Monday afternoon at 2:50, Rush County law enforcement officials and Rush County EMS responded to a call regarding a man suffering a possible heat stroke at the wastewater treatment facility at the east end of La Crosse.

Rush County Sheriff, Ward Corsair, said the 46-year-old male was transported to Rush County Memorial Hospital where he later passed away.

Sheriff Corsair could not confirm heat stroke as the cause of death, but that he did believe Monday’s extreme heat to be a factor.

The name of the deceased has not been released.

A Kansas man convicted of killing a 14-year-old girl and burning her body at the asphalt plant where he worked will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Adam Longoria was sentenced Tuesday to life imprisonment without the chance of parole for the August 2010 death of Alicia DeBolt.

Barton County Judge Hannelore Kitts had little leeway in deciding the punishment because a capital murder conviction in Kansas carries a mandatory sentence of at least life without parole. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.

He also received 17 months for vehicle burglary and 7 months for theft. Those terms will be served consecutively to his life sentence.

A man and woman were injured Monday around 10am, after being rear ended on I-70 (Approximately 1/2 mile west of the K-232 and I-70 Junction).

According to the Kansas Highway Patrol, 39-year-old Layla J. Berguland, of Colorado Springs, was eastbound on I-70 entering the construction zone when she rear ended another vehicle driven by 52-year-old Wendy Duncan-Burkinshaw, of Lake Jackson, TX.

Duncan-Burkinshaw and her passenger, 54-year-old Mark S. Burkinshaw were transported to Salina Regional Hospital with injuries. Their conditions were not immediately available.

Berguland was not injured.

A Kansas state school board candidate who thinks the state should stop teaching evolution in its public schools also attends Westboro Baptist, the Topeka church known for anti-gay protests worldwide.

Jack Wu told The Topeka Capital-Journal that he decided to run for the State Board ofEducation after learning that Democratic incumbent Carolyn Campbell would otherwise be unopposed for a second term. She is also from Topeka and represents the 4th District of eastern Kansas.

Campbell supports the state’s current science standards, which treat evolution as a well-established, core scientific concept.

But Wu’s link to the Rev. Fred Phelps Sr.’s congregation that has created a buzz in education circles. Wu said he attends Westboro Baptist services and adheres to its teachings but isn’t a full, baptized member.

Kansas City police have arrested a woman after finding her 10-year-old daughter locked in a filthy closet.

The Kansas City Star reports officers freed the girl after responding Friday morning to a call to a child abuse hotline. The officers reported that the girl was alone in the apartment inside a closet reeking of human waste.

The girl is being treated at Children’s Mercy Hospital. She is about to turn 11 and weighs only 32 pounds.

Officers later found the girl’s 29-year-old mother and jailed her on suspicion of child abuse. The mother’s live-in boyfriend was also arrested.

Two other children have been placed in protective custody

Students at public universities in Kansas will pay as much as 6.9 percent more for tuition this fall.

The Kansas Board of Regents on Wednesday approved tuition increases proposed by officials of the six public universities and the University of Kansas Medical Center.

For undergraduates from Kansas, increases will range from 2.9 percent at Fort Hays State University to 6.2 percent at Emporia State.

The biggest increase will be 6.9 percent for newly enrolling out-of-state undergraduates at the University of Kansas.

Fort Hays State sought no increase for out-of-state undergraduates.

The increases are expected to raise an additional $31 million in the next academic year. Officials of the institutions said the money will cover higher operating costs and extra pay for employees

An armadillo caused a motorcycle crash in central Kansas early Monday morning.

According to the Kansas Highway Patrol, 32-year-old Jeremy Krankenberg of Hudson was riding his motorcycle westbound on a Stafford County road and struck an armadillo in the roadway.

Krankenberg lost control of the bike and laid it over on the highway. It slid for over 100 feet before coming to rest in the middle of the roadway

The crash happened about 7:40 Monday morning and Krankenberg was taken Great Bend Regional Health Center with non-life threatening injuries.

A box truck that two inmates used to escape from the Winfield Correctional Facility in south-central Kansas has been found abandoned about 15 miles away.

The Kansas Department of Corrections said in a news release that the truck sustained a blowout northeast of Rock and was found Sunday morning.

The discovery was made one day after corrections officials identified 52-year-old Robert Cook and 48-year-old Frank Crutchfield as missing.

Now, officials say a truck belonging to the nearby city of Douglass is missing and that the fugitives are suspected of taking it. The vehicle is described as a dark blue 2006 GMC Sierra with a Kansas license tag of 74914.

Authorities are asking anyone with information on the whereabouts of the two men or the missing truck to contact law enforcement.

 

ORIGINAL: Two inmates have escaped from the Winfield Correctional Facility in south-central Kansas.

The Kansas Department of Corrections said in a news release that 52-year-old Robert Cook and 48-year-old Frank Crutchfield were identified as missing Saturday afternoon.

The 5-foot-10-inch, 225 pound Cook was last seen driving a white one ton box truck used to transport food from a kitchen to the inmate dining room. He has convictions for burglary and theft out of Harvey County, Cowley County and Butler County, aggravated indecent solicitation out of Pratt County and an aggravated escape conviction from 1983 out of Sedgwick County.

The 5-foot-11-inch, 231 pound Crutchfield is serving time for multiple burglaries, thefts and criminal damage to property out of Sedgwick County and an aggravated escape from custody in 1983 from Shawnee County.

Thirty-one dead cats and knee-deep trash have been found inside a Wichita home.

The Wichita Eagle reported that authorities made the discovery Saturday after receiving a call from a concerned neighbor.

Sgt. Bruce Watts says police smelled decay upon arriving and initially worried that the woman had died inside the home. Fire officials with respirators responded. Inside, they found that two flea-infested dogs had been feeding on the cats.

Authorities eventually tracked down the 69-year-old woman who lives alone in the house. She said she had been in the hospital and was staying at a friend’s house.

The woman has been told to stay out of the home for now. Animal control officers took her dogs.

The American Civil Liberties Union wants a federal judge to strike down a Kansas law restricting insurance coverage of abortions.

In a court filing Friday, the organization outlines for the first time the impact of a statute passed last year prohibiting abortion coverage in general health plans. Patients who want such coverage must buy special riders.

The ACLU says before the law was passed, abortion coverage was offered in general health plans by the insurance companies that accounted for more than 70% of the Kansas market. But not all have decided to offer abortion riders, and one says it’s not expected that many, if any, riders will be sold.

The ACLU contends the law makes it difficult to obtain abortions. The state says it will file its own motion later.