Crime Time

Man, sons convicted of stoning woman to death after argument

A man and two of his sons were convicted this week of stoning an El Paso woman to death after an argument last year in Ciudad Juarez, the El Paso Times reported.

The killing of Solange Medina, 20, occurred during a birthday party on July 26, 2009, the newspaper reported.

Medina and a friend were drinking while celebrating a friend's birthday when Medina and the men began to argue, the newspaper reported.

"While arguing about some passion issues, the victim hopped into her car, a late model Chevrolet Trail Blazer, when he kept calling (her) names. She got out of the car, and those men threw rocks at her until they killed her," the Times quoted authorities as saying in a written statement.

-- Lance Murray

Teen gets probation for defecating in the wrong car

Is there such a thing as a case of mistaken BM?

A teenager in Las Cruces, N.M., has been convicted and given probation after he defecated in a man's car, mistakenly thinking it was his girlfriend's car, the Las Cruces Sun-News reported.

The car's owner discovered the 19-year-old soon-to-be soldier in the back seat of his Honda Civic in March pulling up his pants.

"This is your car?" the owner quoted the teen as saying. "I thought this was Desiree's car."

The teen then ran away and subsequently was found in a nearby ditch.

The teen later apologized and paid for the car's broken window and for a broken window of a business nearby, the newspaper reported.

The forensics team was able to tie the teen to both crimes because of a distinctive footprint that matched his tennis shoes, the newspaper reported.

The teen pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal property damage and attempted breaking and entering just before he was to begin his trial on Monday.

-- Lance Murray

Police: 4-year-old girl was trying to sell pot door-to-door

This isn't Girl Scout cookies.

Police in San Juan, Texas, have arrested a 22-year-old woman after her neighbors reported the woman's 4-year-old daughter was going door-to-door trying to sell a brick of pot.

The girl's mother, Maria Ipina, has been charged with possession of a controlled substance after officers went to her apartment and reportedly found 200 grams of packaged cocaine ready for sale. They didn't find any marijuana, however, Fox News reported.

-- Lance Murray

Local blotter: allegations of children killing parents in Ponder, Venus and Hood County

Man kills self before standing trail for starving father

A Ponder man was found shot to death Monday on the day he was scheduled to go on trial in Denton on charges that he starved his father to death last year.

William Donald Rush, 45, (right) was found shortly after 9 a.m. Monday in a Ford pickup truck near his Denton County home, authorities said. They said they believed he killed himself.

Rush was to go on trial on a charge of injury to an elderly person with bodily injury, a third-degree felony, records stated.

Rush was accused of starving to death his father, 66-year-old Robert Rush, who died on June 22, 2009. The son's trial was supposed to start Monday.

At the time of his death, Robert Rush had bedsores on 80 percent of his back and was suffering from gangrene, records stated.

Son accused of beating dad with baseball bat near Venus

A Johnson County man has died after sheriff's officials said he was beaten with a baseball bat by his son late Sunday.

Robert Ehrhardt, 53, died Monday afternoon at a Fort Worth hospital, the Tarrant County medical examiner's office reported.

His son, Kenneth R. Ehrhardt, 17, (left) was being held Tuesday in the Johnson County Jail, said Lt. Tim Jones, a sheriff's office spokesman.

When deputies arrived at the home late Sunday evening, "they noticed the victim lying on the floor with severe head trauma," Jones said in a news release. "According to witnesses a disturbance had occurred that had escalated into the younger Ehrhardt attacking his father with a bat."

Woman stands trial, accused of participating in father's death

Was she a victim, a savage killer or both?

That's what is being determined this week in the Hood County trial of Deborah Ann Malone Wilson. She is accused of participating in the killing of her 82-year-old father, George Malone, last year a year ago today.

In opening statements Tuesday, defense attorney Terence Russell said George Malone was a hardened man who mistreated and tormented Wilson, 60, her entire life, including the day she joined her brother in the beating that caused the man's death.

But Assistant District Attorney Patrick Berry argued that Wilson scratched and bit her father “like an animal,” knowing that even minor wounds could be dangerous because he was on blood thinners.

Wilson’s brother, David Lee Malone, 59, was sentenced earlier this month to 99 years in prison.

Photo of marshal impersonator released

Dallas police stepped up their efforts to catch a man impersonating a U.S. marshal Tuesday by releasing a new photo of the suspect.

The photo, taken by a motorist, (right) showed the man armed with black semi-automatic handgun.

A motorist said the fake marshal brandished a handgun with a laser sight and pointed it at the motorist’s head.

Dallas police are looking for any motorists that the man may have pulled over at Lemmon and Wycliff avenues.

-- Compiled from the works of Domingo Ramirez Jr., Martha Deller and Bill Miller

Mexican mayor, aide, found stoned to death

Another official has been killed in Mexico's ongoing drug cartel war.

The mayor of Tancituro, Michoacan, was found stoned to death Monday along with an aide, the Associated Press reported.

Tanciturno, in western Mexico, is home to 26,000 people, and is in an area where 30 meth labs were destroyed last year and several police officers have been killed.

Sanchez is the fifth city leader to be slain since mid-August in Mexico, the AP reported.

-- Lance Murray

Adults turn toddler's birthday party into all-out drunken brawl

Happy -- POW!

Birthday -- Wham!!

To -- Crash!

You -- Thud!

About 30 children at a toddler's birthday party early Tuesday in Elmwood Place, Ohio, took home more than party favors and a piece of cake -- memories of a drunken, beer-soaked brawl involving about 75 of the 150 adults in attendance.

When it was all over, 15 people were taken to hospitals and two men were admitted.

“It was an unbelievable scene, the amount of blood and broken glass,” Elmwood Place Police Chief William Peskin told the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Among those arrested for disorderly conduct while intoxicated was the 3-year-old birthday girl's father, the Enquirer reported.

Police said the brawl happened after an earlier dispute between two men -- a woman's ex-husband and her boyfriend -- came to a head at the party, the Enquirer reported.

-- Lance Murray

Suspect arrested in deadly Juarez cartel car bombing

A suspect in the fatal July car bombing in downtown Ciudad Juarez has been arrested by Mexican federal police, the El Paso Times reported.

Police say that Jose Ivan Contreras Lumbreras, 27, set the bomb that killed three people. They said he also killed the person who was used as a decoy to lure police to the street where the bomb was set.

Authorities say the Contreras is a member of the Juarez drug cartel, known as La Linea. He was arrested Sunday along with three other men, a boy and a girl, the Times reported.

The July attack was the first car bombing by a cartel against authorities in the longstanding war between federal authorites and the cartels, the Times reported.

-- Lance Murray

Multiple personalities: Man says murderous alter-ego 'Kiko' killed 3 relatives

When Dwayne Wilson of Jersey City pleaded guilty to killing three family members he also blamed somebody else -- one of his multiple personalities named "Kiko."

Wilson, 43, said it was the homicidal personality "Kiko" -- the defense claimed Wilson has dissoviative identity disorder -- who killed his sister, niece and nephew as he "watched." Another nephew was wounded.

The judge rejected the defense. Wilson will be sentenced in November, the Associated Press reported.

-- Lance Murray

Toddler among four fatally shot in Boston

Four people were fatally shot early Tuesday in Boston, one of them a toddler, police said.

When police responded to the shooting call just after 1 a.m., they found two men and a woman dead in the street. The toddler -- perhaps 2 or 3 years old -- died later at a hospital.

A fifth person, a man in his 30s, also was shot and is not expected to survive, the Associated Press reported.

No arrests have been made, the AP reported.

-- Lance Murray

Murder: Man convicted in DWI death of California Angels pitcher

A 23-year-old California man has been convicted of murder in the drunken driving death of California Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart and two of his friends last year -- just hours after Adenhart, 22, had pitched six scoreless innings in his Angels debut.

Andrew Gallo faces 50 years to life in state prison on the convictions on three counts of second-degree murder, and one count each of drunken driving, hit-and-run driving and driving under the influence of alchohol and causing great bodily injury, the Associated Press reported.

-- Lance Murray