National Roundup

North Carolina
Army court upholds death sentence of Bragg soldier
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — An Army appeals court has upheld the death sentence of a former Fort Bragg soldier convicted of killing a mother and two of her children in North Carolina more than 30 years ago.

The Fayetteville Observer reports a four-judge panel in the Army Court of Criminal Appeals filed its opinion last month in the 2010 court-martial of Timothy Hennis. He had been convicted twice previously in civilian court.

Hennis is a former master sergeant who’s being held in the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He was sentenced to death for the slayings of Kathryn Eastburn and her daughters, 5-year-old Kara and 3-year-old Erin, in Fayetteville, North Carolina. A third child, 22-month-old Jana, was found alive.

Hennis was living in Lakewood, Washington, when the Army brought him out of retirement for the court-martial.

Pennsylvania
Lawyer: Couple guilty of sneaking nanny into U.S.
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — An eastern Pennsylvania couple will plead guilty to sneaking a Nigerian woman into the country so she could work as their nanny.

Gilbert Scutti is the attorney for the Palmer Township couple charged by federal prosecutors in Allentown.

He tells The (Allentown) Morning Call that John and Godever Ibechem — native Nigerians but now U.S. citizens — learned of the woman through relatives in their native land. The woman was homeless and posed as John Ibechem’s mother so she could enter the United States in 2009.

The couple was charged last week with conspiracy to violate immigration laws and not paying the woman at least minimum wage. The woman worked for the couple until September 2014.

A guilty plea hearing hasn’t been scheduled.

Scutti says it was a “win-win” arrangement “until it went sideways.”

California
GPS-tracked sex offender on trial for serial killings
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — Opening statements were expected Wednesday in the trial of a sex offender accused of raping and killing four women during a murderous spree in Orange County while wearing a GPS tracking device.

Steven Dean Gordon, 47, of Anaheim is due in an Orange County courtroom on four counts of murder and four counts of rape.

Gordon is representing himself at trial. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

Gordon and registered sex offender Franc Cano, 30, were both wearing GPS devices for prior offenses when they raped and killed four women in 2013 and 2014, authorities said.

One of the women’s bodies was found at a recycling plant. Investigators linked her death to the disappearance of three other women also allegedly picked up by the pair.

During grand jury proceedings, authorities said that Gordon confessed in graphic detail to picking up the women in his car with Cano, raping them behind an Anaheim paint and body shop where the men camped and killing them.

But Gordon’s confession won’t be allowed during the trial, said Larry Yellin, senior deputy district attorney for Orange County. Yellin said the judge excluded it because Gordon told police he didn’t want to talk before launching into the detailed account of the murders.

Cano, who is expected to be tried separately, is due in court later this week to set a trial date, Yellin said.

Yellin declined to comment on the case ahead of opening statements.

During the investigation, authorities identified the victim at the recycling plant as Jarrae Nykkole Estepp from the tattoo on the back of her neck. They searched a database of sex offenders wearing tracking devices and found Cano had been in the locations of all four women when they vanished.

They focused on Gordon after a search of Cano’s cellphone showed the men texted constantly. The night Estepp died, a message from Gordon’s phone to Cano’s read, “this is the best one yet.”

DNA samples from Estepp’s body matched Cano’s and Gordon’s genetic material, authorities said.

Authorities believe Cano and Gordon have known each other since at least 2010, when Cano cut off his GPS device and fled to Alabama, where the men were arrested. In 2012, they cut off the devices again and took a bus to Las Vegas using fake names. They were arrested two weeks later.

Both men are registered sex offenders and were convicted in separate cases of lewd and lascivious acts on a child.


North Carolina
Man indicted after girl found chained to a tree
WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) — A convicted sex offender accused of abducting a 6-year-old North Carolina girl who was found chained to a tree has been indicted on numerous charges.

The StarNews of Wilmington reports 46-year-old Douglas Edwards was indicted Tuesday by a New Hanover County grand jury on charges including attempted first-degree murder and statutory rape of a child.

New Hanover County Sheriff Ed McMahon says Edwards was riding a moped Sept. 14 when he snatched the first-grader from her driveway.

Investigators found the girl the next day, tethered to a tree in mosquito-infested woods.

Edwards, who was released from prison in 2012 after serving 16 years for a 1994 sexual assault of another 6-year-old girl, is being held in lieu of a $9 million bail.

It’s unclear whether he has an attorney.

Pennsylvania
Police: Mom abused son, 5, forced him to smoke crack
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Police have charged a Pittsburgh woman after they say she physically abused her 5-year-old son, left him alone for extended periods of time and forced him to smoke crack cocaine.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports Pittsburgh police obtained an arrest warrant Tuesday for 39-year-old Rochelle Daniels on charges including endangering the welfare of children and simple assault.

Police say the boy’s aunt brought him to Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC on Sept. 5 after the child said his mother gave him something to smoke that investigators believe was a crack pipe.

The child has been in the custody of his aunt since Aug. 27 after Daniels left him at a home in Crafton Heights and never returned.

It’s not known if Daniels has a lawyer.