(AP) – A Salina man is jailed on $1 million bond after being charged in the death of his girlfriend’s 14-month-old son.

Antonio M. Brown Sr. was charged Thursday with first-degree murder, child abuse and interference with a law enforcement officer.

Brown is accused in the Tuesday beating death of Clayden Lee Urbanek. Brown was dating the boy’s mother, who has not been publicly identified.

The Salina Journal reports that Brown is scheduled to appear in court Friday after an attorney is appointed for him.

Police say the mother notified 911 after Brown called her home from work because the boy was having trouble breathing. He died at a Wichita hospital.

From Matt Unruh  ~ GreatBendPost.com

More testimony was heard Thursday in the Adam Longoria Preliminary Hearing, the second day of the hearing for the man accused of killing 14-year-old Great Bend resident Alicia DeBolt. Judge Hannalore Kitts heard closing arguments from both the prosecution and the defense before reaching a decision on whether to bind Longoria for trial on the alleged charges.

Judge Kitts said that the State has met the burden and she decided to bind Longoria over for trial on the charge of Capital Murder with the charges of criminal sodomy, aggravated criminal sodomy, and attempted rape. The Attorney General’s Office announced that they are waiving their intent to pursue the death penalty in the case.

(AP) – A Salina hospital is closing its psychiatric residential treatment program in Ellsworth County.

Saint Francis Community Services says a lack of referrals forced it to consolidate its operations in Saline and Ellsworth counties.

The hospital’s lawyer, Kevin Carrico, says the programs will be consolidated within 60 days. He says in March the programs had 500 placements but by September less than 300 youth were screened for the programs.

The agency has a total of 30 residents at its two facilities. That’s roughly half the programs’ capacity.

The Salina Journal reports that the program administrators did not believe the decrease in use was temporary and thought the programs should be consolidated to make better use of resources.

A Salina hospital is closing its psychiatric residential treatment program in Ellsworth County.Saint Francis Community Services says a lack of referrals forced it to consolidate its operations in Saline and Ellsworth counties.

The hospital’s lawyer, Kevin Carrico, says the programs will be consolidated within 60 days. He says in March the programs had 500 placements but by September less than 300 youth were screened for the programs.

The agency has a total of 30 residents at its two facilities. That’s roughly half the programs’ capacity.

The Salina Journal reports that the program administrators did not believe the decrease in use was temporary and thought the programs should be consolidated to make better use of resources.

(AP) – Garden City police say nearly a dozen people were arrested in a two-day drug task force investigation in Garden City and Finney County.

Eleven people in the area were arrested on charges ranging from possession of methamphetamine and marijuana to selling cocaine within 100 feet of a school zone.

Most of the men and women arrested range in age from 46 to 59 years old. One 21-year-old man was also arrested.

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation was also involved in the arrests, which took place late last week.

(AP) – The parents of a 10-month-old girl who disappeared from her crib say they frantically searched their Kansas City home but discovered only an open window, an unlocked front door and lights turned on.

Jeremy Irwin says he immediately knew something was wrong when he returned home from work early Tuesday. After checking on his 6- and 8-year-old sons he went to the bedroom of his daughter, Lisa, and found her gone.

Irwin and Lisa’s mother, Deborah Bradley, tearfully told reporters early Thursday that they can’t think of anyone who would abduct their child, and that no one had shown an unusual interest in her before she was taken.

They say their cell phones also were stolen but that nothing else appears to be missing from their home.

(AP) – Topeka police say officers shot and killed a man who came at them with a knife.

The 44-year-old man was killed early Thursday at an apartment south of downtown Topeka. His name was not released.

Police Lt. Steve Taylor said officers went to the apartment after getting a report of an assault in progress. Taylor says the two officers shot the man after he approached them with a knife.

The two police officers weren’t injured. They are on administrative leave pending an investigation.

(AP) – The Maxwell Wildlife Refuge in central Kansas will be the site of a 3-day re-enactment of life in the state during the early 1800s.

The annual mountain man rendezvous takes place Friday through Sunday at the refuge, located six miles north of Canton in McPherson County.

The living history event is open to the public and features primitive trapper camps, teepees, Indian folklore, flint knapping and other attractions.

Primitive camping is available at no cost at the adjacent McPherson State Fishing Lake. Prairie tours of the refuge will be conducted every hour.

(AP) – Attorney General Derek Schmidt says he has placed an attorney in Goodland to help western Kansas county prosecutors and law enforcement.

Schmidt says in a release that Assistant Attorney General Nicole Romine began working out of Goodland as of Saturday. Romine had been with the agency’s criminal litigation division at its Topeka headquarters.

It is the first time Schmidt has placed staff in a county to help local officials with their duties, especially in criminal prosecutions.
The attorney general’s office has also placed three drug prosecutors with task forces in southwest and southeast Kansas.

(AP) – A 2-year-old Arkansas City boy is dead after drinking a household cleaner at a baby sitter’s home.

Ernest Manly tells KAKE-TV the sitter called him Tuesday morning to say Manly’s son, Davin, drank the chemical and got sick.

Manly says he took his son home and thought the boy was feeling better, only to see him suffer a seizure. Emergency crews took the toddler to a hospital, but he never recovered.

Authorities said an autopsy would be conducted to determine the cause of death. Manly says Davin would have turned 3 years old next week.

(AP) — A member of the Kansas Arts Commission says it’s down to its last $5,000 but still hopes to plan arts festivals and review past grants to local arts agencies.

Commission Vice Chairwoman Kathryn Herzog testified Wednesday during a meeting of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Arts and Cultural Resources. She said commission members are handling administrative chores for the commission.

Legislators are reviewing efforts by Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration to promote the arts after he vetoed state funding for the commission.

Brownback wanted to eliminate the commission and scale back state funding for arts programs. Legislators rejected the plan, keeping the Arts Commission in place, but Brownback vetoed its $689,000 in state funding.

In turn, the federal government and a regional arts alliance cut off their funding.

By Matt Unruh ~ Great Bend Post

Adam Longoria, the man accused of killing 14-year-old Alicia Debolt is in Barton County District Court today for a preliminary hearing, to see if there is enough evidence to take him to trial for charges of attempted rape and indecent liberties with a child, along with the original charge of capital murder.

Longoria’s ex-girlfriend Eva Brown testified to Longoria’s whereabouts on the night of August 21st, 2010, when DeBolt went missing.

She said that Longoria had left the house in her black Ford Escape at around 11pm and returned fifteen minutes later and changed clothes that were stained, and later asked her to dispose of the clothes. He left the house again and returned shortly after 12:30am.

She also said she smelled gasoline in the vehicle the next morning.

DeBolt’s neighbor Tiffany Neely testified to seeing a dark SUV driving suspiciously slow through their neighborhood while she was at a Barbeque across the street from DeBolt’s home.

She said the vehicle pulled up to DeBolt’s house, which DeBolt entered at around 11pm. Hugo Hernandez testified that Longoria asked him to tell law enforcement that Longoria was at Willy J’s the night of August 21st, when Hernandez said he didn’t see Longoria that night.

Arnofo Aviles said he saw Longoria and DeBolt at Eva Brown’s birthday party on July 17. He said he overheard Longoria making comments about DeBolt indicating that Longoria wanted to have sex with DeBolt.

And Great Bend Police Detective Denton Doze testified that he saw surveillance video of Longoria pumping gas into a small container at Love’s just after midnight on August 22nd.