The Nation in Brief

Philadelphia boykilled at his home

PHILADELPHIA -- A 4-year-old boy was shot and killed in Philadelphia early Thursday in what his father told police was a home invasion robbery, authorities said.

Police went to the home shortly before 1 a.m. in response to a 911 call.

The officers were met by the boy's father, who was on the ground floor and holding another child. The wounded boy was found in an upstairs room, but he was unresponsive and was pronounced dead a short time later at a hospital.

The father, whose name has not been released, told authorities that he and the two young children were in the house when the home invasion occurred, and the children's mother was at work. The father and the younger child were not injured.

Acting Philadelphia Police Commissioner Christine Coulter said investigators were interviewing the father in a bid to get "a clearer picture" on what happened. She said the father reported that it was a home invasion robbery when he called it in to police and to the first responding officers.

It wasn't immediately clear why the child was shot or if anything was taken from the home, authorities said.

Overdose is ruledin corpse case

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- The death of an Alabama woman whose body was found in a shallow grave about two weeks after she disappeared has been ruled an accidental overdose.

Paighton Houston, 29, died of morphine and methamphetamine toxicity, Jefferson County Coroner Bill Yates told news outlets Thursday morning. It has been classified as a drug-opioid death, Yates said.

Wednesday night, U.S. marshals in Cleveland arrested Fredrick Hampton, 50, in connection with Houston's death, news outlets reported.

Hampton, a convicted sex offender, has not been accused of killing Houston. He was charged with abuse of a corpse after Houston's body was found, according to Lynneice Washington, district attorney for the Bessemer Cutoff District of Jefferson County.

Child-sex suspectnabbed on the run

ANTLERS, Okla. -- Less than 24 hours after he was added to the U.S. Marshals Service most-wanted list, a Mississippi man who is accused of faking his death to avoid going to prison for child sex crimes was in custody, authorities said.

The U.S. Marshals office, in a news release Thursday, said Jacob Blair Scott, 43, was arrested about midnight Wednesday. Authorities said he was located at an RV park in Antlers.

"Within hours of our announcement and our plea to the public for information, a tipster called the Pushamataha sheriff's office in Oklahoma and said a man fitting the description of Jacob Scott was staying in an RV park," said Inspector Jeremy Stilwell, the lead investigator on the case for the U.S. Marshals. "After sheriff's deputies looked up Scott's information, they saw he was wanted by the Marshals and immediately relayed the tip to us. We then worked with the local authorities to develop a plan for his arrest."

Scott is currently being held at the Pittsburg County jail in Oklahoma awaiting extradition to Mississippi, where he faces a 14-count indictment charging him with sexual battery, touching a child for lustful purposes and exploitation of a child.

"They [authorities] let me know early, early that they caught him," the mother of the child victim told the Sun Herald on Thursday. "They said he was living in a camper. We are happy. We are very happy and my daughter just cried. She feels safe now."

Scott had not been seen since the end of July, just days before he was set to plead guilty in Mississippi to the charges.

-- COMPILED BY DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE STAFF FROM WIRE REPORTS

A Section on 01/31/2020

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