Cops: Missing hair, selfie led to homicide suspect
NEWTON, N.C. (AP) — After a highly regarded educator was killed last June in a west-central North Carolina town, police there said they were able to identify a neighbor as a suspect because of a selfie on his camera and a clump of his missing hair.
Over the weekend, Newton police arrested 34-year-old Sharman Odom and charged him with murder in the death of 31-year-old Maggie Daniels, Police Chief Donald Brown said.
Daniels’ body was found June 28 in her Newton apartment. Brown said investigators think Daniels fought back when Odom attacked her in her unlocked apartment a day earlier, resulting in the lost clump of hair and a scratch on his nose and below his eye that officers found Friday in pictures on his smartphone taken the day police think Daniels was killed.
POLICE: TV SHOW REMINDED MAN THAT GIRL WAS IN CAR: WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A child crying on the television show “Game of Thrones” jogged a foster parent’s memory that he had left a 10-month-old girl inside a sweltering car while he and his partner smoked marijuana at their house, a police affidavit released Monday says.
Seth Jackson, 29, is charged with first-degree murder in the July 24 death in Wichita. No charges have been filed against his partner.
Police say the girl was inside the car with the windows up for more than two hours. It was around 90 degrees outside. An autopsy showed she died of hyperthermia due to heat exposure.
The affidavit says Jackson’s partner told police that Jackson called that day to let him know he would be picking the 10-month-old up from the baby sitter after taking their 5-year-old adopted child to a doctor’s appointment. Jackson told police that when he arrived home, he locked the car and went inside with his 5-year-old and the pizza.
Jackson’s partner said he and Jackson watched one and a half episodes of “Games of Thrones” and smoked marijuana Jackson had picked up that day, according to the affidavit. The partner told police Jackson realized he had left the 10-month-old outside in the car when he heard a child crying on the TV show.
2 CHARGED AFTER INDIANA RAIL BRIDGE CLOSE CALL: BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) — Prosecutors filed criminal charges Monday against two women who they say were caught on video surviving a close call with a freight train while walking across a trestle 80 feet high in southern Indiana.
Misdemeanor railroad trespassing charges were filed in Indiana’s Monroe County Circuit Court against Stacey June Smith, 37, of Bloomington and Wendy Gayle Timothy, 34, of Pensacola, Florida.
A video shows two women on a bridge over Lake Lemon northeast of Bloomington on July 10 as the 100-car coal train weighing 14,000 tons bears down on them. The engineer activated the train’s emergency brakes when he saw the women, who first began to run and then lay down on the tracks moments before the train passed over them with just 10 inches of clearance, according to the newspaper.
Monroe County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Troy Thomas said officers tracked the women down from a Florida license plate on the vehicle in which they fled the scene..
NO NEW NAME FOR STEPMOTHER OF BOY MISSING 4 YEARS: ROSEBURG, Ore. (AP) — The stepmother of an Oregon boy whose disappearance in 2010 touched off an intense search has failed to persuade a judge to let her change her name.
Terri Horman testified Monday in Roseburg that her life has been threatened and she hasn’t been able to find a job since Kyron Horman vanished from his Portland school.
She told Judge Randy Garrison that the last name Horman was a stigma and kept her from winning positions, including full-time employment at the Veterans Administration hospital in Roseburg, the Roseburg News-Review (http://bit.ly/1kA5UFF) reported.
She said changing her name to Claire Stella Sullivan would allow her to start life over.
Four people involved in search efforts for the boy and fundraisers objected in court, saying Terri Horman hadn’t answered questions about him.
The judge rejected the request, saying it wouldn’t be in the public interest because an investigation remains open.
