A 27-year-old woman in Texas will spend several years behind bars for leaving a dead infant inside of a gas station toilet in Houston last year. Harris County District Judge Kristin M. Guiney on Monday ordered Diana Guadalupe Zavala Lopez to serve four years in a state correctional facility after she pleaded guilty to one count of tampering with evidence — human corpse as well as one count of tampering/fabricating physical evidence with the intent to impede an investigation, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.

Guiney also credited Zavala Lopez with 489 days of time already served.

As Law&Crime previously reported, agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehended Zavala Lopez in August 2023 at a bus station in Brownsville, Texas, which is the largest city in the U.S. portion of the Lower Rio Grande Valley.

Witness and police video shows a man acting out at a gas station before striking a cop car with his vehicle, driving off, and fleeing futilely into a restaurant.

The suspect, Jordon Vasquez, 34, is currently locked up in the Bernalillo County Jail in New Mexico for armed robbery, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated fleeing a law enforcement officer, and resisting, evading, or obstructing an officer.

In the witness footage from Feb. 7 in Albuquerque, an exasperated employee of the gas station apparently spoke to authorities over the phone offscreen. She said the suspect struck two homeless people with his hands.

More Law&Crime coverage: Mom accidentally shot to death by 2-year-old son with gun that was ‘negligently’ stored, police say

“He’s sitting out there nonchalant like nothing happened,” she said, describing the suspect sitting in a vehicle, his feet up, in the middle of the parking lot.

She said that the man had been trying to get cigarettes, although he did not have money.

“And he was like, ‘I don’t have money. I don’t have ID,” and he went to grab the cigarettes from the counter, and I was quick enough to swipe them back, and he was like, ‘girl, don’t make me go back there,”” she described.

A mother in Oklahoma is accused of drunkenly trying to leave her infant children at a 7-Eleven gas station so she could drive somewhere to have sex.

Amber Adams was taken into custody earlier this year and charged with two counts of felony child neglect, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.

A witness at the Oklahoma City 7-Eleven on June 6, 2024, called 911 and reported seeing Adams, who appeared to be very intoxicated, pull into the station and stop at one of the gas pumps, according to a report from Oklahoma City CBS affiliate KWTV.

The caller reportedly told the 911 dispatcher that Adams got out of the car and opened the passenger door. She then reached in and “grabbed a baby” by the arm as if the child “was a rag doll.” Adams then reportedly “tossed the baby to the ground.”

Cops in Florida have arrested a 27-year-old man for allegedly shooting a U.S. Army veteran to death after a dispute at a gas station last year.

Kendrick Jerrod Anderson is facing a second-degree murder charge for the November 2023 slaying of 60-year-old Gregory C. Reed in Ocoee, a suburb of Orlando. Ocoee police announced Friday in a press release that detectives arrested Anderson after a year-long investigation.

According to a probable cause arrest affidavit, a Publix grocery store employee called 911 around 8:30 p.m. on Nov. 9, 2023, to report an accident involving a Ford SUV where someone died. Officers and paramedics responded to the scene and found that the driver, later identified as Reed, had been shot several times. First responders rushed him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

More from Law&Crime: ‘He felt he had no choice’: Driver acquitted in third trial for road rage shooting in ‘minor traffic collision’

Publix surveillance video showed the SUV coming from the adjoining BP/Circle K gas station before making an abrupt right turn and crashing into a parked vehicle. A witness at the gas station said he and his girlfriend were sitting in front of the gas station when he saw the SUV and a Mercedes enter the parking lot about the same time. The driver of the Mercedes was trying to pull into a pump, but nearly collided with Reed’s SUV. In response, Reed honked his horn, the witness reportedly told cops. According to the witness, Reed and the two people in the Mercedes were shouting “what, what” back and forth, allegedly sizing each other up.

After the Mercedes parked at the pump, Reed went to the exit to leave the gas station. That’s when the passenger of the Mercedes got out of the car, walked up to Reed’s SUV and allegedly fired five shots, striking Reed multiple times. The Mercedes then drove away.

Reed was wearing a Domino’s Pizza T-shirt at the time of his death and his boss told detectives he had just gotten off his shift as a delivery driver prior to the murder.

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Death Penalty

Alabama ready to help other states with ‘humane’ nitrogen executions after gas caused inmate to ‘shake and writhe’

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 30, 2024, 8:58 am CST

Alabama is ready to help other states carry out “humane” nitrogen gas executions after using it for the first time Thursday to kill inmate Kenneth Smith, the state’s attorney general has said.

Republican Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall called the execution “humane” in a Jan. 25 press release, even though a report by a reporter from the Associated Press said Smith “began to shake and writhe violently, in thrashing spasms and seizure-like movements” after the execution began. The shaking continued for at least two minutes.

The U.N. Human Rights Office and the European Union criticized the execution method, USA Today reports.

In a press conference Friday, Marshall said Alabama stands ready to help other states with nitrogen hypoxia executions, Reuters reports.

“Alabama has done it, and now so can you,” he said.

Oklahoma and Mississippi have approved nitrogen gas executions, according to Reuters.

Marshall also indicated that 43 other Alabama inmates have sought nitrogen gas executions.

Smith was executed for his role in the 1988 murder-for-hire killing of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, a pastor’s wife. The pastor, who later killed himself, allegedly sought the murder to collect on an insurance policy.

Smith was initially scheduled for execution in November 2022, but executioners were unable to insert an intravenous line before the death warrant expired.

The U.S. Supreme Court had twice declined to stop the execution, in decisions Jan. 24 and 25, the New York Times reports.

On Jan. 24, the Supreme Court refused to block the execution based on the argument that the second try constituted cruel and unusual punishment.

On Jan. 25, the high court refused to act based on an argument that Alabama wasn’t ready to try the untested execution method, subjecting him to an unconstitutional risk of cruel and unusual punishment. The Supreme Court’s three liberal justices dissented.

“Having failed to kill Smith on its first attempt, Alabama has selected him as its ‘guinea pig’ to test a method of execution never attempted before,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent.

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Supreme Court doesn’t stop nation’s first execution using nitrogen gas

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 25, 2024, 10:26 am CST

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to block the execution of a death row inmate who claims that he would be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment if Alabama tries to execute him again—this time using nitrogen hypoxia.

The Supreme Court declined to intervene in the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith in one of two pending appeals. The Eighth Amendment argument before the high court was based on Alabama’s second attempt to kill the convicted murderer after executioners were unable to insert an intravenous line in November 2022, the New York Times reports here and here.

Smith’s lawyers say the experience caused trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder.

A second appeal claims that Alabama isn’t ready to try the untested nitrogen hypoxia execution method, and that the mask that it is using to deliver the nitrogen could let in oxygen, prolonging the death process, according to the New York Times.

Smith’s lawyers planned to take that issue to the Supreme Court after the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Atlanta denied his injunction request Wednesday.

Other publications covering the case, besides the New York Times, include Reuters, the Washington Post and Law Dork.

Smith’s execution was scheduled for Thursday evening. He was convicted for his role in the 1988 murder-for-hire killing of Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, a pastor’s wife.

The state of Alabama has tried to kill Kenneth Eugene Smith before. Now, with the U.S. Supreme Court’s tacit approval, executioners will have their chance once again on Thursday. This time using nitrogen gas.

On Wednesday, with no recorded dissents, the nine justices on the nation’s highest court declined to pause what will be the first of its kind: an experimental execution enacted by nitrogen hypoxia.

The court declined to say why it allowed the execution to go forward.

“The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the Court is denied,” the terse order reads. “The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.”