Search for two missing boys in Wis. now criminal probe
Milwaukee – Police said Sunday that the search for two boys who disappeared a week ago has become a criminal investigation.
Milwaukee police spokeswoman Anne Schwartz wouldn’t reveal what prompted them to treat the case differently, saying it would compromise the investigation.
The change did not come because of any one detail, she said, but an “amassing of information” through police canvassing the neighborhood, tips and leads.
Quadrevion Henning, 12, and Purvis Virginia Parker, 11, were last seen about 3:30 p.m. March 19, when they asked Henning’s grand father whether they could play basketball at a nearby park.
While there are many unanswered questions about the case, investigators had no reason to believe the boys were outside Milwaukee, Schwartz said.
Multiple agencies were participating in the investigation, which was concentrated in the boys’ neighborhood Sunday, Schwartz said.
Family members suspect the boys were taken by someone, and the FBI has brought in child-abduction specialists to help.
Relatives, friends and neighbors were searching the neighborhood – checking garbage cans, knocking on doors and checking cars. Police suspect there are people who know more than they are saying, and Schwartz urged anyone with information to come forward.
There’s a reward of at least $35,000, she said.
SELMER, Tenn.
Preacher’s wife offers message of apology
A preacher’s wife charged with murder in the death of her husband wanted his congregation to know she was sorry for everything she has done, said a friend who visited her in jail Sunday.
Church member Pam Killings worth visited Mary Winkler after Sunday services and said the preacher’s wife gave no indication why her husband of 10 years was shot.
“She just said she was sorry and for me to write a note to the church saying that she was sorry for everything she had done,” Killingsworth said as she walked away from the jail in tears.
Winkler, 32, has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of her husband, Matthew Winkler, pastor at Fourth Street Church of Christ in the small town of Selmer, Tenn., 80 miles east of Memphis.
Her initial court appearance is scheduled for today.
MONTERREY, Mexico
6 bodies found bound in pickup near border
Mexican police Sunday found the bodies of six men who had been shot to death packed inside a pickup left on the side of a highway leading to the Texas border.
Authorities discovered the victims, who were not identified, near the town of General Bravo, about 55 miles from the city of Reynosa, across from McAllen, Texas, said a spokesman for the local police department.
One of those killed was in the cabin, and the rest were stashed in the back of the truck. All were handcuffed and had their feet tied. There have been no arrests in the case, and why the men were slain remained a mystery.
Also Sunday, police found the corpse of another shooting victim inside a car on the outskirts of Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas, and about 100 miles northwest of where the six bodies were found.
LONDON
Floor collapses as mourners view coffin
The ground floor of a small building where a funeral was taking place collapsed in central England on Sunday when the mourners surged forward to see the coffin. About 25 people were injured.
The floor fell into the building’s basement as about 70 people attended the afternoon service in Birmingham.
The wooden floorboards gave way, plunging everyone 15 feet into the cellar.
The vacant building apparently has been used by local residents as a mosque and a meeting place.
JERUSALEM
Olmert vows to talk to U.S. on West Bank
Two days before a crucial election, acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged Sunday to consult the United States and Europe about his plan to pull out of much of the West Bank, remove settlements and set his country’s borders within four years.
Olmert’s two main opponents called the vote a referendum on the future of Israel’s presence in the West Bank, captured from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast War.
A poll released Sunday showed Olmert’s Kadima Party winning 36 of the 120 seats in parliament, the hawkish Likud with 14 and the moderate Labor with 18.
BEIJING
10,000 evacuated after leak at gas well
About 10,000 people have been evacuated from their homes since a leak was discovered at a gas well in a southwest Chinese town where 243 people were killed by an earlier leak, state media and an official said Sunday.
On Saturday, workers ignited gas at the mouth of the well near the city of Chongqing in Kaixian County to avoid a possible buildup and explosion, said a county official who gave only his surname, Xia. No injuries were reported.
The incident occurred in the same Kaixian County mountain town of Gaoqiao where 243 people were killed in a gas leak in December 2003 when a deadly cloud of natural gas and hydrogen sulfide spread over a 10-square-mile area – one of the country’s worst industrial accidents.
MOGADISHU, Somalia
Rival groups prepare for fighting after lull
Radical Islamic militiamen and rivals buried their dead Sunday and brought in more fighters during a lull after four days of combat on Mogadishu’s outskirts that killed at least 93 people and wounded nearly 200, witnesses said.
The battle involves a militia supporting hard-line Islamic clerics who are trying to expand their influence and fighters loyal to businessmen and Somali warlords who have formed an alliance to oppose the religious movement.
