Ga. woman accused of killing disabled sons

Ga. woman accusedof killing disabled sons
GRIFFIN, Ga. -- Relatives said Carol Carr gave her entire life to her sons -- dressing them, bathing them, helping them go to the bathroom and watching their steady decline due to Huntington's disease.
Over the weekend, she apparently could watch no more. Authorities said the 63-year-old mother walked into their room, shot the two men to death, then calmly sat on a couch in the lobby and waited to be arrested.
Family members said Carr, now charged with two counts of murder, was trying to end their suffering -- "a living hell" brought on by Huntington's disease, which slowly cripples the brain and the body.
At her first court appearance Monday, Carr bowed her head as a judge formally read the murder charges against her. She wept at the sight of three family members who had come to the hearing.
"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry," she said, over and over. As she was led away after the hearing to be returned to jail, she looked at her relatives and said, "I love y'all."
The sons -- Michael Randy Scott, 42, and Andy Byron Scott, 41 -- were in advanced stages of Huntington's disease, family members said. They lay side-by-side in a nursing home, beset by painful bedsores, their brains so wracked by disease that they were reduced to mumbling incoherently.
Father of missing girltakes polygraph test
SALT LAKE CITY -- The father of 14-year-old kidnap victim Elizabeth Ann Smart was given a polygraph exam, authorities said Monday, as the search for the girl expanded into the desert outside Salt Lake City.
The desert search was conducted by about 50 volunteers using all-terrain vehicles, an effort applauded by police but directed by the Smart family.
While police explore thousands of leads, the Smarts and scores of volunteers have organized a massive search effort involving searchers on foot and horseback, in planes and SUVs.
Elizabeth was reportedly abducted at gunpoint from her bedroom before dawn Wednesday as the family slept. Police have not identified a suspect or motive.
Edward Smart underwent a polygraph examination Sunday, which police said was a normal investigative procedure. The FBI would not reveal the results.
Police have praised the Smarts for their assistance and have said they have no reason to suspect any family member.
Resort city comesto halt during eclipse
CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico -- Music pounded, drinks flowed and a dazzling white light rippled over yachts bobbing in the blue bay of this resort city, where life blooms under an ever-present sun.
But something changed Monday. With the sun still high in the sky, a dark moon shadow crept slowly upward, taking a small bite out of the glowing yellow orb about an hour and a half before sunset.
Tourists rose from their beach chairs, restaurant employees abandoned their posts and beach vendors set down their wares as small crowds gathered on the shore to watch a partial solar eclipse -- a phenomenon that was visible around the Pacific from Indonesia to California.
While not a major astronomical event -- several partial solar eclipses can occur in a year -- Monday's eclipse was exciting for those who crowded Cabo's beaches. The moon swallowed more and more of the sun until all that remained was a small sliver of white light.
The climax of Monday's event, the first solar eclipse of 2002, lasted about 10 minutes before the moon began to slide away and the sun set under flaring pink and orange clouds.
Inmate to get new trial
HOUSTON -- Prosecutors said Monday that they will retry a death row inmate whose conviction was reversed because his lawyer slept through parts of his trial nearly two decades ago.
Calvin Burdine, 49, last week won the right to a new trial when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a lower court's reversal of his conviction. Harris County prosecutors indicated then they probably would retry the case.
The state had appealed a federal appeals court's decision that Burdine's 1984 capital murder trial was unfair because his court-appointed attorney, Joe Cannon, slept at times during the trial.
Burdine's gay lover, W.T. Wise, was found stabbed to death at the Houston trailer they shared. Burdine confessed to police, but later recanted. He contends an accomplice killed Wise, 50.
Cannon, who has since died, denied falling asleep.
Combined dispatches