Montana
Couple faces murder charges in Crow girl’s 2019 death
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A Montana couple faces charges of murder and tampering with evidence in the 2019 disappearance and death of a 6-year-old girl on the Crow Indian Reservation, according to court documents.
Mildred Alexis Old Crow was physically assaulted and left in a bathtub to drown before her body was wrapped in plastic and concealed inside a container, Big Horn County Attorney Jeanne Torske said in court documents.
The container was taped shut and remained hidden for more than two years while the defendants collected benefits that were meant for the victim, Torske wrote.
Roseen Lincoln and Veronica Dust, both 36 years old, could face life in prison if convicted in state district court. They remained in custody Tuesday on $1 million bond each and were scheduled to be arraigned on March 28 before state District Judge Matthew Wald in Hardin.
Indigenous women are victimized at astonishing rates, with federal figures showing that they — along with non-Hispanic Black women — have experienced the highest homicide rates.
A 2018 Associated Press investigation found nobody knows the precise number of cases of missing and murdered Native Americans nationwide because many go unreported, others aren’t well documented, and no government database specifically tracks them.
The suspects in Mildred’s death could not be reached for comment and did not have attorneys, court officials said. Lincoln previously was identified in court documents as Roseen Lincoln Old Crow.
The defendants were initially arrested in December 2020 as suspects in the girl’s disappearance. They were convicted months later of misdemeanor endangerment and custodial interference, and sentenced in Crow tribal court to 18 months in jail and $2,000 each in fines. The tribal court does not prosecute major crimes.
Mildred — a direct descendant of Chief Pretty Eagle, one of the Crow’s last war chiefs — was removed from her birth mother and placed in the care of Lincoln and Dust in 2017, Torske said.
Family members described the victim as their “Little Angel” and said she had loved to dance, especially at powwows.
In November 2020, Mildred’s relatives informed federal investigators that they had not seen the girl since April 2019. Her body was discovered in February 2021 in a trailer near the tiny community of Garryowen, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of the Montana-Wyoming border.
An autopsy revealed a head cut on the girl’s body and signs that she was habitually abused before her death, Torske said. Violence against the girl occurred generally when the defendants had been drinking, the prosecutor wrote. None of the previous incidents of abuse were reported to authorities, Torske said.
Kansas
2 arrested in Michigan charged in killing couple while stealing car
JUNCTION CITY, Kan. (AP) — Two people arrested over the weekend in Michigan have been charged with killing a Kansas couple while stealing their car.
Online court records show that 33-year-old Steven Pierce was charged Tuesday and 29-year-old Kallie Peters on Monday with two counts of first-degree murder, aggravated robbery and theft. Both are from Junction City, Kansas. No attorney is listed for them in the online records.
The victims in the case were identified as 75-year-old Valerie Krissman and 80-year-old Roland Krissman.
The complaint said that the killing happened earlier this month in Junction City during the theft of the Krissman's 2006 Buick Lacrosse.
Junction City police said in a news release the Michigan State Patrol arrested Pierce and Peters on warrants Sunday.
No other details were immediately released about the killing. The prosecutor's office didn't immediately return a phone message.
California
Mexican man pleads guilty in smuggling crash where 13 died
EL CENTRO, Calif. (AP) — A Mexican man pleaded guilty Tuesday to coordinating a smuggling effort that left 13 people dead when their overloaded SUV was struck by a big-rig after crossing the border into California two years ago.
Jose Cruz Noguez, 49, of Mexicali, entered pleas in federal court to a charge of conspiracy to bring in undocumented migrants and three counts of bringing in undocumented migrants for financial gain, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a statement. He faces at least 15 years in prison when he is sentenced in June.
Prosecutors said Cruz organized a smuggling run on March 2, 2021, in which dozens of people were crammed into two modified sport utility vehicles that were driven into the United States through a breach cut in the international boundary fence.
One SUV, a GMC Yukon carrying 19 people, caught fire for unknown reasons on a nearby interstate after entering the U.S. Everyone escaped the vehicle and all were taken into custody by the Border Patrol, authorities said.
The other vehicle, a Ford Expedition carrying 25 people, was driving through California’s agricultural Imperial Valley when it was broadsided by a tractor-trailer hauling two empty trailers at an intersection near Holtville, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) east of San Diego, authorities said.
The crash killed 13 people, including the driver, and left the rest with injuries, many of them major. A 15-year-old girl was among the injured.
Cruz was taken into custody after another suspected smuggler was arrested at a California border station two weeks after the crash.
Froylan Cortez Avalos, 49, of Mexicali also was charged in the case but remains a fugitive.
Missouri
Man dubbed ‘Package Killer’ admits to 2 murders
ST. LOUIS (AP) — A Missouri man dubbed the “Package Killer” for his method of disposing bodies received two life sentences Tuesday after admitting to killing two women in the St. Louis area more than 30 years ago.
Gary Muehlberg, 74, has now pleaded guilty to killing three women and faces a hearing next week in the death of a fourth. Remains of all four women were found in 1990 or 1991, packed into various types of containers.
Muehlberg was already in prison for killing a man in 1993 when he was charged last year with four counts of fist-degree murder in the women’s death. The cases were solved after O’Fallon Detective Jodi Weber found DNA evidence while examining old, unsolved homicides. Muehlberg confessed after prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty.
He pleaded guilty Tuesday to murdering Brenda Pruitt and Donna Reitmeyer. The new life sentences will run concurrently with two other life sentences he was previously given.
Pruitt was 27 when her family reported her missing on May 9, 1990. Her body was found in October 1991 inside a plastic trash can on the side of a busy road in St. Louis County. Authorities said she had been smothered or strangled.
Reitmeyer’s body was found June 11, 1990, inside a trash can on a sidewalk in the city of St. Louis. She was a 40-year-old mother of three daughters.
On March 6, Muehlberg admitted to murdering 21-year-old Sandy Little, whose body was found inside a dresser abandoned along a highway in O’Fallon on Feb. 17, 1991.
A hearing is scheduled for March 31 in the death of 18-year-old Robyn Mihan. Her body was found between two mattresses secured together with wire along a road near the small rural Missouri town of Silex on March 26, 1990.
Court documents say Muehlberg also admitted to killing a fifth woman at his home and disposing of her body in a metal barrel he left near a self-service car wash. Her remains were never found.
A motive for the killings has not been disclosed.
Pennsylvania
Ex-officer sentenced in abuse of teenagers in drug program
DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A former suburban Philadelphia police officer has been sentenced to decades in prison on convictions of sexual abuse of several teenage boys while he was working with a youth drug prevention program decades ago.
Bucks County Judge Wallace Bateman Jr. on Tuesday sentenced 54-year-old James Carey to 24 1/2 to 55 years in state prison on 20 counts of statutory rape, aggravated indecent assault without consent and related charges.
“Your badge and uniform became weapons of your depravity,” the judge told the former Warminster Township officer. “You preyed upon the most vulnerable of the community.”
Prosecutors alleged that Carey assaulted boys in the 1990s while serving in the Centennial School District as a resource officer with the federally funded Drug Abuse Resistance Education or D.A.R.E. program aimed at teaching kids to resist drugs and violence.
Bateman noted that Carey could not look at childhood photos of the five alleged victims or look at the now-adult men in their 30s and 40s as they gave impact statements. Carey, who later moved to Cape May Court House, New Jersey, declined to make a statement before sentencing.
Carey maintained his innocence but in October entered no contest pleas, which do not include an admission of wrongdoing but acknowledge that prosecutors have enough evidence to secure a conviction. He tried to withdraw the pleas months later but the judge refused to allow him to do so.
Defense attorney Craig Penglase sought leniency, citing his client’s decades of public service as well as alleged abuse at the hands of other inmates.
Florida
‘Don’t Say Gay’ lawmaker pleads guilty to COVID relief fraud
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — The former Florida lawmaker who sponsored the controversial law critics call “Don’t Say Gay” pleaded guilty Tuesday to committing $150,000 in COVID-19 relief fraud.
Joseph Harding, a 35-year-old Republican, pleaded guilty in Gainesville federal court to wire fraud, money laundering, and making false statements in connection with COVID-19 relief fraud, according to court records. He faces up to 35 years in prison at a hearing scheduled for July 25.
Harding resigned from the Florida House in December, a day after federal prosecutors announced his indictment.
According to court documents, Harding made false statements to the Small Business Administration while applying for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan for one of his dormant business entities. After obtaining $150,000 in COVID-19 relief funds, prosecutors said Harding conducted three monetary transactions, each involving more than $10,000 in fraudulently obtained funds: a transfer to his joint bank account, a payment to his credit card, and a transfer into a bank account of a third-party business entity.
The Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program is designed to provide economic relief to small businesses that are experiencing a temporary loss of revenue.
Harding became nationally known last year over his sponsorship of a law that forbids instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, as well as material that is not deemed age appropriate.
