(AP) — The Kansas Highway Patrol says a fatality accident reported this week along Interstate 70 apparently happened more than two weeks ago.
The patrol was alerted Thursday to a pickup truck several yards off the interstate about 8 miles east of Junction City. The patrol says the driver died. He was identified as 67-year-old James Brown of Memphis, Tenn.
The patrol says the accident apparently happened Oct. 25 when the pickup went off the roadway for an unknown reason.
(AP) – Arrest warrants have been issued for a Grain Valley couple whose daughter lost several fingers to a pet ferret in January.
The warrants were issued after Ryan and Carrie Waldo did not appear for pre-trial conferences last Friday.
However, their attorney, Dan Miller, told The Kansas City Star the couple did not willfully disobey the court. He says it’s all a communication problem that he hopes to have the case back before the court soon.
The Waldos were arrested in January after authorities found their ferret had chewed on their 4-month-old child’s hands, leaving only two thumbs and part of a pinkie remaining. They were charged in June with first-degree child endangerment. The couple has pleaded not guilty.
(AP) – A Hutchinson man faces nine years in prison for refusing to testify at a murder trial earlier this year.
A Reno County judge Thursday sentenced Jose Delcruz to nine years for contempt of court.
Delacruz refused in March to testify against Anthony Waller, who was later convicted of first-degree murder for the April 2010 death of Joshua Haines of Hutchinson.
Before Waller’s conviction, Delacruz was tried in the same case. He was convicted of aggravated robbery but acquitted of murder.
The Hutchinson News reports Delacruz refused three separate times to testify against Waller.
His attorney, Alice Osburn, said Thursday that Delacruz feared his testimony could be used against him if his case was sent back on appeal, or that it could lead to federal charges.
(AP) – Recent rain has meant some drought relief for sections of Kansas, but the state Department of Agriculture also says much of the state is still affected by drought.
In its weekly drought update, the Kansas Water Office said more than 85% of the state is dealing with some drought conditions. That includes eastern Kansas, where officials are keeping a close eye on water supplies in reservoirs.
The office also said 30 counties remain in an emergency drought stage and that 79 counties have been declared federal agricultural disasters this year because of drought, high winds and high temperatures.
The report also said eastern reservoirs in the Marais des Cygnes basin are below their conservation pools, while the Smoky Hill basin is experiencing low flow conditions.
(AP) – A 2-year-old Texas boy who had been reported missing in Texas on Thursday is safe after being taken to the Topeka police department.
Topeka Police Lt. Steve Taylor says the boy was dropped off at a police station shortly early Friday. He says the boy appeared to be healthy. It was not immediately clear who brought the boy to the station.
Taylor said Elijah was taken without permission from Fort Worth, Texas.
Police are looking for a 16-year-old runaway, Leondray M. Sanders Jr., who was believed to be with the boy before the child was taken to the police station.
(AP) – A Kansas nurse accused of tampering with painkillers at a Salina nursing home is expected to change her plea next week.
A docket notation lists a plea hearing Wednesday in U.S. District Court for Melanie Morgan, who worked at the Holiday Resort Nursing Facility from 2009 to 2010.
Morgan was indicted in July on charges of tampering with a consumer product and adulteration of a drug.
Prosecutors allege that Morgan removed morphine from vials and replaced it with sodium chloride. The metal caps from the vials were removed to make it appear they were defective.
Authorities say Morgan was addicted to painkillers and took home syringes filled with morphine.
Morgan was fired in 2009 from Wesley Medical Center in Wichita for removing drugs from the hospital’s supply.
A Kansas nurse accused of tampering with painkillers at a Salina nursing home is expected to change her plea next week.A docket notation lists a plea hearing Wednesday in U.S. District Court for Melanie Morgan, who worked at the Holiday Resort Nursing Facility from 2009 to 2010.
Morgan was indicted in July on charges of tampering with a consumer product and adulteration of a drug.
Prosecutors allege that Morgan removed morphine from vials and replaced it with sodium chloride. The metal caps from the vials were removed to make it appear they were defective.
Authorities say Morgan was addicted to painkillers and took home syringes filled with morphine.
Morgan was fired in 2009 from Wesley Medical Center in Wichita for removing drugs from the hospital’s supply.
(AP) – A southeast Kansas man is facing federal charges of trying to steal copper from a radio tower and briefly knocking a Pittsburg station off the air.
Jeffrey Blake, of rural Scammon, was indicted Tuesday on charges of attempted damage to an energy facility and attempted damage to a communication system.
Prosecutors say Blake damaged equipment owned by Heartland Rural Electric Co. and radio station KKOW-AM around 12:30 a.m. on Sept. 7.
The indictment notes that the station is part of the national emergency alert system.
Scammon does not have a listed phone number, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Thursday it was not immediately clear if he had an attorney.
The Cherokee County prosecutor’s office says state charges were dismissed pending resolution of the federal case
(AP) – The Kansas State Child Death Review Board released its annual report, analyzing statistics of the deaths of children age 17 and younger in the year 2009.
“The death of a child is always tragic,” Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said. “I appreciate the work of the State Child Death Review Board in compiling this report so we can understand the trends and focus resources where they are most needed to keep our children safe.”
In 2009, 449 Kansas children died. This represents an 11 percent decline in deaths from 2008. Natural deaths remained the cause in the majority of the fatalities, accounting for 321 of the total cases. Of the natural deaths, 58 percent were infants younger than 29 days. Prematurity and congenital conditions accounted for a majority of those deaths.
Fatalities from motor vehicle crashes fell to 38 – the lowest number since the Board began keeping statistics – and a 25 percent decrease from 2008. Suicide cases also continued to drop from previous years, with eight in 2009. Homicide deaths increased slightly from 26 in 2008 to 29 in 2009.
The Board is a multi-disciplinary, multi-agency volunteer board organized within the Attorney General’s Office to examine trends and patterns that identify risk factors in the deaths of children, from birth through 17 years of age. The board is chaired by Assistant Attorney General Christine Ladner.
The report can be downloaded from the Attorney General’s website at www.ksag.org/page/child-safety.
(AP) – Police say they have run out of places to look for a Kansas City baby who disappeared from her crib more than five weeks ago and whose first birthday is Friday, but the hunt for Lisa Irwin continues behind the scenes.
The frantic search that began when Lisa was reported missing Oct. 4 has morphed into a less visible review of evidence. Investigators have received 1,271 tips and cleared 966 of them. Law enforcement officers initially combed the neighborhood, nearby wooded areas, industrial sites and landfills but those searches ended weeks ago. Police said that doesn’t mean the investigation has lost its steam.
“We are not doing any physical field searching just to do it,” Kansas City Police Capt. Steve Young said Thursday. “If we have another idea, thought or piece of information on where to do that, we will do it before you can blink. But we aren’t going to do it just to do it. We’re not going to close our eyes and start throwing darts.”
The baby’s parents, Deborah Bradley and Jeremy Irwin, haven’t spoken publicly since allowing a national news show’s television crew to follow them around while their two sons trick-or-treated on Halloween night. They also haven’t been as open with investigators as police would like, further complicating the search, Young said.
“I’m not saying they’re not cooperating,” he said. “They have met some of our needs. What I’ve been talking about specifically is sitting down, separate from each other, to be interviewed by detectives. In regard to that, no, that hasn’t happen since the 8th of October.”
Joe Tacopina, the New York attorney representing the parents, refused to comment for this story but suggested he may issue a statement about the case on Friday. Before then, Tacopina has said neither the family nor attorneys would be doing interviews so that they could focus on the search for Lisa.
Jeremy Irwin came home around 4 a.m. Oct. 4 after a rare late shift at work and discovered the baby was gone. He said a window was ajar, all of the lights were on, the front door was unlocked and three cellphones were missing.
Lisa’s mother, Deborah Bradley, admits she spent the previous evening sitting outside with a neighbor, smoking cigarettes and getting drunk on boxed wine, and says she last checked on the baby around 6:30 p.m.
She has said police have accused her of being involved in the child’s disappearance, and that she failed a polygraph test. In tearful early statements to the media, Bradley repeatedly insisted she doesn’t know what happened to her child.
Discrepancies in Bradley’s story – she initially told investigators she checked on the baby around 10:30 p.m. – and the parents’ apparent unwillingness to speak separately with detectives have cast the family in a negative light.
Bob Lowery, executive director of the Missing Children’s division with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said the time that has passed since the disappearance and the lack of solid information have heightened concerns over the girl’s fate.
“Someone out there knows what happened to baby Lisa,” he said. “Someone could have seen something and is reluctant to call police. That person needs to come forward and share that with the Kansas City Police Department. Hardly ever has there been a scenario like this where someone doesn’t know.”
John Hamilton, a criminal law professor at Park University and 26-year veteran of the Kansas City Police Department, said the case has reached a stage in which investigators are spending much of their time going over evidence to see if they have missed anything.
“Right now what you have to do is revisit what you have and pretty thoroughly analyze it, then read back to see if there’s a connection that dawns on you,” he said. “You’re always waiting for that next tip or phone call, but that’s out of your control.”
The summer’s high heat and drought conditions caused abnormal toxic levels of blue-green algae in many bodies of water across Kansas.
Cooler temperatures are helping to resolve the problem. The Logan City Lake in Phillips County has just been removed from the warning list by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
Only one lake, Memorial Park Lake at Great Bend, remains a danger.
Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism District Fisheries Biologist Dave Spalsbury says Cedar Bluff Reservoir in Trego County had minor issues with the toxin.
Algae blooms are more detrimental to small bodies of water, according to Spalsbury, because the toxin robs the water of oxygen, thus killing whatever fish species live there.
(AP) – The president of Bartlett Grain Co. is vowing to rebuild an elevator that exploded in Atchison, killing six people and injuring two others.
During a memorial service for the six victims Wednesday, Bartlett president Jim Hebenstreit asked Atchison residents to have faith in the company. He said the day of the explosion — Oct. 29 — was the darkest day in the company’s history.
Hebenstreit said everyone at Bartlett is eager to find out what caused the explosion. And he said he believed the investigation would show the company was operating safely.
Gov. Sam Brownback also spoke at the memorial, saying the state of Kansas is mourning those who were killed or injured and praying for
their families and friends.
(AP) – Fire officials are asking for information from the public in the investigation of a fire at a west Wichita mosque.
Wichita Fire Capt. Stuart Bevis says federal and city fire investigators still have not determined what caused the fire on Halloween morning at the Islamic Association of Mid Kansas mosque.
The Wichita Eagle reports that Bevis says investigators are asking anyone who might have been near the mosque that morning to contact them.
The fire caused an estimated $130,000 in damage. No one was injured. Bevis says the investigation into the cause has been hampered because the damage was so extensive.
He says investigators from Wichita, The FBI and the ATF are awaiting analysis of different types of evidence from the ATF national laboratories.
(AP) – The head of the Missouri Transportation Department says the agency will propose turning Interstate 70 into a toll road.
The idea of charging motorists to use the main highway between St. Louis and Kansas City has been mentioned for years. But the Kansas City Star reports that MoDOT director Kevin Keith said Wednesday his department is preparing to propose it to the Legislature.
MoDOT began a cost-cutting campaign earlier this year aimed at saving more than $500 million by 2015 as the agency’s budget for major road projects dwindles.
