Boyne City
Charge dropped against reporter over crash footage
BOYNE CITY, Mich. (AP) — A felony charge has been dropped against a reporter who gathered footage of a small airplane crash that killed two people in northern lower Michigan.
Damien Leist, who was working for the Charlevoix County News, said no one told him that he and a colleague couldn’t approach the site of the Jan. 6 crash in Boyne City.
Leist was charged under a state law that prohibits taking pictures of human remains in a grave. The Petoskey News-Review and WPBN-WTOM report the charge was dismissed Tuesday under agreement between Charlevoix County Prosecutor Allen Telgenhof and Leist’s lawyer.
Telgenhof says in a joint release that officials “respect the First Amendment rights of the news media to cover newsworthy events.”
Leist says his “only objective was to report on this tragic accident.”
Saginaw
Man charged with murder in death of his son, 6
SAGINAW, Mich. (AP) — A Saginaw man has been charged with murder in the death of his 6-year-old son.
Aki Dillard was arraigned on first-degree premeditated murder and felony murder charges Tuesday, a day after an autopsy was completed on the victim, Elijah Dillard, who died Saturday.
Thirty-nine-year-old Aki Dillard was ordered held without bond. Elijah’s mother, Mio Campbell, faces a child abuse charge and is jailed on a $5 million bond.
Aki Dillard has not yet been assigned an attorney. A message seeking comment was left Wednesday with a lawyer for the 30-year-old Campbell.
Elijah’s uncle, Omar Dillard, tells The Saginaw News he and others have set up an account that’ll be used to pay for the boy’s funeral.
Police say Elijah appeared to have burns on his body and head trauma.
