Florida hurricane victim, 79, identified
PANAMA CITY, Fla. -- A family can begin to grieve after officials confirmed Friday the death of a 79-year-old Florida woman who had been missing since Hurricane Michael left her Mexico Beach home in rubble.
Joanne Garone Behnke said it's been an agonizing wait to find out what happen to her aunt, Aggie Vicari. The Bay County medical examiner's office on Friday confirmed that it was Vicari's body that was recovered Monday. Her body had been under rubble for five days before rescuers found her, Garone Behnke said.
As officials continue to identify bodies recovered since the devastating Oct. 10 storm, a firefighter became the latest death attributed to the storm when he was killed by a falling tree while helping clear debris with family members more than a week after Michael blew ashore with 155 mph winds.
Fire coordinator Brad Price, 49, of Wewahitchka was on his tractor when he was killed Thursday, the Gulf County sheriff's office said on its official Facebook page.
That brought the storm's death toll in Florida to 25, and 35 overall across the South, where, in addition to tree falls, deaths came when the storm decimated homes with winds and storm surge, cut power to those reliant on electricity for medical conditions and swept away cars in flash floods.
Texas execution-drug case to get look
HOUSTON -- The Texas Supreme Court reversed itself Friday by granting the state's request to review a case dealing with the disclosure of an execution-drug supplier that officials have fought for years to keep secret.
The court set oral arguments for Jan. 23 in a case that stems from a 2014 lawsuit filed by several death penalty attorneys who want to know where Texas prison officials got execution drugs used in two executions that year. A lower court ordered the state to turn over the supplier's name, but the state appealed.
The attorneys who filed the lawsuit have said the case is ultimately about government transparency. They say the name of the supplier was needed to verify the quality of the drug and to spare condemned inmates from unconstitutional pain and suffering. Texas later implemented a law that allows the state to keep future supplier records secret.
The availability of execution drugs has become an issue in many death penalty states, including Arkansas, after traditional pharmaceutical-makers refused to sell their products to prison agencies for execution use. Similar lawsuits about drug provider identities have been argued in other capital punishment states.
"Releasing publicly the identity of any supplier of execution drugs raises serious safety concerns that real harm could come to the business operators and its employees," said Jeremy Desel, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Senator-threat suspect appears in court
PHOENIX -- A man accused of threatening to kidnap and kill a United States senator and his family appeared Thursday in court in Chicago, where he was told that the federal charges filed against him in Arizona accusing him of threatening an official identified only as "United States Senator J.F." could be transferred to Chicago if prosecutors don't object.
Court records don't identify where James Dean Blevins resides. And, while authorities have declined to provide the victim's full name, Arizona's Republican Sen. Jeff Flake is the only senator with those initials.
In late September, Flake said that his family received death threats after he asked a Senate committee to hear testimony from a woman who accused then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.
Attorney Robert Loeb, who represents Blevins, didn't return a phone call and email seeking comment Friday.
The indictment says the threat was made on Sept. 17 in Arizona and was done with the intent to "retaliate against such official on account of the performance of his official duties."
Walmart killer sentenced to life in prison
BRIGHTON, Colo. -- A man who gunned down three people in a suburban Denver Walmart last year was sentenced Friday to life in prison without parole as his motive remained a mystery.
Scott Ostrem, 48, received three consecutive life terms plus 48 years as part of a deal he made with prosecutors to avoid a potential death sentence for first-degree murder. He did not speak at the sentencing.
Ostrem walked into a Walmart in Thornton on Nov. 1, 2017, firing seven times in about 20 seconds and left without saying anything, witnesses said.
"There seems to be no motive, rationale for Mr. Ostrem's actions," said Judge Mark Warner, who added the only explanation was that Ostrem has a "black and malignant heart, fatally bent on spreading fear, misery and death in our community."
But his stepsister, Michelle Willoughby of Cocoa Beach, Fla., said in an interview that Ostrem was tormented by voices in his head after taking LSD at a party in 1988.
"He is not cold-blooded," she said. "He hears these voices. Honestly, in my heart, I believe there is only so much a person can take."
A Section on 10/20/2018