WASHINGTON — The second- highest-ranking member of the Air Force’s procurement office was found dead Sunday in an apparent suicide, Air Force and police said Monday.
The official, Charles Riechers, 47, came under scrutiny by the Senate Armed Services Committee this month after reports that the Air Force had arranged for him to be paid about $13,400 a month by a private contractor, Commonwealth Research Institute, while he awaited clearance from the White House as principal deputy assistant secretary for acquisition. He was appointed to the job, which does not require Senate confirmation, in January.
Kraig Troxell, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office in Loudoun County, Va., said results from an autopsy would be made public today, but a military official said Riechers had apparently killed himself by running his car’s engine in his enclosed garage.
The Air Force’s procurement programs have been handicapped for years by accusations of favoritism, inefficiency and technical shortfalls, and Riechers’ new role was supposed to have been repairing the damage.
Alligator Alley case draws death penalty
MIAMI — A man convicted of murder for leaving a 5-year-old to be eaten by alligators in the Everglades was sentenced to death Monday.
A defense attorney said Harrel Braddy, 58, had befriended Shandelle Maycock and her daughter, Quatisha.
Maycock testified that Braddy showed up at her house in 1998 and grew enraged when she asked him to leave. Prosecutors said Braddy drove the girl’s mother to a remote field, choked her to unconsciousness and left her to die.
Braddy drove the girl to an area known as Alligator Alley and put her in the water, prosecutors said. Authorities found her body two days later, her skull crushed, prosecutors said.
Accused pedophile on video caught
LAS VEGAS — Police said late Monday they had arrested Chester “Chet” Arthur Stiles, the man accused of videotaping himself while raping a 3-year-old girl.
Las Vegas police Sgt. John Loretto confirmed the arrest but declined to elaborate.
Stiles, 37, had been the focus of a nationwide manhunt since police identified him as the man who raped and sexually assaulted a girl in a homemade videotape that surfaced last month in the rural Nevada town of Pahrump.
The girl was found with her mother in Las Vegas on Sept. 29. Now 7 years old, she has been described as happy and healthy, with no memory of the 2003 encounter with Stiles.
Missing autistic hiker’s hat found
CHARLESTON, W.VA. — Emergency responders and volunteers searching for a severely autistic hiker in a national park found his hat Monday, a day after he strayed from his parents on a hike.
The hat was found close to where Jacob Allen, 18, had last been seen Sunday afternoon near the Boar’s Nest Trail, search group spokesman Chris Stadelman said.
