Investigators grapple with gunman’s motive
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Residents of a small southern Missouri town struggled to come to grips with the knowledge that one of their own had killed seven people in a spasm of violence that ended when the gunman shot himself to death on a rural county road.
Joseph Jesse Aldridge, 36, went to four homes in the unincorporated town of Tyrone in Texas County late Thursday, killing neighbors and relatives but sparing two teenagers. He was later found dead in a vehicle in neighboring Shannon County, about 25 miles away.
Aldridge’s 74-year-old mother, Alice, was found dead in a home she shared with her son as officers went door-to-door to search for other victims. An autopsy performed Saturday found she died of natural causes, said Texas County Coroner Tom Whittaker. Alice Aldridge had a history of breast cancer and had lung cancer, said Whittaker, adding investigators assumed she was not a victim of violence but wanted to be “100 percent” sure.
Autopsies were not performed on the other victims, who all lived in Tyrone, not much more than a spot on the map about 40 miles north of the Arkansas border.
“Since the shooter killed himself, and we’re certain he is the shooter, and the weapon he killed himself with, the ammunition he used, all match the victims, the prosecuting attorney felt there was no need for autopsies,” Whittaker said. “We knew how they died.”
Drug policies in focus on college campus
MIDDLETOWN, Conn. – As drug overdoses left two Wesleyan students fighting for their lives, witnesses helped investigators quickly identify the suspects: The drug-dealing was an open secret, according to court documents, even as the university has gotten tougher on drug violations.
The club-drug overdoses, which sent a total of 12 people to hospitals, are likely to bring more scrutiny to drug policies on college campuses, including Wesleyan’s, which have wrestled with how to approach enforcement and when to involve local police.
Four students have been arrested in connection with last weekend’s overdoses, which left two students in critical condition. Authorities say the drug was presented as Molly, a popular name for the euphoria-inducing stimulant MDMA, but likely was cut with other designer drugs.
As on other campuses, the unlawful use and distribution of illicit drugs is prohibited at Wesleyan, but the issue often is complicated by a desire to treat substance abuse as a health issue first and what some describe as society’s ambivalence about the use of certain drugs.
Political blunder in GOP’s strategy?
WASHINGTON – Democrats are losing some skirmishes over the Department of Homeland Security, but many feel they are winning a political war that will haunt Republicans in 2016 and beyond.
Democrats lacked the votes Friday to force Republicans to fund the department for a year with no strings. Still, even some Republicans say party leaders are on a perilous path with a very public ideological struggle only highlighting the GOP’s inability to pass contested legislation and possibly worsening its weak relationship with Hispanic voters.
Worst of all, numerous lawmakers said, Republican leaders have offered no plausible scenario for a successful ending, so they simply are delaying an almost certain and embarrassing defeat.
Conservatives defend their doggedness. They say they are courageously keeping promises to oppose President Barack Obama’s liberalization of deportation policies, which they consider unconstitutional. Several said their constituents support their stand, while others said the issue transcends politics.
As a deadline fast approached Friday night, the House agreed to extend the department’s funding for a week. But some in both parties said the Republicans were losing political ground.
Judge orders D.C. to pay record damages
WASHINGTON – A D.C. Superior Court judge ordered the District of Columbia government Friday to pay a record $9.2 million in damages to Kirk Odom, 52, who was wrongfully imprisoned for more than 21 years in the rape and robbery of a woman in her Capitol Hill apartment in 1981.
The amount, set by Judge Neal Kravitz, is the second – and largest – award in a case tried before a District judge under the District’s wrongful conviction law, which first was approved in 1980. It also is one of the largest non-jury awards in an exoneration case in the United States.
Odom was exonerated in July 2012 after DNA testing showed he was innocent and that only another man could have committed the crime for which he was tried and sentenced in 1982 and incarcerated until 2003.
The Washington Post reported Odom is one of five D.C. men convicted of murder or rape to have his charges vacated since 2009, based on erroneous forensics and testimony by an elite unit of FBI hair experts.
Odom’s case is among what is expected to be several civil claims against the District of Columbia by former prisoners exonerated through DNA evidence.
Since December 2009, DNA results have cleared Donald Gates, then 58, of a rape and a murder for which he had spent 28 years in prison. D.C. Superior Court judges also have exonerated two other men, Kevin Martin and Santae Tribble.
A third murder conviction, that of Cleveland Wright, was vacated, and his attorneys with the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia continue to ask the court to declare him innocent.
Associated Press & Washington Post
