An Alabama woman who died during a fatal shooting that also took the life of her 5-year-old son texted the name of the man suspected of committing the crime in her final moments.

Arkia “Kia” Berry, 28, was one of three people in a car that was found riddled with bullets on July 13, 2024, along with her 5-year-old son Landyn Brooks and her 28-year-old boyfriend Eric Ashley Jr. According to reporting by local news outlet Al.com, Birmingham homicide Det. Jarvelius Tolliver appeared in court for a preliminary hearing related to the case and presented evidence from the investigation into the triple homicide.

Part of the evidence included text messages sent from the victims’ phones, including a cryptic one sent from Berry that seemed to name the suspect.

A Texas teenager who allegedly stabbed another teenager to death during a high school track meet told police that he acted in self-defense.

Days after the April 2, stabbing death of Austin Metcalf, 17, new details have emerged about the events that led up to the altercation that resulted in his death. In an arrest affidavit obtained by local ABC outlet WFAA, police said that following the alleged incident, suspect Karmelo Anthony, 17, told officers, “I was protecting myself.”

As he was led away from the scene, the defendant reportedly stated, “He put his hands on me, I told him not to.”

Local CBS affiliate KBTX also reported on the arrest affidavit, which contained several redacted names of almost 30 students who were witnesses to the alleged altercation.

An Oregon jury convicted a man of stabbing a friend 55 times and then stuffing his body in the trunk of the victim’s own car and lighting it on fire.

Robert Thomas Colon, 44, was found guilty of the Sept. 5, 2018, murder of Andrew Hathaway, 27, in Portland, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office said last week in a press release. Before the trial began, Colon pleaded guilty to arson, abuse of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence. He’s slated to be sentenced on Wednesday. Colon faces a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 25 years.

More from Law&Crime: ‘She jokes, she laughs’: Prosecutor knocks killer for cheerful attitude in trial for stabbing man, setting home on fire

According to prosecutors, Colon and Hathaway were visiting a home where two other men lived, and they all got high. At some point during the night, Colon and Hathaway began a fistfight. Colon was winning the fight and Hathaway began screaming for help. The two other men broke up the fight and things calmed down for a bit. But then the fight started up again with “Colon beating and stabbing Hathaway until he was dead,” prosecutors said.

Colon and one of the other men moved the body to the trunk of Hathaway’s car. They then drove to a vacant lot and lit it ablaze. Fire crews put out the blaze and discovered the remains. Hathaway’s body was unrecognizable as 80% of his remains were charred, prosecutors said.

The Broward County Sheriff’s Office released the names of all three alleged victims of Nathan Gingles, 43, who was found at a Walmart store with his daughter hours after her mother and grandfather were found shot dead in her Florida home.

Gingles was accused of allegedly shooting his estranged wife, Mary Catherine Gingles, 34; her father David Pozner, 64; and her neighbor Andrew Ferrin, 36, on the morning of Feb. 16. In a press release, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office said that Pozner was found deceased with a gunshot wound on the back patio of the home where his daughter lived. Broward County Sheriff’s Detective Lacey Henry wrote in an arrest warrant obtained by WPLG, a local ABC affiliate, that he was still holding the handle of a broken coffee mug after being allegedly shot “in the head while he innocently drank coffee on his back patio.”

A suspected killer is behind bars in Texas after an alleged would-be murder target told police he pretended to be dead in order to save his own life.

Eiber Gabriel Sira-Vargas, 29, was arrested in connection with the July killing of 19-year-old Alexis Jose Vegas, who was found by a stretch of road with multiple gunshot wounds. According to San Antonio ABC affiliate KSAT, a passerby spotted Vegas’ body near a drainage ditch off a stretch of southbound U.S. Highway 281 at around 3:30 p.m. on July 1. Police found shell casings and zip ties near the victim’s body — but no clues as to who the killer was.

More from Law&Crime: Wife makes daring escape after husband kidnaps her at gunpoint, flees in vehicle with suspect on top of car: Police

Investigators got a break in the case, however, when they learned about an armed robbery that left a man shot, injured, and hospitalized just hours before Vegas’ body was found. Local CBS affiliate KENS reported that the man, who has not been publicly identified, was initially “not forthcoming” with police, according to the arrest affidavit.

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Judiciary

Judge accused of ‘casual and illegal use’ of contempt power; crime victim cuffed

By Debra Cassens Weiss

October 23, 2024, 10:45 am CDT

A Florida judge has been accused of conducting “improper or legally deficient” contempt proceedings in which she ordered the handcuffing of a crime victim and the jailing of the mother of traumatized, truant children.

The Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission accused Judge Anne Marie Gennusa of Putnam County, Florida, of violating ethics rules in an Oct. 21 complaint.

Gennusa has practiced law for 29 years, yet she blamed deficient proceedings on the fact that she hadn’t yet attended the Florida Judicial College, the ethics complaint said. In one case, she also said she had been vomiting with a fever prior to ordering the handcuffing of a misdemeanor battery defendant and the alleged victim.

The ethics complaint accuses Gennusa of “casual and illegal use” of her contempt power in these three cases.

  • State v. Boone: In January, Gennusa held a misdemeanor battery defendant and an alleged victim in contempt after they twice argued in open court. The victim was handcuffed in court and held in custody for nearly three hours.

After the defendant and the victim argued the first time, Gennusa told the defendant that he was acting disrespectful.

“This is not The Jerry Springer Show,” she said, and, he can’t “lash out” and say whatever he wants. The defendant protested, “I’m not lashing. This ain’t no lashing out. Lash out I’m going to get loud on you.” Gennusa replied, “You gonna get loud on me?” and ordered the defendant taken into custody until after lunch.

When the prosecutor asked whether the victim should remain, Gennusa replied that she wouldn’t accept a plea because it appeared that the victim would not accept a plea. At that point, the victim spoke up from the gallery, saying, “I never said I did not want the plea.” The defendant and the victim began arguing again.

Gennusa then admonished the victim and asked whether the prosecutor wanted to speak with the victim. During the conversation with the prosecutor, the victim said she was getting irritated, she didn’t like being spoken to like a child, and she didn’t understand what was going on. Gennusa overheard the conversation and ordered the victim taken into custody until after lunch.

  • In re: M.R.A., J.F.A.: In November 2023, Gennusa held the mother of three truant children in contempt and sentenced her to 10 days in jail. Gennusa had claimed that the mother’s conduct was “belligerent” and “deplorable,” but the hearing recording did not support the assessment, the ethics complaint said.

The mother had violated a court order for her children to attend a specific school program. The mother said the children weren’t in school because their maternal grandfather had recently been murdered by the children’s father. Gennusa interrupted the mother and said, “I get all that, but that’s not a reason for the kids not to go to school.”

The mother said one of the children had witnessed the murder and had to go out of town to speak with the investigating detective.

“My kids are mentally unstable to go right now, and you’re not understanding, their father is gone,” the mother said. Gennusa said an order was already in place.

Gennusa also scolded the mother when she talked about a different case and when she nodded during testimony by the school truancy counselor.

“You’re shaking your head like you’ve done something wonderful,” Gennusa said, “and you haven’t. You’ve failed to comply with the court’s order.” She sentenced the mother to jail after a court recess.

  • State v. Morrison: In November 2023, Gennusa sentenced a misdemeanor defendant to 60 days in jail after he told a courtroom deputy to “Go f- – – yourself.” The deputy had asked the defendant to remove his hat and leave the courtroom when his cellphone rang.

Gennusa held the man in contempt before asking him to explain his comment. The man then asked for “a little bit of grace” because he had a stressful week and had just obtained his first “career job” in hopes of getting his daughter back. Gennusa sentenced the man to jail as he was crying.

The ethics charges said Gennusa’s behavior and use of her contempt power “raise serious questions about your fitness to serve as a judicial officer.”

Law360 and the Jacksonville Florida Times-Union have coverage of the charges.

Gennusa was appointed to the court last year and is running for reelection in November, according to the Jacksonville Florida Times-Union.

Her lawyer, Warren Lindsey, told the Jacksonville Florida Times-Union that Gennusa “has served the Putnam County community with great distinction since her appointment to the county court bench. … She is an excellent judge and person. However, the rules do not allow her to respond to the allegations except in legal filings, which will be submitted in the near future.”

A 28-year-old man in Nevada has been arrested after he allegedly kidnapped his girlfriend and threatened to kill the woman, rescued when she mouthed the words “help me” when driving by police conducting a traffic stop.

Nathaniel Foutch-Pratt was taken into custody last week and charged with one count each of first-degree kidnapping, attempted murder, and domestic battery by strangulation, court records show.

Foutch-Pratt and his girlfriend — whose name has not been released by authorities — were on a road trip traveling from Illinois to California earlier this month when things took a turn for the worse, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by Las Vegas NBC affiliate KSNV.

The affidavit reportedly states two officers with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department first encountered Foutch-Pratt and the victim at about 9:10 p.m. on the night of Feb. 20 during an unrelated traffic stop on a vehicle near the corner of Pecos Road and Washington Avenue. During the stop, one of the officers allegedly saw Foutch-Pratt driving past them at a high speed in an SUV. The officer also noticed a woman in the passenger doing something alarming.

“I observed a white female adult in the passenger seat stick her head out the window,” one of the officers reportedly wrote in the document. “She mouthed the words ‘HELP ME’ as the vehicle was driving away from Officers.”

The driver had clearly been tipped off to what happened because police said he entered the southbound side of U.S. 95 traveling north — against traffic — and the officers gave chase. The SUV crashed a short while later and the officers approached the vehicle.

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Careers

Victim advocate fired after copying district attorney’s office on ‘panties’ email

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 30, 2024, 9:50 am CST

A victim advocate in the San Francisco district attorney’s office was fired Friday for sending an email copied to the entire office that read, “What color panties you have on.”

The email sent by Jovan Thomas was addressed to District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, who is his boss, report the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Standard and SFist.

It appeared to be a response to an invitation to an event memorializing the 1998 murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard.

Thomas sent a second email that apologized and said the prior email was a joke that he intended to send to a fraternity brother.

A spokesperson for Jenkins said Thomas had been fired.

“To be clear, there is no relationship between the district attorney and the individual who sent this email,” the statement said. “This misogynistic behavior violates the office’s code of conduct, and this individual has been terminated. The district attorney’s office is committed to maintaining a professional office environment where all staff members are treated with dignity and respect and not subject to harassment or a hostile work environment.”