HAYSVILLE, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say one person has died in a crash on the Kansas Turnpike in the southern part of the state.
A vehicle and pedestrian collided early Monday.
The Kansas Turnpike Authority says the crash happened in the southbound lanes of Interstate 35 at a Haysville exit. No other information was immediately available.
HUTCHINSON— Jury selection begins on Monday in the case of a Kansas teen accused of setting a fatal fire.
Samuel Vonachen who is now 17, is accused of spreading gas through the downstairs of his family’s home, then setting it on fire on September 26, 2013.
The fire killed his mother and sister. His father was able to escape the blaze.
Jury selection was scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. on Monday.
Opening statements could begin Tuesday morning. The trial is expected to last at least a week and a half.
MIAMI COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities in Miami County are investigating three suspects for fishing violations.
After several tips from the public through Operation Game Thief, a Kansas Game Warden caught three suspects running illegal set lines just before midnight at Middle Creek State Fishing Lake, according to a social media report.
The warden gave each suspect a ticket.
No names were released.
ARKANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Officials in southern Kansas’ Cowley County say a person has drowned while canoeing in the Arkansas River.
KAKE-TV says the victim of the accident Saturday near Arkansas City hasn’t been released.
As Arkansas City’s emergency medical services captain, Jeff Sampson says a group of at least 10 people was kayaking and canoeing when one boat overturned.
Sampson says others in the boat managed to climb onto a logjam, but the victim did not survive.
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) A man who committed a string of outlet store break-ins that targeted watches in Connecticut and elsewhere will have to serve time in prison.
Forty-year-old Cuban national Alionis Perez pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in May and was sentenced Thursday to five years in federal prison.
Prosecutors say he led a group that in 2013 broke into Fossil and other outlet stores at night, stealing time pieces. They say he and his partners got away with more than $1.8 million in watches from burglaries in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, Florida and Pennsylvania. They say the gang also broke into a store in Maine but failed to get any merchandise.
Perez also pleaded guilty to a separate conspiracy involving thefts of cash and sunglasses in 2014 from stores in Kansas and Tennessee.
A judge has ordered Perez to pay restitution.
JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) — A young Kansas man whose father was slain in 2008 is getting a help from an unusual source in paying tuition for his freshman year at a Missouri college.
Colby Leeper of Wichita has received $1,500 from an organization run by death row inmates called Compassion, which distributes funds from donations and artwork sold by the prisoners.
Leeper’s father, 33-year-old Edward “Brian” Leeper Jr., was shot and killed in November 2008 in the parking lot of the Stratford House Inn in Wichita, where he had been staying. The Joplin Globe reports Josh Matchett was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and is serving a 20-year sentence.
In addition to the Compassion scholarship, Leeper also is getting track-and-field and academic scholarships to attend Missouri Southern State University in Joplin, Missouri.
WABAUNSEE COUNTY – A Kansas man died in an accident just after 2a.m. on Sunday in Wabaunsee County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 1984 Chevy pickup driven by Christopher W. Frank, 33, McFarland, was eastbound in the westbound lanes of Interstate 70 at Spring Creek Road.
The pickup struck a semi head-on.
Frank was pronounced dead at the scene and transported to First Call.
The semi driver Delphia S. Baynes. 45, Statesville, North Carolina, was transported to the hospital in Topeka.
Frank was not wearing a seat belt, according to the KHP.
HUTCHINSON— The final of four young Kansas men convicted for being involved in the January robbery of a Kwik Shop at 43 and Plum in Hutchinson was sentenced Friday to nearly seven-years in prison.
The attorney for Dakota Ney, 19, Hutchinson, asked for a dispositional departure to community corrections for the conviction of aggravated robbery.
District Judge Tim Chambers would have no part of that because of the violence involved by this defendant.
It was Ney who forced the clerk to open the drawer and give money while the other two stole cigarettes and other items.
He also knocked the victim to the floor, used a taser device on her while kicking and beating her.
She still suffers from those injuries today and appeared in court with a walker. She was allowed to speak and told the judge that she can’t forgive him and does not believe he should be allowed to walk the street. She told the judge, “I couldn’t live with that.”
Two other suspects Karl Koenig, 19, and Drake Lindsay, 19, entered pleas involving the Kwik Shop robbery as well as the burglary of a smoke shop.
Lindsay was sentenced to five years and six months in prison while Koenig received a more harsher sentence of six years and seven months because of past criminal convictions for burglary and criminal damage.
Kurt Koenig was given two years ten-months in prison after he entered a plea to conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery. He was the one who drove the vehicle for the other three and never actually entered the store.
By Sam Zeff
Primary election night was brutal for conservative Republicans in the Kansas Legislature.
Six Republican members of the Senate lost their primaries. The more moderate candidates won two additional seats left open by conservatives who decided not to run for reelection.
Eight Republican House members were ousted in the primaries. The Kansas Chamber, which has been known to back lawmakers who align with Gov. Brownback on tax policy, had endorsed all of those defeated incumbents. Eight others the Chamber endorsed in 13 open House races also lost.
A KCUR analysis shows there are still plenty of races where Democrats will be competitive in the fall and that means the possibility of more conservatives going down to defeat.
“I don’t see any way conservatives can continue with a working majority in the Kansas House starting in 2017,” says Republican Rep. John Rubin, a conservative from Shawnee who retired this last legislative session.
While Rubin says he’s not sure about the complexion of the 2017 Senate right now, the KCUR analysis shows at least 10 Senate seats and at least 20 House seats are truly up for grabs.
How did we decide which races are competitive? They met one or more of these criteria:
University of Kansas political science Professor Patrick Miller says there’s no doubt conservatives will lose more ground in the Legislature after Nov. 8.
“If the public is going to send a message of rejection against the governor and his policies, that’s really a two-step process. Last week (the primaries) for moderate Republicans, November for Democrats,” Miller says.
The question, of course, is how many Democrats will win.
Two Senate races to watch
There are a couple of Senate races in northeast Kansas to keep an eye on that if Republicans lose might be the start of a long election night for conservatives.
One is the Senate District 10 seat held by Mary Pilcher-Cook from Shawnee. Pilcher-Cook is well known, elected to three terms in the House before winning her Senate seat in 2008 and she had $55,684 in the bank in the last report. But Brownback won the district with only 49 percent of the vote two years ago. While her challenger, Vicki Hiatt, barely makes the money threshold (she had $10,653 in the bank) observers believe she’s had an active campaign in a swing district that could go blue. Hiatt is a retired teacher in a year it appears voters are exceptionally interested in education.
The other Senate bellwether is District 5 in Leavenworth County where incumbent Republican Steve Fitzgerald is facing tough general election opposition from Democrat Bill Hutton, a lawyer and local municipal judge.
Fitzgerald swept into office with a lot of other conservatives four years ago by beating Democrat Kelly Kultala by just 763 votes out of nearly 25,000 cast. Davis won the district two years ago with 49 percent of the vote, so it’s clearly swing. While Fitzgerald has raised a lot of money ($55,577 cash on hand), Hutton is keeping pace ($41,017 cash on hand).
Two House races to watch
In Lenexa, Amanda Grosserode, is the two-term incumbent representing House District 16. She first starting turning heads in 2009 when she organized a protest against the federal stimulus program at the office of then Democratic Congressman Dennis Moore.
It’s still a swing district, where Davis won 50.5 percent of the vote in 2014 to Brownback’s 47 percent. Now Grosserode, tea party organizer and homeschooler, is up against a PTA mom and Sprint Yellow pages executive — Cindy Holscher.
Holscher has the endorsement of Stand UP Blue Valley, the Johnson County pro-public schools group that downed several conservatives in the primaries. And Holscher (with $25,319) was way ahead of Grosserode (with $15,437) in cash on hand at the end of July.
Meanwhile, if there’s a proving ground for how well organized Democrats are, it could be House District 51, which covers a slice of rural Kansas between Topeka and Manhattan.
At first glance, the district appears pretty solidly red. Davis only got 36 percent of the vote here in the 2014. But at the same time, Brownback didn’t hit the 50 percent threshold.
The incumbent, Rep. Ron Highland, chairman of the House Education Committee, has been in the Brownback camp. The Democratic challenger, Adrienne Olejnik, is a Rossville city council member. She announced in October and has been actively campaigning ever since. And she’s raised more money than Highland ($14,818 cash on hand to his $11,555).
Six districts turned moderate could go blue
While moderates did score huge victories in the primaries, several have more to overcome in the general. The KCUR analysis shows three Senate seats and three House seats already picked up by moderates are still competitive based on how much money the candidates have and votes for governor in 2014.
One to watch is Senate District 21 in Overland Park where Dinah Sykes faces Democrat Logan Heley. Sykes handily beat incumbent Sen. Greg Smith. But Heley with $44,012 had raised nearly twice as much money as Sykes ($26,122) in a district Brownback lost two years ago.
The X Factors
There are other factors, of course.
Is a candidate going door-to-door? Appearing at events in the district? That can make up for less money.
The Democratic party hasn’t done too well in the last couple of elections. Though they’ve done better fielding candidates this time, with a Democrat running in all 40 Senate districts, many are placeholders without serious campaigns.
Will Brownback’s approval rating continue to hover below 20 percent and will that be a drag on conservatives running for reelection? The governor insists the ousting of so many conservatives during the primary was not a repudiation of his policies.
Rubin says that can’t be true. “I think you’d have to be, frankly, in a state of denial, to not recognize that the governor’s policies, again those that I agree with and those that I don’t, but the governor’s policies were front and center in many of those races,” he says.
And then there’s the Donald Trump factor. Nobody knows what having him at the top of the ticket will mean. Will Republicans, especially in Johnson County, stay home? Will it energize Democrats? Will it galvanize some who haven’t voted in recent elections?
“If you have a race that is decided by a couple of percentage points where literally, probably, everything that happens matters because the race is so close, then Trump could have an effect,” Miller says.
Sam Zeff covers education for KCUR, which is a partner in a statewide collaboration covering elections in Kansas. Follow Sam on Twitter @SamZeff.
Kansas Elections Editor Amy Jeffries contributed to this report. Find her on Twitter @amyoverhere.
GEARY COUNTY – Two Geary County men were injured in an accident just after 10:30p.m. on Saturday in Geary County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2001 Chevy Impala driven by Gillian F. Demaroney, 26, Milford, was southbound on U.S. 77 seven miles north of Junction City.
The driver swerved to miss an animal, went off the road to the west and overturned
A passenger Richard A. Rivera, 29, Junction City, was ejected from the vehicle.
Demaroney and Rivera were transported to Via Christi in Manhattan.
They were not wearing seat belts, according to the KHP.
EDGERTON, Kan. (AP) — A lesbian pastor will leave her United Methodist Church in Edgerton at the end of August to avoid a church trial to determine if she should be ousted.
Methodist officials and pastor Cynthia Meyer agreed in early August that she would give up her duties and go on involuntary leave. Her leave will begin Sept. 1.
The Kansas City Star reports Meyer came out to her congregation in January. At the time, she said she hoped the denomination was close to changing its ban on gay clergy. That didn’t happen and a church trial was scheduled for Aug. 24.
Under the agreement, Meyer can’t be appointed as a pastor at any church but could be hired to perform functions similar to a lay staff person.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A motorcyclist who fled from law enforcement at speeds well over 130 mph has been taken into custody after a 10-minute pursuit that ended at the man’s home.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports the man, who appeared to be in his 20s, was taken into custody around 1 p.m. Saturday after he went into his home as troopers in a helicopter watched from above.
Kansas Highway Patrol Sgt. Mark Christesen says the chase began at 12:50 p.m. in a construction zone on Interstate 70 west of the Kansas Turnpike’s east Topeka interchange, where the rider was clocked at 95 mph in a 55 mph zone.
Officers on the ground backed off while the helicopter continued to watch as the Suzuki hit speeds in excess of 130 mph.
RENO COUNTY – A Kansas woman died in an accident just after 6p.m. Friday in Reno County.
The Reno County Sheriff’s Department reported Kaylynn Volpe, 69, Pretty Prairie, was in a vehicle, which was being towed by another vehicle northbound in the 26100 Block of Dean Road.
Volpe’s vehicle veered to the right and struck the bridge guardrail on the east side of the road. Volpe was trapped in the vehicle.
Volpe was rushed to Kingman Hospital in critical condition and died.
She was not wearing a seatbelt, according to the sheriff.
