NO SIGN KILLING OF 2 KIDS WAS PLANNED: WEST POINT, Utah (AP) — A teenager was arrested Thursday in the deaths of his two younger brothers, ages 4 and 10, at the family home in a Utah subdivision of new houses and tidy lawns, police said.
Authorities believe the boys died from knife wounds and that the 15-year-old boy acted alone in what appeared to be an unplanned attack, Davis County Sheriff Todd Richardson said.
"As result of the emerging details, the 15-year-old juvenile has officially been taken into custody," Richardson said.
It was the second time in a month that an older brother has been arrested in the death of a sibling. Prosecutors have filed murder charges against a 12-year-old boy accused in the stabbing death of his 8-year-old sister on April 27 at their home in Central California.
In Utah, Richardson said blood but no weapon was found on the 15-year-old suspect when he was arrested about five miles from the family home.
GOP ARIZ. REP. WHO SUPPORTS MEDICAID IS THREATENED: PHOENIX (AP) — A Republican member of the Arizona House who supports GOP Gov. Jan Brewer's push to expand Medicaid received an obscene and threatening voicemail at her office, a sign that the rancorous debate over embracing a signature component of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul in the state is far from over.
A visibly shaken state Rep. Kate Brophy McGee of Phoenix urged fellow members Thursday to tell their constituents to be civil, after a fellow lawmaker encouraged opponents of the plan to call Brophy McGee and other GOP supporters.
"Let's tone down the rhetoric, let's focus on the issue, and let's disagree without making someone like me frightened to come to work," Brophy McGee said on the House floor.
Other lawmakers who support or are believed to back Medicaid expansion reported getting email and phone calls containing varying layers of vitriol.
"We're all getting these," said Rep. Bob Robson, R-Chandler, who has not publically committed to expansion.
Arizona is among nine states where Republican governors have accepted the Medicaid expansion offered under Obama's health care law. Of those, six have been able to get a deal with their legislatures or are on track to do so.
CALIF. MAN FACES MEDICAL EVALUATION IN GRANDPA KILLING: WILLITS . (AP) — A Northern California man accused of torturing his 84-year-old grandfather by dragging him behind a pickup truck for nearly six miles is set to be evaluated by a second doctor.
Linda Thompson, the public defender for 23-year-old Kenneth Wilkinson, told a Mendocino County judge on Wednesday that the doctor plans to conduct the evaluation next week.
Wilkinson has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to charges that he killed and tortured Richard Mel Wilkinson. The Ukiah Daily Journal reports (http://bit
.ly/10W10TV) that he has already been evaluated by another doctor.
Authorities were called to a Willits area home last March after family members reported the elder Wilkinson missing. Deputies found his body down a steep hillside.
Thompson said she expects to consult with experts on the possibility the case involves synthetic drugs known as bath salts.
WOMAN CONVICTED OF CHILD PORN GETS 40 YEAR: CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A woman convicted of sexually exploiting her 14-year-old daughter to produce child pornography was sentenced Thursday to 40 years in prison by a federal judge who called her conduct "shocking" and "egregious."
"The damage you have done to your daughter is incalculable," Judge Paul Barbadoro told the 43-year old woman.
The daughter, now 15, said in a videotaped statement played in court that her mother was normal for 13 years.
"I love my mother very much," the girl said. "My mother is not the monster she is made out to be."
A jury convicted the woman in January of transporting her daughter across state lines to produce child pornography, possessing child pornography and sexually exploiting her daughter to produce child pornography. She had faced up to 100 years in prison, which was the sentence federal prosecutors sought.
Two men testified that the woman made cellphone videos of them having sex with her daughter, and jurors viewed a 7-minute video prosecutors say she made of herself performing oral sex on the girl.
Defense attorney James Moir said Thursday that the woman's life fell apart when her husband left her in 2011 and she turned to alcohol and drugs after 10 years of being a good Christian.
The judge said the woman, who has been incarcerated since her arrest in November and has been barred from having contact with her daughter, had used her daughter as "bait" to lure younger men for her own sexual gratification.
The woman, wearing a county jail uniform, shook her head and spoke briefly before she was sentenced.
"In July 2011 my world crashed, and I fell apart," she said. "Being separated from my daughter is the greatest pain I have ever felt. Baby, I'm so sorry."
Prosecutor Helen Fitzgibbon told the judge the daughter feels guilty and believes she is to blame for her mother's predicament, a notion the judge said further illustrates the depth of the harm and damage the woman has done to her.
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA LANDSLIDE STABILIZES: LAKEPORT (AP) — Officials say a Northern California subdivision that partly sank into a hilltop has stabilized after several homes, roads and sections of a sewer system were damaged.
Lake County's Deputy Administrator Chris Shaver says the landslide has shown no significant movement since May 14. Prior to that, Shaver said, it had been moving a foot or two a day.
The Santa Rosa Press Democrat says (http://bit.ly/10T5k9l) seven homes in Lakeside Heights have been deemed uninhabitable and 10 others have been issued voluntary evacuation notices since the slide began in late March.
The Board of Supervisors declared the neighborhood a local emergency and requested state and federal funding earlier this month. Gov. Jerry Brown has not yet responded to the request.
