Crime Time

'Duct Tape Bandit' pleads guilty to robbery

It was a disguise that made him look more like a silver mummy than a holdup man, and it must have hurt like heck to get off.

Kasey G. Kazee, 25, became known as the "Duct Tape Bandit" for using, well, duct tape, to wrap his face as a disguise during a Kentucky liquor store robbery.

Kazee has pleaded guilty to second-degree robbery in the case and faces 10 years in prison under terms of a plea agreement.

-- Lance Murray

Attorney says angry dad stabbed the wrong kid

Mistaken identity.

That's the assertion of an attorney for a teenager stabbed three times Monday at Wunsche High School in Spring, Texas, by the father of a girl who allegedly was sexually assaulted at a party. According to police, the man thought the boy had witnessed the assault on his daughter.

But attorney Fernando Valdes says his client wasn't even at the party, having spent the weekend with his parents.

"He was not at any party at all," Valdes said. "This kid was student of the month last month. He's not some thug that runs around gang banging. He hangs around computer guys. He's a techie, a good guy getting a bad rap."

The father has been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The boy is still in the hospital.

-- Lance Murray

Police: Incest suspect investigated in 1986 murder

Could incest suspect Josef Fritzl have been involved in an unsolved murder 22 years ago?

Austrian police say they have no evidence, but they've widened their investigation into the murder of a young woman, Martina Posch, whose body was found on the shore of a lake in November 1986.

Fritzl's wife owned part of an inn and camping ground on the other side of the lake, and police say it's possible that he could have been in the area.

Fritzl, 73, is accused of imprisoning his daughter for 24 years, raping her, and fathering seven children with her.

-- Lance Murray

Was man killed by Houston cops a secret agent?

Who was that guy? Or better yet, what was that guy?

Those are questions Houston police could be asking this morning about a man who was shot and killed by officers Tuesday morning after a high-speed chase.

Was that man, Roland Vincent Carnaby, 52, a CIA agent? The agency says no. But acquaintances said he may have hung out in those circles.

It's a mystery that's still be unraveled. The Houston Chronicle reports.

-- Lance Murray

DPS trooper fatally shot; manhunt under way in East Texas

A massive manhunt is under way for the suspect in the fatal shooting Tuesday night of a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper in East Texas.

The trooper was identified as James Scott Burns, 39, who was married. He was fatally shot during a high-speed chase near Kellyville, about 160 miles east of Fort Worth.

The shooting occurred just before 8 p.m. near the intersection of FM 1969 and FM 729. The area is just northeast of Lake O' The Pines and west of Kellyville, DPS spokeswoman Tela Mange said.

Mange said a citizen used the trooper's radio to inform a dispatcher that Burns was shot. Here's the description of the vehicle authorities are looking for: 1997 blue Dodge Intrepid with Texas license 039-LCG.

-- Lance Murray

Police: Bomb-plot teen said he wanted to kill Jesus

A South Carolina teenager accused of planning to blow up his high school told authorities that he wanted to die, go to heaven and then kill Jesus.

Federal prosecutors told a judge Tuesday that Ryan Schallenberger, 18, made those statements to police.

The teen is accused of plotting to use a weapon of mass destruction, a charge that carries a possible life in prison upon conviction. Prosecutors say his statements indicate the boy needs a psychological evaluation. They have a point.

-- Lance Murray

'Baby Doe's' mom denied bail after judge told she tried to flee

"Baby Doe's" mother tried to flee when police closed in on her, prosecutors have told a Houston judge.

The woman, Maria Dana Martinez, 30, is accused of starving her 5-year-old son to death and then throwing his body in a trash bin five years ago.

Prosecutors told the judge that she is an illegal alien from Mexico.

After hearing about to attempt to flee and her immigration status, State District Judge Jim Wallace denied bail. Martinez is jailed awaiting trial on a felony murder charge.

The child, José Bernardo Martinez, was blind and died of starvation and dehydration, according to an autopsy report. At the time of his death, the boy weighed between 18 and 28 pounds.

-- Lance Murray

DNA tests confirm man fathered 6 kids with imprisoned daughter

sCNN is reporting that DNA tests have confirmed that a 73-year-old Austrian man fathered six children with the now 42-year-old daughter he is accused of imprisoning for 24 years in a basement.

Josef Fritzl appeared in court Tuesday after having confessed that he raped his daughter and fathered seven children with her. The seventh child died as an infant and Fritzl said he burned the body in an incinerator.

Fritzl, a retired electrical engineer, faces a possible 15 years in prison if charged and convicted of rape.

Authorities also are saying the the daughter and her mother were reunited on Sunday, along with most of the daughter's children. Officials called the meeting "astonishing."

-- Lance Murray

Teacher arrested a 3rd time for sex with a student

Police in Tampa, Fla., have arrested a suspended Tampa, Fla., middle school teacher for the third time for allegedly having sex with a student.

Stephanie Ragusa, 29, was out on bail for allegedly having sex with two students and she will be in court again Tuesday after police said they caught her on Monday having sex with one of the boys, a 16-year-old, again.

It was her third arrest in the past six weeks on charges of sex with a minor, according to a report in the The Tampa Tribune.

"She's in need of help," Hillsborough County Sheriff's Lt. Fred Asteasuainzarra, told the Tribune.

-- Lance Murray

TV report: 40 drownings were actually 'smiley-face murders'

What many thought were the accidental drownings of at least 40 young men, actually were serial killings pulled off by a national gang that kills and then leaves a smiley-face marking at the scene of the crime, St. Paul, Minn., television station KSTP reports.

The victims include University of Minnesota student Chris Jenkins and Fordham University student Patrick McNeill. The smiley-face symbol was found painted at some of the death scenes in Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Iowa, the station reported.

A team of retired New York City police detectives and criminal justice investigators is working on the case, the station reported.

"They're telling you here that they're into evil, they're very happy as most serial killers are," retired NYPD detective Kevin Gannon told KSTP. "They're content with their work and what they're doing and the fact that they're thwarting the police."

You can read and watch the report by KSTP here.

-- Lance Murray