Craigslist case brings charges
AKRON, ohio — A self-styled chaplain suspected in a deadly scheme to rob people who replied to a Craigslist job ad has been charged with multiple counts of aggravated murder, kidnapping and robbery and could face the death penalty if convicted, according to an indictment announced Friday.
The charges against Richard Beasley accuse him of killing three men and wounding a fourth over the course of four months, beginning in August.
Beasley, 52, of Akron, who has been jailed in Akron on unrelated prostitution and drug charges, has denied involvement in the Craigslist slayings. He was arrested in November after authorities linked him to the alleged plot.
Elizabeth Smart engaged •SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah woman kidnapped at knifepoint at age 14 and held captive for nine months is getting married. A spokesman for 24-year-old Elizabeth Smart said she got engaged last weekend and will likely marry in the summer. No details about the groom-to-be were disclosed. The spokesman said Smart plans to keep her personal life private.
Child-killer hanged self with sweat shirt •ATLANTA — A 20-year-old maintenance man who had just begun a life sentence for molesting and killing a 7-year-old north Georgia girl used his sweat shirt to hang himself in his prison cell, according to autopsy results released Friday.
Ryan Brunn arrived at the prison about 8:45 p.m. Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to the Dec. 2 killing of Jorelys Rivera. There’s no indication of anything other than suicide in Brunn’s death Thursday, and there was no other significant trauma on his body, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said.
Nail in brain was more of a headache than he thought •OAK LAWN, ill. — A suburban Chicago man thought the errant nail that discharged from the gun he was working with had whizzed by his head. Instead, it was lodged in his brain. Family members say Dante Autullo spent more than a day with the 3½-inch nail in his head before having it removed Thursday.
The 32-year-old was tinkering in the garage of his Orland Park home Tuesday when the nail gun went off. He saw a small wound but couldn’t find the nail and didn’t think much of it. He went to work the next day but later went to the hospital with nausea and one monster of a headache. That’s when an X-ray uncovered the nail.
Autullo is recovering after a four-hour surgery.
Tuskegee Airman laid to rest •ARLINGTON, va. — On the same day that retired Air Force Lt. Col. Luke Weathers Jr. took his resting place among other war and military heroes, his real-life story as a World War II aviator played out on movie screens across the country.
Weathers was buried Friday at Arlington National Cemetery in a service that began with a flyover of four F-16 jets
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Weathers died Oct. 15 in Tucson of pneumonia at age 90. His burial coincided with the official opening in theaters of “Red Tails,” a George Lucas-produced movie retelling the story of the Tuskegee Airmen who debunked widely held beliefs that black pilots were incapable of fighting in combat.
Name put to body parts found near Hollywood sign •LOS ANGELES — Coroner’s officials say the man whose dismembered head, hand and feet were found in a Hollywood park is a 66-year-old man from Los Angeles.
Coroner’s Lt. David Smith said Friday night that the victim’s name is Hervey Medellin. A dog walker found Medellin’s head Tuesday at Bronson Canyon Park, a brushy, wooded expanse of rolling hills just below the Hollywood sign. Police have announced no arrests and named no suspects. Denver Post wire services
