CUERVO, N.M. (AP) — Authorities say a Missouri woman has died in a car crash on a New Mexico highway that injured eight other people including six children.
New Mexico State Police say 63-year-old Mary Lee Kelley of St. Louis was a passenger in a van that crashed about 6 a.m. Wednesday on Interstate 40 east of Cuervo.
She was declared dead at the scene.
Police say the van driven by a 30-year-old St. Louis woman struck an unoccupied SUV that was parked on the highway’s shoulder.
The driver was treated at the scene for undisclosed injuries and an 18-year-old female passenger was airlifted to an Albuquerque hospital for treatment. Their names weren’t released.
Police say six children in the van were transported to a hospital with injuries not believed to be life threatening.
KANSAS CITY (AP) — A man accused of threatening to shoot people in an underground business complex in Kansas City is charged with making a terrorist threat.
Becknal photo Johnson Co.
Clay County prosecutors charged 45-year-old Kevin Becknal on Wednesday.
Becknal, of Orrick, had been fired days earlier from one of the businesses at the Hunt Midwest SubTropolis, which is a massive subterranean network of businesses in old limestone mines.
The Kansas City Star reports that court records say Becknal returned to the complex Tuesday and told a former co-worker to call a supervisor. He said he had 45 bullets to “shoot people around here.”
Becknal drove off about 10 minutes later but police didn’t know, so they closed the caves and told workers to remain in their offices.
Becknal was arrested later in Prairie Village, Kansas, and remains in the Johnson County jail on a bond of $50,000.
TOPEKA, KAN. – A woman who operated massage parlors in Lawrence and Topeka was sentenced Wednesday to three years on federal probation for operating a prostitution business, according to U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister.
Nielsen -photo Shawnee Co.
In addition, the defendant agreed to pay a $650,000 judgement, which represents the proceeds of the crime.
Weiling Nielsen, 54, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy. Nielsen owned and operated Naima Asian Massage and Serenity Health Spa in Lawrence, as well as Jasmine Massage in Topeka. In her plea, she admitted the massage parlors provided sexual services to customers for payment in cash. Nielsen and others advertised the services on the internet. Nielsen and her husband deposited cash into various bank accounts and purchased money orders for deposit in bank accounts in California.
McAllister commended the FBI, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, the Topeka Police Department, the Salina Police Department and Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine Kenney for their work on the case.
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — Authorities say two men held an employee at a Missouri car dealership at gunpoint and stole a truck they were test driving.
Eagle photo Greene Co.
Police say the theft ended when the suspects crashed the pickup truck.
Twenty-year-old Garrett Eagle and 43-year-old David Edens are charged with first-degree robbery in the case.
The Springfield News-Leader reports a probable cause statement says the two men asked to test drive a 2014 Dodge Ram pickup on June 18 at Wehr RV in Springfield.
The statement says the men eventually refused to return the truck. Edens allegedly pointed a gun at the employee and threatened to shoot her.
A short time later, Eagle crashed the truck and the employee was able to escape.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A recent Kansas Supreme Court ruling declaring that the state constitution protects access to abortion opened the door to a new legal attack on the death penalty.
Frazier Glenn Miller Photo Jackson Co.
Attorneys for five of the 10 men on death row in Kansas argue that the abortion decision means the state’s courts can enforce the broad guarantees of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the Bill of Rights in the Kansas Constitution. The lawyers contend the convicted killers cannot be executed because capital punishment violates their “inalienable” right to life.
They include Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., a white supremacist convicted of killing three people at two Jewish sites in the Kansas City area in 2014, and Jonathan and Reginald Carr, two brothers who, authorities said, forced five people to remove money from ATMs and have sex with one another before killing four of them in Wichita in 2000.
Defense attorneys launched the new legal attack on capital punishment in filings with the state Supreme Court in May, less than two weeks after the abortion decision. The justices took the claims seriously enough to order defense attorneys and prosecutors to file additional written arguments, with the last ones due in mid-November.
“It hasn’t been argued under the Kansas Constitution, at least, not in the way we are presenting it in these cases,” Meryl Carver-Allmond, an attorney for two of the men. “This is a new argument.”
The Kansas Supreme Court’s abortion ruling in April was the latest in a long list of decisions that have angered conservative Republicans in the GOP-controlled Legislature. It said the state’s Bill of Rights grants a right to “personal autonomy” that includes access to abortion.
Four of the seven justices were appointed by Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and two by moderate Republican Gov. Bill Graves. The seventh, the only dissenter in the abortion case, was appointed by conservative GOP Gov. Sam Brownback.
Past decisions in capital murder cases also have sparked anger. Kansas’ last legal executions were in 1965, by hanging, and the state enacted its current death penalty law in 1994.
The court has yet to rule in Miller’s case. In 2014, the court overturned death sentences for the Carr brothers in two separate rulings. Those decisions helped fuel unsuccessful election campaigns in 2014 and 2016 to oust all but Brownback’s appointee. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the rulings, sending the Carrs’ cases back to the Kansas Supreme Court. The cases are pending.
Republican Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt told The Associated Press this week that the abortion decision “opened the door for a wide range of new litigation.”
“There is a certain irony that a case regarding abortion is now being urged by some as a reason to upend the death penalty in Kansas,” Schmidt said. “I think that’s just the start, because this holding was so sweeping. I think it’s not just going to be abortion.”
In 2001, in its first ruling under the state’s current death penalty law, the Kansas Supreme Court rejected an argument that the state constitution grants a right to life barring executions for crimes. Defense attorneys now argue that the abortion decision provides grounds for reconsidering that conclusion.
David Lowden, an assistant district attorney, argued in filings this month in the Carr brothers’ cases that it remains a “vast legal reach” to argue that capital punishment violates the state constitution.
Jeffrey Jackson, a Washburn University of Topeka law professor, said the right to life has never been interpreted to include freedom from being executed for a capital crime.
“When you’re trying your client from being executed, you find all the stuff. Your requirement is that you make all the arguments that you can credibly make,” Jackson said. “I just think that this one’s — it would not withstand scrutiny.”
Richard Levy, a University of Kansas law professor, said the abortion ruling suggests the Kansas court might recognize rights for the state’s residents that aren’t recognized nationally. Levy said he has doubts that the Kansas Supreme Court would declare capital punishment violates the state constitution but added, “I don’t think the argument is frivolous.”
“I think it’s more likely that the end result would be the death penalty is still constitutional but more safeguards have to be applied in Kansas than at the national level,” Levy said.
LEXINGTON, Mo. (AP) — The mayor of a Missouri town resigned Tuesday, citing hatred, attacks and lies about him on Facebook.
Mayor Fred Wiedner photo courtesy city of Lexington
Lexington Mayor Fred Wiedner wrote an open letter to the city saying the job was no longer worth the battle.
In the letter, Wiedner says he didn’t sign up for the “mess.”
Wiedner says the trouble began in February when the City Council voted to fire the city administrator, a popular longtime resident. Wiedner says he is comparatively new to town and the public blamed him.
Wiedner says the situation led to continued social media criticism that he decided he didn’t want to spend time defending.
Lexington, about 50 miles east of Kansas City, has fewer than 5,000 residents.
OSAGE COUNTY— Law enforcement authorities are investigating a dog attack that sent a child to the hospital.
Just after 4p.m.m June 23, the Osage County Sheriff’s Office and Osage County EMS responded to 1954 W. 253rd in rural Lyndon after report of a dog bite, according to Sheriff Laurie Dunn.
EMS transported a juvenile victim in critical condition to Stormont Vail Hospital. The dog and the juvenile both reside at the residence. The sheriff’s office released no new information on the child’s condition Wednesday.
This week, the St. Joseph School District Board of Education approved the budget for Fiscal Year 2020.
Board President Seth Wright said revenues exceeded spending this year and the board approved approximately $126 million in operating expenses.
“That’s in large measure thanks to the community that approved the… 61 cent levy back in April, so that certainly made things easier to budget,” Wright said. “But we also have a duty to make sure we are doing what we told the public we would do and that was increasing teacher salaries, providing security upgrades at our schools and then looking to address some of the operational needs that we have.”
Board member Tami Pasley said in past years, approving the budget was a different experience.
“To approve a budget like this was amazing because on the time that I’ve been on the board, we’ve always fought budget issues and not had the money,” Pasley said. “So to actually have the money to budget for what we need to meet the needs of our kids and then to have even that little bit of an excess knowing that, if a need arises we’ll be able to fulfill it, was a really good feeling.”
MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — The organization sponsoring a mock state legislature for boys is apologizing after this year’s teenage governor proposed eliminating women’s right to vote.
The American Legion Boys State of Kansas Leadership Academy said in a statement that the student’s pretending to issue an executive order repealing the constitutional amendment that gave women the right to vote does not reflect the organization’s values.
The Boys State Legislature voted down the proposal in both its Senate and House of Representatives.
The teenager from Leavenworth made the proposal in the final moments of his term during the annual Boys States gathering at Kansas State University on June 2-7.
Spokesman Brad Biles says the student ignored staff members who told him not to introduce the executive order.
