Accused robber charged with killing student
AUBURN, Ala. — A man arrested after a car and foot chase by police who suspected him in a string of robberies was charged with capital murder in the abduction and shooting death of an Auburn University student, police said Saturday.
Courtney Lockhart was arrested Friday in Phenix City, about 30 miles from the campus where 18-year-old Lauren Burk was a freshman. She was found shot on the side of an off-campus road Tuesday.
Lockhart, 23, was charged with three capital counts accusing him of murder along with kidnapping, robbery and attempted rape, said Auburn Assistant Police Chief Thomas Dawson. He wouldn’t say what led police to charge Lockhart in the student’s killing or divulge evidence linking Lockhart to that crime.
Freed convict charged with six murders
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A convicted killer recently released from prison was charged Saturday in the deaths of six people, including his brother and two children, authorities said.
Jessie L. Dotson, 33, was arrested Friday — five days after the bodies were discovered in a small rental house in a rough, low-income neighborhood called Binghampton. Three other children were found critically wounded.
Dotson was charged with six counts of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted first-degree murder, police said. Among those killed was Dotson’s brother, Cecil, 30, who was the father of all the children — ages 9, 7, 5, 4 and 2 months. Police have not said which children died.
Dotson is accused of shooting his brother during an argument and then killing the others to get rid of witnesses.
Mom arrested for carwash discipline
ORLANDO, Fla. — Authorities have arrested a mother who was videotaped spraying her young daughter with a high-pressure water hose at a Florida carwash.
Deputies arrested Niurka Ramirez in Orlando on Friday on a child-abuse charge.
Ramirez said she was trying to discipline her 2-year-old daughter for throwing a temper tantrum. She told authorities she did not use the high-pressure feature on the hose when spraying the child.
A nurse reported the girl had no visible injuries 11 days after the incident.
Celeb lawyer enlisted for wife-killing case
LOS ANGELES — Celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos said Saturday that he is representing a Japanese man accused of killing his wife in Los Angeles in the 1980s.
Geragos’ client, Kazuyoshi Miura, was convicted in Japan in 1994, but the conviction was overturned on appeal. Although that trial was in Japan, Geragos said he thinks U.S. law still prevents Miura from being tried again for the same crime.
“The first thing I’m going to do is challenge the arrest warrant,” Geragos told The Associated Press.
Miura’s arrest last month in the U.S. territory of Saipan has created a sensation in Japan, where his case has been called that country’s equivalent to O.J. Simpson’s.
The now-60-year-old clothing importer said he and his wife were vacationing in Los Angeles in 1981 when robbers shot him in the leg and her in the head. Kazumi Miura, 28, died the next year in Japan.
Tiger cub born at zoo
SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Zoo, which lost a tiger on Christmas, is celebrating the arrival of a newborn cub.
The cub born Friday belongs to Leanne and George, two Sumatran tigers on loan from a zoo in San Antonio and an aquarium in Denver.
The tiger that was shot by police after killing a teenager and mauling his two friends was a Siberian tiger. Both species are endangered.
