National Roundup

Pennsylvania
Cops: Boy, 14, was driving drunk with intoxicated dad in car

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) — Police have charged a 14-year-old Pennsylvania boy with driving drunk while his even more intoxicated father rode in the passenger seat.

WNEP-TV reports the boy was stopped by Wilkes-Barre police for driving erratically on Wednesday night. His blood-alcohol content was .106 percent, more than the state’s .08 percent limit for adult drivers.

Police have charged his father, 34-year-old Ramon Calva-Marin, with child endangerment and corruption of minors. His blood-alcohol level was 0.26 percent.


The boy was released to a sober family member and will be prosecuted in juvenile court.
His father faces a preliminary hearing June 14. Online court records don’t list an attorney for him to comment on the charges.

Texas
Police: Man hired sex offenders to kill fiancee

ROWLETT, Texas (AP) — Dallas-area police say a man hired two sex offenders to kill the woman he was just a week away from marrying.

Thirty-eight-year-old Ioannis “John” Makris was indicted Thursday by a Dallas County grand jury on a charge of capital murder for remuneration.

Makris and 37-year-old Laura Grillo operated a home-remodeling business that employed the two offenders.

Rowlett police Lt. David Nabors told The Dallas Morning News that 30-year-old Jesus Trevino was hired by Makris to shoot Grillo. The second offender acted as the getaway driver. Trevino and the other man are in custody.

Grillo, a mother of three, was found dead in her home in November. She and Makris were both Rowlett police volunteers.

Online jail records did not indicate an attorney for Makris to speak on his behalf.

New York
Police probe teen’s death amid racial slur reports

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City police are investigating the death of a black teenager who was chased by a mostly white group that witnesses say shouted racial slurs.

The Daily News says 16-year-old Dayshen McKenzie died last week. The Staten Island teen had asthma and a heart condition.

A friend, 19-year-old Harry Smith, says their group and another group got into a dispute over a girl. He says the attackers came back in three cars and one displayed a gun.

Smith says the suspects used “a lot of racial slurs.”

A former police officer, Diane Fatigati, tried to revive the dying teen. She says two of the cars had Pennsylvania plates.

McKenzie’s mother, Tisha Richardson, says he was the kind of kid who’d ask for a hug.

Florida
Worker accused of burying boss in dirt with front-end loader

DEBARY, Fla. (AP) — A construction worker in Florida has been arrested after authorities say he buried his boss in dirt using a front-end loader.

Citing an arrest report, the Orlando Sentinel reports 32-year-old Erick Cox of Sanford was charged Wednesday with aggravated battery.

Witnesses say Cox was arguing with 57-year-old Perry Byrd of Orlando at a construction site in DeBary when Cox dumped two loads of dirt onto Byrd, pinning him to the ground.

The report says Cox then began hitting Byrd in the head with a 6-foot aluminum level. Byrd was knocked unconscious and suffered a large cut.

Cox told investigators Byrd had threatened him and ended up on the ground, where Cox says he accidentally buried Byrd’s leg in dirt while reaching for his keys.
It’s unclear whether Cox has an attorney.

Kansas
Attorney general to review judge hostage case

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Attorney General’s Office says it will review the investigation of man accused of holding Finney County’s chief judge hostage.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said in a statement Thursday that his office will review the investigation into the incident to determine if any criminal charges will be filed. The Finney County Attorney’s Office requested that Schmidt’s office handle the case.

Authorities say a standoff began around 7 a.m. on May 31 when the suspect forced his way into 61-year-old Wendel Wurst’s Garden City home and confronted the man and his wife at gunpoint.

The woman was released, and she called police from a neighbor’s home. The standoff ended peacefully several hours later. Police say the suspect was upset over a custody case that Wurst had handled.

Ohio
11,000 Ohio rape kits tested for DNA, attorney general says

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio’s attorney general says 11,000 sexual assault kits have been tested by the state’s forensic scientists under an initiative launched in 2011 to check for evidence from previously untested kits.

Attorney General Mike DeWine says about 13,800 kits were submitted by several hundred law enforcement agencies. Testing is complete on roughly 80 percent of those.

DeWine’s office says that has led to nearly 4,000 hits in a DNA index system and indictments of hundreds of defendants.

The testing initiative began in 2011. Legislation that took effect last year mandated that any remaining untested sexual assault kits associated with crimes be submitted by law enforcement agencies to a crime laboratory by March 2016.

Rape kits from new cases have to be submitted within a month after investigators determine a crime occurred.

Texas
Constable: Teens behead 1 llama, shoot another

CYPRESS, Texas (AP) — Two high school students have been arrested after authorities in Texas say they beheaded a llama and shot another one.

Harris County Precinct 1 Constable Alan Rosen says the two 16-year-old students were arrested Thursday and have each been charged with one count of animal cruelty and two counts of criminal trespass.

Rosen says the teenagers, who are students at Tomball High School, went onto the Figment Ranch in Cypress and decapitated one of the animals and shot the other in the neck on March 6. The llama that was shot survived.

Authorities say the motive for the incident is unclear at this time. The teenagers have not been identified.