Crime Time

Suspect in Arkansas soldier's shooting death claims he killed before

A suspect charged with the killing of a soldier outside an Army recruiting center in Arkansas wrote a letter to a judge where he allegedly admits to another murder.

The Associated Press reports that Abdulhakim Muhammed, a man charged in the June 2009 shooting death of Pvt. William Long in Little Rock, wrote a letter to Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge Herb Wright where he claims to have previously killed a man who robbed and terrorized Muslims.

The letter doesn't identify the man claimed to have been killed but reportedly claims that the murder happened in Tennessee in 2006.

The letter comes as a surprise to prosecutors and defense attorneys in Muhammed's capital murder trial. They say they weren't aware that he made the statement.

Police in Nashville also appear to be confused by the claim and told reporters that they don't know which killing he is referring to.

Muhammed has said that Long's shooting, which wounded another soldier, was in retaliation for U.S. military action in the Middle East.

-Chance Welch

"Lovely" Kentucky woman accused of Bosnian war crimes

A Croatian woman living in a small-town in Kentucky was arrested Tuesday for her role in a bloody war in a far-off land almost two decades ago.

The Associated Press reports that Azra Basic, 52, has been accused of committing war crimes at three prisoner camps as a soldier in the Croatian army during the conflict in Bosnia in the early 1990's.

Some of the crimes include fatally stabbing a prisoner in the neck and torturing others by forcing them to drink the man's blood and gasoline as well as setting a man's hands and face on fire.

Since that time, Basic moved to Stanton, Kentucky where she's known to locals as "Issabella" and has been working in a nursing home and a sandwich factory.  One elderly woman who was one of Basic's patients even called her "lovely."

While Basic started a new life in the United States, Bosnian officials were building a case against her between 1992 and 2001 using witnesses' statements and forensic evidence.

A U.S. Magistrate judge ordered that Basic be held without bond until an April 1 status hearing.

According to the article, more than 100,000 people were killed during the war between the Muslim Bosnians, Catholic Croats and Christian Orthodox Serbs that make up the country's three ethnic groups.

-Chance Welch

Violence against Arlington teens continues

2007 was a tough year for Arlington area teens, several of whom were victims of shootings at parties. 2008 isn't off to a great start either.

Friday night, a 19-year-old former Martin High School student was stabbed to death during a teen brawl off Kelly Elliot Road and Bradley Lane. Saturday night, three teens from Grand Prairie and Mansfield schools were shot during a gang brawl off Pointer Place in far southeast Arlington. They were expected to survive.

What's going on?

-- Kristin Sullivan