raleigh: Democratic legislators pleaded with the General Assembly’s Republican majority on Tuesday to consider gun safety and mental health measures, citing last week’s shootings in Raleigh that left five people dead. Democratic lawmakers, one a resident of the east Raleigh subdivision where the shooting rampage began last Thursday, said the public expects elected officials to work together to pass laws designed to make them safer. “This is an issue that transcends party. It’s an issue about our safety, the safety of our children, the safety of our state,” Senate Minority Leader Dan Blue said at a news conference. Blue has lived in the Hedingham community where the shootings occurred for over 30 years “and never felt that I would be unsafe in the community where we raised our kids until last week.” Previous Democratic requests for Republicans to permit debate and votes on gun-control measures and others to keep weapons out of the hands of people at extreme risk of becoming violent have been unsuccessful. “My question today is now the time for a discussion of gun reform, or do we have to wait yet for another mass shooting?” said Sen. Jay Chaudhuri, a Wake County Democrat. House Speaker Tim Moore, a Cleveland County Republican, said in a statement later Tuesday that lawmakers for now “should remain focused on praying for the victims’ families and supporting law enforcement rather than seizing the moment for a political debate.” “We need to allow law enforcement to complete their investigation before jumping to any conclusions about policy changes,” Moore added.

North Dakota

Bismarck: The state health department stored thousands of COVID-19 vaccine doses at incorrect temperatures or without temperature data over the past two years, according to a state audit Tuesday that said some of the vaccine was administered to patients. The health department disputed the findings. Tim Wiedrich, who heads the agency’s virus response, said “no non-viable vaccine” was given to patients. In responses that accompanied the audit, the department said clerical errors or other errors of documentation erroneously suggested that expired or bad doses were given. “DoH uses redundant systems to ensure proper monitoring and distribution of vaccines prior to end of shelf life,” the agency said. A spokeswoman for the auditor’s office said it wasn’t recommending revaccinations. “We simply report on what we found,” auditor’s office spokeswoman Emily Dalzell said. “It would be up to the individual and their doctor to decide if revaccination is needed.” The state analysis said nearly 2,000 Moderna doses were stored at incorrect temperatures and were administered to patients. The audit also found that nearly 13,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccines were issued from storage with missing temperature data. The audit covered a two-year span that ended June 30. An inventory of the vaccines was conducted on Aug. 8, 2021, the audit said.

Ohio

Cleveland: The state Supreme Court on Tuesday removed from the bench a Cleveland municipal judge for misconduct and conducting court business “in a manner befitting a game show host,” investigators said. Judge Pinkey S. Carr was indefinitely suspended, and she agreed to undergo evaluations for her mental and physical health. The court said that Carr’s bench was littered with junk, dolls, cups and novelty items - her own attorney described it as “resembling a flea market.” She wore tank tops, T-shirts, spandex shorts and sneakers to court. And she discussed with staff and defendants a television show called “P-Valley” about a fictional Mississippi strip club. Carr joked about accepting kickbacks for lenient sentences if defendants gave her food, beverages, carpeting or storage space. She referred to her bailiff as “Miss Puddin from P-Valley.” In addition to a lack of decorum, Carr was found to have violated a long list of other rules.

Oklahoma

Oklahoma City: Gov. Kevin Stitt on Tuesday set a statewide election for March 7 for voters to decide whether to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, a question Democrats had hoped would be on the November ballot to help energize liberal voters. Oklahomans for Sensible Marijuana Laws gathered enough signatures to qualify the question for a statewide vote and thought the proposal would be on the ballot in November. But because it took longer than usual to count the signatures and for courts to consider legal challenges, there wasn’t enough time to print the ballots ahead of the November election. If approved by voters, the question would legalize the use of marijuana for any adult over the age of 21. Marijuana sales would be subjected to a 15% excise tax on top of the standard sales tax, and the revenue it generates would be used to help fund local municipalities, the court system, public schools, substance abuse treatment and the state’s general revenue fund. The proposal also outlines a judicial process for people to seek expungement or dismissal of prior marijuana-related convictions. Oklahoma already has one of the most robust medical marijuana programs in the country, with roughly 10% of the state’s residents having state-issued medical cards that allow them to purchase, grow and consume marijuana. Stitt said that while he supports the federal legalization of marijuana, he opposes the state question, saying the country’s patchwork of state laws on marijuana has become problematic.

Oregon

Salem: State Supreme Court Chief Justice Martha Walters said she’ll retire at the end of the year. Walters, who became the first woman to serve as chief justice of the Supreme Court in 2018, is the second justice this month to announce a retirement, giving Democrat Gov. Kate Brown two appointments to the state’s high court before she leaves office, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported. “I have loved the job of advocating for our courts and the critical need for access to the services we provide,” Walters said during remarks at a judicial conference where she made the announcement. Walters’ plan to retire comes amid an uncertain political future for the state because of the November gubernatorial election. With unaffiliated candidate Betsy Johnson likely to draw votes, polls have indicated that Republican candidate Christine Drazan and Democratic Tina Kotek are locked in a tight race. By retiring, Walters has ensured Brown will name a replacement who is likely to be aligned with Walters’ jurisprudence.

Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh: Newsroom workers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette have gone on strike demanding that the company reinstate the terms of its previous contract and return to the bargaining table. The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh said its members began picketing Tuesday outside the newsroom on the city’s North Shore and planned to continue the action Wednesday. Guild members have been working without a contract since 2017 and Monday voted to authorize an unfair labor practice strike against the company. On Oct. 6, workers from unions that are responsible for production, distribution and advertising at the Post-Gazette walked off the job. The Post-Gazette said in a statement that it would “continue to serve the Pittsburgh community, our readers and advertisers, despite any work stoppage.” Officials said they were confident the company would prevail when the National Labor Relations Board rules on the unfair labor practice accusation. The walkout is the first major newspaper strike in the city in three decades. In 1992, WESA reports, about 600 members of a Teamsters local representing truck drivers and circulation route managers went on strike against the Pittsburgh Press, which ended up being sold and merged with the Post-Gazette.

Rhode Island

North Kingstown: An orphaned bobcat found in the kitchen of a Glocester camp will soon return to the wild, said Arianna Mouradjian, director of operations at the Wildlife Clinic of Rhode Island, in North Kingstown. With an increase in the bobcat population in the state over the last two decades, the Saunderstown clinic has in recent years received several bobcats in need of its rehabilitative services, Mouradjian said. Still, she said, “Bobcats are one of those species we don’t see a lot of.” The most recent guest was rescued July 23 from Aldersgate Camp and Retreat Center in Glocester at about six weeks old. Bobcat kittens typically stay with their mothers 9 to 12 months. Through the end of summer and beginning of fall, she has lived in her own outdoor pen as the clinic staff give her time to grow big enough to fend for herself in the wild.

South Carolina

Greer: BMW will invest $1 billion in its sprawling factory near Spartanburg, South Carolina, to start building electric vehicles and an additional $700 million to build a electric-battery plant nearby. The German automaker’s announcement Wednesday reflects its commitment to transitioning to electric-vehicle production in North America, in line with similarly ambitious plans by other major automakers. The investment in the 7-million-square-foot vehicle factory in Greer, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, would add an unspecified number of jobs to the more than 11,000 workers there. The battery plant, to be built in nearby Woodruff, will employ 300, the company said, with hiring to begin within a few years. In addition, BMW said it has signed a deal with Envision AESC of Japan to supply battery cells for a new class of at least six electric SUVs that will be built at BMW’s plant in Greer by 2030. Envision will build its new factory at an unspecified site in South Carolina. The companies wouldn’t say how many people will be hired. But the number of jobs could be significant: Battery cell plants being built by other companies will employ between 1,100 and 2,200 workers.

South Dakota

Sioux Falls: A monkey with the Great Plains Zoo is recovering after facing recent surgery because of an injury sustained after the animal picked up a bottle cap someone threw in its enclosure. Kai, the Japanese macaque, had surgery Tuesday, according to a social media post by the zoo. He picked up a bottle top that had been tossed into the snow monkey exhibit, and tucked it into his cheek pouch. Eventually, the bottle cap wore its way through the cheek and needed to be removed. Despite the carefulness of the zoo’s veterinary team, he will have a scar, according to the post. The zoo posted details’s about Kai’s experience as a PSA for visitors to avoid future incidents. Objects the animal care team place in exhibits as enrichment are chosen with species-specific requirements in mind, according to the post. The zoo asked visitors if they drop something in by mistake, tell a zoo employee immediately.

Tennessee

Nashville: Early voting kicked off Wednesday for the November midterm general election. The 14-day period of voting ahead of the Nov. 8 Election Day runs Mondays through Saturdays until Thursday, Nov. 3. The ballot features Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s reelection bid against Democrat Jason Martin, four constitutional amendments, U.S. House contests and state legislative races. Additionally, Tennessee’s deadline to request an absentee ballot to vote by mail is Nov. 1. Those ballots must be returned by mail in time for the county election commission to receive it no later than the close of polls on Election Day. The deadline to register to vote in the general election has passed. Voters can get more info at GoVoteTN.gov. Tennessee heads into the election with 4.55 million registered voters, an increase of about 127,800 since December 2021, according to the Tennessee secretary of state’s office.

Texas

Robstown: Former President Donald Trump plans a rally in what is shaping up as competitive South Texas on Saturday, just two days before the start of early voting ahead of the Nov. 8 elections. Trump, who in May was in Houston for a gathering of the National Rifle Association and two weeks earlier was in Austin as part of his “Save America Tour,” will be at the Richard M. Borchard Regional Fairgrounds in Robstown, about 20 miles west of Corpus Christi. In an advisory, Trump said he wants to “energize voters” by reminding them of the number of Republican candidates he has endorsed who have gone on to win elections, or at least their GOP primaries. During the March primaries, Trump endorsed Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton, all of whom face competitive races from Democrats this cycle.

Utah

Zion National Park: Thirty-three immigrants gathered beneath Zion’s iconic 1,000-foot sandstone cliffs for the park’s first-ever naturalization ceremony on Tuesday. It was an unusual setting for a ceremony typically confined to courtrooms or office space run by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service in Salt Lake City. For residents of southwestern Utah, the locale meant they could avoid the four-hour trip north. “I’m so grateful for this moment, for my family,” said St. George resident Brenda Corsi, originally from Huacho, Peru. “I know that we have an amazing future.”

Vermont

Montpelier: The Vermont Supreme Court has rejected a request for bail from a man considered a person of interest in the shooting deaths of a couple in Concord, New Hampshire. In its Tuesday decision, the court unanimously rejected an appeal filed by attorneys for Logan Clegg, who was arrested last week in Vermont as a fugitive from justice from Utah. Clegg’s attorneys had argued he could not be held without bail prior to trial because the charge he is facing does not carry a potential sentence of life in prison. But the Vermont Supreme Court rejected that argument, saying that under Vermont law Clegg is not being held prior to trial, but as a fugitive from justice. When Clegg, 26, and homeless, was arrested by local police after being spotted detectives from Concord, South Burlington described him as a person of interest in an unsolved April homicide in Concord. The New Hampshire Attorney General’s office said police made contact in Vermont with a person of interest the April killings of Stephen and Djeswende Reid, but they didn’t name the person. No arrests have been made or charges filed in the killings. Clegg’s arrest on a fugitive from justice charge included a probation violation.

Virginia

Waynesboro: Police arrested a man over the weekend, charging him with attempted murder in Waynesboro, a press release said. Gage W. Mayne, 26, no fixed address, is facing charges of attempted second-degree murder, use of a firearm while attempting to commit murder, aggravated malicious wounding and four counts of obstruction of justice, the Waynesboro Police Department said. On Sunday morning shortly after midnight, Waynesboro officers responded to an address in the 2500 block of Village Drive. When police arrived, they encountered a 27-year-old man with what appeared to be a gunshot wound, the release said. During a preliminary investigation, officers identified Mayne as a suspect. He had already fled the scene in a vehicle. The vehicle Mayne was reportedly driving was found on the northeast side of Waynesboro. Police said Mayne was inside. He was placed into police custody without incident. Mayne is being held without bond at Middle River Regional Jail.

Washington

Seattle: The air quality west of the Cascades has deteriorated again as wildfires continue to burn. The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency sent out an alert Tuesday afternoon saying the smoke around Seattle was causing unhealthy air and that people should close windows and limit time outdoors. Other areas around Puget Sound were experiencing air considered unhealthy for sensitive groups or worse, the agency said. The smoke-laden air gave the Pacific Northwest the designation of worst air quality in the U.S. on Tuesday, KGW Meteorologist Joe Raineri said. Nine fires were burning in Washington and Oregon before a red flag warning for critical fire conditions was issued over the weekend. Some new fires started while the Nakia Creek Fire in southwest Washington took off, causing much of the smoky air seen around southwest Washington and Portland, officials said. In the Pacific Northwest, relief should come Friday. “Friday through Saturday will be cooler and more seasonable and we’ll finally get that rain. I think everyone’s excited about that,” National Weather Service meteorologist Kayla Mazurkiewicz told The Seattle Times. “We should have had a couple of inches by now.”

West Virginia

Huntington: A man has been charged in a woman’s 1993 slaying in the state, police said. Ricky Louie Woody, 59, of Billings, Montana, was charged earlier this month in the March 1993 death of Melissa Martinez in Huntington. She had a gunshot wound to the torso, lacerations to the head and died at a hospital, police said in a news release Tuesday. Witnesses initially provided information that led detectives to Woody, but there was insufficient evidence to charge him. Woody moved from Huntington to Billings within a year of Martinez’s death, the statement said. Billings detectives contacted Huntington police in May 2021 and indicated Woody told them he knew the person responsible for killing a woman known to him as “Lisa” in the early 1990s. Woody ultimately admitted he participated in her death, the statement said. Huntington detectives determined Woody was referring to the death of Martinez and interviewed him in September 2021 at a Billings jail, leading to the charges. Woody has waived extradition and will be returned to Huntington upon the resolution of the case in Montana, police said.

Wisconsin

Ashland County: A man whose 5-year-old daughter and her mother were killed in a car crash involving the state Senate’s minority leader has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the lawmaker. Brandon Fink, whose daughter Khaleesi Fink and the girl’s mother, Alyssa Ortman, were killed in the July crash, filed the lawsuit Friday in Ashland County (Wisconsin) Circuit Court, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Court documents show that the family lived in Clearfield, Pennsylvania. The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, names Democratic state Senate Minority Leader Janet Bewley, another driver and three insurance companies as defendants. Bewley, who represents a state Senate district that covers northwestern Wisconsin, pulled out of a Lake Superior beach entrance in Ashland on July 22 and into the path of a car driven by Ortman, according to police. When Ortman’s car collided with Bewley’s, it spun across Highway 2 and was hit by a vehicle driven by Jodi Munson, 45, of Washburn. Ortman’s 5-year-old daughter was pronounced dead at the crash scene. Ortman later died at a hospital, according to police. The Ashland police report, obtained by The Associated Press, says Bewley was distracted by her hands-free mobile phone at the time of the crash. The lawsuit alleges that all three drivers acted negligently. Bewley’s spokesperson, Joey Huey, said the state senator would have no comment.

Wyoming

Cody: A college wrestler helped his teammate survive a grizzly mauling over the weekend by trying to wrestle the massive bear off his friend, eventually drawing a more brutal attack to himself. The men are crediting their bonds as wrestling teammates at Northwest College in Cody, Wyoming, with helping them survive the attack Saturday evening southeast of Yellowstone National Park. Brady Lowry of Cedar City, Utah, suffered a broken arm and puncture wounds in the initial attack after they surprised the bear while searching for antlers shed by elk and deer in the Shoshone National Forest. “It shook me around and I didn’t know what to do,” Lowry told KSL-TV Monday in an interview from a hospital in Billings, Montana. “I curled up in a ball and it got me a few more times.” His teammate – Kendell Cummings of Evanston, Wyoming – tried to stop the attack on Lowry by yelling, kicking and hitting the bear and pulling on its fur. Wyoming wildlife officials said they will not try to capture and relocate or kill the bear because it was a surprise attack and because there are many other bears in the area, making it difficult for them to determine which bear was involved.

From USA TODAY Network and wire reports

Indiana killer Paula Cooper: The Executioner Within

Robert King

robert.king@indystar.com

This 13-chapter story, told as a real-life novel, raises questions about race, justice, poverty and abuse. But it is also the story about the human capacity for forgiveness and a young woman’s struggle to find peace.

Still shrouded in darkness, she sat alone in her car, parked between night and day, between this world and the next.

Behind her, a family of teddy bears sat strapped in by a seat belt. In the front seat next to her was a digital recorder. And a gun.

She picked up the recorder and clicked it on.

"This is Paula Cooper."

A short introduction, a simple statement. Even though nothing had been simple about being Paula Cooper.

"I believe today is the 26th; 5:15 will be my death."

She saw it clearly now, even in the pre-dawn gloom. She'd spent so much of her life searching for peace. But early on the morning of May 26, 2015, the end was in sight. She would reach it before sunrise.

She just had a few things left to say.

—

"My sister. My queen. My everything."

Every morning she spoke to Rhonda. Why should this morning be different?

—

"My mother, I felt like you didn't love me. You didn't care about me. You cut me off. You judged me. You didn't want me at your church. You hurt me about the man I loved. But I still love you."

Others had forgiven Paula. Yet she never felt it from the woman who mattered most.

—

"To Monica, I'm so sorry. This pain that I feel every day. I walk around. I'm so miserable inside. I can't deal with this reality."

Monica had been like a godmother in the fairy tales — someone to fill the void in the absence of a mother's love.

—

"LeShon, I love you. … You showed me how to love.You showed me how to be a woman."

LeShon looked beyond Paula's past. As if it had never occurred.

—

"Michael, I'm so proud of you. And thank you for apologizing."

Michael was her first love. She wanted a life with him; he wanted something else.

—

"Meshia … you helped me when I was down, but I explained to you better than anybody how I feel."

Meshia knew Paula's pain; she'd just been unable to stop it.

—

These were the people Paula loved most. And to each one she had revealed part of herself, but never the whole. It was a select list from a life populated by characters: Her brutal father and her innocent victim; the judge who condemned her and the man who forgave her. There were friars and a bishop and a pope; jailers and journalists; people who were zealous to save her life and people eager to end it. There were too many to consider, really. And the sun would be up soon. She could wait no longer.

"Forgive me," she said in a recording that would soon become part of a police investigation. "I must go now."

Her coda finished, Paula stepped out of the car and into the shadows. She took a seat against a blighted tree. She felt the breeze in her hair. She felt the gun in her hand.

She was familiar with death. She'd seen it up close. She'd been condemned to it, resigned to it and reprieved from it. She had debated its merits and come to terms with it. Never had she stopped thinking of it.

But the question that would vex those she was leaving behind was maddeningly simple.

Why, after all she had endured and all she had survived, after all she had done and seemed capable of doing, had she chosen to die now?

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The garden spot in the woods — where her father grew vegetables and beat his daughters — was only an occasional venue of torture.

More often, for Paula Cooper, it happened at home.

As a child, Paula went to bed night after night next to her sister, listening to their parents argue, listening to her father make threats to come after them. Sometimes her mother would talk him out of it. Sometimes the man's wrath ebbed and they fell asleep. Sometimes they would be jarred awake at 3 o'clock in the morning, her father standing over them, ready to beat them.

Paula believed there were other kinds of families out there. She watched the people on "The Cosby Show," and they seemed to have such a nice family. But that was television. This was real. This was her family. And it looked as if there was no escaping it.

—

Paula was born in Chicago to Herman and Gloria Cooper on Aug. 25, 1969. Her sister, Rhonda, was three years older. Early on, the family lived in Michigan City, but by the time Paula was old enough for school they had moved to Gary.

The girls attended Bethune Grade School, a stone's throw from home. They went to nearby New Testament Baptist Church, where Paula sang in the choir and helped with the little children's Bible classes.

By the late 1970s, Gary's downward spiral from a midcentury boomtown was picking up speed. Manufacturing jobs were disappearing. White families were fleeing to the suburbs. Crime was rising. Like many black families still in the city, the Coopers were left in the wake of all this.

Gloria worked as a lab tech at a hospital. She had an assortment of health problems, none of them helped by the drugs and booze she added to the mixture.

"One day my mother be nice, the next day she be angry," Paula would tell Woman's Day, years later, when her story was national news. "And the next day she be real strange-acting."

Herman worked for U.S. Steel and worked construction, but his employment was sporadic. He had a girlfriend on the side and would be gone for long stretches. When he returned, chaos followed. Herman and Gloria were a volatile pair, drinking hard and arguing often, creating an atmosphere that was not just unstable, but dangerous.

The result, as Paula would say later, was that the girls had to "fend for themselves." Sometimes, on evenings when Herman was gone and Gloria worked late, Paula took meals with the next-door neighbors, who allowed her to stick around and watch TV. Most of the time the girls had food and nice clothing. But, as Rhonda would say later, "we hardly ever had any love."

Except from each other.

In the middle of all the darkness, Paula and Rhonda clung tightly to each other. They found moments to giggle together, play pranks together and share secrets.

More than just a sister, Rhonda became Paula's caregiver. Yet, through their early years, they were unaware of an important family secret: Rhonda was the child of a different father. It was a secret Gloria took great pains to hide, even though she allowed Rhonda's father, Ronald Williams, to visit occasionally. She said he was her uncle.

Before Herman came along, Ronald and Gloria were engaged. They broke it off, as Williams would later tell a courtroom, because he felt Gloria had a "split personality." In short, he thought she was crazy.

Living with Herman Cooper didn't help.

Herman beat everyone in the house. He beat Gloria in front of the girls. He beat the girls together. He beat them separately, sometimes in front of their mother. Sometimes Gloria seemed to egg on the violence.

"We did everything we was supposed to do, but it just wasn't never good enough for her," Paula told Woman's Day many years later. "… She get mad at us and he'd beat us. 'Be a man,' she'd tell him. 'Take care of it,' she'd say. And he'd take care of it."

The girls grew up unable to remember a time before the abuse. When they were little, Paula would later say, Herman beat them "for the things little kids do." When they were older, Rhonda remembered, he beat them for forgetting to take out the trash, for not doing the dishes and for skipping school.

Herman employed an assortment of tools for punishment, whatever he could get his hands on — shoes, straps, sticks, a broom. Sometimes he used an electrical cord from an air conditioner.

"He'd triple it up and go to work," Paula would say later. "It got to the point I was so used to it I didn't cry anymore."

To heighten the pain, Herman sometimes ordered the girls to remove their clothes before a beating. Questioned later, he denied that he ever abused the girls at all.

—

This stark picture of Paula Cooper's childhood emerges from several sources; the courtroom testimony from Rhonda and her father; testimony from Dr. Frank Brogno, a clinical psychologist who discussed what he learned from examining Paula. Some of the glimpses into the darkness come from now-yellowed news clippings. Others come from anecdotes Paula shared with friends and loved ones and the few journalists she favored. Finally, there's the freshest source of insight into Paula's world — more than 100 personal letters she wrote to a treasured friend that were reviewed by IndyStar.

Taken together, they amount to a catalog of horrors. Her father's beatings, Paula said, left her "close to death so many times." With no apparent means of escape, she seemed to stop fearing death at all. "I just cried," she wrote, "until all my tears were gone away."

—

In 1978, when Paula was 9, the tears were still flowing. Her parents separated, but it was often fuzzy as to when they were back together and when they were apart. Once, when Herman returned home to find the doors locked, he forced his way in. According to testimony Rhonda gave in court, Herman entered their home, beat up their mother and raped her in front of the two girls.

The incident seems to have been a tipping point. Not long after, Gloria began telling her daughters the world had nothing to offer them. Instead, she said, they'd all be better off going to heaven. On this point, Rhonda would say later, Gloria began pressuring her daughters. Eventually, the girls came to believe, like their mother, they had nothing to live for.

Gloria phoned Ronald Williams, Rhonda's father and steady friend. It was late. She'd been drinking and taking pills. She was crying. Herman had been giving her problems, she said, and things weren't good at work.

She was thinking of killing herself.

Williams had heard this kind of talk from Gloria before. Always, he had been able to console her, to talk her back from the precipice. He reminded her that she had Paula and Rhonda to think about. What would happen to them? His question made Gloria think. But only for an hour.

She called Williams back. Between her tears and her wailing, Gloria said: "I finally found out what I'm going to do with the kids."

Williams was alarmed. He demanded to know what she meant.

"I'm going to take them with me," she replied. "I'm going to let you speak to your daughter and Paula for the last time."

The girls took the phone in turns. They were crying, too. Rhonda said they were going to heaven with their mother.

"Don't do nothing drastic," Williams told them. "Let me speak to your mother, OK."

The phone went dead.

Williams panicked. Gloria and the girls had recently moved. She hadn't shared their new address. He didn't know where to find them, how to stop her.

He called the operator and asked for his last call to be traced; it was no good. He called Gary police. Without an address, they could do nothing.

There was nothing anyone could do. Williams waited. For three weeks, he waited. He feared what had become of them.

Had Gloria killed them all?

—

After she hung up the phone, Gloria decided not to act right away; she'd wait until morning. When she awoke, Gloria took the girls out to the car in the garage. She put them in the back seat and started the engine. The garage door remained closed.

From there, accounts differ. Williams testified that a friend told him neighbors noticed something and called the fire department. Rhonda testified that, as the fumes gathered, the girls drifted off to sleep. They thought they were going to heaven; instead, they woke up in bed. How they got there isn't clear. Rhonda said Gloria had changed her mind. When the girls awoke, she said, their mother was coughing on the lawn.

From then on, Williams tried to coax Gloria into letting him have the girls. Rhonda was his daughter, and he was fond of Paula, too. Gloria would have none of it.

"I'd rather see them both dead," she said.

—

The girls survived their first brush with death. But Paula and her sister were being shaped in a world without hope. And now their mother had planted a seed: The ultimate escape was death.

Rhonda looked around at this nihilist world and began seeking a way out. Several times she tried to run. Soon, she began taking Paula with her. "I couldn't take it no more in that house," she would say, "and I didn't want her to, either."

By 1982, when both girls were teenagers, they made an unsuccessful attempt to run and were sent — together — to the Thelma Marshall Children's Home in Gary. Within a short time, they were returned to the Coopers. For Paula, it was the beginning of a cycle — of running and being returned home. For Rhonda, that cycle ended only when she learned Ronald Williams was her biological father. At her first opportunity, she left the Coopers to live with him.

If the move helped Rhonda, it had grievous consequences for Paula, then 13. Her sister had been the most stable person in her home. Now she was gone. Paula came to believe her parents blamed her for Rhonda's departure. Now that her father's anger had one less target, Paula's beatings grew more frequent and more brutal. Even as her parents divorced, Herman never quite left the picture. And his handiwork began to show.

At school, Paula revealed to an administrator a rash of injuries — a bruise on her thigh, a welt on her arm, a rug burn on her elbow.

When a welfare caseworker visited the Cooper home, Herman and Gloria cursed at her. They blamed Paula's problems on interference from the courts, from the school psychologist and from the welfare department itself. When the caseworker recommended family counseling, Gloria said she'd rather go to jail.

At various times, Gloria and Herman seemed to vacillate between wanting Paula and considering her a curse. Paula began running away on her own. After one attempt, welfare officials wanted to send Paula home, but her mother objected. If Paula returned, Gloria vowed to leave.

On another occasion, when Rhonda made a rare visit to spend a weekend with Paula and her mother, arguments ensued and Williams returned for Rhonda. He couldn't find her there, but he found Paula. She was crying so loudly he heard her without going in. Gloria, who stood in front of the house fuming about Paula, simply said: "I'm going to kill that bitch."

Paula emerged and, seeing Williams, ran to him and jumped into his arms. He asked her if her mother would really hurt her.

"Yes."

Williams told her to get in the car. Gloria charged out toward them and began to threaten Paula. "I'm going to kill you and if I don't (Herman) will."

Williams considered it serious business to take Paula. He lived in Illinois and assumed it would be a crime to take a child across the state line without permission of the parents. He took her anyway. Gloria and other family members threatened to phone the police.

At his home, Williams asked Paula what she wanted to do. They talked about the logistics of her staying with him without her mother's permission. It would be impossible for her to go to school. Then there was the trouble Williams might face. With tears, Paula looked at Williams and said, "It's best for me to go home … I don't want to get you in no trouble." Paula's respite lasted only a few hours.

Even though he wasn't keeping Paula, Williams couldn't fathom returning her home. Instead, he just let her walk away. She was young, no more than 13, but Williams believed she was safer on the streets of Chicago than at home. Under scrutiny for making such a choice, Williams later told a courtroom he thought Paula was in danger there. "I would rather see her in the street as a slut than for her mother to blow her brains out."

For several days, Paula survived on her own. Inevitably, she wound up back home.

—

By 1983, when Paula turned 14, she stayed away from home as much as possible. She was smoking cigarettes and drinking. She smoked marijuana almost daily. Tall, but heavy, she took speed to lose weight. She tried cocaine. She skipped school routinely. She was sexually active. Years later, she would warn others against making similar choices. But for the moment, it was her life.

And it was a rootless life. She spent six months at a children's home in Mishawaka and three months in a juvenile detention center. She was removed from one home after only six days after she threatened a staff member and another resident — with a knife.

With each new address, Paula changed schools. She attended four high schools without ever finishing the 10th grade. Her schoolwork, decent at first, nosedived. She called a teacher "crazy," resulting in a suspension. She struggled to keep friends. She developed a reputation as a bully. All the while, Paula struggled to wake up in the mornings. When she was evaluated for the problem, a doctor at a local hospital asked if she ever thought of killing herself.

"Yes," she replied.

For that answer, she was sent to a mental hospital. Released four days later, she returned home.

"I told people I needed help and to talk, but all they did was move me from home to home," Paula would write a few years later. "I didn't care about life or trouble or consequences at all."

—

Perhaps the pinnacle of Paula's abuse came, ironically, after her father visited Gary police seeking advice on how to deal with a wayward child. Paula was 14, and Herman Cooper couldn't keep her reined in. Frustrated, he asked the police what he should do with her. It was a family matter, they said; he should do what he thought was right.

For Herman Cooper, that meant one thing: another beating. But for what he had in mind this time, he'd need some privacy. He took Paula to a woody patch near a spot where he kept a garden. Paula had been there before; so had Rhonda.

"If you scream where I take you," he told Paula, "no one will hear you."

Several times in her life, Paula thought her father was going to beat her to death. This was one of them. "He just kept beating me and beating me," she would tell the clinical psychologist, for what seemed like half an hour. Instead of the cord or a broom or a stick, this time Herman beat her with his bare hands.

When he was done, Herman put Paula in the car to take her home. But as they drove through the darkening streets of Gary, Paula knew she couldn't go back there. Not when the possibility of more punishment lay ahead in the Cooper house of horrors.

As Herman pulled the car up to the house, Paula jumped out and took off running into the night. Running and screaming. Herman gave chase, but porch lights began to click on. Up and down the street, neighbors stepped out to investigate the commotion. The neighbors had seen this show before; it never seemed to end. This time, though, Herman retreated.

Paula ran until she wound up where the night had begun — at the police station. She told officers there about the beating, told them she couldn't go home. At least not while Herman was around. The state pulled her away from the Coopers. It isn't clear from the record where she was placed. But soon, she was sent back home.

—

In the summer of 1984, when Paula turned 15, she felt as lonely as ever.

Adrift, Paula briefly took up with a guy she hoped might offer her a haven. Later, she would tell others he was a rough character who dealt drugs and treated her poorly. The one thing he did for Paula was leave her pregnant.

Many teenage girls would consider pregnancy a tragedy; Paula saw it as a blessing. She had almost forgotten how to care about anyone. She wanted a family, wanted someone to belong to. The child growing inside her represented someone she could love, someone who would love her in return.

And then it was gone.

Gloria had been dead set against the pregnancy; she wanted Paula to end it. Paula refused and ran off — perhaps to seek help from a woman she knew in Chicago. Her mother tracked her down and, as Paula would write years later in a letter and tell friends, forced her to have an abortion.

Paula was several months into the pregnancy; the procedure nearly killed her. "She took something that would have completed my life," Paula would write later, "and after that I felt I had no one."

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Ruth Pelke was gentle, an old woman with silvery hair and horn-rimmed glasses. As her stepson Robert and his wife pleaded for her to leave Gary, she listened.

Robert pledged to do everything necessary to make her house ready for sale — the legal stuff, the touch-up jobs, whatever. She listened as they talked to her about how dangerous her neighborhood had become.

But Ruth didn't really need reminding. Her Glen Park neighborhood was still one of the better places to live in Gary, although that wasn't saying much, given the city's downward lurch. There were abandoned houses now. There were burglaries. Her own home had been hit five times in recent years, including when her husband, Oscar, was still alive. Now, at 78, she was widowed and alone, and things were only getting worse. But Ruth had been in Glen Park for 41 years; it was home. She still had some good neighbors. Just as important, she had a mission.

For decades, she'd opened her home and heart to the neighborhood children. She'd taught them the Bible using felt cutouts of Bible characters that she stuck to a flannel board. She'd given the kids candy when they memorized Scripture. She'd driven them to church. She believed these were children who needed hope, and they could find it in Jesus. No, she finally said that night after her stepson's plea — she wouldn't be leaving the home in her neighborhood.

"I'll stay here until I go there," she said.

Ruth Pelke was pointing a finger to heaven.

—

The next day, Tuesday, May 14, 1985, Ruth's doorbell rang.

She answered it and found three teenage girls standing on her porch. She didn't recognize them, but she opened her door. One of the girls said, "My auntie would like to know about Bible classes. When do y'all hold them?"

Ruth wasn't up to teaching anymore, but she wanted to help the girls. "Come back on Saturday," she said. And closed the door.

—

The girls — Karen Corder, Denise Thomas and Paula Cooper — walked back across the alley. Sitting on a porch, April Beverly was waiting.

The foursome — all ninth- and 10th-graders at Lew Wallace High School — left school at lunchtime that afternoon with no intention of going back. The girls walked the 10 blocks or so to an arcade near 45th and Broadway where they spent what little money they had on games and candy. When their money was gone, they headed back to the house where April was staying with her sister.

They were a ragtag bunch.

At 16, Karen Corder — known to her friends as "Pooky" — was the oldest. More than two years earlier, she'd given birth to a baby boy whom she'd delivered in a toilet. She'd managed to keep the pregnancy secret from her parents until the child was born, according to court records.

At 15, April Beverly was seven months pregnant. She was part of a divided family with 11 children, and she bounced between two homes, her father's and her sister's. Her mother was dead, her father had remarried. On occasion, April benefited from the kindness of the old lady across the alley. She'd listened to Ruth Pelke's Bible lessons. And the old woman had brought food over to April and her siblings when she was concerned they might be hungry.

At 14, Denise Thomas was the youngest of the four and the smallest. The others were mature young women — at different places on the spectrum of teen motherhood. Denise still looked very much like a little girl. In the context of this group, some would later describe her as a tag-along.

And, of course, there was Paula Cooper. At 15, she was only months removed from an unwanted abortion that had nearly killed her. She was tall, somewhat heavy and had the bearing of a girl beyond her years. She would be described as the "prime mover" of the quartet — the ringleader. But it was a label she'd never cop to.

—

To date, the sum total of their illicit behavior was strictly small-time. Karen had tried her hand at shoplifting. Paula, Karen and April had pulled off a burglary a few days before that netted them $90. Mostly, the girls were truants. And on this Tuesday afternoon away from school, their immediate priority was to raise some money so they could go back to the arcade.

Their first attempt was a harebrained scheme April cooked up to get some cash from a woman up the street. All four girls had gone to the woman's door. April introduced Denise, the small one, as her daughter. April claimed the woman's husband had taken $20 from Denise and they'd come to collect it. For added zest, April threw in this detail: The woman's husband had been naked when he stepped into the street to take Denise's money.

The woman didn't go for it.

After that failure, April turned her focus to Ruth Pelke. She seemed to recall the lady keeping a jar of $2 bills. She thought the woman might even have some jewelry. The question was how to get to it all.

As they sat on the porch at her sister's house, April asked Paula to come inside — she might know where there was a gun. For the girls, a gun crime would be a considerable step up the criminal ladder. But the gun wasn't where April thought it was; she couldn't find it. Then it occurred to April: Something else might do.

"I have a knife you could scare the lady with," she said.

Soon, April produced a 12-inch butcher knife. It was sharp and had a curving blade that graduated to a fine point. It was a cooking tool, but also a potentially lethal instrument. Paula took the knife and hid it in her light jacket. Out on the porch, she and April explained to the other girls: This was their new weapon of choice. And Karen came up with another approach to getting inside the old lady's home: They would ask her to write down the time and place where the Bible classes would be.

In all this planning, Paula and the other girls would forever swear, the subject of killing the old woman never came up. The most they would admit, according to Corder, was that they'd knock out the woman and rob her. Still, the reality of what they were planning — to con their way into her house, pull a knife and take the old woman's valuables — was fraught with danger.

As their scheme unfolded, April stayed back again, resting on her sister's porch; she didn't want the old woman to recognize her. Karen, Paula and Denise crossed the alley.

They rang the bell, and soon Ruth Pelke appeared at the door. This time, when she answered, Karen said: "My auntie wants to know where the Bible classes are held at. Could you write it down for me?"

Ruth said she no longer taught the classes, but she knew of a lady. "I'll look up her telephone number for you." She invited the girls to come in. And she turned to walk to the desk on the far side of the room.

—

Ruth Pelke looked for all the world like the kindly grandmother drawn up in children's books. She was also a woman whose Christian faith was essential to who she was. She went to church on Wednesday nights and twice on Sundays. She visited church members who were too old or too sick to get out. She sang in the choir. She hosted missionaries in her home on their trips back from foreign lands. She took her own missionary journeys, going deeper into the heart of Gary to share her faith with children.

What followed — recorded in statements to police, testified to in court, reported in newspaper accounts and, in brief instances, described in letters Paula would write years later — was a scene that would shock Northwest Indiana and the rest of the state.

As Ruth Pelke crossed her living room to the desk where she kept phone numbers, she felt a pair of arms wrap around her neck.

Paula had put her jacket on the couch and run up on Ruth, grabbing her from behind. For a moment, the teenager and the old woman struggled. Ruth still tended a garden and did a little work outside the house to keep fit, but she was in no shape for a chunky 15-year-old girl who now had her in a headlock.

Paula threw Ruth to the floor.

On a table nearby sat an item some would describe as a vase but others likened more to a triangular snow globe. One of the girls picked it up and hit Ruth Pelke over the head. Prosecutors would allege it was Denise Thomas; Paula took the blame.

Paula demanded to know where Ruth kept her valuables. She threatened to cut her with the knife. "Give me the money, bitch," she said.

Ruth looked up and said simply: "You aren't going to kill me." She began hollering for help. Paula's anger rose now. Then she looked at Ruth's head. Blood was streaming from the place where she'd been hit with the vase. Paula saw the blood and reacted in a way she would struggle to explain for the rest of her life.

To police investigators, she would say she entered "a blackout stage."

To a judge, she would say, "Something clicked in on me."

To a psychologist, she said the sight of the blood altered her perception of whom she was attacking: "I saw somebody else inside of that body."

Several friends and supporters who heard similar explanations from Paula concluded that, in this moment, Paula no longer saw the meek and mild Bible teacher in front of her. They believed Paula saw the woman who watched her suffer so many beatings and did nothing to stop them, the woman who took away the baby she'd wanted to love. They were convinced that, in the defenseless woman pinned to the floor, Paula saw her mother.

Whatever she saw, Paula reached for the knife. She grabbed it by the handle and began slashing. She sliced open the old woman's cheek. She stabbed at her head, without deep penetration. Ruth fell back, flat on the floor. And Paula went to work, cutting her arms and legs.

The other girls stood by in disbelief.

Karen Corder, the oldest, told Paula to stop.

Denise Thomas, the youngest, cried and screamed for Paula to quit. Later, she would claim she yelled, "I'm getting out of here," only to be met with a withering threat from Paula: "Leave and you're dead."

Paula's barrage was relentless. She stabbed the old woman in the belly and, finally, thrust the blade deep into the side of Ruth's chest. With that, Paula stopped; she pulled back from the carnage.

"I can't take it no more," she said.

Paula looked at Denise; she told her to come hold the knife. But Denise refused. She looked at Karen, communicating the same message. Karen knelt beside the wounded woman. The blade remained lodged in her chest. And Karen held it in place.

April Beverly, who concocted the robbery scheme, initially held back. After the others went inside, she had come up to Ruth's porch and acted as lookout. Now she entered the house. The old woman was lying on her back, her dress covered in blood, her arms and legs still moving. Karen, she noticed, held the knife as it protruded from the woman's side. To April, it appeared that Karen wasn't just holding it: She was wiggling the knife back and forth. Out of some morbid curiosity, she would tell police later, Karen pushed the blade farther into the hole to see how deep it would go. At one point, she concluded, "The bitch won't die."

Karen estimated she held the knife in Ruth Pelke's side for upwards of 15 minutes; Paula thought it closer to 30.

Ruth Pelke moaned through most of this. The old woman's torn and tortured face was too much for the girls to bear. One of them went to the bathroom and got a towel to cover Ruth's face — and try to smother the last breaths of life from her. Paula and Denise said it was Karen; Karen said it was Paula.

In her dying moments, Ruth Pelke managed to share a few last words. Denise heard her saying the Lord's Prayer.

"Our Father, which art in heaven …"

Paula had stalked in and out of the room, and the last words she heard from Ruth were something else. Words that would haunt her the rest of her life.

"If you kill me," she heard Ruth say, "you will be sorry."

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Paula and Denise began tearing the house apart, rifling through drawers, ripping items off shelves and upending furniture.

For Paula, it was a mad search for some reward for the awful business she'd just concluded. There had to be some money somewhere. Maybe some jewelry. But as she continued her desperate search, a nervousness began to grow inside her. Whether it was regret for the killing or the chilling final words of her victim, she felt uneasy. And she didn't like it. As they were going through the upstairs rooms, Paula tried to pull herself away. But the only place to go was back downstairs, where the source of her angst lay dead on the floor. She resumed the treasure hunt and soon managed to turn up some cash — all of $10. She came across a key and thought it might start the old woman's Plymouth in the garage. She ran out to give it a try. Nothing.

April joined in the search and quickly turned up another key. This time when Paula tried it, the engine stirred to life. April went inside to fetch the other girls.

By then, Karen and Denise were alone with Ruth Pelke's body. Karen had watched the rise and fall of the old woman's chest until it grew shallower. Finally, it stopped. Maybe April sensed some new panic; she sternly warned the other girls: "If you tell anyone, I'll kill you."

The girls had spent roughly an hour in the old woman's house. They hadn't found a jar of $2 bills. They hadn't found a trove of jewelry. But it was time to go. Someone might come looking. Before they could leave, Karen grabbed one last item.

She knelt down again beside Ruth. The butcher knife was planted firmly in the left side of her chest, just below her breast. Karen grabbed the handle. She pulled it out. As they headed out to the car, Karen carried the knife at her side. She climbed into the back of the car and dropped it to the floor. The blade was still coated in blood.

—

Paula Cooper was 15. She was too young to drive. But with her three accomplices as passengers, she managed to steer Ruth's car out of the neighborhood and onto 45th Avenue. They were just down the street from Lew Wallace High School. School was out now and, almost immediately, they saw a classmate walking along the street. Almost reflexively, they waved to Beverly Byndum. And Beverly waved back.

This was the paradox they now faced. They were teenagers in possession of a car, the apex of adolescence. Yet they had acquired it in the most horrific way imaginable. Years later, Paula would say things just "got out of control." But here she was — a killer. Now that the deed was done, now that they had a few bucks, Paula and the others seemed in no mood to enjoy it.

Before they arrived at the video arcade, Karen asked Paula to let her out of the car; she wanted to go back to April's house. Paula let her go, but not before asking her to perform a little task: Go back to the old lady's house and get the jacket Paula had left inside.

Next, Denise said she wanted to go home. She asked Paula to let her out at a convenience store and she would make her way from there.

When Paula and April pulled up to Candyland Arcade, they were alone. For a few minutes, they just sat there, talking about what they'd done. April hadn't witnessed everything that went on inside the house. It's not clear how many of the missing details Paula shared.

Paula said she needed to use the restroom, and she ventured into the arcade. When she returned, five girls from school were standing around the car. One of them was Beverly Byndum, whom they had passed on the street. Her sister, Latesha, asked where they had come by the car. Paula said it was her sister's.

Within minutes, Karen walked up to the arcade out of breath, as if she had been running to catch up with the crew. Wherever she had been, she hadn't stayed long. Paula pulled her aside and asked if she'd gone back to the house, if she'd picked up the jacket. No, Karen replied. It was probably the last place on Earth she wanted to go. And she didn't hang around long enough to talk further about it. In a few minutes, she caught a bus for home.

Whether Paula remembered it or not, she had left more than her jacket in the house. Inside one of its pockets was a newly filled prescription for birth control pills — her pills. She had picked them up earlier that morning before school. It was just one of the clues she had left for investigators to find.

Paula and April looked around at the girls and asked if anyone wanted a ride home. Eagerly, their friends piled into the Plymouth. Latesha Byndum was among those who jumped into the back. As she did, she felt her foot brush across something on the floor. She reached down to pick it up. It was a knife. And there was blood on it. There was also blood on her shoe. Latesha looked at Paula and April in the front seat and asked, "What you all do? Just kill somebody?"

The girls looked back at Latesha.

No, they replied.

And, in a response that would reverberate across the community, Paula and April laughed.

—

Paula and April dropped off their passengers at various addresses around Gary. But details about where and how they spent their next two days are choppy and imprecise.

Prosecutors would characterize their time in the car as a joy ride. But from this point on, Paula and April seemed to have a different sense of what to do next.

April wanted to go to a park in Hammond; she wanted to see her brother Tony; she wanted to see her boyfriend. When she found $40 in Ruth Pelke's glove box, she wanted to spend it. When they picked up April's boyfriend and he brought some alcohol, she drank it.

Paula wanted to go to a girl's home where she had lived for a time; she wanted to pick up some friends there. But she quickly decided she and April needed some time to focus on what to do next. When April found the money, Paula thought they should save it for gas. While April got drunk, Paula wanted nothing to drink. She was too nervous.

Most symbolic of their division, perhaps, is what happened to the money from Ruth's glove box. The girls wrestled over it, and one of the $20 bills was torn. Paula gave up the fight. April could keep the money and do with it what she wanted.

—

On Wednesday morning, the day after the crime, Robert Pelke phoned Ruth's house to check up on her. She didn't pick up the phone, and he decided to check on her in person. Just three days before, he and a large portion of the extended Pelke family had taken Ruth out for a Mother's Day dinner. Just two days earlier, Robert and his wife had pushed Ruth to think about selling her house and leaving Gary. Robert rang the doorbell, with no idea how prescient that conversation had been.

There was no answer, so Robert opened the mail slot on the door and called inside. There was only silence. But through the mail slot, something caught Robert's eye: The dining room was torn apart. He went to fetch a spare key Ruth kept hidden outside. Looking around the place, he noticed Ruth's car was missing from the garage, and he assumed Ruth must be gone, too.

He found the key, unlocked the door and stepped into the house. The place appeared to have been ransacked. Pictures that had adorned the walls were now scattered about the floor. Cushions from the couch had been pulled up and cast about. And then his eyes turned to the dining room floor.

The cloaked figure of a woman lay there motionless. Her dress was caked in blood. Her arms were slashed. A towel masked her face.

Robert knelt down next to her. He pulled the towel away and called her name. Still, there was no movement. He touched her, and the body was cold. He knew she was dead.

Robert got up and went for the phone. In an age when every phone was a landline, Ruth's had been ripped from its place on the wall. He stepped outside and began going door to door, looking for someone who would let him use their phone. But at house after house, he found nobody. Finally, Robert looked farther up the street and saw a man and a woman getting out of a car. He approached them and asked them to call the police.

His stepmother had been murdered.

—

Robert's son, Bill Pelke, arrived home just after 3 o'clock from his shift at Bethlehem Steel and soon received a phone call. It was one of his uncles. Nana, he said, was dead.

Nana was the term of endearment everyone in the family used for Ruth. Bill had grown up listening to her Bible stories. He'd loved her flannel board tales of the three men in the fiery furnace, of Noah and the ark and his favorite — Joseph and the coat of many colors.

Even as a 37-year-old man, he still loved to go to Nana's house for the holidays, to warm himself beside her fireplace and congregate there with the rest of the family. His grandfather had passed almost two years before, but Nana was still a magnet. She could still bring the family together. And now, suddenly, she was gone.

At such moments of shock, the brain's processor goes into hyperdrive. And some key facts rushed through Bill's head: Nana had been 78; she was the oldest Pelke; she'd had a good life; it must have been her time. But that instant of comfort evaporated quickly. He sensed something else in his uncle's voice that was borne out in his next words: There'd been a break-in at Nana's house. He didn't know if there was a connection.

Bill hung up and turned on the television, wondering if there might be some news about it. Sure enough, his father appeared on camera. He was saying something about it being a terrible murder. For Bill, everything else was a blur; he had to go. He had to be with his family.

As it turned out, Ruth Pelke had been dead for a full day.

—

By that spring of 1985, crime was a painful reality in Gary. Its murder rate was among the highest in the country. It was on its way to becoming the murder capital of the United States.

Gary was a city in decline; poverty was growing like a cancer. But the violence was being spread through an influx of gangs with names such as The Family and the Black Gangster Disciples.

Yet as accustomed to crime as the city had become, the murder of Ruth Pelke shocked and angered people in a whole new way. There was the innocence of Ruth herself — the elderly Bible teacher. As one observer put it, she was a grandma to the neighborhood. The killing's effect also might have been amplified because it happened in Glen Park, which a prosecutor later described as a "last bastion" of the white population in a city from which white residents had disappeared.

On the day after the discovery of Ruth's body, The Post-Tribune in Gary devoted two front-page columns to the story: "Bible teacher, 77, murdered in her home." It had her age wrong, but the dominant image on the page was a picture of Ruth — silver-haired and smiling behind her horn-rimmed glasses from another era.

The newspaper reported that neighborhood children "were visibly upset and shaken by the murder." They spoke of Pelke as "meek and mild," serving cookies during summer Bible classes and giving out boxes of candy to the children who memorized Scripture.

As for who might be responsible, the initial story carried some important nuggets: Police were searching for a 15-year-old girl who'd been seen driving Pelke's blue Plymouth. They weren't releasing her name, but the girl was a student at Lew Wallace High and lived in Gary's Marshalltown neighborhood.

—

Paula Cooper lived in Marshalltown.

As they combed through Ruth's house, police found the jacket with the prescription in the pocket. Eyewitnesses had seen Paula and the other girls in a car that matched the description of Ruth's missing Plymouth. And on the day Ruth's body was discovered, Gloria Cooper phoned police to report her 15-year-old daughter missing; she'd been missing since the day before.

The ink was barely dry on the newspaper stories when Karen Corder, walking around school on Thursday, two days after the crime, began looking for someone on whom she could unload her conscience. She had opted out of the joy ride and gone home and had a couple of restless nights' sleep. She found a gym teacher who'd been nice to her and said they needed to talk; she'd witnessed a murder. Soon, police were at the school. They took Karen and Denise into custody. And Karen was telling her story about the crime.

In the two days since the killing, Paula and April — with April's brother, Tony — had driven aimlessly from Gary to Hammond and to various parts of Chicago's South Side. They'd had no real sense of direction.

Tony pressed on in Ruth's Plymouth until the gas needle dropped well below empty. Then he pushed it some more. Finally, the car died. Their money gone, they found a phone and called April's sister. Thursday night, with the police dragnet closing around them, she took the girls to see the Gary police.

—

Detective William Kennedy Jr. had been looking for Paula Cooper and April Beverly for the better part of two days. When his phone rang around midnight, the news was good: They'd turned themselves in.

In addition to being a cop, Kennedy worked security at Lew Wallace High School. He'd seen Paula Cooper walking the halls. He never knew her name, but they'd exchanged hellos. Now, he was tidying up the loose ends of a case for murder against her.

When he arrived at the station, Paula's parents were waiting. Kennedy asked Herman and Gloria Cooper if Paula could make a formal statement about the crime. Herman, speaking for everyone, declined. They were interested in talking to a lawyer, and he seemed annoyed at the article in the morning paper, which he felt pointed a finger at Paula even if it didn't name her.

The Coopers met briefly with Paula, then returned to the waiting room. Soon, Rhonda arrived at the station. She'd read the papers. She knew Paula was in jail. And she was upset. She wanted to see her sister.

Gloria was OK with that but urged her to persuade Paula to talk about what she'd done. When the police wouldn't let Rhonda see her sister without a parent, Gloria agreed to go with Rhonda.

After so many years of turmoil and strife, Gloria and her two daughters were together again — for a moment alone in a police interrogation room. What they said isn't clear. But when Kennedy, the detective, rejoined them, Gloria gave Paula a nudge.

"Say something," she said.

Paula hesitated. She said she didn't want anyone looking at her. So Kennedy turned 45 degrees and looked at a wall. Paula began to speak. She kept speaking for 15 minutes. She laid out the essential elements of Ruth Pelke's murder, described the girls' desire for money and a car, described how they came up with the Bible class as their way in. She described how she got the knife and stabbed the old woman more times than she could remember. She talked about the aftermath, when they took the car and gave rides to their friends. At one point, according to the account the detective would later make from his "mental notes," Gloria Cooper asked Paula in front of the detective: Were you and Karen basically responsible for the lady's death?

Paula's answer: "Yeah, you could say that."

When Paula was done, Kennedy left the room. Her mother and her sister left, too. As Paula stood alone in the interrogation room, April Beverly was giving a statement in a room nearby. When Kennedy returned to Paula, she was newly animated. She began unloading a rapid-fire addendum to her confession to the detective.

"April is lying. She's lying on me, so I'm going to tell you where the murder weapon is. It's at the McDonald's in Hammond on Calumet Avenue, next to the police station. Her brother threw it out the car right by the drive-thru window side. It was by a tree right there."

For Paula, this was the start of one of the great grievances of her life — her claim that the other girls lied. A few details aside, their stories largely matched up. But in the discrepancies, Paula saw injustice. And correcting the narrative to fit her exact version of the truth would become an obsession.

The legal ramifications of what she'd shared, in her two statements, were that Paula had essentially confessed to the key elements of the murder. She had gift-wrapped a case for the authorities. She also had put herself in the cross hairs of a zealous prosecutor. She had no idea just how precarious her own life had become.

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Jack Crawford — with a swooping, blow-dried haircut that gave him an appearance not unlike the televangelists of the era — came before a bank of reporters with material certain to make a splash.

A rising star in Indiana's Democratic Party, Crawford had swept into the Lake County prosecutor's job years before, having pledged to get tough on crime. Since then, he had pursued the death penalty more than any other prosecutor in the state. In the first five months of 1985, he'd already won four death penalty convictions.

Now, flanked by a pair of cops, Crawford came before the gathered media with an announcement sure to make headlines: For the first time in Lake County, his office was charging four girls with murder. He would seek the death penalty against the oldest — 16-year-old Karen Corder — and if the other girls were moved out of juvenile court, he'd likely seek death for them, too.

"I've been a prosecutor for seven years," Crawford told the media, "and we've never had a case like this before."

As zealous as he was, Crawford privately acknowledged that same day that his chance for death sentences had already taken a big hit. That's because the clerk's office announced that the judge handling the Ruth Pelke cases was Superior Court Judge James C. Kimbrough Jr.

Kimbrough was a former public defender and NAACP lawyer who'd grown up in the civil rights heartland of Selma, Ala. More important than all of that, everyone around the courts — from prosecutors and public defenders to reporters and clerks — knew Kimbrough hated the death penalty. Hated it for its unfairness. Hated it for its inability to deter crime. And in a county where other judges had shown themselves willing to brandish the ultimate weapon, Kimbrough hadn't sent anyone to the electric chair during 12 years on the bench. Only once had he come close: Kimbrough sentenced a man to death who had been convicted of a double murder. Soon, though, the judge reversed himself and gave the man a new trial. Eventually, he was set free.

So, at word of Kimbrough's assignment, Jack Crawford and his team murmured that the path to a death sentence was a steep one. "We certainly thought we had an uphill climb," he would say later.

—

In the Lake County Juvenile Detention Center, Paula Cooper's life behind bars was getting off to a rough start.

She was no stranger to jail, having spent three months in the same detention center two years earlier after she ran away from home. She was a bit weepy then, even tender, the guards remembered. But this 15-year-old version of Paula Cooper was angrier, explosive and cocky. She acted as if she owned the place. She was a handful.

Two weeks after the crime, Paula took a seat next to two of her friends in the jail during "quiet hour." Soon they grew noisy. A guard told them to shut up and disperse; Paula refused. The guard ordered her back to her cell. But as she stepped into the hall, Paula struck the guard across the bridge of the nose. She fought until reinforcements arrived to pull Paula off. As they were dragging her away, Paula issued a warning: They'd better transfer the guard or she would get a knife and come after her.

The dust-up prompted a transfer for the girls — from the juvenile center to the Lake County Jail. It also made the local papers, which didn't help the cause of saving their lives.

By the end of July 1985, the cases against all four girls were formally moved to adult court. Crawford, after sifting through the ample evidence, made his purpose clear: He would seek the death penalty against all four.

The case had pricked the public's consciousness of crime at a new level.

Crawford's decision made news on the Chicago television stations; it made headlines across Indiana. The public defender assigned to represent Paula, Kevin Relphorde, was incredulous. "They must be the youngest females in the country facing the death penalty," he told reporters.

By then, Paula and Karen, sharing a cell in the Lake County Jail, had been locked up two months. They began telling jail staff they were considering suicide. On cards they were given to report health problems, they wrote things such as "Give me the electric chair" and "Give me that shock. I want to die."

As a precaution, jail officers took their personal belongings and stripped them to their underwear; they were on suicide watch.

Paula and Karen responded by banging on the bars and making noise. To calm them, a nurse broke out the oral sedatives. Karen took hers; Paula refused. The guards teamed up to hold down Paula so the nurse could give her a shot. But as they tried to restrain her, Paula jumped up and hit one guard in the shoulder.

"Oh you tough, huh?" the guard replied. "You stabbed an old lady." It was less than professional, but it was a gut reaction.

"Yeah, I stabbed an old lady," Paula replied. "And I'd stab that bitch again. I'd stab your fucking grandmother."

The jail incidents were part of a pattern to be repeated in years to come. Paula didn't respond well to restraints; she bucked authority. In such instances, she could be aggressive and hostile. A psychologist noted her tendencies and something else plain to see: Battered and badgered as a girl, she was now mistrustful and suspicious.

Soon, Paula's interaction with the jail staff would grow more complicated. By August 1985, about the time she turned 16, Paula began receiving a series of private visitors. Two were male corrections officers. Another was a male recreational therapist. They weren't visiting just because of their jobs.

They were coming for sex.

—

Outside the jail, the stories about the angry young prisoners seemed only to add to the public's contempt. And as the details of their crime emerged, they were already easy to hate. Especially the girl who had wielded the knife — Paula Cooper.

Paula had not just killed Ruth Pelke; she had stabbed her 33 times, according to the coroner. Some of the cuts on her arms looked like saw marks, as if the knife had been pulled back and forth. In other instances, the 12-inch knife had been wielded with such ferocity that the tip of the blade went through Ruth's body, pierced the carpet on which she lay and chipped the wood flooring beneath. Worst of all, it appeared Ruth Pelke survived the torturous assault for more than 30 minutes. The Post-Tribune called it "possibly the most brutal killing in Gary history."

If all that wasn't bad enough, two of the girls had bragged about the killing at school. As defendants go, they were about as unsympathetic as they come. With guilt hardly in doubt, letters began appearing in the Gary newspaper debating the punishment. Some asked for mercy; others wanted severe justice. One letter directed at Paula appeared under the headline, "She should pay."

All of it left Kevin Relphorde, Paula's lawyer, searching for a viable strategy to save Paula's life. The evidence was overwhelming, and the prosecutor was determined, which made a plea deal unimaginable. Paula's childhood had been bad, but it didn't seem to add up to an insanity plea. Her youth and relatively clean prior record were assets, but they looked meager compared to the brutality of the crime. Then there was the jury. Any panel drawn from across Lake County would be mostly white. And Paula was a black teenager who had killed an old white woman. All of it added up to a grim outlook.

As best as Relphorde could figure, the only thing Paula had going for her was the judge. Relphorde knew of Kimbrough's opposition to the death penalty. Ultimately, he suggested to Paula a stomach-churning strategy: Plead guilty.

Relphorde was a part-time public defender who'd never handled a death penalty case. But he figured Paula's chances were better in the hands of a liberal judge than with 12 angry jurors.

As risky as it sounded, Relphorde wasn't the only person who sized things up the same way. David Olson, who was Karen Corder's attorney, came to a similar conclusion. He'd had a nightmare about Karen, he told the Post-Tribune in March 1986, and awoke fearful of "losing her." His fears were amplified when he attended the trial of Denise Thomas, the first suspect to answer for the death of Ruth Pelke.

Just before the case against Thomas went to trial, in November 1985, prosecutors withdrew the death penalty charge, concluding she'd been more of a bystander to the crime.

But that didn't stop the jurors from reacting strongly to the horrific details of Pelke's death. They quickly found Denise guilty. Olson didn't want to risk that with death on the line for his client. So in March, 10 months after the crime, Karen went before Kimbrough with a guilty plea. Her sentencing would follow two months later.

How well Paula understood the risks of her plea — and how much say she had in it — is now a matter of dispute. Relphorde said he met with Paula regularly to talk strategy and that the plea was ultimately her decision. Years later, Paula would recall only three brief meetings with her attorney, who she said assured her the judge opposed the death penalty and would be sympathetic to a black girl. If she pleaded guilty, she said she was told, she wouldn't get a death sentence.

On April 21, 1986, Paula appeared in court to plead guilty to murder.

Herman Cooper came to the courtroom that day; so did Paula's sister, Rhonda. But Gloria Cooper, Paula's mother, was nowhere to be found. She had moved to Georgia and stopped answering the calls of Paula's attorney.

When the hearing began, Kimbrough asked Paula more than once if she knew she could be sentenced to death. Each time, Paula answered yes. To the most important question — How do you plead? — she never hesitated: Guilty.

For the record, Paula retold the story of the crime — the scheme to get into the house; what she did to Ruth; how the girls took the car.

"We went to commit a robbery, you know," she told the judge.

Was there any discussion in advance about what you'd do with Mrs. Pelke? he asked.

"No. It wasn't a discussion to go and kill anyone, you know."

Kimbrough accepted the plea. Paula's life was now in his hands. But she would have to wait months for an answer. Relphorde left convinced Paula had made her best play: "We were basically throwing ourselves on the mercy of the court."

Paula's strategy seemed to appear sound when, in May 1986, Kimbrough spared Karen Corder's life, giving her 60 years in prison. In fact, three of the girls had escaped with their lives. Denise Thomas, found guilty at trial, received a 35-year sentence. April Beverly, who conceived the robbery but waited outside during the killing, pleaded guilty in exchange for a 25-year prison term.

Only Paula's fate remained unresolved.

Lost in the news of Corder's reprieve, perhaps, was some language the judge used in reference to Paula. It seemed ominous. Kimbrough said it had been "conceded by all that Paula Cooper was the leader of this group of four young ladies. That Paula Cooper was the dominant factor in the crime." He said Corder was "operating under the substantial domination of Paula Cooper." Despite such words, the prevailing view in legal circles was that Kimbrough would spare Paula's life.

—

As her judgment approached, there were hints that Paula Cooper's case was starting to resonate beyond Indiana. Jack Crawford's first clue came when his secretary stepped into his office with an unusual message: "There's a man outside who says he's from the Vatican. He's dressed like a monk and wants to talk to you about Paula Cooper's case."

Crawford took a look. Sure enough, in a brown tunic bound at the waist with a cord, there stood a Franciscan friar. He told Crawford he was from Rome. He offered a letter validating his credentials. And he brought a simple message: Pope John Paul II and the Vatican weren't pleased with Crawford's decision to seek the death penalty.

Crawford was Roman Catholic. He'd gone to Notre Dame. He knew the church's opposition to the death penalty. But, as he explained to the friar, this was a legal decision, not a religious one. The friar left unsatisfied. He would not be the last Franciscan to stand with Paula.

More surprising than the friar's appearance was the visit Crawford received in June 1986 from Paula's attorney, Kevin Relphorde.

It was just weeks before Paula's sentencing, and Relphorde had few cards to play in Paula's defense. This time, though, it appeared he might have a game changer.

"You can't execute Paula Cooper," he said.

"Well, why is that, Kevin?" Crawford asked.

"She's pregnant."

—

The sex scandal at the Lake County Jail erupted in June 1986.

For months, corrections officers Vernard Rouster, 25, and Parmaley Rainge, 27, had been coming to see Paula for sex, officials discovered. So, too, had Michael Dean Lampley, a recreational therapist from a mental health center. Their encounters occurred even as a 40-year-old female corrections officer and a police patrolman were supposed to be maintaining security for the state's highest-profile murder suspect.

—

One of the guards admitted the sex began when Paula was still a week shy of 16 — the age of consent in Indiana. That people working in the jail were having sex with a captive wasn't illegal in Indiana in 1986. After the revelation, the jail workers resigned their jobs and the therapist was fired, but no one was prosecuted. Supervisors on the jail floor were suspended — for 15 days.

For all of its tawdriness, the scandal had the potential to affect Paula's case. State law prohibited the execution of a pregnant woman; punishment would have to wait. And while a death penalty appeal was certain to outlast a pregnancy, the strange episode raised the possibility of a sentencing delay.

Kimbrough ordered a medical exam for Paula. Quickly, the matter was put to rest: She wasn't pregnant. But, in a sign of the times, public discussion about the scandal seemed to focus less on the culpability of the jailers than on the promiscuity of the 16-year-old girl in jail.

James McNew, a deputy in Crawford's office who prosecuted the case, told the Post-Tribune he suspected Paula Cooper tried to get pregnant to stir up sympathy and avoid death.

However it came about, the sex scandal prompted a change in state law: It became a crime for jailers to have sex with their prisoners. Soon, though, the jailhouse sex scandal would become little more than a footnote before a judgment heard around the world.

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Bill Pelke sat on the wrong side of the courtroom.

His grandmother was the murder victim. Unwittingly, Bill took a seat on the side of the murderer. He was unfamiliar with the trappings of the courtroom. And unlike some in the community — in his own family — Bill carried no blood lust into the chamber. He thought people who committed murder should die. And Paula Cooper had killed his beloved Nana. But he wasn't fuming about it.

Bill had stayed away from the previous court hearings, but decided this was one he shouldn't miss. It was July 11, 1986. And for Paula Cooper, it was judgment day.

Courtroom 3 of Lake Superior Court was a small space. The gallery, oriented outside a circle where the business of the court was conducted, had seats for just 43 onlookers. This day, it was packed to overflowing. People stood, straining to hear, just outside the public entrance. Lawyers and other court personnel did the same just outside the doors normally used by the judge and juries. All wanted to know the fate of a 16-year-old girl who faced a potential death sentence.

Into this cauldron, Paula Cooper entered under the escort of a jail matron. She didn't need to look around to see she had few friends in the room. Her sister and her grandfather were there, but neither of her parents was present. Her mother had moved to Georgia, her father to Tennessee. As Paula entered, the matron said something that made the young defendant smile. The gesture surprised Bill Pelke; it struck him as unbefitting for the moment. When this day is done, he thought to himself, she's not going to be smiling.

Deputy Prosecutor James McNew began the proceedings by calling Bill's father to testify. Robert Pelke hadn't missed a hearing — for Paula or any of the other girls. He had been the family spokesman, and he wanted a death sentence for Paula. He described going to Ruth Pelke's home when she hadn't answered the phone, finding her home in disarray and her body on the floor. He described her bloody dress and the towel wrapped around her head. When the attorneys finished questioning him, Robert asked to read a statement to the court.

This, Robert Pelke said, was a crime that deserved the maximum sentence the law would allow. He quoted the Bible about submitting to authorities and God's vengeance and punishing evildoers. He said Paula gave Ruth no second chance, and he saw no reason to give Paula one.

"Paula reveled in her doings and enjoyed it," he said. He spoke of ridding society of those who would prey upon the innocent. "This is a tragedy that should never have happened," he said, "and a tragedy that family and friends will never forget."

Next, one of the girls from Lew Wallace High School testified about seeing Paula and the others on their joy ride and about finding the bloody knife on the floor of the car.

A crime lab technician discussed grisly photos from the scene — pictures of Ruth Pelke, of the knife-torn carpet and the gouge marks in the hardwood floor.

The prosecution introduced into evidence the autopsy report, which expressed the damage done by the 33 stab wounds. There was also an anatomical diagram noting the points where Ruth had been wounded — so many it looked like a star chart.

Jailers who had been attacked and threatened by Paula detailed her bad behavior; they recounted her admission about stabbing "an old lady."

Entering into evidence the grisly details of the crime and the accounts of Paula's callous behavior was part of the prosecution's effort to build a case that the only just punishment was death.

In Paula's defense, only three witnesses spoke.

Rhonda Cooper gave a picture of how she and Paula grew up terrorized in the home of Herman Cooper. She testified to the beatings, to their father's raping their mother in front of them, to their mother's suicide attempt and to their attempts to run away.

Ronald Williams, Rhonda's biological father, testified that he wanted to take Paula away from the misery, but her mother refused. He spoke of Gloria's threats against Paula and of the suicide attempt.

Dr. Frank Brogno, a Gary psychologist who examined Paula, described how Paula's abuse left her angry and confused, depressed and hostile. He said she was prone to confusion and bizarre thinking, even drifting into fantasies. Still, he said, Paula knew right from wrong. There was still hope for her, but also a real danger she could become a sociopath.

McNew, on cross-examination, ripped into the doctor. He pointed out how Brogno had testified in Karen Corder's case that Paula was the "prime mover" in the crime.

—

Relphorde made a plea for Paula's life, saying she had gone to Ruth Pelke's home to rob, not kill. He said the other girls were intensely involved in the crime and their lives had been spared. The death penalty, he said, was applied at the whim of prosecutors. He said Ruth Pelke, a woman of faith, wouldn't want Paula to die. In the end, he said, Paula was the handiwork of an abusive home and a system that failed her.

"I don't think Paula was born violent," he said. "I think Paula was a product of what was done to her."

McNew, closing the prosecution's case, checked all the boxes needed for a death sentence: Paula wasn't crazy. She wasn't doing someone else's bidding. She'd struck the death blows. She had a criminal record, as far as a juvenile goes, for skipping school and running away from home. And Paula's abusive childhood? To use that for an excuse, McNew said, was to insult everyone who has endured similar treatment and found a way to overcome the horrors. Giving Paula the death penalty, McNew said, would have a sobering effect on others who might be considering crime. But McNew said there was one reason, above all, for a death sentence.

"I am not seeking a deterrence to crime when I ask the death penalty on Paula Cooper. I seek justice for the family of Ruth Pelke."

—

With the attorneys done, Kimbrough asked Paula if she had anything to say. And Paula did not shrink from the moment.

She hadn't wanted a trial, Paula began; she only wanted to tell the truth. "Now my family life, it hasn't really been good. … Nobody understand how I feel."

"This man," she said, pointing to the prosecutor, "sit here and say he want to take my life. Is that right? I didn't go to Mrs. Pelke's house to kill her. It wasn't planned. I didn't go there to take somebody's life. It happened. It just happened. Something. It wasn't planned. We didn't sit up and say we was going to go and kill this innocent old lady. I didn't even know the lady. But everybody put the blame on me."

She said Jack Crawford had described her in the newspaper as the ringleader. "I wasn't the ringleader. I didn't make those girls go," she said. "They went on their own."

Looking around at the people in the courtroom, Paula seemed disgusted. "Well, where was all these people at right here when I needed somebody? Where was they at? They turned their backs on me and took me through all this. All I can say is now, look where I am now, facing a possible death sentence."

She pointed at the Pelke family and repeated her plea that killing wasn't her intention. "I hope you all could find some happiness in your hearts to forgive me. And I know your mother was a Christian lady, and she is in heaven right now. I read my Bible. How do you think I feel? I can't sit here and tell you I understand how you feel because I don't."

She acknowledged that "sorry" would never be good enough.

Paula looked to Judge Kimbrough. But, as Bill Dolan would report in the Post-Tribune the next day, the judge "didn't return her gaze." "I don't know what the decision is going to be today, or whenever you make your decision. I know justice must be done. And whatever the circumstances, or whatever your decision is, I will accept it, even if it is death." She acknowledged she couldn't change what happened: She hoped to get out one day and start life over, maybe even finish school.

"Will I have a chance?" she asked. "Will I get a chance?"

For a couple of minutes, Paula rambled. She repeated that she hadn't forced the other girls to act; she felt it important everyone know she wasn't a gang member. Then she reined it back in for one final thought: "I am sorry for what I did. And I know my involvement in this case is very deep. But all I can ask you is not to take my life. That is all I can ask you. That is all I can ask is to spare my life."

Suddenly, a commotion broke out in the courtroom. There was shouting in the gallery. "My grandbaby, my grandbaby."

Bill Pelke looked at the wailing man near him and saw the tears run down his cheeks; the visage burned into Bill's memory. He watched the man as the bailiff escorted him out of the courtroom.

It was Paula's grandfather, making one final plea on Paula's behalf.

Now it was up to the judge.

—

Judge James C. Kimbrough had been wading through the sordid details of Ruth Pelke's murder for more than a year. He'd parsed the depressing narrative, and people had speculated whether he had a death penalty in him, especially for a girl. Now they were about to get their answer.

There was no doubt about Paula Cooper's guilt. Kimbrough dispatched that with his first breath. The murder had been disturbing: Paula had inflicted the 33 stab wounds in the body of 78-year-old Ruth Pelke.

Those were the strikes against her.

But the defendant had no prior criminal history, and she was 15 at the time of the crime.

Those were factors to consider on her behalf.

The other requirements for the death penalty, Kimbrough said, didn't work in the defendant's favor. She acted of her own free will. She wasn't under the influence of drugs. Her mental problems didn't rise to the level of incompetence. But all those things, Kimbrough said, were legalities. Ultimately, he said, death penalty cases boil down to a "political utterance."

"This case has received an unusual amount of publicity," Kimbrough said. "There is worldwide interest in the outcome of these proceedings today. And the court is certainly aware of that interest."

When he left law school in 1959, Kimbrough said, he had been "totally against" the death penalty — and most of the country shared the view.

Nearly 30 years later, he said, public sentiment had changed, perhaps because of the violent activities of people such as Paula Cooper. Now, the vast majority of the public favors the death penalty, Kimbrough said, Normally, he wrote out his sentences in advance. But this case had challenged him to the point he'd been unable to do so.

Kimbrough praised the deputy prosecutor for speaking "eloquently" — he said McNew brought the matters into focus "better than all of the turmoil that I have been through in the last several months."

He criticized state law for being too general when it came to giving minors the death penalty. It left him unsure what to do on that fundamental question. "I don't know what the right political answer to that question is."

Then Kimbrough, in a moment of vulnerability judges don't always reveal, showed some insight into his restless mind. "I don't believe I am ever going to be quite the same after these four cases. They have had a very profound effect on me. They have made me come to grips with the question of whether or not a judge can hold personal beliefs which are inconsistent at all with the law as they were sworn to uphold. And for those of you who have no appreciation of it, it is not a simple question. It is not a simple question for me."

Kimbrough interrupted his confessional to take issue with something Robert Pelke said: "I do not believe the failure to impose the death penalty today would be unbiblical. … I don't profess to be an expert in religion. But I know the Bible has passages which are merciful, and do not demand or mandate an eye for an eye."

Returning to his inner turmoil, Kimbrough said he'd concluded that a judge must decide a case based on facts, regardless of whether it satisfies him. "I will tell you, very frankly now, on the record, that I do not believe in the death penalty."

This seemed to launch Kimbrough on a rant. "Maybe in 20 years, after we have had our fill of executions, we will swing back the other way and think they are unconstitutional. Maybe."

At about this point, Jack Crawford, sitting at the prosecutor's table, was ready to give up hope for a death penalty. He turned to McNew, he remembered later, and whispered into his ear.

"He's not going to give it."

Then Kimbrough directed his eyes to the girl awaiting his judgment.

"Stand up, Paula."

She had stabbed Ruth Pelke 33 times, he said. He was concerned about her background. She had been "born into a household where your father abused you, and your mother either participated or allowed it to happen. And those seem to be explanations or some indication of why you may be this type of personality that you are."

"They are not excuses, however."

However.

That word caught Crawford's attention. So did the fact that Kimbrough's shoulders seemed to slump, as if the weight of the moment was getting to the judge. Crawford leaned in and whispered again to McNew.

"I think he's going to give it. I think he's going to give it."

Kimbrough continued.

"You committed the act, and you must pay the penalty," Kimbrough said. Briefly, he trailed into some legalese about the charge. Then he gathered himself for the final judgment.

"The law requires me, and I do now impose, the death penalty."

—

The courtroom erupted.

"What did he say?"

Paula Cooper looked at Kevin Relphorde for help; amid the chaos, she wasn't sure what had just happened. She looked back for the judge; he had already left the bench. She asked Relphorde what had happened. He delivered the verdict again: He gave you the death penalty.

The smile Paula wore into the courtroom was gone, indeed. Bill Pelke took note of that. Instead, he saw a river of tears streaming down her cheeks. As she was led from the courtroom, the tears soaked the top of her blouse.

Just like that, Paula Cooper — at 16 years, 10 months and 16 days — became the youngest person ever sentenced to death in Indiana; she was now the youngest female on death row anywhere in the United States. In this age before the cellphone, news reporters from national outlets raced out of the courtroom to the nearest bank of pay telephones. It took a few hours, but the verdict soon circled the globe.

In the hallway outside the courtroom, Rhonda Cooper yelled in anguish at members of the Pelke family and the prosecutors nearby.

"Are you satisfied now?"

They seemed satisfied.

Strangely, one of the most unsatisfied people in the building was the source of the commotion: Judge Kimbrough.

After delivering the verdict, he darted out of the courtroom and into the hallway leading to his chambers. There, between the two rooms, he spotted William Touchette, a public defender who handled appeals. Kimbrough told Touchette to follow him.

Touchette (pronounced TOO-shay) had been among those outside the courtroom straining to hear the proceedings. Like so many local lawyers, he was friendly with the judge; they'd socialized outside of work. He followed Kimbrough into his chambers.

The judge was angry. As angry as Touchette had ever seen him. Angry that the defense hadn't given him enough to spare Paula Cooper's life. Then Kimbrough uttered seven words Touchette would never again hear from a judge.

"I want you to get me reversed."

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Paula Cooper's death sentence was one of Indiana's biggest news stories in 1986. It garnered network television news coverage. Once it hit the international news wires, it was picked up by newspapers in Europe, where it inspired protests.

But Monica Foster, working for a nonprofit death penalty defense group in Downtown Indianapolis, somehow missed all that. To her, it was as if the Paula Cooper case had never happened.

It wasn't that Foster was uninterested in current events or that she was dull. In fact, Foster was a wunderkind. She'd graduated from high school at 16, college at 19 and law school at 22. She'd come to work for the Indiana Public Defender Council, researching and offering advice to lawyers with death penalty cases, even before finishing her law degree. But at 27, she had a tendency to get absorbed in her work. And when that happened, the outside world ceased to exist.

So when William Touchette, the Lake County attorney preparing Paula Cooper's appeal, called the council looking for some help, Foster knew nothing of the case. Without hesitation, Foster agreed to be Touchette's local connection to Paula, who was being held at the Indiana Women's Prison on the city's east side. Foster even said she'd donate her time, seeing the client on evenings and weekends, as a sideline.

Foster didn't realize she'd just signed on to the case that would become the most noteworthy of her career.

When the case file arrived in her office, Foster began reading about Paula Cooper. Right away, she was puzzled.

Here was a black girl from Gary who had been sentenced to death by a black judge whom even Foster knew to be one of the most liberal, anti-death penalty jurists in the state. The girl had brutally murdered an elderly woman during a robbery, but Foster told the people in her office that to get a death sentence from this judge Paula Cooper had to be some kind of rabid animal.

"She must be frothing at the mouth."

Foster decided to go to the prison and see Paula Cooper for herself.

—

Paula had arrived at the Indiana Women's Prison — America's oldest women's prison — five days after her sentencing.

Established shortly after the Civil War, it was originally in the countryside east of Indianapolis. Over time, brick storefronts and wood-frame houses sprang up around the prison's series of boxy brick buildings — situated around a grassy courtyard — and now the prison was landlocked in the middle of an urban neighborhood.

Awaiting Paula was a cell tucked away on the second floor of the segregation unit. It was stark: block walls and tile floor; aluminum sink and toilet; a desk and a chair; all of it packaged in a space slightly bigger than a walk-in closet.

She had one window to the outside world. Depending on which side of the hallway she was assigned at the time, it featured either a view of the courtyard or, just beyond a fence topped by razor wire, the backside of a row of decaying houses.

Paula's cell had two metal doors. One was made of bars, the other was solid. Most of the time, the solid door remained open, allowing her to talk through the bars to passing guards and nearby prisoners. But when the solid door was closed, it was as if she was locked in a vault. Worse, the prison had no air conditioning. As summer temperatures outside climbed into the 90s, the only air moving through the wing was pushed by a floor fan at the end of the hall. Most of the time, the place felt like the inside of a cook stove.

Here, Paula Cooper spent 23 hours a day. In the remaining hour, she had 30 minutes to shower and 30 minutes for recreation, which meant a short walk to a larger room where she could play Ping-Pong or cards with other prisoners. Meals were delivered to her cell.

She was 16 years old and, in the grand scheme of things, set apart from the rest of the human race.

The treatment was harsher than what Paula's three co-defendants in the murder of Ruth Pelke faced. They were housed elsewhere in the prison, with the general population. They had greater freedom of movement, time outdoors and an ongoing interaction with other people. Paula was allotted 10 hours of visits per month, but she wasn't sure who would fill the time. Her sister had moved to Minnesota. Her mother had moved to Georgia. Her father had moved to Tennessee. Paula was as alone as she could be.

Yet she faced a struggle greater than isolation and heat. She lived in fear that the executioner was coming for her any minute. Whatever she'd been told about the appeals process hadn't registered. She thought she was about to be taken away and killed. She existed moment to moment, in dread the guards were about to drag her away to the electric chair. In letters, she would describe her situation in the bleakest of terms — "a mental hell." Paula needed hope. She needed a friend. But who?

—

Monica Foster entered the security checkpoint at the Indiana Women's Prison and was shown to the glass-walled consultation room. In short order, she watched as a guard escorted her client in to meet her.

Paula Cooper was nothing like she expected. Monica came looking for the heartless killer who had murdered an old woman in cold blood, fought the guards at the county jail and been given a ticket to the chair by the most liberal judge in Lake County.

Instead, Foster found a girl, sobbing uncontrollably, who had been on suicide watch. Foster tried to calm her. After some questioning, she gathered the reason for the emotional meltdown: Paula thought they were coming any time now. To kill her.

Foster's blood boiled. She realized that, since the sentencing, no one had explained to Paula the years of appeals; the good chance for a reprieve; and, should all else fail, the notice she would receive well ahead of an execution. Foster felt sorry for Paula. She explained the process. Above all, she told Paula she'd never be ambushed by the executioner.

Paula went back to her cell in a little better shape, but Foster left the prison rattled. She couldn't believe how she had misjudged her client. She realized that her role in this case was about more than legal counsel. She would need to offer her client a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen.

Foster began going to the prison on weekends, sitting and talking with Paula for hours. She listened to Paula talk about being depressed, and she tried to buck her up. She listened to Paula's troubles with the prison administration and offered advice on ways to get along. She listened to Paula describe the abuses of her childhood, and Foster shared some of the tougher aspects of her own. The conversation wasn't always heavy. Sometimes they talked about places they dreamed of going and about men Foster was dating. Paula, in particular, was quick with a jab about Foster's romantic failures. Even in a maximum security prison, with one of them facing death, they spent a good deal of time laughing. And Foster found Paula's laugh to be infectious. That she could laugh at all impressed Foster. The girl seemed to have some kind of resiliency. After a while, Foster could deny it no longer: She liked Paula Cooper.

—

Bill Pelke felt no such affection.

In the 18 months since Paula Cooper killed his grandmother, Bill had lost the ability to think of Ruth Pelke as the sweet person she'd been; he could only see the murder victim. He couldn't remember the warmth of Ruth's home; he could only think of it as a crime scene. When Paula Cooper received her sentence, Pelke felt justice had been served. His father, Robert Pelke, warned him that the justice wouldn't last. On a trip to Florida they took to get away from it all, Robert Pelke said Paula would probably never see the electric chair. "Some do-gooder will probably come along and help get her off death row," he'd said. Bill struggled to imagine it; he just tried to get on with his life.

But moving on wasn't easy. And at 39, Bill already had other things on his mind that bothered him. He'd dropped out of college and wound up in Vietnam during the height of the war. As a radio operator, he was supposed to take cover during the fighting and call in air support. But he still carried shrapnel in his side from the wounds he suffered. Worse than that, he carried memories of the Army buddies who'd never come back. The experience left him sick of death. When he returned home, he'd married and started a family, but his marriage failed. So many things in his life hadn't gone as he'd planned. One afternoon in November 1986, all of this seemed to coalesce in Bill's mind.

Bill worked in a steel mill as a crane operator. He sat 50 feet above the manufacturing floor in the cab of his crane, moving heavy loads as the need arose. But on this Sunday night shift, things were slow; his mind began to drift. He wondered why life was so hard, why God had allowed Ruth to suffer such a horrendous death. He wondered why his family — his good family — was made to suffer in the wake of the crime. It was an unlikely perch for prayer, but Bill closed his eyes and began seeing images in his mind. He saw the courtroom where Paula had been sentenced to death. He remembered the outburst of her grandfather and the tears streaming down the man's face. He remembered Paula's reaction and the tears streaming down hers, how they soaked her blouse.

A hard realization hit Bill: Ruth wouldn't have wanted these things. She had invited Paula and the girls into her home to help them find faith. It occurred to Bill that Ruth would be more interested in Paula's salvation than her execution. He was certain, too, that Ruth would have hated seeing Paula's grandfather in anguish.

Bill thought of the Bible stories Ruth had taught and the lessons he'd learned from a lifetime in church. He remembered Jesus taught that you shouldn't forgive someone just seven times, but 70 times seven — in other words, forgiveness should be a habit. He remembered being taught that the measure of forgiveness we show others is the measure by which we shall be judged. He remembered hearing about Jesus on the cross, offering salvation to the man dying next to him, offering grace to those who sought his death. "Forgive them," Jesus had said, "for they know not what they do."

And then Bill realized something: Paula hadn't known what she was doing. Nobody in their right mind would take a 12-inch butcher knife and stab someone 33 times. It was crazy. Senseless.

In his mind, Bill began to see a new image: It was the picture of Ruth, the one published countless times since her death — silver hair, horn-rimmed glasses, sweet smile. Except now, he saw her face in the picture with tears running down her cheeks. Bill felt certain Ruth wanted someone from her family to show love to Paula and hers. Bill wasn't capable of it right then, but he thought he should try. He was a blue collar guy — a steelworker — and now he was at work crying a river of his own tears. From his seat in the cab of the crane, Bill prayed: "God, give me love and compassion for Paula Cooper and her family." In return, he promised God two things. First, Bill would give credit to God for giving him the ability to forgive Paula whenever success came his way. Second, he'd walk through whatever door opened as a result of forgiving Paula.

Eventually, the sweet memories of Ruth would come back to Bill. He would be able to put aside the horror story. First, though, he felt he had to take a greater leap of faith. He had to get in touch with his grandmother's killer. He had to reach out to Paula Cooper.

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The next day, Bill phoned Paula's attorney. He wanted her prison address, and he was willing to do whatever it took to help save Paula's life. Kevin Relphorde's response wasn't encouraging: "It's kind of late for that."

Undeterred, Bill took the address and sat down at a desk in his Portage home to write perhaps the most intense letter of his life. He told Paula he had forgiven her; he wanted to visit her; there were Bible verses his grandmother would want him to share. He also wanted to meet her grandfather, he of the tearful courtroom outburst.

Bill dropped the letter in his mailbox and, at some level, thought that would be the end of it. But in the days following, he found himself checking his mailbox almost daily. Ten days after he sent his letter, an envelope showed up. The return address said: "Ms. Paula Cooper."

The envelope was thick. Inside, he found a letter dated Nov. 10, 1986, six pages of a teenage girl's loopy cursive, written in pencil, on pink stationery. The contents were far from a schoolgirl's bubble gum dreams. It was a snapshot of Paula's mind on death row. Her thoughts darted back and forth — between apologies and self-pity, between empathy for those who hated her and preachiness about why they should forgive her. Much of the letter was frenetic. Sentences ran on and on like the transcriptions of a nervous talker. Her misspellings and limited punctuation seemed to reflect the erratic schooling of someone who'd been on the run since eighth grade. But it also bore the hallmarks of a mind in overdrive, overloaded with conflicting emotions. Here are some excerpts. Periods have been added for clarity.

Bill 11/10/86

Hello how are you? fine I truly hope. me I'll survive, I received your letter today & it was nice of you to write me. one of Ms Pelkes friends wrote me also, I answered it back also. Im not the mean type of person your family thinks I am but I can except that. I really do. your cousin Robert was something else & what he said about not knowing if Ms Pelke would forgiving me. Ive read my bible & I know it says the way you judge others the Lord will judge you the same way. Ive prayed for your family. a lady in a wheel chair use to visit me at the jail. she said God would be pleased if I prayed for all of you, I am doing fine. They treat me ok & I am always isolated 23 hrs a day. thats how it is on death row, it is a mental hell because no one cares except for themselves. I am thankful to the Lord for them letting the others have a little time, because I've had hell all my life. so it really doesnt matter if I live or die because Im ready any time they come …

In his initial letter, Bill expressed a desire to save Paula from her death sentence. But in her reply, Paula told Bill he need not write, travel or speak on her behalf; she just wanted his forgiveness. She seemed proud of her performance in court — how she looked his family in the face and apologized. She seemed to excuse her parents for missing her sentencing. Although they had beaten and neglected her, Paula said, her actions affected them, too.

At various times, her words ranged from fatalistic to self-pitying:

I cant stay here like this & I don't want to be here, I deserve a chance one that Ive never had before. but one day Ill be free even if its when Im dead…

I cry every time I think of your grand mom. the others think it's a joke because you all let them be free. Im not an evil person, or what ever you think of me to be, Im just some one who is real angry, angry with life & all the people around me …

Ive never done anything wrong before except ask for help, I was turned away & introduced into a life of drugs, sex & crime, but now its too late for help. Im dying inside because of this but I only hope for the best for others.

In closing, she made it clear she wanted more interaction with Bill, even if she was passive about it. She would put him on her list of allowable prison visitors; she would write him whenever he wrote her; she offered her grandfather's phone number and address. In a dark world, it was as if she had seen a flicker of light.

Well, Ill go now, Ill continue to pray for all of you.

Take care

Paula

Their first exchange was the start of a surprising correspondence that would span years and delve into the core themes of Paula's life — searching for forgiveness; grappling with remorse; her closeness with death; her search for peace.

The letters also chart the course of a relationship that many people would struggle to understand, especially Bill Pelke's father.

—

After a second exchange of letters with Paula, Bill felt compelled to share with his parents the news of his surprising correspondence: His father had once warned of a do-gooder who would get Paula off death row. Now it appeared Bill wanted to be that do-gooder.

At first, his parents were speechless. "We don't understand why you are doing this," his mother, Lola, said. Surprisingly, his father acquiesced.

"Do what you got to do," Robert said.

Bill wrote Clarence Trigg, the superintendent of the Indiana Women's Prison, a letter that spent most of a page describing Ruth Pelke's faith and her commitment to sharing it. He concluded with a request:

Clarence, if Ruth Pelke could speak with you right now, I am sure she would say, "Please let Billy see Paula."

Thank you for your consideration

In the name of Jesus and His Love

William R. Pelke

But the prison doors weren't about to open to Bill anytime soon. Corrections officials didn't know what to make of his request — a murder victim's grandson seeking an audience with her killer. They suspected he had another motive, such as revenge.

—

The aftermath of Paula's case was confounding in other ways. Since giving Paula a death sentence, Judge James C. Kimbrough had been very public about his discomfort with his own ruling. Based on the law and the case in court, he said Paula qualified for the death penalty. But he hadn't been able to square it with his own opposition to capital punishment. The decision was costing him sleep. In an interview with the (Gary) Post-Tribune, published Aug. 4, 1986, a reporter noted the judge's nervous appearance.

He fidgeted in his chair. His gaze varied — at times less steady and slanted toward the desktop. He removed his glasses, toying with them.

Friends who knew Kimbrough said the judge was different than he'd been before the Paula Cooper sentencing. The man they knew as friendly and jovial, even gregarious, was more reclusive, less outgoing. "It weighed heavily on his mind," said Earline Rogers, a state legislator and a friend. "That was something he felt legally he had to do but, personally, he would not have taken that path."

Some in the legal community began to think there was a good chance Paula's death sentence would be overturned. But Kimbrough wouldn't live to find out.

On April 30, 1987, less than a year after his judgment of Paula, Kimbrough drove his car into the back of a semi and was killed. He had been drinking. The tragedy cast a pall over the Lake County courts, but it also landed hard at the Indiana Women's Prison. When Monica Foster told Paula her judge was dead, Paula was inconsolable. Days later, in a letter to Bill Pelke, she shared her thoughts about the judge.

"all I could do was cry, even though Kimbrough sentenced me to die. I felt a closeness to him as if he were my father. I have been sentenced to die many times by a lot of people and it's only words. We are all on Death Row and the last day of April his death sentence was completed & it should teach a lot of people we all have a date that is already planned & the way it will happen."

Paula's own father had been cruel; at least Kimbrough had agonized over the punishment he gave.

The letter about Kimbrough was the 20th she'd written to Bill Pelke in less than six months. She was surprising herself at her output: "I didn't even know I had a good handwriting or a great vocabulary until I was locked up."

By then, she was 17 and a condemned killer with hours to contemplate her past, present and future. Several themes recurred in her writing.

Life on death row. She struggled to sleep, to breathe, to deal with the noise. "To be on death row is worst than when I was in a mental hospital. At least it was quiet." She had ailments from toothaches to a bad back. Mostly, she was confused and on edge. Life on the row made her feel like "a walking time bomb."

Memories of the murder. Her thoughts were plagued by it. She described what she did to Ruth Pelke as "awful." She wished she could erase it. "Every day," she said, "I see my nightmare."

Death. It was constantly on her mind, whether by execution or by her own hand. She alternated between dread of the electric chair — "I hope it never happens to me" — and anticipation of it — "sometimes I wish they would just go ahead & do it. They continue to put this death threat on my life and I'm tired of it."

Suicide. She seemed to ponder the merits of killing herself. She wasn't sure what it would solve but, in words that seemed to echo from her mother, she said, "there isn't anything here for me." She talked about hanging herself but acknowledged she couldn't follow through. "I know that if I do that I might go to hell (and) I don't want that to happen."

Meanwhile, people from across the country wrote her. Some, including a death row inmate in North Carolina, wanted a romantic relationship. Some wanted answers to the plague of juvenile crime. Others sent her Bibles and tried to save her soul. Yet her faith — another frequent topic — had grown cold. As a child, she read her Bible often, she said, but "my faith started to shatter because of a lot of feelings, hopes and unanswered prayers. I love the Lord but we aren't rea

Who did Trump pardon? Here's the full list of 143 pardons and ...

Early in the morning of Jan. 20, President Donald Trump's last day in office, he granted pardons to 73 individuals and commuted the sentences of an additional 70 individuals. Here's the list, as released by the White House:

Dig deeper:Donald Trump grants clemency to 143 people, but not himself or family members, in one of final acts of his presidency

Todd Boulanger

President Trump granted a full pardon to Todd Boulanger. Mr. Boulanger’s pardon is supported by numerous friends, as well as by past and present business associates. In 2008, Mr. Boulanger pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit honest services fraud. He has taken full responsibility for his conduct. Mr. Boulanger is a veteran of the United States Army Reserves and was honorably discharged. He has also received an award from the City of the District of Columbia for heroism for stopping and apprehending an individual who assaulted an elderly woman with a deadly weapon on Capitol Hill. Mr. Boulanger is known as a model member of his community. In addition, he is remorseful for his actions and would like to leave his mistakes behind him.

Abel Holtz

President Trump granted a full pardon to Abel Holtz. This pardon is supported by Representative Mario Diaz-Balart and friends and business colleagues in his community. Mr. Holtz is currently 86 years old. In 1995, he pled guilty to one count of impeding a grand jury investigation and was sentenced to 45 days in prison. Before his conviction, Mr. Holtz, who was the Chairman of a local bank, never had any legal issues and has had no other legal issues since his conviction. Mr. Holtz has devoted extensive time and resources to supporting charitable causes in South Florida, including substantial donations to the City of Miami Beach.

Representative Rick Renzi

President Trump granted a full pardon to Representative Rick Renzi of Arizona. Mr. Renzi’s pardon is supported by Representative Paul Gosar, Representative Tom Cole, former Representative Tom DeLay, former Representative Jack Kingston, former Representative Todd Tiahrt, former Representative John Doolittle, former Representative Duncan Hunter Sr., former Representative Richard Pombo, former Representative Charles Taylor, former Representative Dan Burton, Larry Weitzner, National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, and numerous other members of his community. In 2013, Mr. Renzi was convicted of extortion, bribery, insurance fraud, money laundering, and racketeering. He was sentenced to 2 years in Federal prison, 2 years of supervised release, and paid a $25,000 fine. Before his conviction, Mr. Renzi served three terms in the House of Representatives. His constituents considered him a strong advocate for better housing, quality education, and improved healthcare—especially for the underprivileged and Native Americans. He is the father of 12 children and a loving and devoted husband.

In-depth: Trump's pardons, including controversial allies, increase in final days of presidency

Kenneth Kurson

President Trump granted a full pardon to Kenneth Kurson. Prosecutors have charged Mr. Kurson with cyberstalking related to his divorce from his ex-wife in 2015. In a powerful letter to the prosecutors, Mr. Kurson’s ex-wife wrote on his behalf that she never wanted this investigation or arrest and, “repeatedly asked for the FBI to drop it… I hired a lawyer to protect me from being forced into yet another round of questioning. My disgust with this arrest and the subsequent articles is bottomless…” This investigation only began because Mr. Kurson was nominated to a role within the Trump Administration. He has been a community leader in New York and New Jersey for decades. In addition, Mr. Kurson is a certified foster parent, a successful business owner, and is passionate about various charitable causes. Mr. Kurson is an upstanding citizen and father to five beautiful children.

Casey Urlacher

President Trump granted a full pardon to Casey Urlacher. This pardon is supported by his friends and family, and countless members of his community. Mr. Urlacher has been charged with conspiracy to engage in illegal gambling. Throughout his life, Mr. Urlacher has been committed to public service and has consistently given back to his community. Currently, Mr. Urlacher serves as the unpaid Mayor of Mettawa, Illinois. He is a devoted husband to his wife and a loving father to his 17-month old daughter.

Carl Andrews Boggs

President Trump granted a full pardon to Carl Andrews Boggs. This pardon is supported by the Honorable David Lee and South Carolina Department of Transportation Chairman Tony Cox. In 2013, Mr. Boggs pled guilty to two counts of conspiracy. Since his release, Mr. Boggs has rebuilt his company, has employed hundreds of people, and has dedicated countless hours and financial resources to his community.

Jaime A. Davidson

President Trump commuted the sentence of Jaime A. Davidson. This commutation is supported by Mr. Davidson’s family and friends, Alice Johnson, and numerous others. In 1993, Mr. Davidson was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in relation to the murder of an undercover officer. Notably, witnesses who testified against Mr. Davidson later recanted their testimony in sworn affidavits and further attested that Mr. Davidson had no involvement. Although Mr. Davidson has been incarcerated for nearly 29 years, the admitted shooter has already been released from prison. Following the commutation of his sentence, Mr. Davidson will continue legal efforts to clear his name. In addition, while incarcerated, Mr. Davidson mentored and tutored over 1,000 prisoners to help them achieve their GED certificates. Mr. Davidson has earned praise from prison officials for his dedication to helping others.

James E. Johnson, Jr.

President Trump granted a full pardon to James E. Johnson, Jr. In 2008, Mr. Johnson pled guilty to charges related to migratory birds. Mr. Johnson received 1 year probation, was barred from hunting during that period, and a $7,500 fine was imposed. Throughout his life, Mr. Johnson has made numerous contributions for the conservation of wildlife.

Tommaso Buti

President Trump granted a full pardon to Tommaso Buti. Mr. Buti is an Italian citizen and a respected businessman. He is the Chief Operating Officer of a large Italian company and has started a successful charitable initiative to raise funds for UNICEF. More than 20 years ago, Mr. Buti was charged with financial fraud involving a chain of restaurants. He has not, however, been convicted in the United States.

Bill K. Kapri

President Trump granted a commutation to Bill Kapri, more commonly known as Kodak Black. Kodak Black is a prominent artist and community leader. This commutation is supported by numerous religious leaders, including Pastor Darrell Scott and Rabbi Schneur Kaplan. Additional supporters include Bernie Kerik, Hunter Pollack, Gucci Mane, Lil Pump, Lil Yachty, Lamar Jackson of the Baltimore Ravens, Jack Brewer formerly of the National Football League, and numerous other notable community leaders. Kodak Black was sentenced to 46 months in prison for making a false statement on a Federal document. He has served nearly half of his sentence. Before his conviction and after reaching success as a recording artist, Kodak Black became deeply involved in numerous philanthropic efforts. In fact, he has committed to supporting a variety of charitable efforts, such as providing educational resources to students and families of fallen law enforcement officers and the underprivileged. In addition to these efforts, he has paid for the notebooks of school children, provided funding and supplies to daycare centers, provided food for the hungry, and annually provides for underprivileged children during Christmas. Most recently while still incarcerated, Kodak Black donated $50,000 to David Portnoy’s Barstool Fund, which provides funds to small businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Kodak Black’s only request was that his donation go toward restaurants in his hometown.

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Jawad A. Musa

President Trump commuted the sentence of Jawad A. Musa. In 1991, Mr. Musa was sentence to life imprisonment for a non-violent, drug-related offense. Mr. Musa’s sentencing judge and the prosecutor on the case have both requested clemency on his behalf. He is currently 56-years old. During his time in prison, Mr. Musa has strengthened his faith and taken dozens of educational courses. Mr. Musa is blessed with a strong supportive network in Baltimore, Maryland and has numerous offers of employment.

Adriana Shayota

President Trump commuted the sentence of Adriana Shayota. Ms. Shayota has served more than half of her 24 month sentence. The Deputy Mayor of Chula Vista, California, John McCann, supports this commutation, among other community leaders. Ms. Shayota is a mother and a deeply religious woman who had no prior convictions. She was convicted of conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit goods, commit copyright infringement, and introduce misbranded food into interstate commerce. During her time in prison, Ms. Shayota mentored those who wanted to improve their lives and demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to rehabilitation.

Glen Moss

President Trump granted a full pardon to Glen Moss. After pleading guilty in 1998, Mr. Moss has been a vital member of his community. Mr. Moss has been committed to numerous philanthropic efforts at the national level, including St Jude’s Hospital for Children, Breast Cancer Awareness, and the Colon Cancer Foundation. Within his community, he has contributed to Danbury Hospital and Ann’s Place, a community-based cancer support center.

Anthony Levandowski

President Trump granted a full pardon to Anthony Levandowski. This pardon is strongly supported by James Ramsey, Peter Thiel, Miles Ehrlich, Amy Craig, Michael Ovitz, Palmer Luckey, Ryan Petersen, Ken Goldberg, Mike Jensen, Nate Schimmel, Trae Stephens, Blake Masters, and James Proud, among others. Mr. Levandowski is an American entrepreneur who led Google’s efforts to create self-driving technology. Mr. Levandowski pled guilty to a single criminal count arising from civil litigation. Notably, his sentencing judge called him a “brilliant, groundbreaking engineer that our country needs.” Mr. Levandowski has paid a significant price for his actions and plans to devote his talents to advance the public good.

Aviem Sella

President Trump granted a full pardon to Aviem Sella. Mr. Sella is an Israeli citizen who was indicted in 1986 for espionage in relation to the Jonathan Pollard case. Mr. Sella’s request for clemency is supported by the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer, the United States Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, and Miriam Adelson. The State of Israel has issued a full and unequivocal apology, and has requested the pardon in order to close this unfortunate chapter in U.S.-Israel relations.

Michael Liberty

President Trump granted a full pardon to Michael Liberty. Mr. Liberty’s request for clemency is supported by Representative Susan Austin, Matthew E. Sturgis, and Anthony Fratianne. In 2016 Mr. Liberty was convicted for campaign finance violations and later was indicted for related offenses. Mr. Liberty is the father of 7 children and has been involved in numerous philanthropic efforts.

Greg Reyes

President Trump granted a full pardon to Greg Reyes. This pardon is supported by Shon Hopwood, former United States Attorney Brett Tolman, and numerous others. Mr. Reyes was the former CEO of Brocade Communications. Mr. Reyes was convicted of securities fraud. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, however, threw out his convictions, finding prosecutorial misconduct. He was later retried, convicted, and sentenced to 18 months in Federal prison. Mr. Reyes has accepted full responsibility for his actions and has been out of prison for more than 8 years.

Ferrell Damon Scott

President Trump commuted the sentence of Ferrell Damon Scott. This commutation is supported by former Acting United States Attorney Sam Sheldon, who prosecuted his case and wrote that he “… strongly does not believe that [Mr. Scott] deserves a mandatory life sentence.” Ms. Alice Johnson, the CAN-DO Foundation, and numerous others also support clemency for Mr. Scott. Mr. Scott has served nearly 9 years of a life imprisonment sentence for possession with intent to distribute marijuana. Under today’s sentencing guidelines, it is likely that Mr. Scott would not have received such a harsh sentence.

Jerry Donnell Walden

President Trump commuted the sentence of Jerry Donnell Walden. Mr. Walden has served 23 years of a 40-year prison sentence. He is known as a model inmate who completed his GED while incarcerated, as well as various other education classes.

Jeffrey Alan Conway

President Trump granted a full pardon to Jeffrey Alan Conway. Mr. Conway’s pardon is strongly supported by his business partners Gary N. Solomon and Ely Hurwitz, members of law enforcement, and numerous other members of the community. Since his release from prison, Mr. Conway has led a successful life and currently runs 10 restaurant businesses that employ nearly 500 people. Mr. Conway is active in his community and in various philanthropic efforts.

Benedict Olberding

President Trump granted a full pardon to Benedict Olberding. Mr. Olberding was convicted on one count of bank fraud. Mr. Olberding is an upstanding member of the community who has paid his debt to society. After completing his sentence, he purchased two aquarium stores, as well as a consulting business to train prospective mortgage brokers.

Syrita Steib-Martin

President Trump granted a full pardon to Syrita Steib-Martin. This clemency is supported by Ben Watson formerly of the National Football League, Judge Sandra Jenkins of the Louisiana state courts, and Sister Marjorie Herbert, who serves as President and CEO of Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans, among many others. Ms. Steib-Martin was convicted at the age of 19 and sentenced to 10 years in prison and nearly $2 million in restitution for the use of fire to commit a felony. After her release from prison, she became an advocate for criminal justice reform and founded Operation Restoration, which helps transition women prisoners after incarceration by providing education opportunities and job placement. With today’s pardon, Ms. Steib-Martin is relieved of the crushing restitution she incurred at such a young age.

Michael Ashley

President Trump commuted the sentence of Michael Ashley. This commutation is supported by Professor Alan Dershowitz, Pastor Darrel Scott, Rabbi Zvi Boyarski, The Aleph Institute, Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi, Gary Apfel, and Bradford Cohen. Mr. Ashley was convicted and sentenced to 3 years in prison for bank fraud. Notably, Mr. Ashley’s sentencing judge said, “I don’t have any concern that you are not truly remorseful. I know that you are a changed man.” Since his conviction, Mr. Ashley has spent time caring for his ailing mother and paying his debt back to society.

Lou Hobbs

President Trump commuted the sentence of Lou Hobbs. Mr. Hobbs has served 24 years of his life sentence. While incarcerated, Mr. Hobbs completed his GED as well as various other education classes. Mr. Hobbs is dedicated to improving his life and is focused on his family and friends who have assisted him during difficult times.

Matthew Antoine Canady

President Trump commuted the sentence of Matthew Antoine Canady. This commutation is supported by Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Canady had an unstable childhood and all of his prior drug-related convictions occurred during his teenage years. Mr. Canady worked hard to move beyond his challenging circumstances and has demonstrated extraordinary rehabilitation while in custody. He has maintained clear conduct while incarcerated and has notably taken advantage of significant vocational programs, including an electrical apprenticeship. He receives “outstanding” work reports and is described as “hardworking” and “respectful” by the Bureau of Prisons staff. Mr. Canady takes full responsibility for his criminal actions and would like to find gainful employment to help support his children.

Mario Claiborne

President Trump commuted the sentence of Mario Claiborne. This commutation is supported by Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Claiborne is serving life imprisonment and has already served more than 28 years in prison. For more than 20 years, Mr. Claiborne has maintained clear conduct. Mr. Claiborne currently works for a UNICOR facility and has completed rehabilitative programming, including drug education.

Rodney Nakia Gibson

President Trump commuted the sentence of Rodney Nakia Gibson. This commutation is supported by Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. In 2009, Mr. Gibson was convicted of trafficking drugs. Mr. Gibson is a first time, non-violent offender who has been a “model inmate” for more than 11 years in custody. In addition, he has maintained clear conduct and works with other inmates to help them obtain the important benefits of a GED. He has an impressive list of programming accomplishments, including apprenticeships and professional certifications which will readily translate into employable skills upon release. Mr. Gibson accepts responsibility for his actions.

Tom Leroy Whitehurst

President Trump commuted the sentence of Tom Leroy Whitehurst from life to 30 years. This clemency is supported by Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Whitehurst led a conspiracy to manufacture at least 16.7 kilograms of methamphetamine and possessed numerous firearms during the course of the conspiracy. The court sentenced him to life imprisonment under the then-mandatory Sentencing Guidelines. Mr. Whitehurst has served nearly 24 years in prison. While incarcerated, he has demonstrated exemplary prison conduct by incurring just a single disciplinary infraction over two decades ago and holding a UNICOR position for much of his incarceration.

Monstsho Eugene Vernon

President Trump commuted the sentence of Monstsho Eugene Vernon. This commutation is supported by Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Vernon has served over 19 years in prison for committing a string of armed bank robberies in Greenville, South Carolina. Evidence showed that numerous of these offenses involved him carrying BB guns rather than genuine firearms. While incarcerated, Mr. Vernon has worked steadily, programmed well, and recovered from a bout of cancer.

Luis Fernando Sicard

President Trump commuted the sentence of Luis Fernando Sicard. This commutation is supported by Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Sicard was sentenced in 2000 for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and possession of a firearm during and in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. He has served 20 years with clear conduct. Mr. Sicard has participated in substantial programming, including a number of vocational courses. Currently, Mr. Sicard works in the camp vehicular factory and previously worked in UNICOR earning “outstanding” work reports, and he also volunteers in the inmate puppy program. Importantly, Mr. Sicard takes full responsibility for his criminal actions. Mr. Sicard is a former Marine and father of two girls.

DeWayne Phelps

President Trump commuted the sentence of DeWayne Phelps. This commutation is supported by Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Phelps has served 11 years in prison for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. He has served over a decade in prison with clear conduct, has trained as a dental apprentice, participated in UNICOR, and is noted as being a reliable inmate capable of being assigned additional responsibilities. Most notably, Mr. Phelps’s sentence would unquestionably be lower today under the First Step Act.

Isaac Nelson

President Trump commuted the sentence of Isaac Nelson. This commutation is supported by Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Nelson is serving a mandatory 20 year sentence for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and distribution of 5 kilograms or more of cocaine and 50 grams or more of crack cocaine. Following the First Step Act’s changes to the definition of serious drug felony, Mr. Nelson would no longer receive a mandatory minimum term of 20 years’ imprisonment. Instead, he would likely face a 10-year sentence. He has already served more than 11 years in prison. Throughout his incarceration, he appears to have demonstrated commendable adjustment to custody.

Traie Tavares Kelly

President Trump commuted the sentence of Traie Tavares Kelly. This commutation is supported by Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Kelly was convicted of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and to distribute 50 grams or more of cocaine base and 5 kilograms or more of cocaine. He has served over 14 years in prison, but if he were sentenced today, he would likely be subject only to 10-year mandatory minimum. Moreover, Mr. Kelly has substantial work history while incarcerated and his notable accomplishments in education and programming demonstrate that he has used his time to maximize his chance at being a productive citizen upon release.

Javier Gonzales

President Trump commuted the sentence of Javier Gonzales. This commutation is supported by Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Gonzales was convicted of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine and distribution of methamphetamine in 2005. He has served over 14 years in prison, which is 4 years longer than the 10-year sentence he would likely receive today. He has a demonstrated record of rehabilitation during his incarceration, including steady employment, with substantial UNCIOR experience, and participation in vocational programming and training to facilitate his successful reintegration into the workforce upon release. He also has no history of violent conduct. Mr. Gonzales has actively addressed his admitted substance abuse issues with nonresidential drug treatment and participation in the residential program.

Eric Wesley Patton

President Trump granted a full pardon to Eric Wesley Patton. This pardon is supported by former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Patton was convicted of making a false statement on a mortgage application in 1999. In the 20 years since his conviction, Mr. Patton has worked hard to build a sterling reputation, been a devoted parent, and made solid contributions to his community by quietly performing good deeds for friends, neighbors, and members of his church.

Robert William Cawthon

President Trump granted a full pardon to Robert William Cawthon. His pardon is supported by former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Cawthon was convicted in 1992 for making a false statement on a bank loan application and was sentenced to 3 years’ probation, conditioned upon 180 days’ home confinement. Mr. Cawthon has accepted responsibility for his offense, served his sentence without incident, and fulfilled his restitution obligation. His atonement has been exceptional, and since his conviction he has led an unblemished life while engaging in extensive, praiseworthy community service.

Hal Knudson Mergler

President Trump granted a full pardon to Hal Knudson Mergler. This pardon is supported by former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Mergler was convicted of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and distribution of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in 1992. He received 1 month imprisonment, 3 years supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution. Since his conviction, Mr. Mergler has lived a productive and law-abiding life, including by earning a college degree, creating a successful business career, and starting a family. He has made significant contributions to his community and has helped to build a new school for a non-profit charitable organization. He is uniformly praised as a hardworking and ethical businessman and a caring father.

Gary Evan Hendler

President Trump granted a full pardon to Gary Evan Hendler. This pardon is supported by former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. In 1984, Mr. Hendler was convicted of conspiracy to distribute and dispense controlled substances and served 3 years’ probation for his crime. He is remorseful and has taken full responsibility for his criminal actions. In the 40 years since his conviction, Mr. Hendler has lived a law-abiding life and has positively contributed to his community. He is financially stable and owns a successful real estate business. Most notably, he has helped others recover from addiction. Since 1982, he has organized and led weekly AA meetings. He also has mentored many individuals on their journey to sobriety with his radio broadcasts. His former probation officer noted that Mr. Hendler had become “integral” in the lives of many members of the community who were dealing with substance abuse issues. Further, his efforts in addiction and recovery have been recognized by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, who recently appointed him to a state advisory council on drug and alcohol abuse.

John Harold Wall

President Trump granted a full pardon to John Harold Wall. This pardon is supported by former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the former United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota Andrew M. Luger, and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Wall was convicted of aiding and abetting possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine in 1992. He completed a 60 month prison sentence with 4 years’ supervised release.

Steven Samuel Grantham

President Trump granted a full pardon to Steven Samuel Grantham. This pardon is supported by Mr. Grantham’s friends and family who praise his moral character, Acting Attorney Jeffrey Rosen, former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Grantham was convicted in 1967 for stealing a vehicle. He received 18-months imprisonment, and 2 years’ probation. Since his conviction and release from prison, he has demonstrated remorse and accepted responsibility for his crime, which he committed approximately 50 years ago when he was just 19 years old. Mr. Grantham has lived a law-abiding and stable life. Most notably, he stepped in and assumed custody of his grandchild when the child’s parents were unable to care for him. He now seeks a pardon for forgiveness and to restore his gun rights.

Clarence Olin Freeman

President Trump granted a full pardon to Clarence Olin Freeman. This pardon is supported by former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Freeman was convicted in 1965 for operating an illegal whiskey still. He received 9 months imprisonment and 5 years’ probation. Since his conviction and release from prison, Mr. Freeman has led a law-abiding life. He has expressed sincere remorse for his illegal activity and remains mindful of the valuable lesson his conviction taught him. In the approximately 55 years since his conviction, he has built a stable marriage, founded a thriving business, and contributed positively to his community. He has earned a reputation for honesty, hard work, and generosity.

Fred Keith Alford

President Trump granted a full pardon to Fred Keith Alford. This pardon is supported by former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Mr. Alford was convicted in 1977 for a firearm violation and served 1 year’s unsupervised probation. Since his conviction, he has established a stable and law-abiding life and earned a commendable reputation in his small town as a man of great skill, dedication, and integrity.

John Knock

President Trump commuted the sentence of John Knock. This commutation is supported by his family. Mr. Knock is a 73 year-old man, a first-time, non-violent marijuana only offender, who has served 24 years of a life sentence. Mr. Knock has an exemplary prison history, during which he completed college accounting classes and has had zero incident reports.

Kenneth Charles Fragoso

President Trump commuted the sentence of Kenneth Charles Fragoso. Mr. Fragoso is a 66 year-old United States Navy veteran who has served more than 30 years of a life sentence for a nonviolent drug offense. Mr. Fragoso has an exemplary prison history and has worked for UNICOR for over 20 years, learned new trades, and has mentored fellow inmates.

Luis Gonzalez

President Trump commuted the sentence of Luis Gonzalez. Mr. Gonzalez is a 78 year-old non-violent drug offender who has served more than 27 years of a life sentence. Under the First Step Act, Mr. Fragoso would not have been subject to a mandatory life sentence. Mr. Gonzalez has an upstanding prison record and has worked for UNICOR for over 20 years producing military uniforms.

Anthony DeJohn

President Trump commuted the sentence of Anthony DeJohn. Mr. DeJohn has served more than 13 years of a life sentence for conspiracy to distribute marijuana. Mr. DeJohn has maintained a clear disciplinary record and has been recognized for his outstanding work ethic while incarcerated. Mr. DeJohn has employment and housing available to him upon release.

Corvain Cooper

President Trump commuted the sentence of Mr. Corvain Cooper. Mr. Cooper is a 41 year-old father of two girls who has served more than 7 years of a life sentence for his non-violent participation in a conspiracy to distribute marijuana.

Way Quoe Long

President Trump commuted the sentence of Way Quoe Long. Mr. Long is a 58 year-old who has served nearly half of a 50-year sentence for a non-violent conviction for conspiracy to manufacture and distribute marijuana. Mr. Long has spent his incarceration striving to better himself through English proficiency classes and by obtaining his GED. Upon release, Mr. Long will reunite with his family and will be strongly supported as he integrates back into the community.

Michael Pelletier

President Trump commuted the sentence of Michael Pelletier. Mr. Pelletier is a 64 year-old who has served 12 years of a 30 year sentence for conspiracy to distribute marijuana. Mr. Pelletier has maintained a clear disciplinary record, has thrived as an artist working with oil paints on canvas, and has taken several courses to perfect his skill while incarcerated. Upon his release, Mr. Pelletier will have a meaningful place of employment and housing with his brother.

Craig Cesal

President Trump commuted the sentence of Craig Cesal. Mr. Cesal is a father of two, one of whom unfortunately passed away while he was serving his life sentence for conspiracy to distribute marijuana. Mr. Cesal has had an exemplary disciplinary record and has become a paralegal assistant and a Eucharistic Minister in the Catholic Church to assist and guide other prisoners. Upon his release, Mr. Cesal looks forward to reintegrating back into society and to contributing to his community while living with his daughter with whom he has remained close. Mr. Cesal hopes to be a part of her upcoming wedding.

Darrell Frazier

President Trump commuted the sentence of Darrell Frazier. Mr. Frazier is a 60 year-old who has served 29 years of a life sentence for non-violent conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine. Mr. Frazier has had an exemplary disciplinary record in prison and has spent his time creating the Joe Johnson Tennis Foundation, a 501(c)(3) that provides free tennis lessons to hundreds of children in underserved communities. Upon his release, Mr. Frazier will have a meaningful place of employment and housing with his mother.

Lavonne Roach

President Trump commuted the sentence of Lavonne Roach. Ms. Roach has served 23 years of a 30-year sentence for non-violent drug charges. She has had an exemplary prison record and has tutored and mentored other prisoners. Ms. Roach has a strong family support system to help her transition back into the community.

Blanca Virgen

President Trump commuted the sentence of Blanca Virgen. Ms. Virgen has served 12 years of a 30 year sentence. Rather than accept a plea offer of 10 years, Ms. Virgen exercised her constitutional right to trial and received triple the amount of time the government offered her to plead. She has received countless achievement awards from her educational programming in prison. Upon her release, Ms. Virgen will return home to Mexico to care for her four children.

Robert Francis

President Trump commuted the sentence of Robert Francis. Mr. Francis has served 18 years of a life sentence for non-violent drug conspiracy charges. Mr. Francis has a spotless disciplinary record in prison and has been active in his efforts toward rehabilitation. Upon release, Mr. Francis, a father of 3, will live with his sister in Houston, Texas.

Brian Simmons

President Trump commuted the sentence of Brian Simmons. Mr. Simmons has served 5 years of a 15 year sentence for a non-violent conspiracy to manufacture and distribute marijuana. Mr. Simmons has had an exemplary prison record and upon release will have strong support from his fiancée and his community.

Derrick Smith

President Trump commuted the sentence of Derrick Smith. Mr. Smith is a 53 year-old who has served more than 20 years of a nearly 30 year sentence for distribution of drugs to a companion who passed away. Mr. Smith is deeply remorseful for his role in this tragic death and has had an exemplary record while incarcerated. Mr. Smith intends to secure a construction job, care for his mother and his son, and rebuild his relationship with his two other children.

Raymond Hersman

President Trump commuted the sentence of Raymond Hersman. Mr. Hersman is a 55 year-old father of two who has served more than 9 years of a 20 year sentence. While incarcerated, Mr. Hersman has maintained a spotless disciplinary record, worked steadily, and participated in several programming and educational opportunities. Upon release, he looks forward to transitioning back into the community and leading a productive life with strong family support.

David Barren

President Trump commuted the sentence of David Barren. Mr. Barren is a father of 6 children. He has served 13 years of his life sentence in addition to 20 years for a non-violent drug conspiracy charge. Mr. Barren has maintained an exemplary prison record. Upon release, Mr. Barren looks forward to returning home to his family.

James Romans

President Trump commuted the sentence of James Romans. Mr. Romans is a father and a grandfather who received a life sentence without parole for his involvement in a conspiracy to distribute marijuana. Mr. Romans has had an exemplary disciplinary record for the more than 10 years he has served, and has completed a long list of courses. He has already secured job opportunities that will help him successfully re-enter society.

Jonathon Braun

President Trump commuted the sentence of Jonathan Braun. Mr. Braun has served 5 years of a 10-year sentence for conspiracy to import marijuana and to commit money laundering. Upon his release, Mr. Braun will seek employment to support his wife and children.

Michael Harris

President Trump commuted the sentence of Michael Harris. Mr. Harris is a 59 year old who has served 30 years of a 25 year to life sentence for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. Mr. Harris has had an exemplary prison record for three decades. He is a former entrepreneur and has mentored and taught fellow prisoners how to start and run businesses. He has completed courses towards business and journalism degrees. Upon his release, Mr. Harris will have a meaningful place of employment and housing with the support of his family.

Kyle Kimoto

President Trump commuted the sentence of Kyle Kimoto. Mr. Kimoto is a father of six who has served 12 years of his 29 year sentence for a non-violent telemarketing fraud scheme. Mr. Kimoto has been an exemplary prisoner, has held numerous jobs, shown remorse, and mentored other inmates in faith. Upon his release, he has a job offer and will help care for his six children and three grandchildren.

Chalana McFarland

President Trump commuted the sentence of Chalana McFarland. Ms. McFarland has served 15 years of a 30-year sentence. Though she went to trial, Ms. McFarland actually cooperated with authorities by informing them of a potential attack on the United States Attorney. Her co-defendants who pled guilty, however, received lesser sentences ranging from 5 to 87 months. Ms. McFarland was a model inmate and is now under home confinement.

Eliyahu Weinstein

President Trump commuted the sentence of Eliyahu Weinstein. This commutation is supported by former U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman, former Representative Bob Barr, former U.S. Attorney Joseph Whittle, Professor Alan Dershowitz, Representative Mark Walker, Representative Scott Perry, Representative Jeff Van Drew, Jessica Jackson of the Reform Alliance, The Tzedek Association, Dr. Danny Feuer, and numerous victims who have written in support. Mr. Weinstein is the father of seven children and a loving husband. He is currently serving his eighth year of a 24-year sentence for a real estate investment fraud and has maintained an exemplary prison history. Upon his release, he will have strong support from his community and members of his faith.

John Estin Davis

President Trump commuted the sentence of John Estin Davis. This commutation is supported by Caroline Bryan, Luke Bryan, Ellen Boyer, Amy Davis, Kim Davis, Brandon McWherter, Sheila McWherter, Dr. Jeff Hall, Dr. Brad Maltz, Brent Ford, Mark Lotito, Keri Rowland, Mark Rowland, and Stephen Stock. Mr. Davis has spent the last 4 months incarcerated for serving as Chief Executive Office of a healthcare company with a financial conflict of interest. Notably, no one suffered financially as a result of his crime and he has no other criminal record. Prior to his conviction, Mr. Davis was well known in his community as an active supporter of local charities. He is described as hardworking and deeply committed to his family and country. Mr. Davis and his wife have been married for 15 years, and he is the father of three young children.

Alex Adjmi

President Trump granted a full pardon to Alex Adjmi. This pardon is supported by Haim Chera on behalf of his late father Stanley, Robert Cayre, the Sitt family and numerous other community leaders. In 1996, Mr. Adjmi was convicted of a financial crime and served 5 years in prison. Following his release, he has dedicated himself to his community and has supported numerous charitable causes, including support for children with special needs and substance recovery centers.

Elliott Broidy

President Trump granted a full pardon to Elliott Broidy. Mr. Broidy is the former Deputy National Finance Chair of the Republican National Committee. This pardon is supported by Representative Devin Nunes, Representative Ken Calvert, Representative Jack Bergman, Representative George Holding, Ambassador Ric Grenell, Bernie Marcus, Malcolm Hoenlein, Eric Branstad, Tom Hicks, Saul Fox, Lee Samson, Rabbi Steven Leder, Dr. Alveda King, Father Frank Pavone, Major General Clayton Hutmacher, Lieutenant General Bennet Sacolick, Mr. Bruce Brereton, Rabbi Steven Burg, Rabbi Pini Dunner, Rabbi Meyer May, and Rabbi Mordechai Suchard. Mr. Broidy was convicted on one count of conspiracy to serve as an unregistered agent of a foreign principal. Mr. Broidy is well known for his numerous philanthropic efforts, including on behalf of law enforcement, the military and veterans programs, and the Jewish community.

Stephen K. Bannon

President Trump granted a full pardon to Stephen Bannon. Prosecutors pursued Mr. Bannon with charges related to fraud stemming from his involvement in a political project. Mr. Bannon has been an important leader in the conservative movement and is known for his political acumen.

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Douglas Jemal

President Trump granted a full pardon to Douglas Jemal. Mr. Jemal is an American businessman and philanthropist credited with rebuilding many urban inner cities in the United States. In 2008, Mr. Jemal was convicted of fraud. In addition, Mr. Jemal was instrumental to various other charitable causes, including the rebuilding of churches prior to his conviction. Notably, at his trial the presiding judge told prosecutors that he thought it “inconceivable” to send Mr. Jemal to prison.

Noah Kleinman

President Trump commuted the sentence of Noah Kleinman. Mr. Kleinman is a 45-year old father of two children. The mother of his children unfortunately passed away during Mr. Kleinman’s incarceration. Mr. Kleinman has served 6 years of a nearly 20 year sentence for a non-violent crime to distribute marijuana. Mr. Kleinman has had an exemplary prison history and has worked to remain close to his children and his father. Upon release, he looks forward to living with his father, working for the family business, and caring for his children.

Dr. Scott Harkonen

President Trump granted a full pardon Dr. Scott Harkonen. Dr. Harkonen was convicted of fraud based on a misleading caption in a press release with respect to a treatment for a disease. Dr. Harkonen is world renowned for his discovery of a new kidney disease, as well as its cause and treatment. Dr. Harkonen looks forward to returning to medicine.

Johnny D. Phillips, Jr.

President Trump granted a full pardon to Johnny D. Phillips, Jr. This pardon is supported by Senator Rand Paul, the former United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, and numerous members of his community. In 2016, Mr. Phillips was convicted of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud. Mr. Phillips is known as an upstanding citizen and is a valued member of his community. He dedicates his time to his three young children and is an advocate for Type 1 diabetes research.

Dr. Mahmoud Reza Banki

President Trump granted a full pardon to Dr. Mahmoud Reza Banki. This pardon is supported by many elected officials of stature, including the late Representative John Lewis, Senator Diane Feinstein, and other Members of Congress. Dr. Banki is an Iranian American citizen who came to the United States when he was 18 years old. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, before obtaining a PhD from Princeton University and an MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles. In 2010 Dr. Banki was charged with monetary violations of Iranian sanctions and making false statements. The charges related to sanctions violations were subsequently overturned by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. However, the felony charges for making false statements have prevented Dr. Banki from resuming a full life. In the years since his conviction, Dr. Banki has dedicated himself to his community and maintained a sincere love and respect for the United States.

Tena Logan

President Trump commuted the sentence of Tena Logan. Ms. Logan has served 8 years of a 14-year sentence for a non-violent drug offense. She had an exemplary prison record with extensive work and programming, and has assumed several leadership positions. In addition, Ms. Logan was authorized to work outside the perimeter of the prison, and was granted home confinement under the CARES Act last summer. Today, Ms. Logan lives with her husband and works fulltime at a major retail store.

MaryAnne Locke

President Trump commuted the sentence of MaryAnne Locke. Ms. Locke has served roughly 11 years of a nearly 20 year sentence for a non-violent drug offense. Despite the difficulties of beginning her sentence just 6 weeks after having a Caesarean section, her prison record has been exemplary, with extensive programming and work. Ms. Locke was authorized to work outside the perimeter of the prison, and was granted home confinement under the CARES Act last summer. Today, she lives with her father, is building a relationship with her children, and works fulltime at a major retail store.

April Coots

President Trump commuted the sentence of April Coots. Ms. Coots has served more than 10 years of her 20-year sentence for a non-violent drug offense. Throughout her incarceration, she has been an exemplary inmate, obtained an HVAC license, and completed the PAWS apprenticeship program. During the 18 months before the trial, Ms. Coots started a business, completed her GED, and took two semesters of community college classes. Importantly, Ms. Coots has a supportive family and church community that will help her transition and create a stable network for her post-incarceration.

Caroline Yeats

President Trump commuted the sentence of Caroline Yeats. Ms. Yeats was a first-time, non-violent drug offender who has served nearly 7 years of a 20-year sentence. She has been an exemplary inmate who spends her time training service dogs as part of the PAWS program, mentoring other inmates, and she has been a committed member of her faith community. Upon her release, she plans on spending time with her husband of 30 years who suffers from multiple sclerosis.

Jodi Lynn Richter

President Trump commuted the sentence of Jodi Lynn Richter. Ms. Richter has served 10 years of a 15-year sentence for a non-violent drug offense. Ms. Richter has an exemplary prison record, and spends her time training service dogs in the PAWS program, tutoring other inmates in pursuit of their GED, and learning to operate a range of heavy machinery. Her parents have continued to support her and she has various employment opportunities available.

Kristina Bohnenkamp

President Trump commuted the sentence of Kristina Bohnenkamp. Notably, her warden recommended her for home confinement under the CARES Act. Ms. Bohnenkamp has served more than 10 years of a 24 year sentence for a non-violent drug offense. Ms. Bohnenkamp has been an exemplary inmate, with an excellent record of programming and UNICOR work, and she is authorized to work outside the prison perimeter. Upon her release, she is planning on spending time with her sister and brother-in-law and she has various employment opportunities available.

Mary Roberts

President Trump commuted the sentence of Mary Roberts. Ms. Roberts has served 10 years of a 19-year sentence for a non-violent drug offense. She has maintained an exemplary disciplinary record, and a strong programming and work history, including as a part of the PAWS program, UNICOR and food service, and she is authorized to work outside the prison perimeter. Upon her release, Ms. Roberts plans to spend time with her daughter and enjoys strong support from her family. In addition, she has various employment opportunities available.

Cassandra Ann Kasowski

President Trump commuted the sentence of Cassandra Ann Kasowski. Notably, her warden recommended her for home confinement under the CARES Act. Ms. Kasowski has served more than7 years of a 17 year sentence for a non-violent drug offense. She has been an exemplary inmate and has worked extensively, including as a part of the PAWS program and in UNICOR. Upon her release, she plans to spend time with her son and seek employment.

Lerna Lea Paulson

President Trump commuted the sentence of Lerna Lea Paulson. Notably, Ms. Paulson’s warden recommended her for home confinement under the CARES Act. Ms. Paulson has served nearly 7 years of a 17-year sentence for a non-violent drug offense. During her time in prison, she has maintained an exemplary disciplinary record, has worked full-time in UNICOR, and served as a mental health counselor. In addition, she has served an inmate companion as well as a suicide watch companion. She is also authorized to work outside the prison perimeter. Upon her release, she plans on spending time with her family and seek employment.

Ann Butler

President Trump commuted the sentence of Ann Butler. Ms. Butler has served more than 10 years of a nearly 20-year sentence for a non-violent offense. She has an exemplary prison record, with extensive programming and work history and has garnered outstanding evaluations. In addition, she is extraordinarily devoted to her faith. At the time of her arrest, Ms. Butler was caring for five children and held two minimum-wage jobs. Upon her release, Ms. Butler wishes to reunite with her family and seek employment.

Sydney Navarro

President Trump commuted the sentence of Sydney Navarro. Ms. Navarro has served nearly 8 years of a 27-year sentence for a non-violent drug offense. She has an exemplary prison record. In addition, Ms. Navarro obtained her GED, participated in extensive program work, and earned excellent work evaluations. Notably, Ms. Navarro was chosen to speak to at-risk youth in the community through the SHARE program. Upon her release, Ms. Navarro wishes to reunite with her daughter and seek employment.

Tara Perry

President Trump commuted the sentence of Tara Perry. Ms. Perry has served nearly 7 years of a 16-year sentence for a non-violent drug offense. She has maintained an exemplary prison record and has obtained her nursing certification. Ms. Perry also enjoys singing during the prison religious services. Upon her release, Ms. Perry plans to spend time with her mother and seek employment.

John Nystrom

President Trump granted a full pardon to John Nystrom, who, other than this conviction, was described by his sentencing judge as a “model citizen.” His clemency is supported by Governor Kristi Noem and Senator Michael Rounds. Over 10 years ago, while working as a contractor on a school reconstruction project, Mr. Nystrom failed to alert the proper authorities when he learned that a subcontractor was receiving double payments for work performed. Mr. Nystrom took full responsibility for this oversight and even tried to pay the Crowe Creek Tribe, who was paying for the work, restitution before he pled guilty. Mr. Nystrom has since paid his restitution in full. Mr. Nystrom teaches Sunday school and volunteers for the Knights of Columbus and Habitat for Humanity, among other organizations, and has previously served as County Commissioner.

Gregory Jorgensen, Deborah Jorgensen, Martin Jorgensen

President Trump granted full pardons to Gregory and Deborah Jorgensen, and a posthumous pardon to Martin Jorgensen. Governor Kristi Noem and Senator Mike Rounds support clemency for this family, which has an exemplary record of service to their community. In the 1980’s, Gregory and his father, Martin, gathered a group of South Dakota cattle producers to market and sold processed beef. The Jorgensen’s marketed their beef under the Dakota Lean brand and sold the premium product as heart-healthy and antibiotic- and hormone-free. When demand outstripped supply, Gregory, Deborah, and Martin mixed in inferior, commercial beef trim and knowingly sold misbranded beef. Since their convictions in 1996, the Jorgensen’s have served their community devotedly. Gregory was elected twice to the Tripp County Board of Commissioners and spearheaded infrastructure projects to improve access for Native American communities. Deborah is a lifelong member of a non-profit dedicated to promoting educational opportunities for women. And Martin was named National Beef Cattleman’s Association Businessman of the Year. The Jorgensens have shown remorse for their previous action, and in light of decades of exemplary public service, they are well deserving of these pardons.

Jessica Frease

President Trump granted a full pardon to Jessica Frease. This pardon is supported by Governor Kristi Noem, South Dakota State Senator Lynne Hix-DiSanto, the United States Probation Officer responsible for Ms. Frease’s supervision, and many in her community. Ms. Frease was 20 years old when she was convicted after converting stolen checks and negotiating them through the bank where she worked as a teller. Upon her arrest, however, she immediately relinquished the stolen funds to the authorities. After serving her two year sentence, she was granted early termination of her supervised release due to her commendable conduct. Currently, Ms. Frease is studying to become an Emergency Medical Technician and devotes her time and energy to raising funds for cancer patients.

Robert Cannon “Robin” Hayes

President Trump granted a full pardon to Robert Cannon “Robin” Hayes. The former North Carolina Congressman is serving a 1-year term of probation for making a false statement in the course of a Federal investigation. In addition to his years in Congress, Mr. Hayes has served as Chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party and Chair of the National Council of Republican Party Chairs. Senator Thom Tillis and several members of the North Carolina Congressional delegation strongly support clemency for Mr. Hayes.

Thomas Kenton “Ken” Ford

President Trump granted a full pardon to Ken Ford, a 38-year veteran of the coal industry and currently the General Manager of a coal company. Mr. Ford’s pardon is supported by members of the coal mining community, including those with extensive experience in mining operations, safety, and engineering, who describe Mr. Ford as a “model manager” who conducts himself with the utmost professionalism and integrity. Twenty years ago, Mr. Ford made a material misstatement to Federal mining officials. Mr. Ford pled guilty and served a sentence of 3 years’ probation. In the decades since, Mr. Ford has been an upstanding member of his community and has used this experience and his decades of expertise to keep miners safe, including promoting truthfulness and integrity with Federal mining officials, for whom Mr. Ford states that he has the “utmost respect.”

Jon Harder

President Trump commuted the sentence of Jon Harder, former President and CEO of Sunwest Management Inc., who has served nearly 5 years of a 15-year prison sentence. Notable figures, including the Honorable Michael Hogan who served as the Federal judge overseeing Sunwest’s bankruptcy and receivership, Ford Elsaesser who served as counsel to Sunwest’s creditors in receivership, and multiple other individuals involved in the litigation support Mr. Harder’s commutation. Mr. Harder was serving as president and CEO of Sunwest Management Inc., a large management company overseeing residential senior care facilities, when he misused investment funds during the real estate crisis. Mr. Harder fully accepted responsibility, pled guilty, and cooperated with the government’s civil and criminal actions against him at great personal cost. According to former Chief Judge Hogan, Mr. Harder’s full cooperation “against his substantial financial and penal interests” helped secure the sale of the company’s assets, ensuring that Sunwest’s investors recovered more of their investment, seniors could continue living in their facilities, and employees could retain their livelihoods. Mr. Elsaesser stated that “of all the financial wrongdoers that [the court and the Government] dealt with during the real estate crash of 2008, Mr. Harder acted more responsibly than any of his ‘peers.’” President Trump commends Mr. Harder for choosing to put his employees, investors, and the senior citizens residing in Sunwest’s homes above himself.

Scott Conor Crosby

President Trump granted a full pardon to Scott Conor Crosby. Mr. Crosby is supported by Senator Martha McSally, the Mayor and Vice Mayor of Mesa, Arizona, and the Bishop of his church, all of whom attest to Mr. Crosby’s service to his community and upstanding character. In 1992, Mr. Crosby made a “‘spur of the moment’ poor decision” to participate in a co-worker’s plan to commit a bank robbery. Mr. Crosby was arrested the same day and cooperated with the authorities. Since his release from prison, he has spent significant time volunteering at his church, mentoring youth, and has earned a certification as an Emergency Medical Technician. Mr. Crosby’s civil rights were restored by the State of Arizona in 2003, and this action restores his Federal civil rights.

Chris Young

President Trump commuted the remaining sentence of Chris Young. This commutation is supported by the Honorable Kevin H. Sharp, Mr. Young’s sentencing judge, former law enforcement officials and Federal prosecutors, and multitudes of criminal justice reform advocates, including Alice Johnson, Kevin Ring, Jessica Jackson Sloan, Topeka Sam, Amy Povah, the Aleph Institute, Mark Holden, Doug Deason, and David Safavian, among others. Mr. Young, who is 32 years old, has served over 10 years of a 14 year sentence for his role in a drug conspiracy. Although initially sentenced to a mandatory life sentence that Judge Sharp called “not appropriate in any way, shape, or form,” Mr. Young has made productive use of his time in prison by taking courses and learning coding skills. He also has maintained a spotless disciplinary record. Mr. Young’s many supporters describe him as an intelligent, positive person who takes full responsibility for his actions and who lacked a meaningful first chance in life due to what another Federal judge called an “undeniably tragic childhood.” With this commutation, President Trump provides Mr. Young with a second chance.

Adrianne Miller

President Trump commuted the remaining sentence of Adrianne Miller. This commutation is supported by former U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman and the Clemency for All Non-Violent Drug Offenders (CAN-DO) Foundation. Ms. Miller has served 6 years of a 15-year sentence after pleading guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine and possession of a list I chemical. Ms. Miller, who has struggled with drug addiction, has fully committed to rehabilitation while in prison. In addition, she has taken numerous courses including drug education, life management, and has participated in the Life Connections Program, an intensive, multi-phase re-entry program offered by the Bureau of Prisons. She is extremely remorseful, regrets her “destructive choices” and has taken full responsibility for her actions.

Lynn Barney

President Trump granted a full pardon to Lynn Barney. This pardon is supported by Senator Mike Lee, as well as numerous notable members of the Utah business community. Mr. Barney was sentenced to 35 months in prison for possessing a firearm as a previously convicted felon, after having previously been convicted for distributing a small amount of marijuana. Since his release from prison, Mr. Barney has been a model citizen and has devoted himself to his work and children. He is described by his employer as an exceedingly hard worker and a role model to other employees.

Joshua J. Smith

President Trump granted a full pardon to Joshua J. Smith. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, Representative Tim Burchett, Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Corrections Tony Parker, Director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation David Rausch, and numerous other community and faith leaders support the pardon of Mr. Smith. Since his release from prison in 2003 for conspiracy to possess drugs with intent to distribute, Mr. Smith has dedicated his life to his faith and to his community. He is now a successful businessman and has used his financial success to establish Fourth Purpose, a non-profit organization devoted to making prison “a place of transformation.” He has mentored incarcerated individuals and taught business classes to those in prison—including at the prison where he was incarcerated. Mr. Smith has also been heavily involved in mission trips throughout Latin America.

Amy Povah

President Trump granted a full pardon to Amy Povah, the founder of the CAN-DO (Clemency for All Non-violent Drug Offenders) Foundation. In the 1990s, Ms. Povah served 9 years of a 24 year sentence for a drug offense before President Clinton commuted her remaining prison sentence in 2000. Since her release, she has become a voice for the incarcerated, a champion for criminal justice reform, and was a strong advocate for the passage of the First Step Act. Those assisted by Ms. Povah’s organization include Ms. Adrianne Miller, whose remaining prison sentence the President commuted.

Dr. Frederick Nahas

President Trump granted a full pardon to Frederick Nahas. This pardon is supported by Representative Jeff Van Drew. Dr. Nahas is a talented surgeon with a practice in New Jersey. In the 1990s, Dr. Nahas became aware of a Federal investigation into his billing practices. Although the 6-year investigation uncovered no underlying billing fraud, Dr. Nahas did not fully cooperate and ultimately pled guilty to one count of obstructing justice in a health care investigation. Dr. Nahas spent 1 month in prison in 2003 and has spent the subsequent 18 years working tirelessly to regain the trust and admiration of his patients, colleagues, and community.

David Tamman

President Trump granted a full pardon to David Tamman. Mr. Tamman’s pardon is supported by the Aleph Institute, former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Louis Freeh, and former United States Attorney Kendall Coffey. Mr. Tamman was a partner at a major American law firm when he doctored financial documents that were the subject of a Federal investigation. These actions were done at the behest of a client who was perpetrating a Ponzi scheme upon unsuspecting investors. Mr. Tamman was convicted of his crimes following a bench trial and completed his seven-year sentence in 2019. Mr. Tamman accepts full responsibility for his actions and numerous friends and colleagues have attested that he is a decent man who experienced a terrible lapse in judgment for which he has already paid a significant price.

Dr. Faustino Bernadett

President Trump granted a full pardon to Dr. Faustino Bernadett. In approximately early 2008, Dr. Bernadett failed to report a hospital kickback scheme of which he became aware. Notably, he was not part of the underlying scheme itself, and unaffiliated himself with the hospital shortly thereafter. This conviction is the only major blemish on Dr. Bernadett’s record. Although now retired, Dr. Bernadett has spent the past year devoted to helping protect his community from COVID-19, including by: procuring PPE and medical supplies for nurses; advising hospitals on expanding patient capacity and continuing prenatal services; identifying care facilities for first responders and the homeless; providing meals and books to underprivileged students; funding online educational resources for a distressed Catholic elementary school in Dr. Bernadett’s neighborhood; and helping to ensure that senior citizens maintain social connections by training volunteer callers to speak with nursing home residents. In addition, Dr. Bernadett has been deeply involved in philanthropic efforts in his community and he has supported numerous non-profits that provide help to underprivileged communities, support medical research, and promote youth education programs. President Trump determined that it is in the interests of justice and Dr. Bernadett’s community that he may continue his volunteer and charitable work.

Paul Erickson

President Trump has issued a full pardon to Paul Erikson. This pardon is supported by Kellyanne Conway. Mr. Erickson’s conviction was based off the Russian collusion hoax. After finding no grounds to charge him with any crimes with respect to connections with Russia, he was charged with a minor financial crime. Although the Department of Justice sought a lesser sentence, Mr. Erickson was sentenced to 7 years’ imprisonment—nearly double the Department of Justice’s recommended maximum sentence. This pardon helps right the wrongs of what has been revealed to be perhaps the greatest witch hunt in American History.

Kwame Kilpatrick

President Trump commuted the sentence of the former Mayor of Detroit, Kwame Malik Kilpatrick. This commutation is strongly supported by prominent members of the Detroit community, Alveda King, Alice Johnson, Diamond and Silk, Pastor Paula White, Peter Karmanos, Representative Sherry Gay-Dagnogo of the Michigan House of Representatives, Representative Karen Whitsett of the Michigan House of Representatives, and more than 30 faith leaders. Mr. Kilpatrick has served approximately 7 years in prison for his role in a racketeering and bribery scheme while he held public office. During his incarceration, Mr. Kilpatrick has taught public speaking classes and has led Bible Study groups with his fellow inmates.

More:Donald Trump commutes sentence of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick

Fred “Dave” Clark

President Trump commuted Dave Clark’s remaining term of incarceration after serving over 6 years in Federal prison for a first-time, non-violent offense. Mr. Clark’s commutation is supported by Professor Alan Dershowitz, Ken Starr, the Aleph Institute, his family of seven children, and former business colleagues and investors, among others. While in prison, Mr. Clark has lead Bible Study and developed a “Promising People” program to teach inmates technical skills and connect them with faith-based support.

Todd Farha, Thaddeus Bereday, William Kale, Paul Behrens, Peter Clay

President Trump granted full pardons to Todd Farha, Thaddeus Bereday, William Kale, Paul Behrens, and Peter Clay, former executives of a healthcare maintenance organization. Widely cited as a case study in overcriminalization, these men have attracted a broad range of support, including from the CATO Institute, the Reason Foundation, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and various scholars and law professors. In 2008, Messrs. Farha, Bereday, Kale, Behrens, and Clay were criminally prosecuted for a state regulatory matter involving the reporting of expenditures to a state health agency. The expenditures reported were based on actual monies spent, and the reporting methodology was reviewed and endorsed by those with expertise in the state regulatory scheme. Notably, there was no evidence that any of the individuals were motivated by greed. And in fact, the sentencing judge called the likelihood that there was any personal financial motivation “infinitesimal.” The judge imposed a range of sentences from probation to 3 years’ imprisonment, reflecting the conduct as an aberration from these individuals’ otherwise law-abiding lives. Messrs. Farha, Bereday, Kale, Behrens, and Clay are described as devoted to their family and their communities, and have weathered their convictions without complaint.

David Rowland

President Trump granted a full pardon to David Rowland. This pardon is supported by Senator Lindsey Graham. Mr. Rowland’s asbestos removal license had lapsed when he agreed to remove asbestos found in an elementary school. He completed the work in compliance with all other regulations, but received 2 years’ probation for a violation of the Clean Air Act. Mr. Rowland accepts responsibility and is remorseful. In addition, he has given back to his community by continuing to work with the Make-A-Wish Foundation after the completion of his mandatory community service.

Randall “Duke” Cunningham

President Trump granted a conditional pardon to Randall “Duke” Cunningham who was released from prison in 2013. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich strongly supports this pardon. Mr. Cunningham, a former California Congressman, was sentenced to over 8 years’ imprisonment for accepting bribes while he held public office. During his time in prison, Mr. Cunningham tutored other inmates to help them achieve their GED. Mr. Cunningham is a combat veteran, an ace fighter pilot, and a member of the Military Order of Purple Hearts. Although combat-disabled, he continues to serve his community by volunteering with a local fire department and is active in Bible Study.

William Walters

President Trump commuted the sentence of William Walters. This commutation is supported by former Majority Leader Harry Reid, former Governor Jim Gibbons, former Representative Shelley Berkley, former Clark County Sheriff William Young, former Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, numerous professional golfers including Butch Harmon, David Feherty, Peter Jacobsen, and Phil Mickelson, and former 60 minutes correspondent Lara Logan. Mr. Walters was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment for insider trading. Since his conviction, Mr. Walters has served nearly 4 years of his prison sentence and has paid $44 million in fines, forfeitures, and restitution. In addition to his established reputation in the sports and gaming industry, Mr. Walters is well known for his philanthropic efforts and was previously named Las Vegas’ Philanthropist of the Year.

Dwayne Michael Carter Jr.

President Trump granted a full pardon to Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., also known as “Lil Wayne.” Mr. Carter pled guilty to possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon, owing to a conviction over 10 years ago. Brett Berish of Sovereign Brands, who supports a pardon for Mr. Carter, describes him as “trustworthy, kind-hearted and generous.” Mr. Carter has exhibited this generosity through commitment to a variety of charities, including donations to research hospitals and a host of foodbanks. Deion Sanders, who also wrote in support of this pardon, calls Mr. Wayne “a provider for his family, a friend to many, a man of faith, a natural giver to the less fortunate, a waymaker, [and] a game changer.”

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Stephen Odzer

President Trump granted a conditional pardon to Stephen Odzer. This pardon is supported by former Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, Sigmund “Sig” Rogich, Jason Greenblatt, Michael Steinhardt, Wayne Allyn Root, Salvador Moran, the Aleph Institute, and numerous members of Mr. Odzer’s religious community. Mr. Odzer pled guilty to conspiracy and bank fraud, for which he was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Numerous individuals testify to his substantial philanthropic and volunteer activities. His philanthropic endeavors include providing personal protective equipment to front-line workers in New York City hospitals; visiting sick children in hospitals; and donating religious materials to prison inmates and U.S. Service Members around the world. He has also dedicated resources to support and build synagogues in memory of his late cousin who was kidnapped and killed by Muslim terrorists while in Israel. The pardon requires Mr. Odzer to pay the remainder of his restitution order.

James Brian Cruz

President Trump commuted the remaining sentence of James Brian Cruz. Mr. Cruz’s many supporters include Alice Johnson, Dr. Robert Jeffress, Pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, Kelly Shackelford of the First Liberty Institute, several former inmates who Mr. Cruz mentored or ministered, Mr. Cruz’s work supervisor, and several business owners and managers. Mr. Cruz, who has served approximately half of a 40-year sentence for a drug crime, has truly reformed and has worked to better his life and the lives of other inmates while in prison. Several former inmates credit Mr. Cruz, whom they met while incarcerated, as someone who helped changed their life, as “a great source of comfort” for many, and one who helps others without looking for anything in return. Mr. Cruz’s work supervisor describes him as a dependable and hard-working employee, who has “gained the respect of many staff workers and inmates alike” and who helps arguing inmates “make peace.” Mr. Cruz writes that he recognizes the effect drugs have on people, families, and the community, and desires a second chance to “live life as one who upholds the law, and lives to help others.”

Steven Benjamin Floyd

President Trump granted a full pardon to Steven Benjamin Floyd. This pardon is supported by Representative Mark Green. Mr. Floyd joined the United States Marines Corps at age 17 and earned a combat action ribbon in Iraq. He pled guilty to one count of bank robbery by extortion. Since his release from prison in 2009, Mr. Floyd has exemplified the power of second chances, and is raising a family and owns a successful car repair business. Mr. Floyd’s dedication to service includes helping extinguish fires set during the recent unrest and repairing widows and disabled veterans’ cars free of charge. President Trump thanks Mr. Floyd for his past military service and for his commitment to his community.

Joey Hancock

President Trump granted a full pardon to Joey Hancock. Senator Roger Wicker, and Mr. Hancock’s employer, pastor, and other members of his community all support this pardon. Mr. Hancock was convicted for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance. Following his release from prison, Mr. Hancock has been a hard-working employee and active in his church and community.

David E. Miller

President Trump granted a full pardon to David E. Miller. Governor Bill Lee, Mr. Miller’s employer, and numerous colleagues support this pardon. In 2015, Mr. Miller pled guilty to one count of making a false statement to a bank. Today, Mr. Miller is the development director for the charitable organization Men of Valor, where he helps previously incarcerated men rebuild relationships with their faith, family, and society. Governor Lee describes Mr. Miller as having “embraced the ministry’s work and [has] committed himself to doing right and serving others.”

James Austin Hayes

President Trump granted a full pardon to James Austin Hayes. Mr. Hayes’s pardon is supported by Paula White, Rick Hendrick of Hendrick Motorsports, and NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon. Nearly 10 years ago, Mr. Hayes was convicted of conspiracy to commit insider trading. Mr. Hayes cooperated immediately and extensively and disgorged all profits he earned in a related civil action. Since his conviction, Mr. Hayes has been active in his church and his community.

Drew Brownstein

President Trump granted a full pardon to Drew Brownstein, who, other than this conviction, was described by his sentencing judge as someone who “goes out of his way to help people that are less fortunate.” This pardon is supported by the Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division, Makan Delrahim, and several of Mr. Brownstein’s friends and family. Mr. Brownstein was convicted of insider trading and has since paid his fines and forfeitures in full. Both before and after his conviction, Mr. Brownstein has volunteered extensively as a youth coach with the Boys & Girls club in Denver and the Jewish Family Services of Colorado.

Robert Bowker

President Trump granted a full pardon to Robert Bowker. Mr. Bowker’s pardon is supported by Ann Marie Pallan, Sherriff Butch Anderson, and the late Robert Trump. Nearly 30 years ago, Mr. Bowker pled guilty to a violation the Lacey Act, which prohibits trafficking in wildlife, when he arranged for 22 snakes owned by Rudy “Cobra King” Komarek to be transported to the Miami Serpentarium. Although he did not ask for any animals in return, he was offered 22 American alligators. After pleading guilty, Mr. Bowker was sentenced to probation. Mr. Bowker has dedicated resources to animal conservation efforts in the intervening decades, including as a member of the Humane Society of the United States, World Wildlife Fund, and Wildlife Conservation Society.

Amir Khan

President Trump granted a full pardon to Amir Khan. This pardon is supported by his adult children and members of the community. Mr. Khan pled guilty to wire fraud. Notably, he immediately paid back the victim more than in full and has demonstrated remorse for his conduct. Prior to the pandemic, Mr. Khan volunteered at the organization 3 Square Meals, and has regularly donated to charities including St. Jude Children’s Hospital, Boys Town, Covenant House, Tunnel to Towers Foundation, and the Salvation Army.

Shalom Weiss

President Trump commuted the sentence of Shalom Weiss. This commutation is supported by former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese, former Solicitors General Ken Starr and Seth Waxman, former United States Representative Bob Barr, numerous members of the New York legislature, notable legal figures such as Professor Alan Dershowitz and Jay Sekulow, former U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman, and various other former elected officials. Mr. Weiss was convicted of racketeering, wire fraud, money laundering, and obstruction of justice, for which he has already served over 18 years and paid substantial restitution. He is 66 years old and suffers from chronic health conditions.

Salomon Melgen

President Trump commuted the sentence of Salomon Melgen. This commutation is supported by Senator Bob Menendez, Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, numerous members of Brigade 2506, Col. Mark D. Holten, as well as his friends, family, and former employees. Dr. Melgen was convicted of healthcare fraud and false statements. Numerous patients and friends testify to his generosity in treating all patients, especially those unable to pay or unable to afford healthcare insurance.

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Patrick Lee Swisher

President Trump granted a full pardon to Patrick Lee Swisher. This pardon is supported by Representative Dan Bishop, Rick Hendrick, and numerous business associates. Mr. Swisher was convicted of tax fraud and false statements. After his release from prison, Mr. Swisher started a successful business that employs over 1000 individuals. He also is involved in a religious non-profit organization that provides college scholarships to those in his community. In addition, he has mentored former felons and helped them re-integrate into society.

Robert Sherrill

President Trump granted a full pardon to Robert Sherrill. Mr. Sherrill was convicted of conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute cocaine. Mr. Sherrill has taken full responsibility for his criminal past and received treatment for his drug addiction. He started a commercial cleaning business as well as a non-profit organization that mentors at-risk youth.

Dr. Robert S. Corkern

President Trump granted a full pardon to Robert S. Corkern. This pardon is supported by Senators Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith, Governor Phil Bryant, and Dr. Michael Mansour. Dr. Corkern was convicted of Federal program bribery. This pardon will help Dr. Corkern practice medicine in his community, which is in dire need of more doctors as it has struggled to keep up with demand for emergency services. Dr. Corkern served in the Mississippi Army National Guard and has generously provided his services to low-income patients.

David Lamar Clanton

President Trump granted a full pardon to David Lamar Clanton. This pardon is supported by Senator Roger Wicker, Alton Shaw, Mark Galtelli, and Terri Rielley. Mr. Clanton was convicted of false statements and related charges. Mr. Clanton’s supporters testify to his contributions to the community, especially with respect to issues surrounding rural healthcare. Mr. Clanton has been active with 4-H Clubs and other organizations in his community.

George Gilmore

President Trump granted a full pardon to George Gilmore. This pardon is supported by Bill Stepien, former Governor Chris Christie, James McGreevey, James Florio, Donald DiFrancesco, John Bennett, Kimberly Guadagno, Thomas MacArthur, Gerald Cardinale, Michael Testa, Jr., David Avella, Joseph Buckelew, Lawrence Bathgate II, Larry Weitzner, and Adam Geller. Mr. Gilmore was convicted for failure to pay payroll taxes and false statements. Mr. Gilmore has made important civic contributions over his career in New Jersey.

Desiree Perez

President Trump granted a full pardon to Desiree Perez. Ms. Perez was involved in a conspiracy to distribute narcotics. Since her conviction, Ms. Perez has taken full accountability for her actions and has turned her life around. She has been gainfully employed and has been an advocate for criminal justice reform in her community.

Robert “Bob” Zangrillo

President Trump granted a full pardon to Robert Zangrillo. This pardon is supported by Len Blavatnik, Geoff Palmer, Tom Barrack, Sean Parker, Walid Abu-Zalaf, Medo Alsaloussi, and Kevin Downing. Mr. Zangrillo was charged in connection with the Varsity Blues investigation. However, his daughter did not have others take standardized tests for her and she is currently earning a 3.9 GPA at the University of Southern California. Mr. Zangrillo is a well-respected business leader and philanthropist.

Hillel Nahmad

President Trump granted a full pardon to Hillel Nahmad. This pardon is supported by members of his community. Mr. Nahmad was convicted of a sports gambling offense. Since his conviction, he has lived an exemplary life and has been dedicated to the well-being of his community.

Brian McSwain

The President granted a full pardon to Brian McSwain. This pardon is supported by Senator Lindsey Graham, two former United States Attorneys for the District of South Carolina, and other former law enforcement officers. Since serving his 18 month sentence for a drug crime committed in the early 1990s, Mr. McSwain has been gainfully employed and has been passed over for several promotion opportunities due to his felony conviction.

John Duncan Fordham

President Trump granted a full pardon to John Duncan Fordham. Mr. Fordham was convicted on one count of health care fraud. A judge later dismissed the conspiracy charge against him.

William “Ed” Henry

President Trump granted a full pardon to William “Ed” Henry of Alabama. This pardon is supported by Senator Tommy Tuberville. Mr. Henry was sentenced to 2 years’ probation for aiding and abetting the theft of government property and paid a $4,000 fine.

In addition, President Trump commuted the sentences to time served for the following individuals: Jeff Cheney, Marquis Dargon, Jennings Gilbert, Dwayne L. Harrison, Reginald Dinez Johnson, Sharon King, and Hector Madrigal, Sr.

Pa. priest abuse: List of 301 names, with details, from grand jury

On Aug. 14, Pennsylvania released a statewide grand jury report on what the state attorney general's office called an "honest and comprehensive accounting of widespread sexual abuse by more than 300 priests."

The report, more than 800 pages long, lists the name of 301 priests and provides details into specific accusations. The investigation included six dioceses in the state - Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton.

Below are the names listed in the grand jury report, along with where clergy members served and details of allegations.

Diocese of Allentown

Thomas J. Bender

Where served:

5/1961-6/1962 : St. Joseph, Ashland, PA

6/1962-6/1965: St. Joseph, Girardville, PA

6/1965-6/1966: Holy Family, New Philadelphia, PA

6/1965-6/1966 : Marian High School, Tamaqua, PA

6/1966-6/1971 : Nativity High School, Pottsville, PA

6/1966-1/1970 : St. Kiern, Heckscherville, PA

1/1970-6/1970 : St. Mary, St. Clair, PA

6/1970-6/1971 : St. John the Baptist, Pottsville, PA

6/1971-10/1971: Bethlehem Catholic HS, Bethlehem, PA

10/1971- 12/1972: St. Francis Orphanage, Orwigsburg, PA

12/1972-2/1982 Our Lady of Good Counsel, Gordon, PA

6/1973-2/1982: Diocese of Tribunal, Allentown, PA

2/1982-6/1986 Most Blessed Sacrament, Bally

6/1983-6/1987: Liturgical Commission, Diocese of Allentown

6/1986-6/1987: St. Francis of Assisi, Allentown, PA

6/1987- 7/1987: St. Anthony of Padua, Easton, PA

6/1987- 7/1987: Northampton Deanery, Ministry to Aging

7/1987: Regional Director, Council of Catholic Nurses

7/24/1987: Leave of Absence

3/01/2002: Retired

5/06/2005: Dismissed from priesthood

Summary: A review of information received from the Diocese of Allentown indicates that the church was aware of Father Thomas J. Bender's predatory behavior as early as 1972, when Bender was caught in a car with a male student from Nativity High School, where Bender was assigned.

In 1984, a known victim reported that Bender abused him in 1981, while the victim was in seventh grade. The victim reported that he was abused in Bender's bed, where oral and anal sex occured. Bender admitted to abusing the victim. He was sent to psychotherapy but again continued to serve as a priest.

In 1987, Bender was put on a leave of absence. He was eventually arrested, convicted and sentenced to probation. In 2006, while collecting retirement benefits from the church, Bender was arrested in Long Island, New York, while traveling to meet what he believed was a 14-year-old boy for sex. The "boy" was an undercover detective.

Thomas J. Benestad

Where he served:

1970: St. Bernard, Easton, PA

Lafayete College Newman Center

Notre Dame High School

1973 St. Thomas More

1978 Leave of Absence

Holy Rosary

1980 St. Bernard

1988 Our Lady of Perpetual Help

Papal Foundation

2001 Sabbatical

2002 St. Francis of Assisi

2005 Notre Dame of Bethlehem

2006 Leave of Absence

6/2007 Resigned as Pastor

Leave of Absence

9/2007 Ascension, Boca Raton, FL

6/2009 Retired- Pastor Emeritus, Notre Dame of Bethlehem

Summary: Records including email exchanges between the victim and the Diocese of Allentown indicate that in 2001, a known victim reported to the Diocese that Benestad sexually abused him from 1981 through 1983.

The victim was 9 years old when the abuse began. Correspondence demonstrated that the Diocese reported the allegation to the Northampton County District Attorney's Office, which conducted an investigation and found the victim's allegations to be credible.

Robert G. Cofenas

Where he served:

1/1973 - 6/1979: Newman Center, Bethlehem, PA

6/1973 - 6/1975: Assistant Superintendent, Secondary Education, Diocese of Allentown, PA

6/1975 - 2/1979: Catholic Students Advisor, Newman Apostolate, Lehigh University, PA

6/1975 - 2/1979: Catholic Students Advisor, Newman Apostolate, Moravian College, PA

6/1975 - 2/1979: Guidance Counsellor, Norte Dame High School, Easton, PA

6/1975 - 2/1979: Director, Newman Apostolate, Diocese of Allentown

2/1979 - 7/1980: Assistant Superintendent of Education, Diocese of Allentown

2/1979 - 7/1980: St. Simon and Jude, Bethlehem, PA

7/1980 - 5/1981: St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg, Maryland

5/1981 - 6/1988: St. Ignatius Loyola, Sinking Spring, PA

9/1981: Regional Director, American Catholic Overseas Aid Fund

11/1983 - 11/1986: Council of Priests, Diocese of Allentown

6/1988 - 9/1988: St. Ignatius Loyola, Sinking Spring, PA

6/1988 - 10/1989: Diocesan Newspaper

9/1988 - 10/1989: Our Lady of Help of Christians, Allentown, PA

10/1989 - 8/1990: Sabbatical (The Servants of the Paraclete, Jemez Springs, New Mexico)

8/1990 - 6/1997: Our Lady of Help of Christians, Allentown, PA

2/24/1992: Special Advocate, Diocesan Tribunal

6/1997 - 10/2000: St. Catharine of Siena, Reading, PA

2/2000 - 3/2000: Sabbatical (St. John Vianney Treatment Facility, Downingtown)

4/11/2000: Decree of Suspension

2/11/2005: Dismissed from Priesthood

Summary: Records received from the Diocese of Allentown indicate the church was aware of Father Robert G. Cofenas' sexual attraction to young males as early as 1979. While assigned to St. Mary's College in Emmitsburg, Maryland, Cofenas wrote a letter to Bishop McShea dated April 6, 1981. Cofenas wrote: "Yes, I have failed again, but my problem is not so totally out of hand that I cannot with God's help and Dr. Zanni, work to master my situation. Incidentally, prior to now, I had experienced no failure in this matter since 1978."

Cofenas went on to write: "I am deeply sorry for letting you down again. You can imagine how hard it is for me to write this letter-especially when you trusted me and released me to the Mount." Before ending the letter, Cofenas wrote, "I know you want to protect me and I appreciate your concern for me, but I ask you to consider the possibility of my staying at the Mount."

Francis J. Fromholzer

Where he served:

05/1958-09/1959: Holy Ghost, Bethlehem

06/1959-06/1965: Allentown Central Catholic High School

06/1962-09/1962: Holy Ghost (summer assignment)

03/1963-06/1965: Mary, Queen of Peace, Pottsville

06/1965-10/1970: St. Paul, Reading

10/1970-08/1975: St. Mary, Hamburg

08/1975-04/1980: St. Paul, Reading

04/1980-07/1980: Sick leave

07/1980-09/1980: Holy Family Manner, Bethlehem

11/1982-06/1992: St. Paul, Allentown

06/1992-06/1995: St. Peter, Coplay

06/1995-09/2002: St. Paul, Allentown

10/2002: Retired

Summary: Fromholzer sexually abused at least two students while serving as a religion teacher at Allentown Central Catholic High School. On June 12, 2016, the victims testified under oath before the grand jury that they were sexually abused by Fromholzer in 1965 when they were approximately 13 or 14 years old.

One victim was a female, now 68 years old. She recalled that, during a trip to the Poconos in 1964, Fromholzer took her and at least one other girl for a ride in his car. The trip was unsupervised and Julianne' s family was comfortable with the trip since Fromholzer was a trusted priest. Fromholzer groped the girls as he encouraged them to take turns sitting next to him.

James Gaffney

Where he served:

5/1985 - 6/1987: St. Ursula, Fountain Hill, PA

6/1987 - 6/1991: Reading Central Catholic High School

6/1987 - 1/1992: St. Catherine of Siena, Mt. Penn, PA

1/1992 - 6/1992: Sick Leave (The Servants of the Paraclete, New Mexico)

6/1992 - 1/1995: St. Jane Frances de Chantal, Easton, PA

4/1994 - 1/1995: Sick Leave (The Servants of the Paraclete)

1/1995 - 2/1995: Notre Dame of Bethlehem, Bethlehem, PA

2/1995 - 6/1995: St. Mary of the Assumption, Coaldale, PA

6/1995 - 6/1999: Assisted with six parishes in Shenandoah

6/1999 - 4/2002: St. Patrick, Pottsville

4/2002: Abandoned ministry

6/26/2015: Dismissed from Priesthood

Summary: Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Gaffney was reported to have been involved in inappropriate and even sexual relations with adult women, one of which had a learning disability and whom he was counseling.

Another victim reported that Gaffney was giving her counseling for depression and he took advantage of her. He eventually had her submit to intercourse with him.

A third victim also came forward.

Joseph Galko

Where he served:

5/1980 - 6/1982: St. Paul, Reading, PA

6/1982 - 1/1983: St. Anne, Bethlehem, PA

1/1983 - 6/1986: St. Ambrose, Schuylkill Haven, PA

6/1986 - 7/1987: St. Bernard, Easton, PA

2/12/1988: Placed on Administrative leave

6/2010: Dismissed from the Priesthood

Summary: Father Joseph Galko was ordained and began work in the Diocese in 1980. Records received from the Diocese indicate that, as early as 1984, the Diocese was aware of inappropriate sexual conduct by Galko.

Galko admitted to the Diocesan Chancellor in 1984 to having sexual contact with a male parishioner who was eighteen at the time. Galko also admitted that, while at St. Ambrose in Schuylkill Haven, Schuylkill County, he inappropriately touched a male while they were in the rectory. Galko performed oral sex on the male and had the male perform oral sex on him. Galko further admitted to "occasional occurrences" over a span of many years.

Edward George Ganster

Where he served:

4/13/1971 - 8/19/1975: Assistant Pastor, Notre Dame, Bethlehem, PA

4/13/1971 - 2/4/1972: Associate Professor, Bethlehem Catholic High School, PA

7/9/1973 - 10/10/1978: Regional Director, C.Y. 0., Bethlehem District

8/19/1975 - 9/9/1976: Assistant, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Bethlehem, PA

9/9/1976 - 10/10/1978: St. Joseph, Easton, PA

10/10/1978 - 6/15/1981: Assistant, St. Ignatius Loyola, Sinking Spring, PA

10/10/1978 - 6/15/1981: American Catholic Overseas Aid Fund

6/15/1981 - 5/4/1982: Pastor, St. Joseph, Frackville, PA

9/18/1981 - 4/2919/1986: Catholic Daughters of the Americas Court St. James

10/08/1981 - 2/1/1982: Sick Leave

2/1/1982 - 5/4/1982: Returned as Pastor, St. Joseph, Frackville, PA

5/4/1982 - 9/7/1982: Sick Leave

9/7/1982 - 1/18/1983: Assistant, St. Ambrose, Schuylkill Haven, PA

10/01/1982 - 7/25/1983: Catholic Student Advisor, Penn State University Campus Ministry

1/18/1983 - 4/29/1986: Pastor, SS. Peter and Paul, Tower City, PA

1/13/1984: Member, Diocesan Building Committee

2/10/1984 - 4/29/1986: Member, Budget Board, Cardinal Brennan High School

4/29/1986 - 3/3/1988: Holy Ghost, Bethlehem, PA

7/10/1986 - 6/13/1988: Regional Director, Pro -Life, Northampton Deanery, PA

12/27/1987: Sick Leave

8/8/1990: Laicized

7/3/2014: Deceased

Summary: A male reported that when he was when he was 14 years old and an altar boy at St. Joseph in Frackville, he was fondled and groped by Father Edward George Ganster. On one occasion, Ganster dragged the boy across a living room floor, pulling him by the underwear. Ganster also beat the victim repeatedly, once using a metal cross. The abuse at the hands of Ganster lasted for over one and a half years and all happened in St. Joseph's Rectory. The victim made a second report to the Diocese in March 2004.

Ganster eventually left the priesthood to get married, but there were other victims who came forward.

The Diocese later wrote Ganster a reference letter while he was seeking employment at Walt Disney World. With the positive reference from the diocese, Ganster was hired by Walt Disney World and worked there for 18 years.

Francis T. Gilespie

Where he served:

5/1959 - 5/1963: St. Joseph's, Girardville, PA

5/1963 - 10/1965: Nativity HS, Pottsville, PA

6/1963 - 9/1963: St. Patrick's, Pottsville, PA (Asst. Pro Tem)

6/1965 - 3/1969: Notre Dame of Bethlehem, Bethlehem, PA

3/1966 - 5/1972: St. Jane Frances de Chantal, Easton, PA / Moravian College (student advisor)

5/1972 - 11/1974: Our lady of Mount Carmel, Minersville, PA

11/1974 - 9/1994: St. Joseph's, Girardville, PA

9/1994 - 11/1996: St. Margaret, Reading, PA

11/1996 - 12/2002: Annunciation of B.V.M., Catasauqua, PA

12/13/2002: Retired

Summary: In September 2002, a victim wrote a letter reporting sexual abuse by Father Francis T. Gillespie. The victim reported that, while he was an altar boy at about the age of ten at St. Joseph's in Girardville, Gillespie began grooming him for future abuse.

The victim reported that he stayed the night at Gillespie's residence on several occasions. The victim reported that Gillespie would drink alcohol during the sleepovers. The victim recalled an occasion when Gillespie gave him cold medication and in addition had him drink alcohol. The victim described this night as a "blackout" and "confusing." The victim recalls waking up naked in bed with Gillespie who had his arm around the victim. In three separate documents regarding the victim, all provided by the Diocese, the victim reported that Gillespie performed oral sex on him.

Edward R. Graff

Where he served:

06/1955 - 04/1957: Annunciation B.V.M., Shenandoah

04/1957 - 05/1958: St. Anthony of Padua, Easton

05/1958 - 09/1958: St. Elizabeth's, Pen Argyl

09/1958 - 09/1959: Pius X High School, Roseto

09/1959 - 06/1962: Residence, St. Anthony, Easton

06/1962 - 09/1963: University of Notre Dame

09/1963 - 03/1964: Our Lady Help of Christians, Allentown

03/1964 - 07/1964: St. Elizabeth, Pen Argyl

07/1964 - 02/1965: Pius X High School, Roseto

02/1965 - 11/1966: Holy Rosary, Reading;

Central Catholic High School, Reading

11/1966- 08/1968: Holy Name High School, Reading

08/1968- 10/1969: St. Margaret, Reading

10/1969- 04/1971: St Peter, Coplay

04/1971- 04/1974: Annunciation B.V.M., Catasauqua

04/1974 - 11/1979: Director, Thanksgiving Clothing Drive

11/1979 - 07/1980: Sick Leave

07/1980 - 06/1983: St. Margaret, Reading

06/1983 - 02/1992: Holy Guardian Angels, Reading

02/1992: Departed Diocese of Allentown

1992 - 2002: Served in various capacities in Dioceses in New Mexico and Texas

Summary: During his years in ministry, Graff raped scores of children. The grand jury investigated not only Graff's conduct but the knowledge of the relevant Dioceses. The case of Graff is an example of dioceses that minimized the criminal conduct of one of their priests, while secretly noting the significant danger the priest posed to the public.

The grand jury notes that the use of euphemisms was constant throughout the Dioceses of Pennsylvania, but particularly apparent in the case of Graff. Terms such as "sick leave" or "health leave" were often used to reference an absence from ministry related to child sexual abuse.

Richard J. Guiliani

Where he served:

3/1968 - 5/1968: Assistant, St. Peter, Reading, PA

5/1968 - 6/1969: Regional Director, Thanksgiving Clothing Drive, Berks Co.

6/1969 - 9/1969: Assistant, St. Canicus, Mahanoy City, PA

9/1969 - 6/1970: Assistant, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Bethlehem, PA

6/1970 - 6/1970: Professor, Notre Dame High School, Easton, PA

6/1970 - 6/1973: Resident, Sacred Heart, Miller Heights, PA

6/1973 - 6/1974: Vice Principal, Notre Dame High School, Easton, PA

6/1974 - 6/1974: Principal, Cardinal Brennan High School, Fount Springs

6/1974 - 6/1974: Resident, St. Vincent de Paul, Girardville, PA.

1977: Absent without leave from the Allentown Diocese

2011: Last known address: St. Augustine, Florida

Summary:

In October 2003, a victim wrote to Bishop Edward Cullen stating that she had been sexually abused by Father Richard Guiliani. The victim was abused from the ages of 14 to 18.

Guiliani began with hugging and kissing the victim. He then began to fondle the victim's genitals through her clothing.

The victim recalled Guiliani telling her that he would protect her, that she could trust him, and that she should keep coming to him for help. Guiliani told the victim she deserved to be "cared for and loved."

The victim recalled the last time she had contact with Guiliani was when she was a freshman in college. He wanted to have sex with the victim and asked her to marry him. The victim refused to have further sexual involvement with Guiliani and declined his marriage proposal. He never contacted her again.

Joseph D. Hulko

Where he served:

6/1/1967 - 8/24/1970: Priest Professor, Reading Central Catholic High School

6/1/1967 - 8/17/1970: Resident, SS Cyril and Methodius, Reading, PA

7/9/1969: Advocate, Diocesan Tribunal

7/6/1970 - 8/17/1970: Newman Center, Bethlehem, PA

8/17/1970 - 8/24/1970: Resident, St. Catharine of Siena, Reading, PA

8/24/1970 - 6/20/1977: Principal, Nativity High School, Pottsville, PA

8/24/1970 - 6/18/1971: Resident, Mary Queen of Peace, Pottsville, PA

6/18/1971 - 10/18/1971: Chaplain, St. Francis Orphanage, Orwigsburg, PA

10/18/1971 - 6/20/1977: Resident, St. John the Baptist, Pottsville, PA

6/20/1977 - 1/6/1978: Assistant, St. John the Baptist, Pottsville, PA

1/6/1978 - 8/16/1982: Pastor, St. Michael, Lansford, PA

6/20/1978 - 10/1/1982: Regional Director, Family Life Center, Berks, Carbon and East Schuylkill Counties, PA

9/4/1981 - 2/15/1982: Sick Leave

8/16/1982 - 6/20/1985: Sick Leave

6/20/1985 - 6/16/1987: Assistant Pastor, St. Margaret, Reading, PA

11/1/1986 - 11/1/1989: Assistant Pastor Representative, Council of Priests

6/16/1987 - 9/27/1988:Assistant Pastor, St. John Baptist de LaSalle, Shillington, PA

9/27/1988 - 6/14/1990: Assistant Pastor, St. Bernard, Easton, PA

11/1/1989 - 10/31/1992: Pastor Representative, Council of Priests

6/14/1990 - 9/2/1994:Assistant Professor, St. Joseph, Limeport, PA

8/3/1992: Assistant Pastor Representative, Advisory Committee, Priestly Life and Ministry

11/1/1992 - 10/31/1995: Assistant Pastor Representative, Council of Priests

9/2/1994 - 1/01/1995: Assistant Pastor, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Bethlehem, PA

1/1/1995 - 6/15/1995: Resident, Holy Family Villa,

6/15/1995 - 6/13/2000: Assistant Pastor, St. Anthony of Padua, Easton, PA

6/13/2000 - 8/31/2003:Assistant Pastor, Notre Dame of Bethlehem, Bethlehem, PA

9/1/2003: Retired

Summary: In September 2003, Father Joseph Hulko admitted to the Diocese that he sexually abused a minor female while he was the Chaplain at St. Francis Orphanage in Orwigsburg, between June 1971 and October 1971. Hulko expressed that he had been troubled by it for a number of years, which prompted him to admit the abuse.

Hulko described himself as a “sex addict.”

Prior to Hulko admitting to the sexual abuse of a minor, he was sent for "treatment" six different times between 1982 and 2003.

In a memorandum dated January 15, 2015, a monsignor wrote to administrative personnel that Hulko had moved to Robertsville, Missouri, and "please send his pension checks directly to him."

Joseph H. Kean

Where he served:

3/1964 - 8/1964: St. Joseph, Ashland, PA

8/1964 - 6/1965: St. Mary, St. Clair, PA

6/1965 - 11/1967: St. Paul, Allentown, PA

1/1967 - 8/1970: St. Paul, Reading, PA

8/1970 - 2/1971: Annunciation, Shenandoah, PA

2/1971 - 12/1973: Marian HS, Tamaqua, PA

2/1971 - 12/1973: Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Nesquehoning, PA

6/1973 - 6/1975: St. Simon and Jude, Bethlehem, PA

6/1975 - 1/1977: St. Jane, Easton, PA

1/1977 - 1/1983: SS Peter and Paul, Tower City, PA

1/1983 - 9/1987: SS Peter and Paul, Lehighton, PA

9/1987 - 3/1993: St. Joseph, Ashland, PA

2/1/2002: Retired

6/26/2007: Dismissed from Priesthood

Summary: On December 22, 1992, Reverend Francis J. Shuster wrote a letter to Bishop Thomas J. Welsh. Shuster related that he had been in contact with a parishioner who told him that her son was molested by Father Joseph H. Kean, then Pastor in Tower City. The sexual abuse was reported to have occurred when the victim was twelve years old and continued for several years.

Thomas J. Kerestus

Where he served:

6/11/1969 - 10/27/1969: Assistant, Annunciation B.V.M., Shenandoah, PA

10/27/1969 - 1/6/1970: Regional Director, C.Y.O., Mid -Schuylkill County

1/6/1970 - 8/24/1970: Area Chaplain, Appalachian Trail Scouting Council

8/24/1970 - 6/18/1970: Regional Director, Bishop's Overseas Aid, East Schuylkill

County, PA

6/18/1970 - 7/8/1971: Assistant, St. Peter, Reading, PA

7/8/1971 - 11/4/1974: Assistant, Our Lady of Hungary, Northampton, PA

11/4/1974 - 9/9/1976: Regional Director, C.Y.O., Northampton County, PA

9/9/1976 - 12/15/1977: Assistant, Sacred Heart, W. Reading, PA

12/15/1977 - 2/25/1982: Assistant, St. Ambrose, Schuylkill Haven, PA; Regional Director, C.Y.O. West Schuylkill County, PA;

2/25/1982 - 5/29/1986: Pastor, St. John Capistrano, Bethlehem, PA

5/29/1986 - 6/19/1986: Leave of absence

6/19/1986 - 6/14/1990: Assistant Pastor, Sacred Heart, Allentown, PA

6/14/1990 - 7/27/1993: Chaplain, Sacred Heart Hospital, Allentown, PA

7/27/1993 - 3/1/2002: Resident, Holy Family Villa

3/1/2002 - 9/17/2014: Retired

Summary: Records of the Diocese of Allentown revealed that parishioners of St. John Capistrano in Bethlehem wrote multiple letters to Bishop Welsh between March 1985 and April 1986 informing him of their concern about Father Thomas Kerestus' relationship with a 16 -year-old boy.

At least three victims came forward reporting sexual abuse by Kerestus.

Francis Joseph McNelis

Where he served:

6/1/1965 - 6/1/1966: Annunciation B.V.M., Shenandoah, PA

6/1/1966 - 11/1/1966: St. Joseph, Girardville, PA

11/1/1966 - 8/4/1967: Regional Director, C.Y.O., East Schuylkill County, PA

8/4/1967 - 6/11/1969: Regional Director, Thanksgiving Clothing Drive, East Schuylkill County, PA

6/11/1969 - 6/3/1970: St. Jerome, Tamaqua, PA

6/3/1970 - 6/9/1970: St. Theresa, Hellertown, PA

6/9/1970 - 9/25/1970: Regional Director, C.Y.O., Northampton County, PA

9/25/1970 - 4/4/1972: St. John the Baptist, Shillington, PA

4/4/1972 - 9/19/1972: St. Francis, Easton, PA

9/19/1972 - 8/30/1974: Regional Director, Thanksgiving Clothing Drive, Northampton County, PA

8/30/1974 - 6/17/1975: St. Ann, Emmaus, PA

6/17/1975 - 6/16/1980: St. Mary, and St. Boniface, St. Clair, Schuylkill County, PA

6/16/1980 - 6/20/1985: St. Mary, St. Clair, Schuylkill County, PA

6/20/1985 - 6/4/1993: St. Mary, Hamburg, PA

6/4/1993 - 1/14/1994: Sick Leave (Jemez Springs, New Mexico)

1/14/1994 - 3/1/2002: St. Ignatius, Loyola, Sinking Spring, PA

3/1/2002: Retired

Summary: In December 1992, a known victim reported that, between 1966 and 1968, Father Francis McNelis sexually abused him when he was between the ages of 10 and 13. McNelis told the victim he wanted to have anal sex with him, but that did not occur.

Other victims came forward and said McNeils forcibly performed oral sex on them.

Gabriel Patil

Where he served:

6/3/1974: Permission to exercise mission within Diocese

Summary: Father Gabriel Patil, a priest of the Clerics Regular of St. Paul, known as the Barnabites, was given permission to exercise his ministry within the Diocese of Allentown. The Diocese provided no other assignment history.

Correspondence between the Diocese and the Barnabites shows that, in 2003, a victim reported to the Diocese that he and four of his friends were abused by Patil. The abuse occurred on the property of the Bethlehem Catholic High School during the late 1970's and early 1980's, when the victims were seven to nine years old.

The victim reported that he and the four other known victims were living near the high school at the time. Patil would invite the boys into his residence at the high school and play hide and seek with the boys. While playing hide and seek Patil would have the boys sit on his lap. He would open the boys' pants and fondle their genitals. It is important for you to note the following.

The reported noted that Father Patil is not a priest of the Diocese of Allentown. He is a member of the Barnabite Fathers religious order, not under the supervision of the Diocese of Allentown.

Patil went on to serve as a priest in Buffalo, New York, Youngstown, Ohio, and then with a delegation in the country of India. In 2010, Patil requested that he be allowed to return to the Diocese and exercise his public ministry. The Diocese did not permit Patil to return.

Henry Paul

No assignment history was noted.

Summary: Father Henry Paul was ordained in 1941 as a religious priest from an Order known as the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales. He worked in various positions in the Pennsylvania Dioceses of Erie, Philadelphia, and Allentown, the New York Dioceses of Buffalo and New York City, and Salesianum School in Wilmington, Delaware.

An individual reported that Paul took the little girls to the rectory and kissed them. One girl went home and told her mother that she knew how to "French kiss." When the mother asked how the little girl knew that, she responded that Father Paul had showed her.

Three or four other children reported that they had kissed Paul and, while they did not use the term, they described a French kiss. None of the children were over the age of 12.

Paul G. Puza

Where he served:

6/1975 - 6/1976: St. Bernard, Easton, PA

6/1975 - 6/1976: Lafayette college, Easton, PA

6/1976 - 6/1977: Northampton County Regional Director of Vocations

6/1976 - 6/1977: St. Anne, Bethlehem, PA

6/1977 - 6/1978: Central Catholic High School, Reading, PA

6/1977 - 6/1978: St. Joseph, Reading, PA

6/1978 - 6/1981: St. Casimir, Shenandoah, PA

6/1978 - 6/1981: Catholic Scouting, Schuylkill County, PA

6/1981 - 11/1981: St. Anthony, Easton, PA

11/1985 - 8/1983: St. Stanislaus Kostka, Minersville, PA

8/1983 - 6/1989: St. Anthony of Padua, Cumbola

8/1983 - 6/1989: Nativity B.V.M. High School, Pottsville, PA

6/1989 - 2/2002: St. Richard, Barnesville, PA

6/1989 - 3/2002: Marian High School, Tamaqua, PA

2002: Resigned and ordered to refrain from public ministry

6/2010: Dismissed from Priesthood

Summary: On September 9, 1991, a former seminarian from the Diocese met with Bishop Welsh and told him that he was molested three times, involving oral sex, by Father Paul Puza when he was in the eighth grade.

Dennis A. Rigney

Where he served:

5/21/1966-6/01/1966: Ordained in Cathedral of St. Cathedral of Siena, Allentown, PA. by Bishop McShea

6/1/1966 - 6/1/1966: St. Peter, Reading, PA

6/1/1966 - 3/27/1969: Secretary Tribunal, Diocese of Allentown

3/27/1969 - 7/9/1969: Spanish Apostolate

7/9/1969 - 7/9/1969: Diocesan Tribunal

7/9/1969 - 11/1/1969: Regional Director, Spanish Apostolate, Berks County, PA

11/1/1969 - 1/1/1970: Council of Priests -Diocesan Consultors

1/1/1970 - 10/12/1971: Executive Dire. And Moderator, Social Action Bureau

10/12/1971 - 6/14/1974: Council of Priests -Diocesan Consultors

6/14/1974 - 6/14/1974: Executive Secretary and Coordinator Council of Social Services

6/14/1974 - 6/14/1974: Director, Family Life Bureau

6/14/1974 - 6/14/1974: Director, Catholic Charities & Catholic Social Agency

6/14/1974 - 6/14/1974: St. Peter, Reading, PA

6/14/1974 - 8/19/1975: Pastoral Council, Diocese of Allentown

8/19/1975 - 9/26/1975: Our Lady Help of Christians, Allentown, PA

9/26/1975 - 11/1/1975: Director of Marriage Encounter, Allentown, PA

11/1/1975 - 8/1/1977: Council of Priests -Diocesan Consultors

8/1/1977 - 11/1/1978: St. Paul, Allentown, PA

11/1/1978 - 6/1/1981: Council of Priests -Diocesan Consultors

6/1/1981 - 11/1/1981: Diocesan Consultor

11/1/1981 - 1/26/1982: Council of Priests

1/26/1982 - 9/26/1983: St. Vincent de Paul Society

9/26/1983 - 9/26/1983: Holy Family Manor, Bethlehem, PA

9/26/1983 - 11/15/1983: Holy Family Villa, Bethlehem, PA

11/15/1983 - 11/15/1983: Diocesan director, Holy Family Health Care Agency, Schuylkill County, PA

11/15/1983 - 1/1/1984: Diocesan Director; Project H.E.A.D.

1/1/1984 - 12/31/1985: PCC Administrative Board

6/16/1987 - 6/16/1987: St. Francis of Assisi, Allentown, PA

6/16/1987 - 6/8/1995: Bethlehem Priest Director, Holy Family Manor, (President and CEO)

6/8/1995 - 10/29/1997: Board of Directors Catholic Social Agency

10/29/1997 - 12/3/2000: Board of Seton Manor, Inc.

12/3/2000 - 5/1/2002: Board of Covenant Home Care, Inc.

Summary: A parishioner claimed she was "fondled in the area of the vagina "when she was about 12 or 13" by Rigney. On April 4, 1988, Rigney wrote a 23 page document to Welsh after allegations were made that Rigney "stroked a female minor's vagina." The letter denied any inappropriate touching or actions and painted both the victim and her family as highly dysfunctional and not credible, trying to convince the bishop of the same. Rigney's letter was in response to a letter sent to the Allentown Diocese from a relative of the victim.

On April 9, 2002, a woman telephoned the Chancery stating she had been touched inappropriately by a priest when she was about age nine or 10. The touching occurred over a one-year period from 1966 to 1967. Later that year, Rigney requested early retirement citing medical reasons.

Joseph A. Rock

Where he served:

2/1972 - 9/1972: Sacred Heart of Jesus, Allentown, PA

5/1972 - 5/1975: Catholic Scouting, Allentown Area

6/1972 - 2/1975: Catholic Youth Organization, Lehigh County, PA

9/1972 - 2/1975: St. Catherine of Siena, Allentown, PA

2/1975 - 9/1976: St. Ignatius Loyola, Reading, PA

3/1975 - 9/1976: Scouts, Hawk Mountain, Berks County, PA

6/1975 - 9/1976: Catholic Youth Organization, Berks County, PA

9/1976 - 8/1977: St. Simon and Jude, Bethlehem, PA

9/1976 - 4/1982: Scouts, Minsi Trails Council, Lehigh County, PA

9/1976 - 6/1982: Catholic Youth Organization, Bethlehem, PA

8/1977 - 3/1982: Our Lady Help of Christians, Allentown, PA

3/1982 - 2/1986: St. Francis de Sales, Mount Carbon, PA

6/1983 - 2/1986: Catholic Scouting, Diocese of Allentown

9/1983 - 9/1986: Social Action Bureau Advisory Board, West Schuylkill County

6/1985 - 2/1986: Youth Ministry

2/1986 - 9/1986: Sick Leave

9/1986 - 10/2001: Holy Family Manor

10/1999 - 10/2001: Retired

5/2005: Dismissed from Priesthood

Summary: In 1986, two reports were made to the Diocese of Allentown indicating sexual contact with three boys by Father Joseph Rock. One incident occurred in 1983 when the victim was nine years old. The victim stated that Rock touched him by fondling and masturbation. In addition, two brothers came forward claiming that, in the early 1980's while they were still minors, Rock sexually touched them through their clothes.

In February 1986, Rock was placed on "sick leave.” He was sent to a Chancery for evaluation and the staff later reported back to the diocese, “He…is no longer capable of functioning in a responsible work situation, and his life is unmanageable.”

Several other victim testimonies against Chancery were noted.

Gerald Royer

Where he served:

6/1947 - 1/1948: St. Bartholomew, Brockton

1/1948 - 6/1948: St. Simon and Jude, Bethlehem

6/1948 - 12/1948: St. Bartholomew, Brockton

12/1948 - 6/1950: St. Catherine of Siena, Reading

6/1950 - 5/1952: St. Joseph, Girardsville

5/1952 - 1/1953: Annunciation, Shenandoah

1/1953 - 3/1954: Chaplain, Convent of Divine Love

3/1954 - 11/1955: St. Mary of the Assumption, Philadelphia

11/1955 - 2/1956: Leave of Absence

2/1956 - 5/1956: St. Jane Frances de Chantal, Easton

5/1956 - 4/1960: St. Paul, Reading

4/1960 - 7/1961: Leave of Absence

7/1961 - 8/1964: Chaplain, St. Joseph's Manor

8/1964 - 2/1965: Left active ministry (laicized)

Summary: Held in the secret archives of the Diocese of Allentown was a folder titled by a victim's name. Inside the folder was information describing the sexual abuse of a minor that occurred in 1948. The abuser was Father Gerald Royer. At the time of the abuse in 1948, the Diocese of Allentown did not exist and the location was under the control of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

In January 2003, the victim, then in his sixties, made a report of sexual abuse to the Diocese against Royer. Because Royer was under the authority of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia at the time of the sexual abuse, the Diocese referred this victim to Monsignor William Lynn, Vicar for Clergy of the Archdiocese.

The Diocese of Allentown began paying for counseling then referred the costs to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in June 2003.He was a fatherless, 12 -year -old boy. His mother was happy that a priest took interest in her son. Royer would kiss the victim and the kissing progressed to molestation. Royer would abuse the child behind the airport in Allentown, in his home, and in the rectory.The child told a friend who did not believe him. During one abuse, the friend hid in the closet and watched Royer molest the victim. The child who witnessed the abuse could not fathom what had just occurred.

The victim never told his wife why he could not hug or kiss his own children, who were boys. He was unable to be affectionate with his grandchildren. To this day, he cannot shake hands with men. He cannot be seen by male doctors or dentists.

Charles J. Ruffenach

Where he served:

6/11/1930 - 6/8/1931: Holy Ghost, Bethlehem, PA

608/1931 - 9/20/1934: St. Mary of the Assumption, Philadelphia, PA

9/20/1934 - 7/2/1979: St. John the Baptist, Stiles

7/02/1979 - 7/4/1980: St. John the Baptist, Stiles Holy Family Villa

7/04/1980: Deceased

Summary:

On August 29, 2001, an adult victim contacted the Diocese to report physical and sexual abuse at the hands of Father Charles Ruffenach beginning in approximately 1945, when the victim was in first grade, and continuing through the eighth grade.

The victim stated that Ruffenach beat, paddled, and sexually abused him when he attended St. John the Baptist school. The abuse took place on the premises of the parish, specifically in the boiler room. The victim also reported at the time of abuse Ruffenach referred to it as "washing his penis." In the late 1980's, the victim confronted Ruffenach regarding the abuse. Ruffenach denied the allegations. However, during the confrontation, Ruffenach claimed that during the time of incident the victim wanted him to "wash his penis."

At the time of the report by the victim, the Diocese responded by stating that Ruffenach was deceased and therefore it could not pursue the victim's claims any further but offered the victim counseling.

J. Pascal Sabas

Where he served:

10/1955 - 10/1957: Vocation Director, New York

10/1957 - 10/1958: House Discretus and Purser, New York

10/1958 - 10/1960: Administrator, St. Vincent de Paul, Pittsburgh, PA

10/1960 - 10/1962: Assistant, Sacred Heart, Yarmouth, Maine

10/1962 - 5/21/1963: Assistant, St. Joseph, Portland, Maine

5/21/1963 - 5/20/1964: Assistant, St. Francis of Assisi, Minersville, PA

5/20/1964 - 9/1/1965: Assistant, St. Francis of Assisi, Allentown, PA

9/1/1965 - 11/1/1966: Assistant, St. Patrick, Pottsville, PA

11/1/1966 - 4/4/1967: Regional Director, Bishop's Relief Agency, West Schuylkill, PA

4/4/1967 - 1/18/1971: Administrator, St. Vincent de Paul, Girardville, PA

1/18/1971 - 8/1/1977: Pastor, St. Vincent de Paul, Girardville, PA

8/1/1977 - 10/1/1977: Administrator, St. Ignatius Loyola, Sinking Spring, PA

10/1/1977 - 3/4/1980: Pastor, St. Ignatius Loyola, Sinking Spring, PA

3/4/1980 - 6/1/1983: Pro -Synodal Examiner

6/1/1983 - 8/16/1983: Priest Representative Diocesan Board of Education, Berks County, PA

8/16/1983 - 10/1/1985: Pastor, St. George, Shenandoah, PA

10/1/1985 - 12/16/1986: Returning to Religious Life

12/16/1986 - 3/19/1987: Assistant, St. Anthony, Easton, PA

3/19/1987 - 6/14/1988: Chaplain, Catholic Daughters of the Americas

6/14/1988 - 6/1989: Assistant Pastor, St. John the Baptist, Shillington, PA

6/1989 - 11/1/1991: Sick Leave

11/1/1991 - 1996: Retired

Summary: At the age of 14, a boy was sexually abused by Father J. Pascal Sabas beginning in 1964. Sabas would come over to the house to play with toy cars, and then abuse the victim while they were alone in the basement. Sabas also abused the victim while in the corridor of his school and after the victim served Mass as an altar boy.

Sabas also threatened the victim, telling him, "Don't tell your parents. They would be very hurt if they knew what you were doing."

The abuse only ended when Sabas was transferred out of the victim's parish.

William J. Shields

Where he served:

5/29/1958 - 5/27/1960: Assistant, St. Ambrose, Schuylkill Haven, PA

5/27/1960 - 2/23/1962: Assistant, St. John Baptist de la Salle, Shillington, PA

2/23/1962 - 9/4/1962: Assistant, St. Mary, Hamburg, PA

9/4/1962 - 10/30/1964: Assistant, Annunciation B.V.M., Shenandoah, PA

10/30/1964 - 12/9/1966: Regional Director, Bishop's Relief, Upper Schuylkill County, PA

12/9/1966 - 11/29/1967: Bishop's Relief Agency, East Schuylkill County, PA

11/29/1967 - 8/30/1968: Assistant, St. Paul, Allentown, PA

8/30/1968 - 3/27/1969: Assistant, St. Lawrence, Catasauqua, PA

3/27/1969 - 3/8/1972: Administrator, St. Ann, Lansford, PA

3/8/1972 - 1/11/1974: Assistant, St. Peter, Reading, PA

1/11/1974 - 6/15/1995: Pastor, St. Nicholas, Weatherly, PA

6/15/1995 - 8/28/2000: Pastor Emeritus, St. Nicholas, Weatherly, PA

Summary: At the time of the abuse, the victim revered priests and the Catholic Church and "did not know how to say no to a priest or nun." Shields asked the victim to sit in the television room of the rectory so Shields could give him a massage. He began by massaging the victim's shoulders and working his way down to the victim's waistline. Shields unbuttoned the victim's pants and began fondling the victim's genitals. Shields then made the victim stand up as Shields knelt in front of the victim and began removing the victim's pants and underwear. At this point, the victim stopped Shields. And as the victim was getting ready to leave, Shields told him, "Let this be our little secret."

The victim went home and told his mother what had happened. The victim's mother advised him not to tell anyone of the incident and to stay away from Shields. The victim told a deacon in the Diocese, and Shields was transferred.

Stephen F. Shigo

Where he served:

6/20/1978 - 6/15/1981: Holy Guardian Angels, Hyde Park, PA

6/15/1981 - 9/1/1981: St. Ambrose, Schuylkill Haven, PA

9/1/1981 - 7/11/1983: Area Chaplain Catholic Scouting, West Schuylkill County, PA

7/11/1983 - 8/31/1984: Regional Director, CYO West Schuylkill County, PA

8/31/1984 - 12/4/1985: Regional Director, Youth Ministry, South Schuylkill County, PA

12/4/1985 - 11/2/1991: Regional Director, Family Life Bureau, South Schuylkill County, PA

Summary: The victim told the Diocese he was sexually abused by Shigo when he was an altar boy during eighth and ninth grades and at St. Ambrose church. The Diocese offered six months of counseling. However, records indicate the victim was participating in counseling at least through June 2016, for which the Diocese paid. Shigo died in 1991.

David A. Soderlund

Where he served:

6/1965 - 12/1966: St. Peter, Coplay, PA

12/1966 - 4/1971: Sacred Heart, West Reading, PA

4/1971 - 6/1973: St. Catharine of Siena, Reading, PA

4/1971 - 6/1974: Holy Name High School, Reading, PA

6/1971 - 11/1971: St. Catharine of Siena, Reading, PA

10/1971 - 11/1978: Adult Religious Education, Berks County, PA

6/1973 - 1/1974: St. John the Baptist, Shillington, PA

1/1974 - 11/1978: St. Benedict, Reading, PA

6/1974 - 11/1978: Holy Name High School, Reading, PA

11/1978 - 7/1980: St. Joseph, Summit Hill, PA

7/1980 - 9/1980: Sick Leave (Villa St. John Vianney Hospital)

9/1980 - 6/1981: Our Lady of Hungary, Northampton, PA

6/1981: St. Catharine of Siena, Reading, PA

10/1986-1/1989: Good Samaritan Hospital, Pottsville, PA

2/1989: Administrative Leave (faculties withdrawn)

5/2005: Dismissed from Priesthood

2009: Arrested

Summary: As early as August 5, 1961, while in Seminary, Father David Soderlund expressed a desire to work with children. In 1980, three separate complaints were made against him. The complaints asserted that Soderlund had engaged in sexual acts with three different children. The children were aged 12 to 13 years old. The Diocesan record, a "summary of case" relating to Soderlund, generalized the sexual conduct without referencing specific acts or crimes.

On June 11, 1980, a meeting was held at the Chancery during which photo albums were examined depicting nude photographs of a young boy engaged in sex acts with Soderlund. Soderlund admitted to Chancery officials that he engaged in sexual activity with the three young boys. While documents created at the time of the admission minimized the conduct, the facts became available through a detailed account of the abuse obtained from a victim in 1997 by the Diocese. The victim reported that: he was not a willing participant, but Soderlund threatened to harm or kill him.

Soderlund also took pictures of the victim engaged in sexual acts and threatened to use them to embarrass him. Soderlund offered to leave the priesthood if the victim would go away with him. The victim then indicated that he knew of many other boys who were victimized by Soderlund.

In 2009, Soderlund, now living in Dubois, Wyoming, within the Diocese of Cheyenne was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to incarceration for two to five years for sexual exploitation of children and possession of child pornography on his computer. He is a registered sex offender in Wyoming.

Henry E. Strassner

Where he served:

6/14/1947-9/2/1947:Assistant Pastor, St. Charles Borromeo, Cornwell Heights, PA

9/2/1947-5/16/1961: Allentown Central Catholic High School, Professor (Res. Notre Dame, Bethlehem, 09/08/1954)

5/16/1961 - 6/19/1962: Regional Director, Holy Name Society, Lehigh County, PA

6/19/1962 - 5/21/1963: Assistant, Notre Dame, Bethlehem (Summer Assignment)

5/21/1963 - 3/20/1964: Principal, Notre Dame High School, Green Pond, PA

3/20/1964 - 12/16/1964: St. Michael, Easton, In Residence

12/16/1964 - 11/9/1966: St. Bernard, Easton, In Residence

11/9/1966 - 8/30/1968: Member, Council of Priests -Diocesan Consultors

8/30/1968 - 11/27/1968: Administrator, St. Paul, Allentown, PA

11/27/1968 - 10/6/1968: Member, Council of Priests -Diocesan Consultor

10/6/1968 - 11/1/1969: Director, Family Life Bureau, Lehigh County, PA

11/1/1969 - 11/1/1972: Member, Council of Priests -Diocesan Consultors

11/1/1972 - 1/17/1974: Council of Priests -Diocesan Consultors, Ex Officio Member

1/17/1974 - 12/1/1974: Pastor, St. Paul, Allentown

12/1/1974 - 12/9/1983: Regional Director, Family Life Bureau, Lehigh County, PA

12/9/1983 - 11/1/1984: Member, Diocesan Development and Endowment Committee

11/1/1984 - 6/22/1988: Dean, Lehigh County Diocese of Allentown

6/22/1988 - 8/1/1993: Member, Advisory Board, Allentown Central Catholic High School, PA

8/1/1993 - 2/18/1994: Sick Leave

2/18/1994 - 3/16/2000: Senior Priest/Assistant Pastor, St. Jerome, Tamaqua, PA

3/16/2000 - 6/17/2003: Council of Priests Rep. Parochial Vicars

6/17/2003 - 11/20/2009: Retired; Pastor Emeritus of St. Paul Church, Allentown, PA

Summary: The victim reported that Father Henry Strassner kissed him four times on the lips, "in the same way a woman would kiss," within the first hour and a half of a counseling session. Strassner, after being confronted and initially denying even knowing the victim, admitted to the conduct but claimed he "did not intend anything sexual." Strassner claimed the victim "was essentially parent less and I wanted to simply affirm his sense of self-worth."

Strassner was sent to see a counselor who, after meeting with Strassner, advised the Diocese that there was "a lot more going on here than Father Strassner has admitted."

Bruno M. Tucci

Where he served:

4/1971 - 4/1972: St. Margaret, Reading, PA

10/1971 - 4/1972: Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Berks County, PA

4/1972 - 6/1972: Cardinal Brennan High School, Fountain Spring, PA

4/1972 - 6/1972: Annunciation, Shenandoah, PA

6/1972 - 9/1972: St. Canicus, Mahanoy City, PA

6/1972 - 6/1977: Marian High School, Tamaqua, PA

9/1972 - 6/1974: St. Canicus, Mahanoy City, PA

6/1974 - 2/1975: St. Peter and Paul, Lehighton, PA

2/1975 - 6/1977: Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Nesquehoning, PA

6/1975 - 8/1975: Marian High School, Tamaqua, PA

6/1977 - 6/1979: Holy Name High School, Reading, PA

6/1977 - 9/1977: St, Columbkill, Boyertown, PA

9/1977 - 6/1978: Most Blessed Sacrament, Bally, PA

6/1978 - 4/1981: St. Peter, Reading, PA

6/1979 - 4/1981: Central Catholic High School, Reading, PA

4/1981 - 6/1986: Immaculate Conception, Kelayres, PA

6/1986 - 3/2002: Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Immaculate Conception, Nesquehoning, PA

3/1/2002: Retired

2/9/2007: Dismissed from priesthood

Summary: The Diocese of Allentown became aware of Father Bruno Tucci's abuse of children in 1991. A victim called the Chancery and stated he was sexually molested by Tucci when he was 14 years old. Tucci tickled him and put his hands down the back of the victim's pants. On another occasion, Tucci unbuttoned his pants and the victim's pants. Tucci pulled them both down and made skin to skin contact. Tucci normalized the conduct by tickling the victim in front of the victim's parents.

When questioned, Tucci stated that the incidents occurred "exactly as the victim reported." Tucci said it was "just touching" and clarified he had not engaged in "sodomy."

Similar events took place in other parishes years later.

In March 2002, Tucci retired. His retirement came just weeks after the Boston Globe garnered national attention after publishing articles detailing child sexual abuse within the Archdiocese of Boston.

Gregory Uhrig

Where he served:

1974: Secretary, Diocesan Tribunal; Assistant, St. Francis of Assisi, Allentown, PA

8/30/1974-6/17/1975: Professor, Allentown Central Catholic High School, PA; Resident, St. Elizabeth, Whitehall, PA

6/17/1975-9/29/1975: Resident and Assistant, Immaculate Conception, Allentown, PA

9/29/1975-6/15/1976: Member, Liturgical Commission

6/15/1976-10/4/1976: Secretary, Diocesan Tribunal

10/4/1976-6/20/1976: Defender of the Bond, Diocesan Tribunal

6/20/1976 - 6/20/1978: Professor, Reading Central High School, PA; Resident, Holy Rosary, Reading, PA

6/20/1978-6/16/1980: Assistant, St. Anthony, Easton, PA

6/16/1980-10/1/1981: Coordinator, CCD Adult Regular Education, Northampton, PA

10/1/1981-2/25/1982: Regional Director, Family Life Bureau, Northampton, PA

2/25/1982-6/20/1983: Assistant Pastor, St. Ursula, Fountain Hill, Bethlehem, PA

6/20/1983-12/8/1985: Assistant Pastor, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Bernardsville, PA

12/8/1985-6/19/1986: Assistant, St. Francis Cathedral, Metuchen, New Jersey

6/19/1986-12/1/1986: Resident, Holy Trinity, Egypt; Chaplain, Muhlenberg/Cedar Crest Colleges

10/1/1986 - 6/14/1988: Resident, St. Thomas More, Allentown, PA

6/14/1988 - 6/15/1989: Assistant Pastor, St. Thomas More, Allentown, PA

6/15/1989 - 9/6/1989: Pastor, John the Baptist, Whitehall, PA

9/6/1989 - 7/15/1993: Regional Director, CCD Lehigh County, PA

7/15/1993 - 1/19/1995: Assigned to ministry in New Jersey

1/19/1995: Excardinated from Diocese of Allentown; Diocese of Metuchen

10/2010: Placed on leave due to allegations stemming from incidents in 1978-1980

Summary: The Diocese of Allentown became aware of Father A. Gregory Uhrig's sexual abuse of children by 2010. On May 5, 2010, a 44-year-old female victim made a complaint to the Diocese of sexual abuse at the hands of Uhrig when she was 13 years old and attended the seventh grade at St. Anthony school in Easton.

In 1995, Uhrig left the Diocese and was incardinated to the Diocese of Metuchen in New Jersey. Following a report to that Diocese, he was placed on leave. The Diocese appears to have reported the complaint to local law enforcement upon receipt of the complaint. However, no prosecution was initiated because the statute of limitations had expired.

Andrew Aloysius Ulincy

Where we served:

6/1/1966 - 9/2/1967: Professor, Marian High School, Hometown, PA

6/1/1966 - 3/27/1969: Resident, St. Joseph, Jim Thorpe, PA

11/1/1966 - 3/27/1969: Regional Director of Vocations, Carbon County, PA

12/9/1966 - 11/1/1970: Secretary, Committee on Ecumenism

3/27/1969 - 10/30/1979: Pastor, St. Mary, Mahanoy City, PA

11/1/1970: Member, Committee on Ecumenism

12/1/1974 - 10/30/1979: Regional Director, Family Life Bureau, E. Schuylkill, PA

10/30/1979 - 12/1/1981: Pastor, St. Simon and Jude, Bethlehem, PA

3/4/1980 - 12/1/1981: Parish Priest Consultor

12/1/1981 - 2/15/1982: Sick leave

2/15/1982 - 5/4/1982: Assistant Pastor, St. Michael, Lansford, PA

5/4/1982 - 1/3/1995: Pastor, St. Joseph, Frackville, PA

12/21/1992 - 12/21/1995: Advisory Board Member, Cardinal Brennan High School

1/3/1995 - 8/21/1996: Assistant Pastor, Holy Rosary, Reading, PA

8/21/1996 - 6/5/1997: Administrator Pro Tempore, Immaculate Conception, Birdsboro, PA

6/5/1997 - 9/11/1997: Administrator, St. Paul, Reading, PA

9/11/1997 - 9/21/2010: Pastor Pro Tempore, St. Paul, Reading, PA

8/28/2001 - 9/21/2010: Spiritual Director, Holy Name Society for Berks Deanery

12/1/2009 - 9/21/2010: Pastors of Berks Deanery, Council of Priests, Representative

3/1/2011: Retired

Summary: The Diocese of Allentown became aware of Father Andrew Ulincy's sexual abuse of children in 1981. On November 16, 1981, a 17 -year-old victim reported to the Bethlehem Police that Ulincy had sexually propositioned him. Ulincy was contacted by the police and admitted that the victim's complaint was true. There is no evidence that the solicitation resulted in any criminal charges.

Ronald Yarrosh

Where he served:

11/1974 - 12/1975: Assistant Promotion Director P.I.M.E. (Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions), Detroit, MI

2/1976- 6/1976: Language Student, P.I.M.E., Rome, Italy

8/1976- 11/1976: Missionary, P.I.M.E., Hong Kong

2/1977- 11/1981: Mission Appeal, P.I.M.E., Detroit, MI

2/1982- 6/1982: Assistant Pastor, St. Anthony, Easton, PA

6/1982- 10/1985: Assistant Pastor, Holy Rosary, Reading, PA

6/1986- 6/1988: Assistant Pastor, St. Patrick, Pottsville, PA

6/1988- 11/1991: Assistant Pastor, St. Francis of Assisi, Allentown, PA

5/1990: Incardination into the Diocese of Allentown

11/1991-6/1996: Assistant Pastor, St. Anne, Bethlehem, PA

6/1996-6/1998: Assistant Pastor, St. Margaret, Reading, PA

6/1996-6/1997: Campus Minister, Albright College, Reading, PA

6/1997-7/1997: Assistant Pastor Pro Tempore, St. Peter, Reading, PA

6/1998-6/1999: Assistant Pastor, St. Jane Frances de Chantel, Easton, PA

6/1999-6/2001: Pastor, Holy Family, Sacred Heart Churches,

New Philadelphia, PA

6/1999-6/2001: Pastor, St. Anthony, Cumbola,

6/2001-6/2003: Assistant Pastor, St. Bernard, Easton, PA

6/2003-4/2004: Assistant Pastor, St. Ambrose, Schuylkill Haven, PA

Summary: On April 22, 2004, Pennsylvania State Police searched the rooms of Father Ronald Yarrosh and found a "tremendous amount" of child pornography. On April 29, 2004, Yarrosh was removed from priestly ministry and entered St. John Vianney Hospital for evaluation and treatment. 2004, the Pennsylvania State Police filed charges against Yarrosh, specifically, 110 counts of sexual abuse of children after discovering hundreds of child pornography photos, books, magazines, videos, and DVD's in his possession. As law enforcement began its prosecution, Diocesan Support Services conducted an audit and determined that Yarrosh embezzled approximately $23,000.00 from the parish.

Charges were filed related to this theft. On April 27, 2005, Yarrosh entered a plea of guilty to charges of theft and possession of child pornography. Yarrosh was sentenced pursuant to a negotiated plea agreement to imprisonment for three to 23 months, $250.00 in fines, and restitution to the parish.

On July 21, 2005, Yarrosh left St. Francis Villa and moved into a motel. Yarrosh continued in residence at the motel until August 8, 2005, at which time he was incarcerated in Schuylkill County Prison in Pottsville. Upon his release on November 31, 2005,

Yarrosh registered with the Pennsylvania State Police as a sexual offender. Upon his release from prison, Yarrosh was still a priest. On December 6, 2005, Yarrosh was released from prison as a convicted and registered sex offender. The Diocese granted him residence at St. Francis Villa in Orwigsburg. The Diocese's own designation of Yarrosh noted he was a "moderate to high risk to again use pornography and/or consort with prostitutes."

In November 2006, it was discovered that Father Yarrosh had taken trips to New York City with a seven-year-old child. Yarrosh was also found to be in possession of pornography in violation of his court supervision. The Schuylkill County Court of Common Pleas subsequently sentenced Yarrosh to four to ten years in state prison for violating the terms of his supervision.

Finally, in June 2007, the Diocese dismissed Yarrosh from the priesthood.

Joseph A. Zmijewski

Where he served:

8/18/1938 - 7/8/1942: Assistant, St. Ladislaus, Philadelphia, PA

7/8/1942 - 5/8/1961: Chaplain, Bernardine Sisters, Reading, PA

5/8/1961 - 10/27/1961: Defender of the Bond

10/27/1961 - 1/27/1964: Administrator Pro Tempore, St. Mary's, Reading, PA

1/27/1964 - 8/4/1967: Member, Diocesan Liturgical Commission

8/4/1967: Promoter of Justice, The Tribunal

Summary: On October 26, 2004, an adult woman reported to the Diocese of Allentown that she was a victim of child sexual abuse at the hands of a Diocesan priest. While in the ninth grade, the victim met Father Joseph A. Zmijewski. She was in a new school and was experiencing unhappiness. The victim began regular counseling sessions with Zmijewski.

Zmijewski proposed a course of alternative treatment. He directed the victim to come to his personal residence where he could help the victim through hypnosis. The victim complied and attended four hypnosis sessions with Zmijewski at his residence. After the first three attempts were unsuccessful by Zmijewski to hypnotize her, she agreed to a fourth session. In an effort to expedite her "treatment," she faked hypnosis during her fourth session. While she pretended to be hypnotized, Zmijewski instructed her to take off one piece of clothing after another. The victim was scared and complied until she was nude. Zmijewski then left the room for a short period of time and upon his return, he instructed the victim to get dressed. The victim never returned for any further "treatment" and kept the incident to herself into adulthood.

David Connell, Timothy Johnson, and Jim Gross

No further details of their employment history were listed.

Summary: David Connell and Timothy Johnson were Carmelite priests and Jim Gross was a lay person. in September 2007, a known victim reported he had been sexually abused by Gross, a basketball coach at St. Patrick's in Pottsville. He reported that the abuse began in the 1970's while he was in sixth grade. In the summer of 1984, Gross resigned from teaching at St. Francis School in Minersville, Schuylkill County.

In the narrative of his last evaluation from June 1984, the victim also reported that he was sexually abused by a Carmelite priest named Father David Connell and physically abused by a Carmelite brother named Timothy Johnson while attending Nativity High School. The abuse was reported to the Provincial of the Carmelites, Father Michael Kissane, in October 2007. The victim stated that his family's house had burned down and the Carmelites took him and his brother in and had them live in a priory. During the time he was living in the priory, the victim was sexually abused by Connell. The victim remembered drinking juice that Connell gave him and the next memory the victim had was waking up in his own bed naked, with Connell in the room. The victim had no memory of the prior evening but, on waking, he was bleeding from his rectum.

The victim told Johnson he was going to also report the abuse to the police. Johnson told the victim not to report the abuse to the police but the victim insisted on reporting. At this point Johnson began to severely beat the victim with a big leather belt and told the victim that, if he reported the abuse to the police, he would beat him even worse.

Michael S. Lawrence

Where he served:

06/1973 - 06/1974: St. Catharine of Siena, Reading

06/1974 - 11/1974: Notre Dame High School, Easton;

Sacred Heart, Miller Heights

11/1974 - 12/1974: Coordinator of Adult Religious Education, North Hampton

12/1974 - 06/1975: St. Jane Frances de Chantal, Easton

06/1975 - 12/1975: St. Jane Frances de Chantal, Easton

12/1975 - 06/1977: St. Anne, Bethlehem

06/1977 - 06/1978: Central Catholic High School, Allentown; St. Lawrence, Catasauqua

06/1978-08/1978: Diocesan Tribunal

08/1978- 03/1980: Holy Trinity, Whitehall

03/1980- 11/1982: St. Catharine of Siena, Reading

11/1982-03/1984: St. Anthony, Easton

03/1984-06/1984: Notre Dame High School, Easton;

St. Anthony, Easton

06/1984 - 08/1984: St. Joseph, Easton; Notre Dame High School, Easton

08/1984 - 01/1987: Immaculate Conception, Jim Thorpe

01/1987 - 06/1987: Sick Leave

06/1987 - 03/1994:St. Paul, Allentown; Diocesan Tribunal;

Ministry to the Aging

03/1994 - 06/1998: Diocesan Tribunal

06/1998 - 01/2000: Catholic University of America; Divine Word College

01/2000 - 03/2002: Courage

03/2002 - 04/2015: Retired

Summary: Suspicions of Lawrence's pedophilic behavior were brought to the attention of the Church as early as 1970 while Lawrence was attending St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. A student evaluation found within the records of the Diocese and obtained by the grand jury indicate that Lawrence was "a mysterious type who craves the attention of younger students" and that Lawrence showed "a little too much interest in younger students." Regardless of these observations, in 1981, Bishop Joseph McShea wished Lawrence well.

The father of the victim reported details of the incident. The victim told his father that he ha been in Lawrence's room for a tutoring session. At the end of the session, the talk between Lawrence and the victim turned to sex. Lawrence then began to touch his genitals, had the victim take down his pants, and began to fondle the victim's genitals. The victim's father reported that his son had told him there had been "a lot of fondling, so much that he felt pain." Additionally, Lawrence made the victim urinate.

William E. Jones

Where he served:

5/27/1960 - 3/12/1963: Annunciation B.V.M., Shenandoah, PA

3/12/1963 - 3/26/1968: St. Ambrose, Schuylkill Haven, PA

3/26/1968 - 12/119/69: St. Francis of Assisi, Allentown, PA

12/1/1969 - 8/24/1970: St. Jane Frances, Easton, PA

8/24/1970 - 4/4/1972: Notre Dame High School, Easton, PA

4/4/1972 - 6/20/1972: St. Jane Frances, Easton, PA;

Notre Dame High School, Easton, PA

6/20/1972 - 6/11/1973: St. Jane Frances, Easton, PA

6/11/1973 - 6/14/1974: St. Jane Frances de Chantal, Easton, PA

6/14/1974 - 6/17/1975: St. Mary, St. Clair, PA

6/17/1975 - 7/1/1978: Nativity B.V.M. High School, Pottsville, PA

7/1/1978 - 11/7/1978: St. Joseph, Summit Hill, PA

11/7/1978 - 3/10/1981: St. Vincent de Paul, Minersville, PA

3/1019/81 - 11/7/1983: Representative, Diocesan Board of Education, West Schuylkill County, PA

11/7/1983 - 5/24/1984: St. Patrick's, Pottsville, PA

5/24/1984 - 11/1/1984: South Schuylkill Deanery, Council of Priests, PA

11/1/1984 - 3/13/1985: South Schuylkill Deanery, PA

3/13/1985 - 8/20/1991: Budget Board Nativity B.V.M. High School

8/20/1991 - 11/1/1993: Honorary Prelate of His Holiness, John Paul II

11/1/1993 - 11/26/1996: South Schuylkill Deanery

11/26/1996 - 5/3/1996: Dean of South Schuylkill Deanery (post was held until 11/26/99 in conjunction with the following duties/dates)

5/03/1996 - 10/29/1997: Diocesan Negotiating Team

10/29/1997 - 4/04/1998: Board of Seton Manor, Inc.

4/4/1998 - 3/25/1999: Nativity B.V.M. High School Budget/Audit Board. (held until 09/2001)

3/25/1999 - 10/1/1999: South Schuylkill Deanery, Diocesan Negotiating Team

10/1/1999 - 2/1/2000: President of the Catholic Housing Corporation, Queen of Peace Apartments, Pottsville, PA

2/1/2000 - 9/20/2000: Vicar Forane of South Schuylkill Deanery (held until 1/31/03)

9/20/2000 - 4/11/2002: Pastor designated to consult on removal/transfer

4/11/2002: Resigned as pastor of St. Patrick's, Pottsville, PA

Diocese of Erie

Michael J. Amy

6/23/1978 - 7/05/1979: Asst. Pastor, Our Lady of Peace, Erie, PA

7/05/1979 - 8/28/1981: Faculty, Cathedral Preparatory. Residence at

Blessed Sacrament, Erie, PA

8/28/1981 - 6/14/1985: Faculty, Cathedral Preparatory, Residence at

Holy Trinity Rectory, Erie, PA

4/23/1983: Chaplin, Catholic Scouting Committee

6/14/1985 -1/20/1986: Faculty, Elk Co. Christian, Residing at Holy Rosary

Johnsonburg PA. Weekend Asst. St. Callistus, Kane, PA

1/20/1986: Weekend Asst. Holy Rosary, Johnsonburg, PA

6/14/1985 – 6/17/1988: Faculty, Elk Co. Catholic. Residing at

Holy Rosary, St. Mary's, PA

6/17/1988-1/31/1990: Faculty, Bradford Central Christian HS. Residing at St. Bernard, Bradford, PA

4/19/1989 -12/15/1989: Administration, St. Callistus, Kane, PA

Residing at St. Callistus Rectory, Kane, PA

12/15/1989-12/22/1991: Pastor, St. Callistus. Residing at

St. Callistus Rectory, Kane, PA

12/22/1991-2/05/1992: Sick leave

1/05/1992 - 3/01/1993: Sick leave

11/1993: Living in private residence

Summary: In a 1993 letter, Amy wrote “I took the opportunity to touch the genitals of several boys at night. In 1974, one of them ran away because of my molesting him.” Amy said he was originally brought into custody by state police, but was not arrested or charged. He later admitted that he was involved with male prostitutes in the Erie area, as well as Pittsburgh and Baltimore. In 1993, the diocese acted to remove Amy.

After the laicization process, an additional allegation was made against him by a victim who was a student at Erie Cathedral Prep in the early 1980s. In an email in 2002, the victim said Amy got him alone in a confessional booth and questioned him about touching himself. Amy went on to fondle the victim on more than one occasion.

Michael G. Barletta

6/04/1966 - 5/30/1975: Secondary Education Kennedy Catholic

High School, Hermitage, PA

6/04/1966 - 6/03/1970: Weekend Asst. Sacred Heart, Sharon, PA

6/03/1970 - 6/30/1975: Weekend Asst. St. Joseph, Sharon, PA

1975 Teen Action Club at Cathedral Preparatory, Erie, PA

5/30/1975 - 9/07/1994: Secondary Education Erie Cathedral Preparatory HS

5/30/1975 - 9/07/1994: Weekend Assistant, St Luke's, Erie, PA

9/07/1994 - 8/01/1995: Sabbatical, Other

Sabbatical at Southdown Treatment Center Toronto, Canada for

Psychological Treatment

8/01/1995 - 2/28/2002: Dioceses Office, Catholic Charities, Erie, PA

8/01/1995 - 2/28/2002: Dioceses Office, Office of Matrimonial Concerns, Erie, PA

8/01/1995 - 2/28/2002: Resident St. Patrick's Resident, Erie, PA

2/28/2002 Retired

Summary: The grand jury received several documents describing Barletta’s behavior and heard testimony from a retired priest who saw Barletta with his genitalia exposed in the presence of a child under 18 between 1969 and 1970. Father John Fischer testified that he walked in on Barletta and a young high school student in private chambers, and that the student was naked from the waist down, trying to pull up his underwear and pants as Barletta watched. Fischer recalled that Monsignor Hastings dismissed the report, and that fellow priests laughed it off.

Later on, Bishop Trautman recorded details of a conversation that he had with Sister Donna Markham about Barletta. Trautman wrote that Barletta abused 5 children. Barletta was confronted with allegations of oral sex, naked messages, digital anal penetration and masturbation against a victim in 1994. When confronted, Barletta admitted his guilt to Trautman. The diocese paid for the victim’s counseling, but once the victim shared the story of abuse with a newspaper, Trautman advised that the victim should seek payment directly from Barletta.

From 1975 though 1994 when he was dismissed from Erie Cathedral Prep, Barletta admitted abusing 25 children and young men. After 1994, there are documents that proved Barletta was still allowed to minister in the Diocese of Erie.

Donald C. Bolton

1952 -1954: Mt. St. Alphonsus, Esopus, NY

1954 -1959: Bela Vista, Mato Grosso, Brazil

1959 – 1962: Campo Grande, Mato Grosso, Brazil

1962 – 1967: Bela Vista, Mato Grosso, Brazil

1967 – 1969: Monte Alegre, Parana, Brazil

1969 – 1970: Rocio, Parana, Brazil

1970 – 1974: Notre Dame Retreat House, Canadaigua, NY

1974 – 1984: St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, North East, PA

1984 – 1987: Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica, Brooklyn, NY

1987 – 1990: Holy Family Retreat House, Hampton, VA

1990 – 2003: St. Alphonsus Villa, Redemptorist Fathers and Brothers, New

Smyrna Beach, FL

2003 – 2006: St. John Neumann Residence, Sarasota Springs, FL

10/27/2006: Death

Summary: In 1986, parents of a 7-year-old girl came to Erie County District Attorney’s office with a complaint that Bolton molested their daughter. As a result, Bolton was charged with indecent assault and corruption of minors. He pled guilty in 1987 and was sentenced to three years probation.

One of Bolton’s victim would file a lawsuit and received a settlement of $100,000. Her abuse began when she was 7 and continued until she was 11. Bolton came to her house to console the family over the death of a grandparent. The victim said held her on his lap and rubbed her back, legs, bottom and rear. Other instances of assault occurred when the victim was in confession, at ski resort and at a cottage in New York. At different times, Bolton fondled her, rubbed his penis against her and put his fingers in her vagina.

In another file, a mother of five children alleged that Bolton may have sexually assaulted four of them. No details were provided to the grand jury as the diocese’s representatives were corresponding with the family to offer them assistance with counseling.

Another documented victim was a fourth-grade boy who reported he was sexually assaulted between 1976 and 1977. The diocese made arrangements to counsel the victim and arranged for various agencies to assist him and his family financially.

Robert F. Bower

5/23/1959 - 8/29/1964: Gannon University, Erie, PA

8/29/1964 - 6/03/1970: Parochial Vicar, Our Lady of the Lake, Edinboro, PA

6/03/1970 - 8/20/1993: Faculty, Newman Center, Edinboro University

8/29/1992 - 3/11/1999: Pastor, St Anthony, Cambridge Springs, PA

8/29/1992 - N/A: Resident, other, Private Residence, Edinboro, PA

8/31/1993 - 8/29/1998: Weekend Asst., Our Lady of the Lake. Edinboro, PA

3/11/1999 - 3/01/2001: Leave of Absence.

3/01/2001 - N/A: Special ministry, Weekend Asst. Johnsonburg, nursing home,

Meadville, PA

Summary: In 1981, Bower was found collecting child pornography. Seventh graders found the images while they served as janitors at Edinboro University. One of these kids, now an adult, testified the images to the grand jury. He testified that photos in Bower’s office depicted children having sex with adults.

The witness’s mother began working for the diocese in 1977. In 1981, she was fired two days and she and thee coworkers reported that Bower’s had a problem with pornography.

Bowers retired from active ministry in the early 2000’s but still lives on the Edinboro campus.

Dennis Chludzinski

6/05/1976 - 6/02/1977: Sacred Heart, Sharon, PA

6/03/1977 - 1/23/1978: Holy Rosary, Erie, PA

1/24/1978 - 6/30/1979: Leave of Absence

7/01/1979 - 8/24/1980: Unassigned / Under Father Kelly's Supervision

8/25/1980 - 6/00/1984: Faculty at Villa Maria High School Erie, PA

St. Benedict's Academy Erie, PA

Mercyhurst Preparatory Erie, PA

6/00/1984 - 10/08/1984: Attending Gannon University, Our Lady of Mercy

10/09/1985 - 8/31/1986: No Information provided by the Diocese of Erie

9/01/1986 - 8/02/1987: Chaplain, Sisters Community at Mercyhurst College, Hamot

Medical Center

Summary: In testimony to the diocese, Chludzinski admitted that in 1984 he has inappropriate sexual conduct with an 18-year-old boy. In a letter dated 1991 detailing his progress in therapy, Chludzinski admitted that he and a friend engaged in sexual contact with an 18-year-old male. This included masturbation and oral sex and occurred approximately four times. Chludzinski also noted that after being granted a leave, he became sexually involved with a 14-year-old boy for about nine months.

In 2004, it was reported that a father discovered that Chludzinski had molested his young son years ago during a camping trip. The victim stated he met Chludzinski as an altar boy and that the abuse happened approximately six times over about six months. When informed of the allegation, Chludzinski replied, “sorry.”

Donald Cooper

6/1963-5/1964: Bradford Central High Christian High School, Bradford, PA

5/1964-6/1971: St. Titus, Titusville, PA

6/1971-6/1975: St. George, Erie, PA

6/1975-11/1984: St. Charles, New Bethlehem, PA

11/1984-6/1987: Mount Calvary, Erie, PA

6/1987-3/1988: Assumption, Oil City, PA

3/1988-6/1989: St. Catherine, DuBois, PA

3/1988-4/1989: St. Anthony, Walston, PA

6/1989-7/2002: St. Joseph, Force, PA

7/2002-6/2005: Christ the King, Houtzdale, PA

10/2002-6/2005: Holy Trinity, Ramey, PA

6/2005: Retired

Summary: In 2005, a man sent an email to the diocese reporting he had been subject to inappropriate sexual contact by Copper between 1981 and 1982. The victim state Cooper abused him multiple times and left him with years of emotional trauma. Cooper would convince the young victim to take a shower with him and would massage the victim and fondle him genitals, as well as masturbate in front of him.

When confronted about the abuse in 2005, Cooper admitted his did shower with and massage the victim. He did not admit to the masturbation. Copper agreed to retire, and the church and the victim came to an agreement where the Diocese would pay for the victim's past and future therapy and medication and also pay off $19,530 of the victim's personal debt.

Michael R. Freeman

6/10/1972: St. Margaret, Buffalo, NY

2/15/1975: St. Lawrence, Buffalo Part-time teacher, Bishop Turner High School

7/31/1976: Sacred Heart, Niagara Falls, NY

7/01/1980: Chaplain, United States Army

11/09/1981: Ecclesiastical Endorsement revoked

9/11/1982: St. Christopher, Tonawanda, PA

9/01/1984: St. Mary, Lancaster, PA

3/21/1989: Faculties Revoked

Summary: The grand jury learned that Freeman had some contact with the Diocese of Erie but he was not incardinated into the Diocese as a priest. He was a priest in Buffalo, and in five of his six subsequent assignments he admitted to inappropriate sexual behavior with young men. The abuse occurred while he was a priest in Buffalo but also ministered in Pennsylvania. Freeman admitted sexual misconduct at both St. Margaret and St. Lawrence Parishes in New York, and the Diocese of Buffalo first became aware of Freeman's criminal activity in November 1981.

The grand jury found no evidence that the Dioceses of Buffalo or Erie ever notified law enforcement officials, despite the fact that Freeman admitted to sexually violating children in at least five of his six ministry assignments.

Gregory P. Furjanic

1985: Staff, Kennedy Catholic High School

1985 – Unknown: Unknown duties, St. Anthony of Padua Sharon, PA

1987 – Unknown: Residing in a Convent at 1039 East 27th Street., Erie PA

7/08/1996: Faculties removed

2003 – Unknown: Croatian Franciscan Friars, Chicago, IL.

2005 – Unknown: Lutheran Social Services, St. Petersburg, FL

Summary: In 2005, there was an accusation made against Furjanic related to an incident in the early 1970s. Another incident occurred in the mid-1980s. Records show that in the 1990s another accusation came against Furjanic. The diocese sent him for counseling and then advanced counseling. In 1996, the Congregation for Institutions of Consecrated Life and of Societies of Apostolic Life removed Furjanic’s priestly authority.

The grand jury later learned one of the victim’s later died by suicide.

Chester Ggawronski

More information not available.

Herbert G. Gloeker

6/1949-9/1967: Sacred Heart, Erie, PA

9/1967-10/1974: St. Bibiana, Galeton, PA

10/1974-1/1985: Mount Calvary, Erie, PA

1/1985: Died, St. Mary's Home

Summary: Gloekler was accused of sexually abusing young females during the 1950s at Sacred Heart. Most of the allegations involved girls who helped sort paperwork in the rectory. One victim described her abuse in an article for the Erie Times-News because she wanted to bring to light the abuse in the Catholic Church. Other victims wrote letters to Bishop Trautman supporting the claims in the newspaper. One victim said Gloekler would fondle her breasts. Another reported that he pulled her into an empty room and kissed her, and instructed her to keep the interaction private. Two other woman contacted Trautman and said they weren’t victims but had witnessed sexual abuse by Gloekler.

Robert E. Hannon

6/03/1954 - 2/03/1955: Assistant Pastor, Holy Rosary, Erie, PA,

2/03/1955 - 3/27/1957: Assistant Pastor, Sacred Heart, Sharon, PA

3/27/1957 - 2/03/1958: Assistant Pastor, St. Boniface, Kersey, PA

Resident Pastor (Hacherl) asked to have Hannon Removed

2/03/1958- 5/31/1958: Assistant Pastor, St Luke's, Erie, PA

Resident Pastor (Goodill) asked to have Hannon Removed

5/31/1958 - 6/12/1965: Administrator, Sacred Heart, Genesee, PA

9/01/1959 - N/A: Appointed Assistant Director of Lay Retreats for the Diocese

6/12/1965 - 6/4/1966: Holy Cross, Brandy Camp, PA

6/04/1966 - N/A: Administrator, St. Mathew, Erie, PA

6/06/1966 - 6/16/1967: Administrator, St. Cyprian, Waterford, PA

6/16/1967 - 6/01/1979: Pastor, St. Mathew in the Wood, Erie, PA

4/13/1978: Requests transfer to Diocese of Hawaii

6/01/1979: Released to Diocese of Hawaii

9/19/1979 - 7/18/1980: Asst. Pastor, St. John the Apostle, HI

7/18/1980 - 6/1/1981: Associate Pastor, St. Cattistus, Kane, PA

6/01/1981: Associate Pastor, St. Elizabeth, Aiea, HI

4/26/1984: Holy Trinity Church, Honolulu, HI

7/17/1984: Incardinated into Diocese of Hawaii

10/20/2003 - 1/16/2006: Residence at Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, Diocese of

Hawaii, Honolulu, HI

1/16/2006: Death Announcement

Summary: In 2003, in response to the John Jay College study on clergy sexual abuse, the Diocese of Erie acknowledged the existence of eight known victims of Hannon' s sexual assaults. The grand jury has found documents that the Diocese of Hawaii and possibly the Diocese of Erie knew Father Hannon had admittedly abused at least twenty youths between ages 12 and 19.

Of the eight victims acknowledged by the Diocese of Erie, one is categorized as "claim denied, not verified" based upon a denial by Hannon. This victim was abused in Hawaii and occurred when Hannon was visiting the victim’s parents. While tucking her into bed, he allegedly fondled her under her underpants.

When the victim was interviewed in 2004, the Diocese of Hawaii found her “extremely credible.” But the Diocese of Erie sided with Hannan, as he had previously admitted to abusing only boys. Hannon denied abusing females stating, “they do not have a penis.”

There are eight known victims within the Diocese of Erie. It is unknown if the Diocese ever informed law enforcement officials about Hannon's conduct.

James P. Hopkins

Unknown Dates: Pastor St. Titus Church in Titusville, PA

1920s: Pastor at unknown church in East Brady, PA

Summary: In 1993, a victim wrote a letter to Bishop Trautman at the Diocese of Erie where she stated in in 1945, when she was 13, she experienced abuse at the hands of Hopkins in the rectory of St. Titus. She stated that Hopkins would, "grab our face in his hands, force us to look up, and then plant a sloppy kiss on our mouths … and fondle us wherever he pleased."

In 1994, the victim wrote another letter to Trautman. The bishop wrote back that "Since Monsignor Hopkins died in July of 1957, there is no possible way to investigate your accusation."

Barry M. Hudock

8/01/1997 - N/A Catholic University, Faculty, Washington, DC

Summary: Hudock was 27 in 1996 when he engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct with a girl in her junior year of high school. Bishop Trautman detailed that the victim was a junior at Mercyhurst Preparatory when she was targeted by Hudock. This sexual abuse occurred in several different locations within the victim's parish community. Trautman documented that Hudock and the victim had engaged in kissing prior to a trip to Wasington, D.C. Records revealed that Hudock groped and kissed the victim on numerous occasions, and it was reported he showed he pornography.

In 2008, the victim was having a difficult time dealing with the psychological issues from being victimized by Hudock. The Diocese agreed to pay for her medical bills and provided her with airfare to be seen at St. Luke's Institute in Suitland, Maryland.

Hudock' s current employment status is not known, but he operates his own religious website titled, "Faith Meets World" and has written religious books for Liturgical Press under his given name, as well as the pen name "Barry Michaels."

Joseph W. Jerge

5/18/1951 -6/30/1952: Parochial Vicar, St. Boniface, Erie, PA

6/30/1952- 5/23/1959: Parochial Vicar, St. John the Baptist, Erie, PA

5/23/1959 - 8/29/1964: Parochial Vicars, St. Joseph, Oil City, PA

8/29/1964 – 6/03/1970: Pastor, St. Hippolyte, Guys Mills, PA

6/30/1970 - 12/04/1989: Pastor, St. Callistus, Kane, PA

4/19/1989 - 11/22/1989: Sick Leave

12/04/1989 - 6/14/1991: Parochial Vicar, St. John the Evangelist, Girard, PA

6/14/1991 - 9/01/1992: Parochial Vicar, St. Francis Xavier, McKean, PA

9/01/1992 – 2006: St. Patrick's Retirement Resident, Erie, PA

Summary: The Diocese of Erie was first made aware of sexual abuse allegations against Joseph W. Jerge in early 1989. That year, he was sent for psychological therapy. In the fall of 1989, he was released and signed an aftercare contract that restricted his contact with young boys. He was placed back into ministry at St. John the Evangelist.

In 1991, Jerge had a meeting with several members of the clergy where concern was voiced about him violating his post-care contract. Bishop Trautman re -assigned Jerge to St. Francis Xavier parish.

One victim is well-documented by the ministry. He was a high school sophomore when Jerge took him on trips along and fondled him on multiple occasions. Later in the victim’s life, he was blackballed from employment and blocked from attempts to be admitted to seminary. The grand jury found documentation that Bishop Trautman personally instructed school administrators not to hire the victim, noting that he might be homosexual and might have attempted suicide. It is also noted that the Diocese paid at least $1,200 of the victim’s counseling fees.

Another victim stated that he was sexually abused by Jerge between approximately 1981 and 1985. He stated that all of the assaults took place in Jerge’s car. The victim made his history of abuse known to Trautman in 2003 and obtained an attorney. A letter stated Trautman advised Jerge to consider both legal and canonical counsel. According to the letter, Trautman called the District Attorney of Erie County to tell him of the situation and assure him of their compliance with the applicable standards and guidelines.

Stephen E. Jeselnick

5/01/1976: Associate, Our Lady of the Americas, Conneaut, PA

6/03/1977: Granted full faculties of the Diocese of Erie

9/06/1977: Faculty, Venango Christian HIGH SCHOOL w/residence at Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Oil City, PA

2/09/1987: Requests new assignment/residence. Wanted campus ministry

6/23/1978: Associate, St. Brigid and Campus Minister, Allegheny College w/Father William Karg

1/12/1980: Requests to be assigned to Notre Dame, IN (Holy Cross)

6/19/1980: Associate, St. Michael, Greenville, PA

7/31/1980: Appointed Defender of the Bond/Advocate for the Tribunal

3/31/1981: Bishop Watson agrees/recommends to release to

Notre Dame, IN

6/02/1981: Accepted into Graduate Candidate Program at Notre Dame

11/06/1982: Withdraws voluntarily from Holy Cross, IN (Novitiate)

12/03/1982: Permitted to minister in Denver, CO, for a six-month assignment by Bishop Murphy

12/10/1982

12/18/1982: Accepted by Archbishop Casey, Denver, CO

Spring 1983: Assigned to St. Mary's, Littleton, CO

3/18/1983: Re -assigned to Shrine of St. Anne, Arvada, CO

4/08/1983: Requests to enter/serve as Military Chaplain

5/13/1983: Bishop Murphy approves appointment to Military

9/12/1985: Requests incardination into Diocese of Colorado Springs, CO

10/10/1985: Incardination denied; Requests Leave of Absence

11/5/1985: Colorado Springs withdraws their faculties

4/1/1986: Requests permission to enter Air Force to be Chaplain and Additional Leave of Absence

8/11/1986: Requests to enter Archdiocese of Military

10/03/1986: Residence at Ecclesia Center, Erie, PA

4/21/1987: Parochial Vicar, St. Catherine, DuBois, PA; Chaplain, DuBois

Medical Center; and Father Brugger's weekend assistant at Sigel

and Corsica, PA

11/18/1996: Military Archdiocese to facilitate the change from active to reserve; the following month the Military endorses for inactive reserve duty

7/14/1997: Veterans Administration Hospital, Baltimore, MD

5/01/2014: Faculties revoked

Summary: Jeselnick’s file listed only two known victims who were both over the age of legal adulthood. Three other victims not included in the diocese files testified in person about the abuse. Their accounts include genital fondling, oral and anal sex, occurring in the late 1970s when Jeselnick was stationed in Meadville. All three men and several of their sisters testified that Jeselnick and a previously unidentified deacon would come to their house and get intoxicated. Once the adults were drunk, Jeselnick would find the boys and pray on them.

In 2014, Jeselnick sent a letter seeking suitability for ministry. After reviewing his file, Bishop Lawrence Persico denied the request.

Thomas C. Kelley

7/25/1968 - 7/16/1972: Parochial Vicar, St. Peter Cathedral, Erie, PA

7/16/1972 - 3/17/1978: Special Ministry, St. Mark's Seminary, Erie, PA

7/16/1972 - 5/05/1979: Weekend Asst., Our Lady of Mercy, Harborcreek, PA

3/17/1979 - 5/05/1979: Special Ministry, St. Mark's Seminary, Erie, PA

5/05/1979 - 9/01/1985: Special Ministry, St. Mark's Seminary, Erie, PA

9/01/1985 - 6/30/1989: Dean, North American College, Rome, Italy

8/28/1989 - 3/27/1990: Administrator, St. Michael, Greenville, PA

3/27/1990 - 6/15/1994: Pastor, St. Michael, Greenville, PA

3/01/1992 - 6/15/1994: Diocesan Review Board

6/15/1994 - 12/31/1995: Leave of Absence, Odessa, TX/Erie, PA

9/18/1995 - 9/22/1995: Psychological Assessment, Southdown Treatment Center, Canada

4/1996 - 9/1996: Residential Treatment, Southdown Center, Aurora, Ontario, Canada

9/06/1994 - 12/31/1995: Pastor, St. Agnes, Ft. Stockton, TX

3/31/1996 - 11/25/1996: Chaplain, Holy Faith Monastery

2/21/2005: Death

Summary: Kelley served in two different dioceses in two states as well as in Europe over the course of his 30 year career. He was accused of inappropriate sexual conduct with at least five victims. His victims of choice were 18 to 25 year old men in high school or in seminary. Kelley engaged in mutual masturbation, oral and anal sex with his victims.

Gary L. Ketcham

9/10/1977 - 1/23/1984: St. Bonaventure University, Faculty Franciscan Friars, NY

5/1983-1/23/1984: St. Patrick's, Buffalo, NY

1/23/1984 - 9/11/1985: Parochial Vicar, St. John the Baptist, Erie, PA

9/11/1985 - 8/01/1989: Parochial Vicar, St. George, Erie, PA

3/05/1989 - 6/14/1989: Health Leave, Guest House, Rochester, MN

6/14/1989 - 6/08/1990: Health Leave, St. Luke's Institute, Suitland, MD

6/08/1990 - 7/16/1990: Health Leave, St. Patrick's/St. Hedwig Cluster, Erie, PA

11/13/1998 – 2004: Suspended/Other

2004- Present: Privately employed; not functioning as a Priest

Summary: Sometime prior to March 1989, allegations of sexual misconduct came to light. He was accused of molesting two boys while in a drunken state while visiting friends in Mobile, Alabama. Ketcham was officially charged with two counts of sexual abuse of minors. He was sent to therapy after the incident and housed in a diocese-owned treatment facility.

Ketcham pled guilty to both counts and was ordered to pay a $15,000 fine. In 2002, Bishop Trautman initiated the laicization process to formerly remove Ketcham from the church. Ketcham cooperated with this process.

Thaddeus Kondzielski

Where he served:

6/16/1967-8/31/1986: Secondary Education, Cathedral Preparatory., Erie Facility

6/16/1967-6/03/1970: Weekend Asst., St. Stanislaus, Erie, PA

6/03/1970-8/31/1986: Weekend Asst., St. Hedwig, Erie, PA

8/31/1986-10/01/1988: Health Leave, Other

10/01/1988-6/30/1994: Administrator, St. Philip (Crossingville) Edinboro, PA

6/30/1994-5/04/2000: Pastor, St. Philip (Crossingville) Edinboro, PA

5/04/2000-6/29/2006: Pastor, St. Philip (Crossingville) Edinboro, PA (Reappointed 2nd 6 yr. term)

6/30/2006-8/31/2012: Pastor, St. Philip (Crossingville) Edinboro, PA (Reassigned 3rd 6 yr. term)

9/01/2012-4/28/2013: Pastor, St. Philip Crossingville) Edinboro, PA (Reappointed 4th 6 Yr. term)

4/29/2013: Retired

Summary: Father Thaddeus Kondzielski was assigned as a teacher at Erie Cathedral Preparatory for January 2013, a victim contacted the Diocese to advise that 30 years earlier, when he was a sophomore at Cathedral Preparatory, Kondzielski would ask him to assist with grading papers in the rectory.

On one occasion, Kondzielski asked him to stay and lift weights. When he said he did not have the proper clothes, Kondzielski suggested that they lift weights naked. They then proceeded to lift weights together while they were naked. When he told his parents about the naked weight lifting incident, they were shocked and told him to stay away from Kondzielski.

When confronted with this allegations, Kondzielski claimed he did not remember the incident, but did not deny it because it could have happened.

Gerard Krebs

Where he served:

7/26/1964 - 6/3/1970: Secondary Education Venango Christian, High School, Oil City, PA

7/26/1964 - 6/3/1970: Weekend Assistant, St. Stephen's, Oil City, PA

6/3/1970 - 9/8/1970: Parochial Vicar, Our Lady Queen of the Americas, Conneaut Lake, PA

6/3/1970 - 9/8/1970: Resident, St. Stephen's Rectory, Oil City, PA

9/8/1970 - 12/6/1978: Parochial Vicar, Erie, St. John the Baptist

12/6/1978 - 1/27/1983: Pastor, Holy Cross Church, Brandy Camp, PA

1/27/1983 - 6/30/1990: Pastor, St. Patrick, Erie, PA

3/1/1990 - 5/4/1990: Health Leave, Guest House, Rochester, MN

6/30/1990 - 1/6/1992: Pastor, St. Patrick, Erie, PA

1/6/1992 - 12/31/2003: Director of RCIA, Diocesan Office, Erie, PA

1/6/1992 - 2/4/1994: Resident, Blessed Sacrament, Erie, PA

2/4/1994 - 3/27/2004: Resident, St. Joseph/Bread of Life, Erie, PA

4/10/1996 - 10/1/1996: Chaplain, Soldiers & Sailors Home

11/17/1996 - 5/8/1997: Weekend Assistant, St. Patrick, Erie, PA

11/22/1996 - 12/31/2003: Director of Activities/Coming Millennium, Diocesan Office, Erie, PA

1/1/04 - 5/25/2005: Retired, Priest Retirement Residence, Erie, PA

Summary: Three known victims came forward indicating that they were sexually abused by Father Gerard Krebs.

One victim alleged that Krebs led him through "a series of sexual rituals to both prove my faith and the fact that I was not a homosexual.

The grand jury found no documentation indicating that law enforcement was ever notified about any of Krebs interactions with his victims.

Jerry (John) Kucan

Where he served:

1952-1954: St. Anthony's, Sharon, PA

1954-1961: St. Joseph's, Bethlehem, PA

1961-1972: St. Mary's, Steelton, PA

1972-1973: Our Lady of Peace Friary, Beaver Falls, PA

1973-1977: St. Anthony's, Sharon, PA

1977-1978: Sacred Heart, Milwaukee, WI

1978-1979: Beaver Falls Friary, Beaver Falls, PA

1979-1982: St. Mary's, Steelton, PA

1982-1985: St. Jerome' s, Chicago, IL

1985-1986: Sacred Heart, Milwaukee, WI

1986-1988: St. Anthony's, Chicago, IL

1988-1994: St. Augustine' s, West Allis, WI

1994-1995: Sacred Heart, Chicago, IL

1995-2005: St. Anthony's Friary, Chicago, IL

Summary: In February of 2005, a 29 year old man wrote a letter to the Diocese of Erie in which he stated that he had attended St. Anthony's School in Sharon, Pennsylvania and that in

1974 he began serving midnight mass. Victim #1 stated that "Father Jerry" began an inappropriate relationship with him at that time. They would have special meetings together. Kucan told the victim that if he ever told anyone about their relationship, his mother would lose her job in the school kitchen and he would be kicked out of school. The victim wrote in the letter that he would go to confession weekly to confess his sins and that Kucan would tell him that the slate was wiped clean.

Kucan would perform oral sex on the-then eight year old. The letter also alleged that Kucan would have a brother in a brown robe present on some occasions and that this brother would also perform oral sex on the victim.

Father Kucan was taken out of the ministry in March 2005, when the Order received its first complaint against him. The Order settled with the victim filing the complaint. The file note also indicated that Kucan was then in his mid- eighties and in the early stages of dementia.

There is nothing contained in this file that shows that any actual correspondence between the Church and the District Attorney occurred.

Louis Lorei

Where he served:

9/1981 - 9/1985: Pastor, Our Lady of Peace, Erie, PA

Unknown: Possibly Gannon University

Summary: In December 2009, Father Mark Hoffman called the Bishop's office to report an allegation involving child sexual abuse by Monsignor Louis Lorei. The parents of a boy had approached him to report that their son stated he "was touched by Monsignor Lorei" in the early 1980's. Bishop Trautman later met with the victim.

The victim stated that about 1980 or 1981, he was a student, roughly age 11 to 13, at Our Lady of Peace school. He was also an altar server during early mass with Lorei. On one occasion, Lorei invited him into the rectory and into his bedroom. Lorei had the victim sit on the bed while Lorei sat next to him and hugged and kissed him on the lips. This would occur several days in a row, stop, and then begin again. The victim eventually refused to serve mass with Lorei.

Lorei was soon removed by then -Bishop Murphy. In his own handwritten words, Trautman expressed the personal belief that Lorei' s sudden departure may likely have been indicative of some kind of significant event. Trautman offered the victim counseling services. Financial assistance was also discussed. In a memorandum dated March 30, 2007, Hoffman also documented an additional victim of Lorei. Hoffman found out through the father of the second victim that his son was allegedly abused by Lorei. The victim reportedly described the incident during a United Methodist retreat in 2000.

A small note in the file states "Review Board found no merit in processing since supposed victim did not come forth even after requests."

It is unknown who the request refers to.

Salvatore P. Luzzi

Where he served:

6/09/1962 - 8/29/1968: Faculty, Venango Christian High. Residence at St. Joseph, Oil City, PA

8/28/1968 - 8/28/1969: Sp. Ministry, St. Mark's Seminary, Erie, PA

8/28/1968 - 7/16/1972: Dean/Collegians, St. Mark's Seminary, Erie, PA

7/16/1972 - 5/05/1979: Sp. Ministry, St. Mark's Seminary, Erie, PA

5/05/1979 - 7/19/1994: Pastor, St. Joseph, Warren, PA

3/19/1991 - 8/01/1994: Sp. Ministry, Dean/Warren Co. Deanery, St Joseph, Warren, PA

7/19/1994 - 2/10/1995: Sick Leave

5/05/1979 - 9/15/1995: Resided at St. Joseph

9/15/1995 - currently: Faculties removed

Summary: After several years teaching at Venango Christian High School, Reverend Salvatore P. Luzzi was moved to St. Mark's Seminary, where he filled several roles. Over the course of his 30 year ministry, he was accused of sexual misconduct by eight male victims ranging in age from early teens to early twenties. Some of these victims were groped, inappropriately kissed, hugged, and/or fondled. He also faced allegations of responsibility for the suicide of a former student/victim.

Luzzi worked extensively with young would-be priests at St. Mark's where he and fellow priest Leon Muroski served as Spiritual Directors to the seminarians. Luzzi's inappropriate touching and fondling of at least two seminarians prompted the Diocese to settle with those seminarians for large sums of money. The first former Seminarian's case was settled in civil court for $34,500 and this individual received several thousand dollars over the course of the many years that the Diocese paid for his counseling and medication costs.

Several other former juvenile victims of Luzzi received letters or phone calls of apology from the Diocese. These victims were counseled by the Diocese through correspondence or in person interviews wherein Luzzi's behavior was dismissed as "Sal's way of expressing himself and his "touching approach" to ministry was attributed to his Italian upbringing.

In 1994, Bishop Trautman sent both Luzzi and Muroski to St. Luke's Institute for therapy. The Diocese publicly announced that Luzzi was going on an extended sabbatical for "personal, spiritual and academic growth." Once Luzzi was discharged, the Bishop welcomed him back into pastoral ministry by letter on February 14, 1995. However, the welcome also came with several conditions and a Penial Precept, a formal notification in the church that restricts ministry.

Trautman directed Luzzi to refrain from all contact with youth under 19 years of age and to avoid travel and social interaction with such parishioners. Later that same year, in September 1995, Trautman had Luzzi' s faculties as a priest removed and Luzzi began residing in a private residence, where he remains today.

Ricahrd D. Lynch

Where he served:

6/01/1963 - 5/26/1972: Secondary Education Bradford Central Christian High School, Bradford, PA

5/26/1972 - 2/18/1983: Headmaster, Secondary Education Bradford Central Christian High School, Bradford, PA

2/18/1983 - 8/30/1999: Pastor, Erie Holy Rosary, Erie, PA

1984-1994:Dean, East Erie Deanery, Erie, PA

8/31/1999 - Death: Pastor, St. Mark's the Evangelist, Erie, PA

Summary: The victim claims Lynch slammed him into the wall and this resulted in a trauma to his head.

In a letter dated June 3, 2016, the victim stated that he wanted to write the Bishop to get some things off his chest. He alleged that Father Richard Lynch was responsible for the sexual abuse that he went through while attending Bradford Central Catholic Christian High School 1978-1979. He said he told Bishop Trautman about some physical abuse, but was too ashamed to talk about the sexual abuse.

Daniel Martin

Where he served:

1943 - 1945: Parochial Vicar, Sacred Heart, Sharon, PA

1945 - 1962: Faculty, Erie Cathedral Preparatory High School, Erie, PA

1948 - 1962: Assistant Headmaster, Erie Cathedral Preparatory, Erie, PA

1950-1962: Chaplain, Mercyhurst College

1962-1970: Pastor, St. Boniface, Kersey, PA

1962-1970: Headmaster, Elk Co. Christian High School, St. Mary's, PA

1970-1974: Pastor, St. Joseph, Oil City, PA

1974- 1986: Pastor, St. George, Erie, PA

1984: Prelate of Honor, titled Monsignor

1986-1987: Retired, Residence at Mt. Calvary, Erie, PA

1987: Chaplain, Mercyhurst College for Religious women

2003: Blessed Sacrament, Residence

Summary: Monsignor Daniel Martin was a priest the in the Diocese of Erie for 43 -three years who faced two known allegations of sexual abuse. The grand jury's review of his files found very little documented evidence of his abuse of a teenager who was an alter server in his parish. That victim would go on to become a priest himself and appeared in front of the grand jury to tell his story.

He reported that when he was upset over the troubles of his life, he would seek Martin's counsel. He testified that Martin sexually fondled him on at least sixteen occasions between the ages of sixteen and nineteen.

Other victims came forward with similar encounters.

Redacted – pending litigation

The name of the priest, where he served and the exact incident was entirely redacted in the grand jury report.

Leon T. Muroski

Where he served:

6/11/1960 - 9/01/1967: Parochial Vicar, St. Luke, Erie, PA

3/30/1961 - N/A: Chaplain, Erie County T.B. Hospital

9/01/1960 - 6/16/1967: Special Ministry, Faculty, St. Mark's, Erie, PA

6/16/1967 - 10/12/1982: Diocese Office, St. Mark's Seminary, Erie, PA

10/12/1982 - 9/01/1995: Pastor, Our Lady of the Lake, Edinboro, PA

5/1994: Sent to St. Luke's Institute for Psychological Treatment

9/01/1995-6/01/1997: Retired, St. Casimirs, Rectory, Erie, PA

6/01/1997-4/01/2001: The Christophers, Unknown duties, New York, NY,

5/03/2001: Resident, St. Patrick's, Erie, PA

9/01/2001 - 3/11/2002: Chaplain, Pleasant Ridge Manor West, Girard, PA

1/2320/03 - N/A: St. Patrick's, Unassigned

12/10/2015 - Present: Diocese Retirement Home, Erie, PA

Summary: After 20 years of administrative duties, Muroski finally got his own parish. This ministry lasted from 1982 until1995, but was abruptly halted when in the early 1990s Muroski was accused of sexual misconduct while he was a Spiritual Director at the seminary. Muroski was sent to St. Luke's Institute in Suitland, Maryland, for individual psychotherapy in 1994 after he admitted to inappropriate contact with the seminarians under his watch. These seminarians were all male, eighteen to twenty-three-year olds, when Muroski would counsel them. This counselling included allegations of full body massages, kissing, masturbation and fondling of the seminarians' buttocks and genitals. Muroski would eventually be placed back into ministry after therapy at St. Luke's and served in the Diocese of Erie and in The Christophers program in New York City.

In 2001, Muroski returned to the Diocese of Erie from The Christophers and was retired. Muroski was permitted to move into the retired priest home in 2002, which is where he still resides. In 2016, the Diocese rostered a list of all the retired clergy living in the home and made it public. Muroski was not listed as a resident. It was at this residence that the grand jury found him living in 2017, however.

Edmundus Murphy

No further details regarding where he served were provided.

Summary: On December 21, 2007 an e-mail communication was sent to Monsignor Robert Smith, Vicar General of the Diocese of Erie from the Society of the Divine Word in Techny, Ilinois. The purpose of the e-mail was to inform Smith that a victim was sexually abused by a staff member while he was a minor at Sacred Heart High School in 1964. This school was operated by the Society of the Divine Word Missionaries in Girard.

The victim claimed that during the summer between his freshman and sophomore years of high school, Brother Edmundus Murphy, who was 33 years of age at this time, was the wrestling coach at the school. Murphy encouraged the victim to join the team and, under the pretense of teaching him some wrestling moves, the two wrestled naked "as the ancient Greeks and Romans did." The victim alleged that during these "wrestling" sessions he was sodomized by Murphy.

Immediately after the incident, the victim asked Murphy what he was doing and, according to the victim, Murphy sat on the floor and began to cry.

The grand jury investigation found no documentation that the Diocese notified local law enforcement or the District Attorney's Office about Murphy's behavior. The only note in the file was a handwritten notation on top of the printed out e-mail which read; "not responsible-Priest/Deacon only."

John L. Murray

Where he served:

5/31/1947 - 5/28/1955: Sacred Heart, Parochial Vicar with Residence, Sharon, PA

5/28/1955 - 6/11/1960: St. Paul, Parochial Vicar with Residence, Erie, PA

8/25/1959 - 6/11/1960: St. Paul, Parochial Vicar with Residence. Special Duties, Part-Time Faculty, Erie Cathedral Preparatory, Erie, PA

6/11/1960 - 8/01/1966: Special Ministry, Erie Cathedral Preparatory, Erie, PA

8/27/1966 - 1/31/1969: Special Ministry, DuBois Central Catholic HS, Special Duties, Headmaster, DuBois, PA

6/16/1967 - 10/15/1968: St. Bernard, Administration with Reside

Time capsule, 'Eyes of Texas': News from around our 50 states

From USA TODAY Network and wire reports

Alabama

Montgomery: The state said it will allow a death row inmate’s pastor to hold his hand during a lethal injection next month, a decision that was made to end litigation over the issue. Lawyers for Alabama wrote in a June court document that inmates can now have a personal spiritual adviser present with them in the execution chamber, and the adviser will be allowed to touch them. The agreement settled litigation over Willie Smith’s request to have his personal pastor with him as he is put to death. Smith was convicted of the 1991 kidnapping and murder of 22-year-old Sharma Ruth Johnson in Birmingham. Alabama has rescheduled Smith’s execution for next month. According to court documents, his spiritual adviser can anoint the inmate’s head with oil; pray with the inmate and hold his hand as the execution begins, as long as the adviser steps away before the consciousness assessment is performed; and remain in the execution chamber until the curtains to the witness rooms are drawn. The description was included in a footnote in a joint filing in June by the state and Smith’s attorneys in which the two sides announced they had reached an agreement over the spiritual adviser issue.

Alaska

Juneau: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday that it would seek to restart a process that could restrict mining in the Bristol Bay region, renowned for its salmon runs. The announcement is the latest in a long-running dispute over a proposed copper-and-gold mine in the southwest Alaska region. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in November 2020, under the Trump administration, denied key authorization for the proposed Pebble Mine following an environmental review from the agency months earlier that the developer had viewed as a favorable to the project. In the rejection decision, a Corps official concluded the project would “result in significant degradation of the aquatic ecosystem” and was “contrary to the public interest.” The Pebble Limited Partnership, the mine developer owned by Canada-based Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., is appealing that determination. “As the Biden Administration seeks lower carbon emissions for energy production, they should recognize that such change will require significantly more mineral production – notably copper,” Mike Heatwole, a Pebble partnership spokesperson, said in an email. “The Pebble Project remains an important domestic source for the minerals necessary for the administration to reach its green energy goals.”

Arizona

Phoenix: A program announced by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey last month to give private school vouchers to parents who object to campus mask requirements has seen applications surge, with twice as many either started or completed as can be funded with the $10 million in federal coronavirus relief earmarked for the plan. And GOP lawmakers who back expansion of the state’s existing voucher program doubt any students who receive the grants will be forced back into public schools when the federal cash is exhausted. Opponents of the school voucher program suspect that is highly likely. The program Ducey created will give $7,000 per school year to each student who enrolled in a public school that either has mask requirements or requires unvaccinated children exposed to the coronavirus to quarantine or isolate differently from vaccinated children. Applicants can earn up to 350% of the federal poverty level, which equals $92,750 for a family of four. They can use the money for private school tuition, tutoring or other costs. The governor’s education policy adviser said last week that applications for 454 children had been completed and another 2,255 started in the first 13 days the application window was open, with 69 approved.

Arkansas

Little Rock: The state is easing rules for its rental relief program to prioritize the funds for tenants at immediate risk of being evicted. Little of the state’s share of the federal money has been spent so far. Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced the changes to the Arkansas Rent Relief Program on Wednesday after asking the state Department of Human Services to review its processes surrounding the program. Arkansas set aside $173 million in federal funds for the program for people who have lost jobs or are struggling financially because of the pandemic. So far, though, only $9.8 million in assistance has been paid out. DHS said nearly 2,800 applicants are at immediate risk of eviction, and 51% of those will be prioritized under the changes. The remainder have been paid or are expected to be paid by next week. The other changes will also allow funds to be paid to eligible tenant applicants if a landlord does not submit the required information within 10 days. DHS said the contractor handling the program is also adding 70 staffers to handle calls and process cases, and a new case management team has been added to focus on previously submitted applications in which the landlord did not submit the required information.

California

Sacramento: Lawmakers on Wednesday sent Gov. Gavin Newsom legislation to end the careers of bad law enforcement officers, a year after an earlier effort died without a final vote. The measure aims to keep troubled officers from jumping from one job to another by creating a mandatory new state license, or certification, that could be permanently revoked. “This bill allows them to rid the bad apples that we know exist, bad apples that we know exist in every profession,” Democratic Sen. Steven Bradford said. “Just because you put on a uniform and a badge doesn’t absolve you or make you immune to being a bad person.” California licenses more than 200 professions, he noted – “we’re just adding law enforcement to that category.” The final, softened version of the legislation also allows for suspending the license as a lesser punishment and includes other safeguards like requiring a two-thirds vote for decertification. Senators gave final approval on a 28-9 vote, with Republicans opposed. California is one of just four states without a way of decertifying officers, alongside Hawaii, New Jersey and Rhode Island. Bradford named his bill the Kenneth Ross Jr. Police Decertification Act, after a 25-year-old Black man killed in Los Angeles County in 2018 by an officer who had previously been involved in three other shootings.

Colorado

Loveland: The city announced Wednesday that it has agreed to pay $3 million to a woman with dementia who was roughly arrested by police last year after being suspected of shoplifting. Her family said the money will pay for the around-the-clock care she has needed after her condition deteriorated following her arrest. Then-Officer Austin Hopp arrested Karen Garner, 73, after she left a store without paying for $13.88 worth of items in Loveland, about 50 miles north of Denver, in June 2020. Police body camera video shows that after she turned away from him, he grabbed her arm and pushed her to the ground, with her still holding the wildflowers she had been picking as she walked through a field. A federal lawsuit that Garner filed claimed he dislocated her shoulder by shoving her handcuffed left arm forward onto the hood of a patrol car. Police station surveillance video also showed Hopp and others officers talking about the arrest and the “pop” sound her arm made, laughing and joking at times as Garner sat in a holding cell. Officials in Loveland apologized to Garner and her family in the announcement of the proposed settlement and listed the steps they have taken in response to her arrest, including a pending independent investigation and changes to how cases are reviewed when police use force.

Connecticut

Montville: Gov. Ned Lamont announced Wednesday that his administration plans to close the Radgowski Correctional Center at the end of this year. The prison, part of the two-building Corrigan-Radgowski complex, is the second of three closures that were planned as part of budget cuts for the 2022-23 fiscal year. The move is expected to save the state $7.3 million, the governor’s office said. The state shuttered the maximum-security Northern Correctional Institution in June, a move expected to save about $11.75 million annually. The governor’s office has not announced the name of the third facility it plans to close or when that will happen. “Spending millions of dollars in annual operating costs on buildings that have historically low numbers of incarcerated individuals inside is just not a good use of resources,” Lamont, a Democrat, said in a statement. “By relocating them to other facilities that have available capacity, we can deliver on our administration’s goal of reducing the cost structure of state government.” The closures come during a steady decline in the inmate population, which has decreased by more than 3,200 over the past 17 months. The state currently houses about 9,200 prisoners, down from the all-time high of 19,894 in February 2008.

Delaware

Millsboro: About 30,000 gallons of diesel fuel were spilled at NRG Energy’s power plant on the Indian River near Millsboro overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday. The spill, discovered Wednesday morning, occurred after a pressurized hose detached and was contained to NRG property, according to a statement from the company. Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control spokeswoman Nikki Lavoie said the hose detached from an above-ground storage tank, and the fuel was released into “a contained outside area.” Lavoie said Tri-State Bird Rescue was contacted “to assist with the wildlife impacts from the spill,” including “affected geese on the property and seagulls that had flown into the area.” No waterways or public lands were affected by the spill, according to NRG spokesman Dave Schrader. He said the spill was contained to “the coal pile.” “NRG takes protection of the environment and compliance with all environmental regulations seriously,” Schrader said. DNREC, the Coast Guard and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency continue to monitor cleanup. NRG announced earlier this year that the coal-fired Millsboro plant will close in June 2022.

District of Columbia

Washington: Georgetown could soon be getting a Metro station, WUSA-TV reports. A two-year study commissioned by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to address overcrowding on the Blue, Orange and Silver lines presented six options for extended rail service on the lines, which have exceeded capacity limits during peak hours for years, according to Metro. The study, launched in 2019, identified a preferred Blue line route that would extend the line to National Harbor by way of a second Rosslyn station, a new Potomac River tunnel and a new station at Georgetown. The study predicts cities and counties along Metro rail lines will add 37% more people and 30% more jobs by 2040, noting that large rail projects can take up to 20 years to complete. Metro said in its report that the expansion would cost between $20 billion and $25 billion to build and between $175 million and $200 million annually to operate, but of the six options, the National Harbor expansion would create the biggest ridership growth – one of the main goals of the study. Metro board members planned to meet Thursday to discuss the results of the study.

Florida

St. Petersburg: A chance encounter with a former Marine beset by delusions of child sex trafficking ultimately led to the massacre of four members of a family, including a mother holding her baby boy, a sheriff said Thursday. Bryan Riley, who faces murder and other charges in Sunday’s killings, stopped by the slain family’s Lakeland home briefly the day before after going to a nearby friend’s house to pick up a first aid kit, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a news conference. Riley had told acquaintances he was headed for Hurricane Ida relief work. A short distance from the friend’s home, Riley saw Justice Gleason mowing his lawn with his 11-year-old daughter in the yard, Judd said. That provided the trigger that led to the slayings, Judd said: Riley believed she was an imaginary child named Amber who was suicidal and being held by a supposed sex trafficking ring that God had told him to confront. No one named Amber lived at the home, as Gleason repeatedly told Riley before asking him to leave their initial encounter. “This was all fiction, all made up by him,” Judd said. Riley, wearing body armor, had three weapons with him and fired at least 100 shots in the main home and a smaller one in back. An 11-year-old girl who played dead survived the attack despite being shot multiple times and has undergone four surgeries so far, Judd said.

Georgia

Atlanta: The city’s public safety net hospital became the latest to temporarily cancel elective surgeries Wednesday, saying it’s being overrun with COVID-19 patients. Grady Memorial Hospital CEO John Haupert made the announcement, saying the hospital was “inundated” with patients over the Labor Day weekend even though it was officially diverting ambulances. “Because of the strain this is putting on the health system, our patients, and our staff, we must make some changes to the way we operate,” Haupert wrote. “As of today, we are canceling non-essential outpatient surgery and procedures. We will regularly review patient volumes to determine when we can resume those services.” More than 5,900 people sickened by the respiratory illness were in Georgia hospitals Wednesday. COVID-19 patient numbers have been hovering around 6,000, a record high, for more than a week. Across the state, 97% of intensive care beds were in use Wednesday, an all-time high. Some other Georgia hospitals were already postponing elective surgeries, as more than 50 hospitals statewide Wednesday reported they were turning away ambulances bringing emergency or ICU patients.

Hawaii

Honolulu: The state is launching a program that will allow people to use their smartphones to prove they have been vaccinated against COVID-19. The Hawaii Smart Health Card comes shortly before Honolulu and Maui begin instituting vaccine requirements for patrons of restaurants and other businesses. State officials say that starting Friday, people who have been vaccinated in Hawaii will be able to upload a photo of their vaccination card to the Safe Travels Hawaii website to create a digital vaccination record. The website will cross-check this information with data stored in the state’s vaccination database. Gov. David Ige said this should help prevent the use of fake vaccination cards. The verification process should only take a few seconds. Customers may show restaurants, museums and other establishments their verified Hawaii Smart Health Card in lieu of their paper vaccination card to gain admittance. Businesses will have the option to use a validator app to scan a QR code on the digital vaccination records to verify their legitimacy. “Participation in the Hawaii Smart Health Card is voluntary. It is strictly a convenience for those residents who have been vaccinated here in the state of Hawaii,” Ige said at a news conference.

Idaho

Idaho Falls: Scientists studying pack rat middens at the City of Rocks National Reserve have determined that the area’s iconic pinyon pine trees first arrived about 2,800 years ago and became prevalent about 700 years ago. That’s just one example of what scientists have learned by studying the middens – piles of seeds, bones, leaves and waste – in the area that date back 45,000 years. Julio Betancourt of the U.S. Geological Survey has studied pack rat middens in the U.S. West and South America. “They’re hard as a rock, kind of black, big chunks, sometimes huge chunks of pack rat deposits that have been consolidated, cemented by the crystalized urine of pack rats,” Betancourt told the Post Register. “The pack rats are just collecting tons of stuff and don’t go very far to collect it – mostly within 50 meters . The spatial resolution is really high. We’ve studied all kinds of things in these deposits. The principal thing is plant remains.” The middens can be dated, giving a snapshot of the local ecology over time. The U.S. Geological Survey keeps a database of pack rat middens for western North America. One midden from the area dated to about 10,000 years ago is on display at the City of Rocks visitor center in Almo. Betancourt said the middens have allowed scientists to track climate and vegetation changes at the City of Rocks.

Illinois

Chicago: A federal judge has granted class-action status in a lawsuit filed six years ago that alleged the Chicago Police Department’s stop-and-frisk policy targeted Black and Hispanic people who hadn’t committed any crime. Attorneys involved in the lawsuit announced Tuesday that the case’s six original plaintiffs are now part of a class of more than 1 million people. The plaintiffs’ lawyers say some 2 million unconstitutional stops occurred in Chicago between 2010 and 2017 in which officers allegedly had no “reasonable suspicion” that a crime had been or was about to be committed. The decision was handed down by U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood on Aug. 31. The ruling, which could lead to a trial, comes at a difficult time for a police department that has long been plagued by a legacy of excessive force and racism and has scrambled to restore public trust. “This practice has to stop – and elevating this issue to a class action provides a way to make significant change and make our community better,” Antonio Romanucci, an attorney who filed the lawsuit, said in a statement. In fact, the judge limited her ruling only to the possibility of a change in policy, according to Jennifer McGuffin, a spokeswoman for Romanucci’s firm.

Indiana

Indianapolis: The state’s ban on telemedicine consultations between doctors and women seeking abortions and several other abortion restrictions are back in force after a federal appeals court set aside a judge’s ruling that they were unconstitutional. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals panel issued a 2-1 ruling Wednesday that allows Indiana to continue enforcing those laws while the court considers a full appeal of the case. It said District Court Judge Sarah Evans Barker’s ruling last month was inconsistent with previous Supreme Court decisions and reinstated Indiana’s telemedicine ban, along with state laws requiring in-person examinations by a doctor before medication-induced abortions can be performed and a prohibition on second-trimester abortions outside hospitals or surgery centers. “Plaintiffs contend, and the district court found, that developments in videoconferencing make it possible to dispense with in-person meetings, that improvements in medicine make the use of hospitals or surgical centers unnecessary, and that nurses are competent to approve and monitor medication-induced abortions,” the ruling said. “The district court concluded that these findings permit it to depart from the holdings of earlier cases. Yet the Supreme Court insists that it alone has the authority to modify its precedents.”

Iowa

Winterset: More than 100 students walked out of Winterset Junior High and Winterset High School this week in protest over the school district placing seventh grade literacy teacher Lucas Kaufmann on leave after a presentation about himself to his class featured the LGBT pride flag, according to a change.org petition. When asked by students, Kaufmann said he was bisexual. More than 2,500 people had signed the online petition as of Thursday afternoon. Winterset Community School District Superintendent Justin Gross confirmed Kaufmann was placed on leave after concerns were raised following the presentation but declined further comment. State law prohibits employers from firing employees based on sexual orientation and gender identification, which Gross acknowledged. Kaufmann did not respond to a request for comment. His presentation and personnel status were the subject of a report by the Iowa Standard, a conservative website. Students standing outside the school building during the protest said having teachers who share similar experiences can help them navigate their own identities. And they worried what the district’s decision would mean for LGBTQ students, especially those who are not publically out.

Kansas

Topeka: A plan to allocate up to $50 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds to retention incentives for nurses and front-line workers has stalled because of top Republican legislators’ concerns about which hospitals would receive the money and how the funds would be spent. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s bipartisan pandemic response advisory task force delayed approving the proposal after a top Republican legislator argued that it should allow hospitals to use the funds to address other pandemic-related issues including mental health. And another Republican leader on the task force on Wednesday proposed excluding hospitals that require all of their employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The task force expects to meet again by early next week to consider a revised version of the plan. It would have to sign off on the details before the funds could be spent. The retention incentives would be capped at $13 an hour and $25,000 a year to comply with federal requirements. Workers would need to have been hired at a hospital as of September to qualify for the retention pay. Senate President Ty Masterson’s proposal to make hospitals with vaccine mandates ineligible for retention incentives failed on a 5-2 vote.

Kentucky

Richmond: Officials say they’ve reached a milestone at a chemical weapons depot with the destruction of all projectiles containing mustard agent. The last projectiles containing mustard agent were destroyed Saturday at the Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant in Madison County, the facility said in a statement this week. The U.S. is destroying its chemical weapons stockpile under an international treaty. Mustard and nerve agent are being destroyed at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky, while mustard agent is being destroyed at a Colorado facility. The chemical weapons stockpile at the Kentucky site originally contained 523 tons of chemical agent configured in 155 mm projectiles containing mustard and VX nerve agent, 8-inch projectiles containing GB nerve agent, and M55 rockets containing GB and VX nerve agent. The last of Kentucky’s projectiles containing VX nerve agent were destroyed in May. Now that the mustard agent projectiles are gone, only rockets are left to destroy.

Louisiana

Baton Rouge: A young giraffe named for a Louisiana football star has died at the Baton Rouge Zoo, officials said Thursday. In a news release, the zoo said the 20-month-old giraffe named Burreaux – after Cincinnati Bengals quarterback and former LSU star Joe Burrow – died early Wednesday. The zoo said Burreaux fell ill Tuesday with a sudden onset of symptoms including a severe cough and overall agitation. “The Zoo’s veterinary staff took immediate measures to help, including swiftly administering medications to stabilize,” the statement said. “As well, he underwent constant staff evaluation to optimize his chances of recovery. The Zoo’s team reached out to numerous zoological veterinarians throughout the nation – none of which had experienced a giraffe with comparable symptoms.” The zoo said an LSU veterinary team has performed a necropsy to determine the possible cause of death. The official results are expected in about 30 days.

Maine

Augusta: Opponents of a proposal to replace the state’s private utility companies with a consumer-owned utility have crafted a referendum that could create a hurdle to issuing bonds to fund the effort. The referendum proposal submitted to the secretary of state’s office Tuesday would require voter approval for any quasi-government entity, including a consumer-owned utility, to take on $1 billion or more in debt. It also requires voters to be presented with the full accounting of the cost. “The principle is straightforward: You should know how much something is going to cost before you commit to borrowing billions of dollars to buy it,” said Willy Ritch from Maine Affordable Energy. Groups that want to buy out Central Maine Power and Versant power and create a consumer utility called Pine Tree Power also are pressing for a referendum after Gov. Janet Mills vetoed their bill. The effort came at a time of frustration with CMP, the state’s largest electric utility, over a botched rollout of a billing system, slow response to storm damage and power outages, and a controversial utility corridor that would serve as a conduit for Canadian hydropower. It’s possible both the proposals could appear on the ballot at the same time next year. Both petitions are pending with the secretary of state’s office.

Maryland

Annapolis: The state is authorizing COVID-19 booster shots for all residents 65 and older who live in congregate care settings, Gov. Larry Hogan said Wednesday. Residents in nursing homes, assisted-living facilities, residential drug treatment centers and developmentally disabled group homes are eligible for boosters, the governor said. “To be clear, these facilities in Maryland will not have to wait to begin offering boosters,” Hogan, a Republican, said at a news conference. “Boosters can now be immediately administered.” While the federal government has yet to say when most people should get booster shots, Hogan said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has approved them for people who are immunocompromised, and a Maryland study indicates many in those facilities are immunocompromised. “So we’re following CDC guidance but broadening the definition,” Hogan said. The governor also announced that the state’s health department is issuing new guidance for pharmacies and other vaccine providers across the state to administer boosters without any need of a prescription or doctor’s order to anyone who considers themselves to be immunocompromised.

Massachusetts

Worcester: A strike by nurses at St. Vincent Hospital hit the six-month mark Wednesday, an anniversary the nurses called “sad” and hospital CEO Carolyn Jackson called “unbelievable,” as the sides traded blame. “The fact that we are still outside this hospital, the hospital we love and have served, some of us for 10, 20, even 40 years is a travesty and serves as an indictment of (hospital owners) Tenet Healthcare and their unyielding desire for profit and power at the expense of the suffering of our patients and our community,” Marlena Pellegrino, a longtime nurse at the hospital and co-chair of the nurses local bargaining unit of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, said in a statement Tuesday. Jackson blamed the nurses union. “It’s truly unbelievable that the MNA has prolonged a strike that was based on false pretenses for six months,” she said in an interview Wednesday. While the strike initially focused primarily on staffing – with nurses alleging unsafe levels and the hospital saying such charges are false – the hospital and nurses are now stymied by a return-to-work agreement. Nurses want a provision that would enable them to return to their old jobs and proposed a $2,000 bonus for striking and nonstriking nurses in recognition of their work during the pandemic.

Michigan

Detroit: Ten sexual assault victims sued the University of Michigan on Thursday over a policy that limits the number of people who can offer public comment at meetings of the school’s governing board. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of nine men and a woman who said they were molested by Dr. Robert Anderson during his decades as a campus physician. They said they were denied an opportunity to address the Board of Regents in July, in violation of Michigan’s open meetings law. The university caps the number of speakers and limits the number of people who can talk about a specific topic at five. Regents have been meeting by video conference during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2017, The number of speakers was increased to as many as 17, under certain conditions, from 10. Five people who said they were assaulted by Anderson spoke in July, spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said. Regents have the “authority to establish rules by which members of the public may address a meeting of the board, and the process in place at U-M is consistent with those at other Michigan public universities,” Fitzgerald said. Hundreds of men say they were molested by Anderson, who died in 2008, while he served for decades as a university doctor. The university has acknowledged assaults occurred and is in mediation to settle lawsuits.

Minnesota

St. Paul: Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said Wednesday that he will no longer prosecute felony charges stemming from most low-level traffic stops, saying it’s time to change a practice that has disproportionately affected generations of minority communities. “Recognizing the role we play as prosecutors in perpetuating racial inequities that often result from these types of stops is an important first step in charting a new, less harmful course,” Choi said in a statement. Choi said his office will not prosecute crimes that are discovered solely because of a low-level traffic stop, such as broken taillight or expired license tabs. He said the new policy does not apply to situations that create a public safety hazard or when a vehicle is stopped because of a dangerous condition. Choi said during a news conference that he used to believe that pretextual stops – in which police use a minor violation as a reason to pull someone over and search for a more serious crime – amounted to good policing. “I no longer believe that,” he said, adding that such stops seldom result in seized contraband. And sometimes the consequences can be fatal, as seen in a series of encounters in recent years in Ramsey County and elsewhere.

Mississippi

Jackson: The state is closing its only remaining parking garage field hospital set up to treat coronavirus patients during the delta variant surge, but it is still relying on out-of-state workers to help increase intensive care unit capacity in state hospitals, officials said Wednesday. Health officials also reported the state’s seventh child death from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic and raised alarms about a string of deaths in unvaccinated pregnant women. State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said eight pregnant women with the coronavirus have died over the past four weeks. “We do know that COVID is especially problematic and dangerous for pregnant women,” he said. Dobbs said COVID-19 can be deadly for babies in the womb, too. Very preliminary data collected by the Department of Health indicates babies are twice as likely to die in the womb after 20 weeks in coronavirus-infected pregnant women than in women without the virus, he said. “It’s been a real tragedy,” he said. Jim Craig, senior deputy for the Mississippi Department of Health and Director of Health Protection, said the state is seeing a small improvement in hospital bed availability, but ICU capacity continues to be “very scarce ... effectively zero.”

Missouri

Neosho: A teacher said he resigned from Neosho Junior High School after he was told to remove a gay pride flag from his classroom and to sign a letter saying he would not discuss human sexuality or gender with his students. John Wallis, 22, said he hung the flag and a sign that said “everyone is welcome” in his classroom so his students would know they could come to him for help, The Kansas City Star reports. Superintendent Jim Cummins said in a statement that he could not discuss personnel matters. He said Wallis, a theater, world mythology and speech and debate teacher, was hired Aug. 13 and resigned Sept. 1. Wallis said he took down the flag and sign after being told a parent complained. He said he was told more parents complained after he told students they should consider finding another classroom if they were uncomfortable with him or LGBTQ students. He said he was then asked to sign a letter saying he would be fired if he could not teach his curriculum without keeping his “personal agenda on sexuality” out of the classroom. Wallis said he’s filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

Montana

Billings: An area of the city contaminated with dry cleaning chemicals that emit toxic vapors has been added to the federal government’s Superfund list of cleanup sites. The move makes the Billings PCE site eligible for federal money for permanent cleanup. Solvents from old dry cleanings businesses in Billings created an underground plume that stretches for miles, the Billings Gazette reports. Employees of businesses near one of the dry cleaners have complained of feeling sick because of exposure to PCE, a solvent used to remove stains that’s been linked to liver and some other cancers, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The area was declared a state Superfund site in 1992. Over the next year, workers from the EPA and Montana Department of Environmental Quality will investigate which buildings have been contaminated and outline cleanup options.

Nebraska

Omaha: Police have announced the procession route through the city for a Marine who died in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan. The body of 23-year-old Cpl. Daegan Page will be transported starting at 1:30 p.m. Friday from Eppley Airfield in Omaha to Braman Mortuary in southwest Omaha, police said. The procession will begin at Abbott Drive, then head south on 10th Street before traveling over I-480 west and I-80 west. The procession will exit I-80 at L Street and head south on 132nd Street and Millard Avenue South before continuing to Millard Avenue and 144th Street south to the funeral home. Officials have encouraged the public to line the streets of the route to pay their respects to the fallen Marine. Page was one of 13 U.S. service members killed Aug. 26 in the bombing at the Kabul airport, which also killed at least 169 Afghans. A memorial service will be held the morning of Sept. 17 at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Millard. Page will be buried in Omaha National Cemetery.

Nevada

Carson City: All 17 counties in the state were expected to be subject to an indoor mask mandate by Friday, health officials said. An emergency directive from Gov. Steve Sisolak requires counties to adopt mask requirements for indoor public spaces and crowded outdoor spaces in line with guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention if they surpass thresholds for COVID-19 transmission. Rural Eureka County is the state’s only jurisdiction currently not subject to a mask requirement but reported high transmission for the second week in a row, triggering the mandate. The reintroduction of masks and the debut of vaccine requirements in venues like sporting events, conventions and some schools have been met with resistance throughout the state. In the Las Vegas area, the president of the school board said she has received death threats since the district approved a requirement for employees to get COVID-19 shots. Clark County School District Board of Trustees President Linda Cavazos said on Twitter that the threats had “very disturbing images” but that she and her colleagues were continuing to do their jobs, KVVU-TV reports. “We have no time for hate,” she said. The board’s plan includes a process for requesting accommodations for medical conditions or for sincerely held religious beliefs.

New Hampshire

Concord: St. Paul’s School now has an advocate who provides confidential support to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault and a new software system to keep track of campus misconduct reports, according to a compliance monitor hired to oversee the handling of sexual abuse claims at the school. The report from Donald Sullivan was released Thursday through the New Hampshire attorney general’s office, which mandated the position as part of an agreement that subjected the Concord boarding school to as much as five years of government oversight in lieu of criminal charges. The 2018 agreement followed an investigation that found credible evidence of abuse involving 20 former faculty members over several decades. Sullivan started his job Jan. 18. His report was completed in July. Just like other schools, St. Paul’s was affected by COVID-19 protocols that resulted in a smaller campus population and additional quarantine time, Sullivan wrote. “There is no way to tell how much the diminished on-campus time or other COVID-19 protocols affected the number of reportable incidents, but it is reasonable to assume that there was some reduction,” he said.

New Jersey

Lower Alloways Creek: State and federal officials broke ground Thursday on a facility designed to help the state take a leadership position in the burgeoning offshore wind energy industry on the East Coast. Gov. Phil Murphy and U.S. Labor Secretary Martin Walsh were among those who spoke at the ceremony for the New Jersey Wind Port in Lower Alloways Creek Township, in Salem County. The facility is designed to provide a place to manufacture giant blades and other components for offshore wind energy projects, which are increasingly being proposed – and approved – off the New Jersey coastline. Its cost is estimated at $300 million to $400 million. “What we are doing is not only going to create good jobs, but it is going to be our greatest stand against climate change,” said Murphy, a Democrat. Walsh, the former Boston mayor, noted that President Joe Biden in March set a goal of having 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind energy operating by 2030, enough to power about 10 million homes. Walsh said he hopes similar projects will be approved elsewhere along the nation’s shorelines. “Other states can follow suit, right here, with what is happening in New Jersey,” he said. Major construction is due to begin in December and should be completed by the end of 2023.

New Mexico

Santa Fe: A police officer who adopted a child from a pregnant woman he found using heroin in what has been held up as an alternative to abortion is pictured in uniform on an anti-abortion billboard without his permission, his superiors say. Albuquerque Police Officer Ryan Holets appears on a billboard along an interstate that runs through the city, along with the words “My favorite right is life.” The images include two of him holding his daughters, including one daughter he adopted from a couple he found shooting heroin while on patrol in 2017. Holets also helped raise money to find housing for girl’s biological parents while they completed a drug rehabilitation program in 2018. The heroin-using woman was pregnant at the time Holets found her, and she agreed to give up the girl for adoption after the birth. Anti-abortion activists who have held up Holets’ adoption of the girl as an alternative to abortion include the grandmother of his other daughter, Ethel Maharg, who is the executive director of Right to Life New Mexico, the anti-abortion group that used his image on the billboard. The Albuquerque Police Department said Holets declined the group permission to use the image of him in uniform because it would violate policy. “That’s not true,” Maharg told local TV station KRQE in an edited interview.

New York

New York: A former nurse who co-founded and once ran the cultlike NXIVM group – in which prosecutors say some women were brainwashed, branded like animals and coerced into sex – was sentenced Wednesday to 42 months in prison but won’t be locked up until January. Nancy Salzman, the former president and co-founder of NXIVM, must also pay a $150,000 fine, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis said. She has agreed to forfeit more than $500,000 in cash, several properties and a Steinway grand piano. Salzman must report to prison by Jan. 19, Garaufis said. Her lawyers said she has been caring for her ailing mother. Speaking in Brooklyn federal court, Salzman, 67, said that she fell under NXIVM leader Keith Raniere’s spell when they started working together 20 years ago and that she started rationalizing and overlooking the wrongdoing she saw around her. She offered an apology to everyone she’s hurt. “I don’t know that I can ever forgive myself,” she said. Salzman, known within the Albany-based group as “Prefect,” pleaded guilty in March 2019 to charges of racketeering conspiracy that involved conspiracy to commit identity theft and conspiracy to obstruct justice. She was one of the first in the group’s leadership to plead guilty to criminal charges.

North Carolina

Asheville: Unvaccinated Buncombe County workers might lose paid COVID-19 quarantine leave under a proposal put forward by local government leaders, with one elected official calling those who have not gotten the shot “irresponsible” and questioning whether they should face deeper benefit cuts. “I think we’ve had a very generous policy around these kinds of issues throughout the pandemics, as well we should. But for staff who make the irresponsible decision to not get vaccinated, I question whether we can continue to provide these kind of policies,” Buncombe Board of Commissioners Chair Brownie Newman said. The board will hold a Sept. 21 public hearing on the potential change to emergency sick leave policy that would affect some members of the approximately 1,800-person county workforce, including sheriff’s staff. The county started the paid quarantine leave before “vaccines came into play,” Buncombe Human Resources Director Sharon Burke told commissioners at a Tuesday meeting. It was given to select employees who could not work from home, such as detention facility officers, patrol deputies, emergency medical technicians and staff administering vaccines.

North Dakota

Keene: State regulators are investigating a spill that released nearly 48,000 gallons of produced water and more than 1,000 gallons of oil. The state Oil and Gas Division said the incident happened Wednesday at a Slawson Exploration well about 14 miles northwest of Keene. The spill was due an equipment failure or malfunction, officials said. Authorities said Thursday that the water and oil was contained to the site and was recovered and hauled away. Produced water is a byproduct of oil extraction and is typically taken from the well to a disposal site. A state inspector has been to the location and will monitor any additional cleanup that’s required.

Ohio

Cleveland: Lawmakers in the Republican-dominated Legislature violated the state constitution when they added and approved a last-minute provision that eliminated gun owners’ duty to retreat when facing threats, according to two Democratic lawmakers, the Ohio branch of the NAACP and a grassroots organizing group that filed a lawsuit Thursday. The lawsuit filed in state court in Columbus seeks to repeal the law signed by GOP Gov. Mike DeWine in January. The amendment was improperly added during the final hours of the Legislature’s two-year session in December to what had been a largely bipartisan bill giving nonprofits and other organizations civil immunity when someone with a concealed carry license causes injury or death on their property or at events, the lawsuit said. The “stand-your-ground” provision is unconstitutional, the lawsuit said, because lawmakers voted on it without three days of hearings and violated a law that says legislation should be limited to similar subjects. The NAACP said eliminating the duty to retreat makes it “easier to kill human beings without the perpetrators facing any legal consequences,” a problem that would especially imperil “human beings” who are Black Ohioans.

Oklahoma

Oklahoma City: The Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon will require proof of a COVID-19 vaccination or a negative coronavirus test within 72 hours of the race in order to participate in the annual event this year. “This marathon stands for the same resilience of our community we saw (following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing) and we can see now,” Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum Director Kari Watkins said Wednesday. “We believe we can honor those who were killed, those who survived and those changed forever by running this race and honoring so many who have bravely battled this worldwide pandemic.” The race will also be capped at 12,000 runners, half the number for the last live race in 2019, and will start in waves to allow for social distancing. Like last year’s race, which was run virtually because of the pandemic, the 2021 race has been rescheduled for October from the traditional date in April to coincide with the anniversary of the bombing. Also Wednesday, Oklahoma County District Judge Natalie Mai formalized her temporary injunction blocking a state law that bans schools from implementing mask mandates. Mai’s order said exemptions must be granted for medical reasons or personal objections.

Oregon

Roseburg: An infant has died from COVID-19 complications, officials said. The News-Review in Roseburg reports the baby less than a year old was diagnosed with COVID-19-related symptoms Aug. 20 and died Monday, according to the Douglas County COVID-19 Recovery Team. The baby was one of 13 deaths listed in the county’s Wednesday report. Children under age 12 are not eligible for COVID-19 vaccines. All but one of the others who died and were mentioned in the Wednesday report were not fully vaccinated, officials said. “The significant number of deaths over the past month have been so incredibly tragic and heartbreaking,” Douglas County Public Health Officer Bob Dannenhoffer said. He said officials have chosen not to provide detailed case information out of respect for patient privacy and because of ethical responsibility to medical records laws. “We can say that some of those who died were perfectly well before they contracted COVID and died,” Dannenhoffer said. The health team thoroughly investigates all deaths and reviews all medical records to make sure everyone meets the requirements for a COVID-19-related death per the Oregon Investigative Guidelines, he said.

Pennsylvania

Harrisburg: An apparent loophole in the state’s mask mandate for schools is making it easier for some students to go to class without having to cover their faces, even as education regulators sought to make an example of one openly defiant school board. The state health secretary’s order requiring masks to be worn inside K-12 school and child care facilities, which took effect Tuesday, includes an exemption for students who claim it would cause or worsen a medical condition. But there’s no obligation in the masking order for a student to produce a doctor’s note or other supporting medical documentation. Now some school boards that oppose the statewide mandate or have gotten an earful from parents are allowing students to go unmasked with just a parent’s signature. Spot checks by the Associated Press of about 50 school districts Thursday revealed at least a dozen around the state – from huge suburban school systems outside Philadelphia to rural districts in the west – are using exemption forms that don’t require a medical professional’s signature, making it easy for parents to opt out on behalf of their children. And while most districts are complying with the letter of the mask mandate, the Tamaqua Area School Board in Schuylkill County is openly flouting it by keeping face coverings optional.

Rhode Island

Central Falls: The state’s smallest city has a new slogan. Central Falls Mayor Maria Rivera announced Thursday that her city will now carry the tagline “Diversity that Inspires.” Rivera said the new slogan honors the city’s distinction as the most ethnically diverse in Rhode Island. It’s intended to replace Central Falls’ unofficial nickname as the “Comeback City,” which it earned after filing for bankruptcy in 2011. It emerged from bankruptcy the following year. The new slogan was selected by an all-volunteer branding committee. Located north of Providence, Central Falls is a city of 20,000 that occupies a little more than 1 square mile.

South Carolina

Summerton: Three new historical markers unveiled in the community commemorate its role in two legal battles that helped end racial segregation in U.S. schools. One of the markers stands outside the home where the Rev. J.A. De Laine asked Levi Pearson to file an NAACP-backed lawsuit demanding equal access to busing for Black schoolchildren. The 1948 case Levi Pearson v. County Board of Education was dismissed because of a technicality. But it set the stage for a second challenge from the Summerton community, WIS-TV reports. In 1950, the NAACP again sued over unequal busing by the Clarendon County school board. Though initially unsuccessful, the case Briggs vs. Elliott became one of five lawsuits appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court that formed the basis of its landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954. A marker was placed outside the St. Mark AME Church in Summerton where the NAACP held fundraisers and public meetings to recruit parents willing to demand equal school transportation. Another marks the home where Harry Briggs Sr. signed a petition against Clarendon County School Board President R.W. Elliott, who refused to supply Black schools with buses. The Summerton Community Action Group said it hopes the markers inspire others to keep pursuing equality.

South Dakota

Sioux Falls: Sanford Health said Wednesday that it is giving $350 million to a clinical initiative that aims to create a virtual care center to treat people in rural and underserved areas of the Midwest. The center will serve people from across Sanford Health’s network of hospitals, clinics and long-term care facilities. It will also house innovation, education and research initiatives to work on digital healthcare solutions for the future. Sanford bills itself as one of the largest rural health care systems in the country. It has 46 hospitals, 1,500 physicians and more than 200 Good Samaritan Society senior care locations in 26 states and 10 countries. It is based in Sioux Falls and also has major medical centers in Fargo and Bismarck, North Dakota, and Bemidji, Minnesota. The gift comes on the heels of a $300 million donation announced in March that included a significant expansion of graduate medical education and the addition of 18 new sports fields at the Sanford Sports Complex in Sioux Falls.

Tennessee

Nashville: The state’s forestry office is now taking orders for tree seedlings for planting throughout the state. The Department of Agriculture’s Division of Forestry said it is offering tree and shrub seedlings for reforestation and conservation projects through the East Tennessee Nursery in Delano. It is accepting orders until April 15, while supplies last. Officials said landowners may apply for free seedlings under three different programs. “Trees for Tennessee” seeks to increase pine regeneration on recently harvested land or fallow fields. “Play, Plant, Preserve” works to make sure wood used for making drumsticks and mallets in Tennessee is sustainable. For both programs, the landowner must have a reforestation prescription plan prepared by a professional forester, officials said. The Duck and Elk River Watershed Buffer Initiative seeks to enhance riparian zone or wetland buffers for wildlife with primarily nut-producing hardwoods. The land must be in one of the following counties: Bedford, Coffee, Dickson, Franklin, Giles, Hickman, Humphreys, Lewis, Lincoln, Marshall, Maury, Moore or Williamson.

Texas

Austin: The Texas chapter of the NAACP and a group of students have filed a federal civil rights complaint against the University of Texas for its continued use of school song “The Eyes of Texas,” which has racist elements in its past. The complaint filed Sept. 3 with the U.S. Department of Education alleges that Black students, athletes, band members, faculty and alumni are being subjected to violations of the Civil Rights Act and a hostile campus environment over the “offensive,” “disrespectful” and “aggressive” use of the song. The NAACP and the students want the federal government to withhold funding from the university. Gary Bledsoe, president of the Texas NAACP and a Texas law school graduate, sharply criticized the state Wednesday for requiring the Longhorn Band to play the song at athletic events and expecting athletes to stand and sing it after games. “It’s like slave owners making slaves buck dance for their entertainment,” Bledsoe said. The complaint, which includes statements from several anonymous students, alleges that those who oppose the song on campus are being harassed and that Black students feel “humiliated” whenever it is played or sung. “The Eyes of Texas” was written in 1903 and has a history of performances in minstrel shows with musicians often in blackface.

Utah

St. George: A nearly 5-month-old California condor has made its maiden flight, becoming Zion National Park’s second wild-hatched nestling to successfully fledge. The California condor is an ancient but critically endangered species, meaning this young bird is now a crucial part of Utah and Arizona’s 103-bird strong population, the park said in a press release. “We are elated to see the continued success of this condor pair in Zion National Park. It is certainly an occasion for celebration in the recovery effort, yet again demonstrating the resiliency of the California condor. What a spectacular site, to see wild-hatched condors soaring amongst the towering rock formations of Zion National Park.” Tim Hauck, condor program manager for the Peregrine Fund, said in the release. Condor #1111 made the flight early, as most condors take their first leap into the air at about 6 months old, though it will continue to be dependent on its parents for the next 12-24 months. Young #1111’s parents, both bred in captivity and released into Vermillion Cliffs National Monument in the late aughts, have been together for four years, and this is their fourth nestling. “Because the adults spend so much time caring for their young, wild condor pairs normally produce one egg every other year,” the release said.

Vermont

Burlington: A new museum dedicated to the state’s musical heritage is opening in the city. The Tiny Museum of Vermont Music History opens Friday evening during the first day of the annual South End Art Hop. The museum on Howard Street will become a permanent addition to the headquarters of the nonprofit group Big Heavy World, which promotes and preserves Vermont-made music. The museum will feature photographs, posters, instruments and even menus from old venues. The collection “reflects how music is an art form, a catalyst for community-building, and also a contributor to the state’s economy,” James Lockridge, executive director of Big Heavy World, wrote in a news release. “People are – and have been – making music of all kinds across the state, deserving to be heard and celebrated.”

Virginia

Richmond: Work crews searching for a time capsule they believed was buried inside the pedestal under a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that had towered over the city hit a snag Thursday. Crews were having difficulty finding the capsule’s precise location. Then late Thursday morning, a crane they were using to lift heavy pieces of a cornerstone broke down, stalling work until another crane was brought in a few hours later. State officials were scheduled to remove the 134-year-old time capsule from the cornerstone a day after the large Confederate statue was taken down. But after removing a 2,500-pound capstone and a 500-pound lid, crews were unable to pinpoint the capsule’s precise location. Workers had been using ground-penetrating radar devices to try to find the capsule in a third piece of the cornerstone. Gov. Ralph Northam’s chief of staff, Clark Mercer, said crews would keep looking for it in the cornerstone and adjoining stones. They also decided to dig into the lid of the cornerstone to insert a new time capsule, and state officials ceremonially placed it Thursday. The new capsule contains items reflective of current times, including an expired vial of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, a Black Lives Matter sticker, and a photograph of a Black ballerina with her fist raised near the Lee statue amid racial justice protests last year.

Washington

Seattle: King County is working to set up a COVID-19 vaccine verification system that could go into effect next month at certain nonessential, high-risk settings. The Seattle Times reports this would make it easier for places like clubs, theaters and stadiums to check the vaccination status of their patrons. King County’s announcement came as nearly all major spectator sports in the Seattle area said they would require vaccination or a recent negative coronavirus test for admission to their games. The county said it is gathering feedback from community organizations, labor unions, businesses and cities. “COVID-19 vaccines are safe, highly effective and readily available, and verifying vaccination in certain nonessential, high-risk settings can make those places safer for the public, workers and our community, including children who are not currently eligible for vaccination,” said Dr. Jeff Duchin, King County’s health officer. Vaccines are free, and health insurance is not required. Other jurisdictions including Hawaii, New York, San Francisco and British Columbia have begun to implement vaccine verification systems.

West Virginia

Charleston: Some hospitals in rural parts of the state have reached their critical bed capacities as coronavirus cases and deaths continue to surge statewide, health officials said Wednesday. Health officials are pleading with the public to avoid unnecessary emergency room visits to allow hospitals to focus their resources on treating COVID-19 patients. There were 813 patients hospitalized for the virus statewide Wednesday, just below the record 818 on Jan. 5, when vaccination efforts were starting. There were a record 252 virus patients in hospital ICUs and a record 132 patients on ventilators, according to state data. “Our hospitals are being stressed in ways that they haven’t been stressed before,” Dr. Clay Marsh, the state’s coronavirus expert, said at a news conference. In southern West Virginia, Princeton Community Hospital had no ICU beds available due to an increase in COVID-19-related patients, hospital President and CEO Karen Bowling said Wednesday. In Lewisburg in the southeastern corner of the state, the 122-bed Greenbrier Valley Medical Center also was at capacity, according to a Facebook post from Dr. Bridgett Morrison, Greenbrier County’s health officer.

Wisconsin

Madison: State Sen. Steve Nass has officially asked the Legislature’s Republican leaders to sue the University of Wisconsin System after system officials refused to submit their COVID-19 protocols to his committee for approval. Nass sent a letter to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu demanding they file a lawsuit forcing system leaders to submit their policies to the Legislature’s rules committee. Nass, a Republican and longtime UW critic, co-chairs the committee. UW System President Tommy Thompson has called for UW campuses to hold at least 75% of classes in person this semester. The schools have implemented a range of protocols to meet that goal, including mask and coronavirus testing mandates. Nass had been threatening to sue for weeks unless system leaders hand over the policies to the rules committee for approval. Thompson has maintained the system has the legal authority to manage itself and doesn’t need legislators’ approval to adopt policies to protect students and faculty. He has said he would win any lawsuit. The squabble has caused a rift between Republicans who vehemently oppose any mandates to mitigate COVID-19 and those who still see Thompson, who served four terms as governor, as a GOP icon.

Wyoming

Cheyenne: For a second year in a row, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch will not visit the University of Wyoming due to the coronavirus pandemic. Gorsuch had been scheduled to visit the law school and campus Sept. 16, giving a talk alongside Wyoming Supreme Court Justice Lynne Boomgaarden in the Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts concert hall. The virus postponed a 2020 visit planned in recognition of the law school’s 100th anniversary. Rising rates of COVID-19 generally, not cases at the university specifically, were the reason for cancellation, university spokesman Chad Baldwin said Tuesday. There were no plans to reschedule, university officials said in a statement.

From USA TODAY Network and wire reports

Lillelid murders still haunt East Tennessee, 25 years later

Matt Lakin, USA TODAY NETWORK -- Tennessee

On April 6, 1997, a Knoxville family crossed paths with six young people from Kentucky at an Interstate 81 rest area in East Tennessee. The chance encounter led to the murder of three members of the Lillelid family - parents Vidar and Delfina and their 6 year-old daughter, Tabitha. Peter Lillelid, 2, was shot in the head and back but survived. The Kentuckians, three young men and three young women - all teenagers except for one 20-year-old - were convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Knox News originally published this story in 2017 to mark the 20th anniversary of the killings.

BAILEYTON, Tenn. — The van rolled through the twilight, gravel crunching beneath its wheels and a few quiet sobs escaping from inside.

If you've got the time, we've got the new contemporaries

Joyce Lamb

USATODAY

Here are some new contemporaries and romantic suspense, compiled for you and HEA by some of our favorite authors (info provided by publishers and/or their websites):

Snowbound With the Soldier by Jennifer Faye (Harlequin). It has been seven long years since Kara Jameson last saw Jason Greene. Returning home as a wounded war hero, Jason looks a shell of the man she once knew. Yet her heart still skips a beat as if it was yesterday… Stepping back into civilian life, Jason looks to Kara for help. But there's too much water under the bridge—not to mention too much lingering attraction. But it seems that the mountain weather has other ideas, and when Kara and Jason end up snowbound together they are forced to confront the ghosts of Christmas past.

Cowboy Justice by Melissa Cutler (Zebra). The second in Melissa Cutler's sexy contemporary Catcher Creek series brings readers back to the small Texas town for more romance and cowboys… When Rachel Sorentino gets into a gunfight protecting her family's land against four drugged out punks, she lands in hot water because one she seriously injures is the son of a local police chief. Sheriff Vaughn Cooper knows she's in the right and promises to clear her of any possible charges. However, their short-lived but sizzling affair has left him in a precarious legal position—and with a broken heart…

Babycakes by Donna Kauffman (Kensington mass market reissue). USA TODAY bestselling and award-winning author Donna Kauffman combines the pleasures of small-town life, cupcakes, and falling in love in the third romance of her whimsical, irresistible Cupcake Club series.

Hard To Handle by Jessica Lemmon (Forever Yours). Sadie Howard never dates a guy more than once—but Fate has other plans for her when it comes to Aiden Downey, the one who loved her, left her, and broke her heart. Aiden's determined to win back the woman he's always wanted, and Sadie can't resist finishing what they started—as long as there are no strings attached. Can Aiden convince her to take a second chance on a once-in-a-lifetime love?

The Wager by Rachel Van Dyken (Forever Yours). Jake Titus is too rich, too handsome, too arrogant: a trifecta that once lured Char into the best night—and worst morning after—of her life. When they're thrown together in a wedding party, it's awkward but survivable…until Jake stops acting like a jerk, and starts acting like the man she'd always hoped he could be. Jake is falling for Char—now all he has to do is make her believe it.

Undeniable by Shannon Richard (Forever Yours). Grace King has been in love with the hunky town sheriff since they were kids. But whenever she thinks she's finally getting somewhere, he finds an excuse to escape. Jax can't deny that his Grace is the sexiest woman in town. He tries to keep the sassy blonde at arm's length—but one heated kiss crumbles all his defenses. When a town secret surfaces, threatening to destroy everything, can the man who defended Grace from bullies as a child protect her now?

Nearest Thing to Heaven by Lynnette Austin (Forever Yours). Ty Rawlins, the widowed father of rambunctious triplets, is at odds with Sophie London when she returns to Maverick Junction at Thanksgiving for her cousin's wedding. Sophie is a fish out of water in Texas. (The cows freak her out!) But Ty's triplets are enough to make her run all the way back to Illinois in her Jimmy Choos. What will it take for Ty to convince Sophie that Maverick Junction is where she belongs, right beside him and his boys?

A Beauty Uncovered by Andrea Laurence (Harlequin Desire). CEO Brody Eden is a loner. The brooding billionaire has secrets that he refuses to unveil to anyone…until he meets his new assistant, Samantha Davis. She's temptation personified, and she's sitting right outside his door. Samantha's never met a man as guarded—and gorgeous—as Brody. She doesn't want to fall for her boss, but there's something about Brody….

The following new releases were compiled for HEA by Sara Humphreys, author of Tall, Dark, and Vampire. Her website is sarahumphreys.com.

Stuck on You by Rhonda Gibson (McConnell Books). Morgan Frost meets the woman of his dreams but how can he get to know her better without admitting his feelings? So when Sheila, a children's book author offers him a business partnership whereby she'll write stories using the small creatures he's designed, he goes one step further to ensure she'll have to keep in touch with him after the venture is over. He doesn't tell her why he wants to get to know her better and she assumes he wants to stifle her creativity by keeping creative control. Does she want to work with someone like him? Can she even trust him with her stories.

Men Can Be Mean by Sue Brown (Sue Brown). Julie Randolph, a writer for an independent newspaper, makes the enlightening journey back into the "real world," through single motherhood and not letting life's tests get the best of her. A strong believer that, "We are not products of what has been done to us, rather we are products of what we choose to do for ourselves." The statistical realism is that more than one-half of all marriages and relationships end in divorce and the obvious realism is that modern technology is as responsible for marital infidelity as it is for bringing couples together. Love is as necessary to humans as sun and water are to flowers. Life must be filled with love, but it has to be the right love or it doesn't grow and thrive. Flowers that receive either too much or too little water and sun do not survive. Humans are like that as well. With each failed love, perhaps we lose a petal or two! However, the beauty of the creation remains the same.

Browse. Click. Love. by Cherie Kay (Lucky Lady Press). Cady has everything a young professional could want — a condo in Florida, fantastic friends, a job she doesn't hate, and an eye for fashion. Still bruised after a surprise break-up, she is looking for love and the meaning of life, disguised as an assignment for work. Her adventure into online dating is full of outrageous situations, epic embarrassment, heartwarming friendships, and a surprise insight or two along the way. Cady discovers that the dating world is as confusing as we are. This is her story of love, life and the pursuit of a decent date, fake or otherwise.

The Wedding by Cheryl Holt (Cheryl Holt). Linda Bennett has lived a charmed life. With her husband being a rich tycoon, she's been showered for decades with wealth and privilege. While the bad economy has ruined many of their acquaintances, they've been extremely lucky, both in their marriage and their finances. Or so she thinks. When her daughter decides to marry—too young and too fast for Linda's liking—Linda's husband claims he doesn't want to flaunt the family's good fortune. He convinces the bride to skip the expensive, ostentatious ceremony and instead host a small, intimate affair at his members-only private club located on the Mexican coast. But from the moment the guests begin to arrive, the entire event seems cursed. Linda's husband keeps disappearing for hours on end, the groom's divorced parents are certifiable, and the groomsmen drunken idiots. And when one of the bridesmaids sets her sights on the sexy groom, all bets are off. Will the bride make it to the altar?

Facebook Jeanie by Addison Westlake (Addison Westlake). It's Bridget Jones meets Groundhog Day ... Ever wonder if you made the right choice? What if you could go back and find out? 31-year-old Clara is in a steady relationship—with Facebook. Every night after her depressing bureaucratic job (so much for saving the world), Clara comes home to her empty apartment (yes, she was dumped) and settles down with a pint of ice cream for some good, old-fashioned Facebook stalking. It's her college boyfriend, The One Who Got Away. With the bod of a God and a net worth of umpteen bamillion, he now has the perfect life—everything she could have had if she hadn't been so, so stupid. But, wait. Jeanie from Facebook shows up at Clara's job. There's a new app they're beta-testing and Clara's perfect for it. The next morning when Clara wakes up at noon, hung over, listening to her roommate blow-drying her hair and singing Gettin' Jiggy Wit It, she realizes she's back in college. With the chance to do it all over again.

Hotter by Jorja Tabu (Jorja Tabu). Marjie has struggled with her Christian faith throughout college, but it's never been this hard to keep believing. She's still reeling from a bad break-up with an evil ex, worrying about her grades, and regretting the loss of Ahmed--the handsome teacher's assistant that helped her pass Bio 101--when her room-mate demands she have some fun. It's Halloween! If you're going to sin, do it on All Hallow's Eve, right? Seduced by the prize money for a raunchy contest held at the college's dirtiest frat party, Marjie begins to give way to the devil inside. When she realizes Ahmed is the man on her arm for the night, all bets are off, and this good girl suddenly feels very, very bad.

Operation: Date Escape by Lindsey Brooks (Lindsey Brooks). Since her divorce two years before, Kelsie Collins has been determined to guard her heart and steer clear of seemingly 'perfect' men. An easy task considering the kind of men her matchmaking mother and her best friend, Nanci, keeps setting her up with. She allows them to set her up, knowing their hearts are in the right place and that there is no risk of her letting any man close enough to hurt her again. Her growing experience in ways to slip out of those 'dates from hell' prompts her to start writing a bad date survival guide. One aptly titled — Operation: Date Escape. And it's during one of those escapes that sexier than sin firefighter Cole Maxwell comes to her rescue.

With This Ring by Allison Hobbs (Strebor Books). Harlow's dreams of happily ever after are shattered when a muffled gunshot forces her to question her new husband's character. Is Drake Morgan the determined entrepreneur she thought he was or a gangster and ruthless killer? After a bout with alcoholism and an emotional breakdown, Nivea is trying to rebuild her life, but the explosive result of her child's paternity test threatens to destroy her fragile family ties. Desperate for her new man to put a ring on it, Vangie sacrifices her morals and puts a lifelong friendship to the test.

Wicked and Dangerous by Shayla Black an Rhyannon Byrd (Penguin). There are men—and then there are MEN. Ones who protect and pursue…who demand and desire…who know what they want and unapologetically take it—in life and in love. Now, Shayla Black and Rhyannon Byrd team up to deliver sizzling stories of suspense and seduction, as two women let their longings loose—and go head-to-head and body-to-body with the men who ignite their passion…

Taking the Cake by Kate Davies (Samhain). Mollie Mason is sure her night can't get any worse. Stuck in an inflatable rubber cake, she overhears her fiancé slamming her to the entire guest list of his bachelor party—and then she catches him cheating! But discovering her high school crush has witnessed her humiliation is the icing on the cake. Cade Gallagher has wanted Mollie for years. And when she asks him to help her prove to the world—and herself—that she's not just a good girl, he knows he'd be a fool to say no. But she wants a temporary fling. Will two weeks be enough time to convince her to take a chance on him—forever?

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simison (Simon & Schuster). Meet Don Tillman, a brilliant yet socially challenged professor of genetics, who's decided it's time he found a wife. And so, in the orderly, evidence-based manner with which Don approaches all things, he designs the Wife Project to find his perfect partner: a 16-page, scientifically valid survey to filter out the drinkers, the smokers, the late arrivers. Rosie Jarman is all these things. She also is strangely beguiling, fiery, and intelligent. And while Don quickly disqualifies her as a candidate for the Wife Project, as a DNA expert Don is particularly suited to help Rosie on her own quest: identifying her biological father. When an unlikely relationship develops as they collaborate on the Father Project, Don is forced to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie.

The following new releases were compiled for HEA by R.T. Wolfe, author of the Black Creek Series. Her website is www.RTWolfe.com.

Raising Connor by Loree Lough (Harlequin Heartwarming). When Brooke O'Toole's sister and brother-in-law die in a tragic accident, her only priority is the emotional well-being of her one-year-old nephew, Connor. Unfortunately, that means making nice with the man she holds responsible for her mother's murder: Hunter Stone. Allowing Hunter into her life is the opposite of easy. Brooke's never understood why her sister forgave him—and worse, became his neighbor and friend. But even she can't deny the bond between the man and child, or how much she's come to rely on both of them. Despite her instinct to fight this ex-cop who's challenging her right to custody, Brooke suspects the best thing for Connor is a life with both of them in it.

Dandelion Wishes by Melinda Curtis (Harlequin Heartwarming). Will Jackson was a control freak and a killjoy. He had been since they were kids. He'd made it his mission to come between Emma Willoughby and her best friend—his little sister—all their lives. But why? Until the day of the accident, Emma had always thought of herself as adventurous, not dangerous…. And then her friend had almost died. She desperately needed to apologize, to try to explain, if she could. Will had managed to keep the two apart while Tracy was in the hospital, but now that she was home in Harmony Valley, the winemaker wannabe had to understand that getting past this was the only way they could heal. And yet even if Tracy was able to, Emma wasn't sure she could forgive herself. And Will had made it abundantly clear: he wouldn't sleep until he'd found retribution.

Footprints in the Sand by Eleanor James (Harlequin Heartwarming). Elsa May Malone was only five when the sea took away her beloved father. Traumatized, angry and forced to leave her home on the Cumbrian coast, she became hostile and withdrawn. Then she met Bryn Evans, a kindhearted boy who'd experienced loss, too. Slowly, Elsa began to let down her barriers—until she and Bryn were torn apart. Alone again, Elsa was sure of one thing: everyone she loved would eventually leave her. When Bryn and Elsa finally reunite, Elsa's determined not to let her true feelings show. But they're grown up now, and Bryn clearly hopes their childhood friendship can become something more. Elsa is painfully aware that love can be as serene and yet as terrifying as the sea. But can she let Bryn into her heart before she loses him a second time?

Blue Ridge Hideaway by Cynthia Thomason (Harlequin Heartwarming). Armed with a can of pepper spray and fuming mad, Dorie Howe is determined to get what's hers from the old con man who fleeced her. Even if she has to cut a deal with his ex-cop son, Bret Donovan. With her brother in jail and no way to pay his lawyer, she's desperate enough to agree to Bret's terms. Desperate- and intrigued. Helping Bret get his mountain retreat in order wouldn't be the worst job she's ever had. The spring air is fresh and the scenery is gorgeous. As long as Bret can keep his policeman's instinct to snoop in check, she just might get away unscathed. All she has to do is keep him, and her feelings, at bay for a few more days….

The Redemption of Rico D'Angelo by Michelle Douglas (Harlequin Romance). Gorgeous Rico D'Angelo is single-handedly saving the world, one disadvantaged teen at a time. The opening of his charity café should be enough for him to finally put the regrets of his childhood behind him…but even as the ribbon is cut on opening day it's not enough. Until new hire Neen Cuthbert walks through the door and offers an unexpected blast of sunshine! She's had her fill of misguided do-gooders, but something tells her Rico is different. Neen won't let him push her away—especially now she's discovering that Rico might just need her most of all.

The following new releases were compiled for HEA by Beth Yarnall, author of Wake Up Maggie. Her website is www.bethyarnall.com.

His Brown-Eyed Girl by Liz Talley (Harlequin Superromance). Lucas Finlay is used to calling the shots. But looking after his two nephews and niece in New Orleans, he's entirely out of his league. Luckily help is next door. With almost no effort Addy Toussant manages to make order from the kid chaos. Lucas is beyond grateful…he's also very attracted to her. Images of an adults-only playdate are soon dancing in his head. Yet something in Addy's golden-brown eyes tells him not to rush her. If this romance is to go anywhere, he needs to let her take the lead. Given the sizzling potential of what they have together, Lucas is okay with that.

A Texas Family by Linda Warren (Harlequin Superromance). Nine years ago, Jena Brooks fled Willow Creek, Texas, as a frightened teenager. Now she's finally found the courage to come home, and this time she's not leaving without her baby. Memories of Asa Corbett stealing her newborn child still haunt Jena to this day. Unfortunately, her best chance at finding her baby is Asa's eldest son, local cop Carson Corbett. Trusting a Corbett again isn't easy, but they'll need to rely on each other completely to face their pasts and discover the truth. Together, Jena and Carson have a chance to heal old wounds and unite their families for good…if the truth doesn't first tear them apart.

In This Together by Kara Lennox (Harlequin Superromance). And Travis Riggs is way past desperate. With time running out to overturn his brother's wrongful murder conviction and stop his niece's adoption, Project Justice is Travis's last hope. But when his request for an interview is denied, he resorts to drastic measures—kidnapping the founder's personal assistant, Elena Marquez. Travis hadn't planned for any of this to happen, least of all the chemistry between him and Elena. Under different circumstances, they may have had a chance at a relationship. However, the last thing he wants is to drag her down with him, which is exactly what will happen if he accepts her help. Not that Elena is giving him much of a choice.

For the First Time by Stephanie Doyle (Harlequin Superromance). There's not a lot former CIA agent Mark Sharpe hasn't done. Yet suddenly he's in a world of firsts—first time being a father, first time being self-employed…and first time being attracted to his employee. JoJo Hatcher, with her attitude, her tattoos and her investigative talents, tempts him in ways he can't explain. With each day she becomes more irresistible. How is he supposed to function in this messed-up situation? Then his teenage daughter, Sophie, is threatened. There's only one person he trusts to help him: JoJo. As they work to untangle the mystery, Mark imagines a future together that includes another first—family.

Not Another Wedding by Jennifer McKenzie (Harlequin Superromance). Sure, Poppy Sullivan believes in love…but love at first sight? Not likely. That's why she's determined to stop her good friend from marrying the wrong woman. So she sets to work immediately and walks right into the very impressive chest of Beck Lefebvre. Not a good omen, considering how things ended up the last time he was in town. She isn't surprised to see Beck at his cousin's wedding, but she's appalled at his assumption that he deserves a second chance. She's equally appalled at her inclination to give it to him. No way is she falling for his charm again! Although her vow to resist him may be too late…

Because of Audrey by Mary Sullivan (Harlequin Superromance). Audrey Stone and her floral shop are thorns in Gray Turner's side! He's in Accord, Colorado, trying to focus on wrapping up his family's business affairs. Instead, thoughts of Audrey and her tempting Hollywood beauty keep filling his head. How can he be this preoccupied with someone whose goals conflict with his? Then suddenly, he needs Audrey's support. Digging into his family affairs has revealed secrets that could ruin everything. With her help, he might be able to stop that. Funny how he once thought she stood in the way of his plans. Now he thinks Audrey could be the answer to his future!

GAY CONTEMPORARIES

The following new releases were compiled for HEA by Sylvie Fox, author of the L.A. Nights Series. Her website is www.sylviefox.com.

Love Lessons by Heidi Cullinan (Samhain). When Kelly Davidson escapes his small town and arrives at Hope University, he realizes finding his Prince Charming isn't easy. In fact, Kelly could be the only virgin on campus. Worst of all, he's landed the gay campus Casanova as a roommate. Walter Lucas doesn't believe in storybook love. Everyone is better off having as much fun as possible with as many people as possible. As Walter sets out to lure Kelly out of his shell, staying just friends is harder than he anticipated. He discovers love is a crash course in determination. To make the grade, he'll have to finally show up for class…and overcome his own private fear that love was never meant to last.

Sibling Rivals by Summer Devon (Samhain). Peter Stevens is overshadowed by his older brother, Mark. But Mark turns out to be the black sheep. Even more surreal are the unmistakable sparks with his brother's boyfriend, Colin. One encounter shakes his confirmed heterosexuality. Years later, when they meet again as student and professor, bone-deep attraction is still there. Thanks to the emotional scars Mark left behind, Colin is done with Stevens men. Having Peter at his university shouldn't be a problem, because Peter is straight. But when Colin realizes the electricity sizzles both ways, he can't resist indulging in a passionate affair. This time, Peter refuses to step aside—and when an emergency brings the family together again, Colin must decide if it's worth the risk to trust another Stevens brother with his heart.

The Broken H by JL Langley (Loose Id). Sheriff Grayson Hunter once he loved The Broken H, his ancestral home and Shane Cortez. Now he tries to stay as far away from the ranch and the man as possible until an accident brings them together. Shane Cortez has been the Broken H's foreman for going on twenty years. He's lived on the ranch for even longer. Because of a rocky past, he's kept himself from the one thing that has always been dear to him…Grayson. Now Shane has let go of the demons that haunted him for so long. And he wants Gray. They'll have to mend what's broken to make a life together.

Ethan in Gold by Amy Lane (Dreamspinner). Evan Costa believes there is no such thing as unconditional love. As Ethan, porn model for Johnnies, he gets exactly what he wants—comradeship and physical contact on trade. Jonah Stevens has spent most of his adult life caring for his family. He's had very little time to work on his confidence or his body for that matter. When Jonah meets Ethan, he doesn't see the porn star. He sees a funny, sexy, confident man who—against the odds—seems to like Jonah. Ethan thinks a platonic friendship with Jonah won't violate his fair trade rules, but Jonah has different ideas. Ethan's pretty sure his choice of jobs has stripped away all hope of a real relationship, but Jonah wants the whole package.

The Stars that Tremble by Kate McMurray (Dreamspinner). Giovanni Boca was destined to go down in history as an opera legend until a vocal cord injury abruptly ended his career. Now he teaches voice lessons at a prestigious New York City music school. During auditions for his summer opera workshop, he finds his protégé in fourteen-year-old Emma McPhee. Just as intriguing to Gio is Emma's father Mike, a blue-collar guy who runs a business renovating the kitchens and bathrooms of New York's elite to finance his daughter's dream. Their initial physical attraction quickly grows to something more as each hopes to fill the gap that loss and grief has left in his life. Although Mike wonders if he can truly fit into Gio's upper-class world, their bond grows stronger. Then, trouble strikes from outside when the machinations of an unscrupulous stage mother threaten to tear Gio and Mike apart—and ruin Emma's bright future.

Arriba Aruba! by Jonathan Treadway (Dreamspinner). Jilted at the altar when his best man ran off with his fiancée, Cray Wright trades in his Mexico honeymoon for a vacation in Aruba. When Stone Ferris walks onto the plane, and makes his interest known, Cray decides to act on desires he's felt since high school but ignored. What starts as fun-filled and casual turns earth-shattering for Cray. When his time in Aruba ends, Cray realizes his feelings for Stone have grown beyond fun, but he worries that it might not translate to real life in LA. Can he convince himself and Stone their love can be paradise at home?

My Only Sunshine by Rowan McAllister (Dreamspinner). Recently out of the hospital after he and his boyfriend were brutally beaten, Tanner Wallis is jobless, homeless, and almost penniless. His desperate hope is that Mason will give him a place to heal, both physically and emotionally, until he can get on his feet again. But Mason's only been back on the ranch a few months, ten years after his father kicked him out for being gay, and only because his sister begged him to come help after the man's disabling stroke. With all his responsibilities—running the struggling ranch and keeping his sister and father off his back—Mason can't really afford the distraction Tanner represents. But he can't just abandon the attractive young man either. There's trouble in spades on the ranch, but if they face it together, Mason and Tanner might find a future with a little sunshine.

ROMANTIC SUSPENSE

The Dream by Kat Martin (Zebra mass market reissue). In the bestselling tradition of Robyn Carr and Linda Lael Miller, New York Times best-selling author Kat Martin's red-hot repackaged classic combines pulse-pounding suspense with her trademark sensuality and a one-of-a-kind hero.

The following new releases were compiled for HEA by Susan Vaughan, author of Never Surrender, Once Burned and Twice a Target. Her website is www.susanvaughan.com.

Love Is in the Air by Anji Nolan (Crimson Romance). When RCMP sergeant Jim Cromwell and pilot Sophie Berg are shot in a drive-by shooting, their bond is instant. Jim is investigating drug smugglers, and realizes he may have been the target. However, Sophie works for Granola Aviation, a charter airline carrying alleged drug kingpins about the world, and his focus shifts. Sophie subsequently reveals her own concerns about Granola Aviation, and Jim suspects she is being used. As their friendship morphs into romance, Sophie helps Jim with his investigation. And when she is kidnapped, he realizes how important she has become in his life.

Targeted by Katie Reus (Signet). Former Marine sniper and current NSA agent Jack Stone has a new face to go with his new identity. But he still has the same tortured memories—which include the woman he let get away years ago, when they were teenagers. Now his new assignment in Miami will put him so close to the woman he's never been able to forget, he could reach out and touch her—if only she weren't under suspicion. When Sophie Moreno uncovers evidence linking the medical supply company she works for with arms smuggling—and worse—she doesn't know who to turn to. After a shocking betrayal, she realizes the only person she can trust is a mysterious new person in the company—a man with hauntingly familiar eyes. As Sophie questions her intense attraction to this man and Jack struggles not to blow his cover, the two of them must race against the clock to stop terrorists from killing scores of people—starting with them.

Winters Heat by Cristin Harber (Mill Creek Press). Titan Group operative Colby Winters and military psychologist Mia Kensington must partner to survive an obsessed cartel kingpin and recover a document important to national security. It was supposed to be an easy in-and-out mission. But by any means necessary becomes a survival mantra as Colby races through a firestorm of bullets to save the woman he can't live without.

Cold Day in Hell by Jerrie Alexander (Jerrie Alexander). Ex-Army Ranger Tyrell Castillo's first mission for Lost and Found, Inc. goes awry when his contact is kidnapped, and he's left scrambling for weapons. He'll have to blow up a drug cartel's compound, rescue the woman, and keep her safe while they cross the sweltering Colombian jungle. Ana Maria Vega Cisneros doesn't want to be rescued. She wants revenge. She'll risk her life to ensure the drug lord who killed her family is dead.

Rescue Me by Allie K. Adams (Allie K. Adams). As a TREX Special Agent, it's Spencer Allen's job with the covert agency to tell lies to keep the people around him safe. When a mission goes south, he has no choice but to call in the help of K-SAR, a search and rescue group led by the only woman with the power to destroy his control. Kat Davis has a gift for finding people. When she finds a man not meant to be found and overhears details of a murder, and the plotting of another, she turns to the one man she swore she'd never trust again. One touch detonates the inferno burning between Kat and Spencer. When a mysterious explosion nearly kills them both, Spencer vows to protect her at any cost, even if it means revealing a secret that could tear them apart—forever.

The Road to You by Marilyn Brant (Marilyn Brant). Two years after Aurora's brother and his best friend disappeared, she finds her brother's journal and sees it's been written in again. Recently. By him. There are secret messages coded within the pages. Determined to follow where they lead, she confides in the only person she feels can help—Donovan—the best friend's older brother. Reluctantly, he agrees to go with her and, together, they set out on a road trip of discovery and danger.

Grave Secrets by Shay Lacy (Lyrical Press). Analise Angelotti can't explain to Detective Rick Ziffkin how she knows more about his friend's murder than she should. Rick needs Analise to share everything she knows. He must solve the murder for more than the sake of his friend. With murderers searching new graves for buried evidence, the dead are on the uprise, as Rick and Analise fight the sizzling attraction growing between them. Can each overcome the secrets haunting them?

The following new releases were compiled for HEA by Gail Barrett, author of A Kiss to Die For. Her website is gailbarrett.com.

Ready, Aim…I Do! by Debra Webb (Harlequin Intrigue). He awoke with a ring on his finger. Only problem was Specialist Jason Grant couldn't remember a wedding. But he did recognize the beautiful woman in his Vegas hotel suite as CIA operative Ginger Olin. Being newlyweds was the perfect cover to expose whoever was targeting Jason. Then Gin laid down ground rules. Passion and affection were for the public only. In private, it was hands off. But as Jason's hunger for his make-believe wife battled with his professional dedication, their "just for show" behavior had him yearning to make Gin his wife for real.

Trap, Secure by Carol Ericson (Harlequin Intrigue). The last thing Miranda Lewis remembers is being shot…then tumbling over the balcony. When a sexy, blue-eyed stranger finds her, she has no memory of who she is or what she's doing in the jungles of Colombia. Gage Booker risked his life in the raid on the compound, only to discover his quarry gone and an injured woman left for dead, a woman the covert operative would be a fool to trust. But her amnesia seems real—and so does the passion exploding between them.

Cowboy Resurrected by Elle James (Harlequin Intrigue). Thorn Drennan stares death in the face when he's nearly shot by a ranch trespasser. But this is no ordinary trespasser. Pregnant and running for her life, Sophia Carranza has crossed the Mexican border, leaving a trail of ruthless enemies behind. Sophia's protection is Thorn's first assignment as an undercover agent and he senses trouble. Inexplicably drawn to Sophia's beauty and fighting spirit, Thorn fears his growing desire for Sophia could jeopardize the mission. And when Sophia's captors finally catch up to them, will Thorn trade his own life for another?

The Reunion by Jana DeLeon (Harlequin Intrigue). Bodyguard to an heiress is Tyler Duhon's idea of hell. The steely, sexy ex-marine has heard—and dismissed—the gossip about the haunted old LeBeau mansion and its "cursed" heiresses. Now the middle sibling—headstrong Joelle—has arrived to comply with her mother's will and reunite with her long-lost sisters. But no sooner does she move into the house, than Joelle falls prey to terrifying threats and mysterious visions. Tyler, though he's sworn off femme fatales, can't deny his feelings for the Creole beauty. Nor can he let passion distract him. Because falling for Joelle could be a fatal mistake—for them both.

My Spy by Dana Marton (Harlequin Intrigue). A mission gone wrong forced injured soldier Jamie Cassidy to start anew…and run right into the path of deputy sheriff Bree Tridle. The sassy, sexy Texan was as determined to uncover a local money-laundering scheme as Jamie was to keep her safe from the stalker hot on her trail. But Jamie, now an undercover operative, was also on a covert mission of his own: track smugglers threatening to bring terrorists into the U.S. Could Jamie's and Bree's cases be related? When a deadly attack on Bree's home escalates the danger and their attraction, Jamie and Bree must face their enemies together to save not only their country, but their one chance at love.

Mountain Heiress by Cassie Miles (Harlequin Intrigue). Since quitting the rodeo circuit, Zach Sheffield hadn't much time for people, never mind city folk. A stranger had inherited a famous ranch in their Colorado town, and worse than not knowing one end of a horse from the other, he pegged Gabby Rousseau as a mustang, for sure. Local legend said that Gabby's estate hid the Frenchman's treasure, making it a frequent target for thieves. After the first break-in, Zach knew Gabby would need protection, but the beauty from the big city was putting up a fight. He knew he was better off tending to his horses than praying for a breakthrough …but then again, Zach had never met a mustang he couldn't tame.

HOLIDAY ROMANCE

Peter's Christmas by M.L. Buchman (Buchman Bookworks). In this latest installment in M.L. Buchman's "The Night Stalkers" series, President Peter Matthews (who lost his wife in NS#1, The Night is Mine) finds true love. Genevieve Beauchamp is a UNESCO World Heritage Chief of Unit for Southeast Asia. Her exotic French-Vietnamese heritage, and her intense brilliance dazzle the President. Little do they know that not only their hearts, but their very lives will be on the line this Christmas season.

The Christmas Baby Surprise by Shirley Jump (Harlequin Romance). With an aching heart, Emily Watson knows her marriage is in trouble. She wants it to work more than anything in the world, so walking away from Cole is the hardest thing she'll ever do. But one last night together is set to change her life and her marriage forever. Needing time to think, Emily returns to the one place that always feels like home: the Gingerbread Inn. It is the perfect setting to work out what to do with her little secret. And when Cole finds her, and her growing bump, he realizes that this Christmas, some things are worth fighting for.

Single Dad's Christmas Miracle by Susan Meier (Harlequin Romance). He needs a helping hand. Having recently lost his wife, Clark Beaumont is trying to make it through the holidays for the sake of his kids. But with his son failing at school and his little girl talking only in whispers, he needs nothing short of a miracle ... when one arrives on his doorstep! Althea Johnson is only meant to tutor Clark's son. But with her help the Beaumont family begins to come alive again, and against the odds Althea hopes that when Christmas morning arrives there will be four stockings hanging over the fireplace.

A Second Chance for Christmas by Nashin Sadeer (Metador Press). Nathan is a single father with a son named Stefan. He was married to a woman named Emily, but she unfortunately died when Stefan was three years old. Torn apart by grief, Nathan was full of remorse, shut himself away and became a work alcoholic. Emily was everything for Nathan, and his life has still not got better. He has been living his life in sadness, and not realising that he was hurting the most precious thing to him: Stefan. But this Christmas things are about to change. A young woman, Kate, has come into Nathan's life and he has fallen in love with her. She's the first woman he's dated since Emily's death. Kate has an important mission that she has to achieve before Christmas. However, she is hiding something from Nathan, and he doesn't realise who Kate actually is until she reveals her true identity on Christmas Day ...

Single Dad's Christmas Miracle by Susan Meier (Harlequin Romance) . He needs a helping hand… Having recently lost his wife, Clark Beaumont is trying to make it through the holidays for the sake of his kids. Althea Johnson is only meant to tutor Clark's son. But with her help the Beaumont family begins to come alive again, and against the odds Althea hopes that when Christmas morning arrives there will be four stockings hanging over the fireplace….

A Family for Christmas by Winnie Griggs (Harlequin Love Inspired Historical). Eve Pickering knows what it's like to be judged for your past. So she's not about to leave the orphaned boy she's befriended alone in this unfamiliar Texas town. Since Chance Dawson's offer of shelter is the only way to look after Leo, Eve is determined they'll have a warm, welcoming home for the holidays. Chance came from the big city to make it on his own despite a painful secret. But Eve's strength is giving him a confidence he never expected—and a new direction for his dream. With a little Christmas blessing, he'll dare to win her heart—and make their family one for a lifetime.

A Puppy for Christmas Carole Mortimer, Myrna Mackenzie, Nikki Logan (Harlequin). Three heart-warming holiday novellas. On the Secretary's Christmas List by Carole Mortimer : Bree has landed an amazing job, but her new boss is a difficult, unreliable playboy—who is also infuriatingly gorgeous… When Bree looks after Jackson's son and energetic puppy, she realizes what she really wants this Christmas. The Soldier, the Puppy and Me by Myrna Mackenzie: Christmas is a difficult time for war hero Trey McFadden and it doesn't help that his neighbor, Ella Delancey, and her adorable puppy, Fizz, seem determined on spreading festive cheer. The Patter of Paws at Christmas by Nikki Logan: Ingrid has to spend Christmas with gorgeous zookeeper Gabriel Marque. They're keeping watch for the zoo's first litter of wild dogs. Will the patter of tiny paws bring them together, this time forever?

Big Sky Christmas by C.J. Carmichael (Harlequin American Romance). Jackson Stone will always be grateful to the Lamberts, who took him in when he was just a kid. But since the accident that killed his foster brother, Brock, he stays away from the family at Coffee Creek Ranch. Especially now that Brock's former fiancée, Winnie Hays, is back in town with her little boy. The simmering attraction between them may surprise Winnie, but Jackson fell for her at first sight years ago.