Man freed by DNA tests faces child sex charge

Man freed by DNA testsfaces child sex charge
ORLANDO Fla. -- The first inmate released from a South Carolina prison through DNA testing was in a Florida jail Friday, charged with sexually assaulting a child. Perry Mitchell, 40, served 14 years of a 30-year sentence for the 1982 rape of a 17-year-old girl in Lexington County, S.C. He was released in 1998 and granted a new trial after genetic testing of the evidence ruled him out as the rapist.
On Feb. 27, Mitchell was charged in Orlando with sexually molesting a 9-year-old girl. Mitchell was being held without bond on several charges, including three counts of sexual battery involving a child under 12. Donnie Myers, the South Carolina prosecutor who put Mitchell in prison the first time, said he's not surprised.
"When he was released, I told somebody in my office, 'Well, it won't be long before he's in trouble again,'" Myers said. Mitchell declined a request for a jailhouse interview, and family members in Orlando did not return calls to comment.
Parents arrested inGeorgia crematory case
LAFAYETTE, Ga. -- Authorities have arrested the parents of the man accused of dumping hundreds of corpses on the grounds of the crematory he operated in northern Georgia. Tommy Ray Marsh Sr. and Clara Marsh and their daughter, Rhames Marsh, all were charged Friday with lying on a death certificate.
The charges are the first against anyone besides Tri-State Crematory operator Ray Marsh, who took over the family business in 1996 from his parents. Prosecutors say his family misrepresented themselves as funeral home officials by signing death certificates.
The three were taken to the Walker County jail after their arrests but later released on bond. During a brief court hearing, the 76-year-old Marsh sat in a wheelchair, and his wife, 70, wiped his nose and face. Their lawyer, Ken Poston, said Marsh has Parkinson's disease, among other ailments.
Videotaped interviewplayed in Yates trial
HOUSTON -- During a videotaped interview with a psychiatrist, Andrea Yates described in chilling detail drowning her five children in the bathtub, recalling that one of the children asked: "Mommy, are we going to take a bath today?" Yates said on the tape, played at her murder trial Friday, that the cries of her 6-month-old daughter had drawn 3-year-old Paul to their home's bathroom where Yates was filling the tub with water.
"I needed to go ahead and do it," Yates said, becoming misty-eyed but keeping her composure during the Nov. 7 interview with forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz. She said she allowed earlier opportunities to kill the children pass because she "wasn't ready ... mentally, to do it."
SEC objects to Enronpaying CEO $1.3 million
WASHINGTON -- The government objected Friday to Enron's paying its interim chief executive $1.3 million a year as prosecutors negotiated with the energy trader's former auditor. The Securities and Exchange Commission, which is investigating Enron's collapse, said in a filing in federal bankruptcy court that many of the terms of Enron's agreement with company turnaround specialist Stephen Cooper "are overreaching and are inappropriate."
The Justice Department also is investigating Enron and its longtime auditor, the Arthur Andersen accounting firm. A Justice official indicated Friday that government lawyers were in negotiations with Andersen. The official provided no details. Andersen in January acknowledged massive shredding by its employees of Enron-related documents and later fired its lead Enron auditor for the document destruction.
Judge rules strip searchof woman was reasonable
CHICAGO -- A federal judge brushed aside a jury's advisory-only verdict Friday, saying customs inspectors looking for drugs were reasonable in subjecting a traveler to a four-hour strip search. Last August, jurors recommended that Kathryn Kaniff, 36, of Washington Island, Wis., be awarded $129,750 in damages after finding that she was subjected to "willful and wanton" treatment by O'Hare International Airport customs officers in December 1997.
Inspectors suspected Kaniff, who was returning from Jamaica, was smuggling drugs. They spent four hours questioning her, searching her luggage, strip searching her and X-raying her but found no drugs. U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer said Friday the search may have been painful but was reasonable.
"In ideal circumstances no innocent traveler would be subjected to such invasive and humiliating inspection," Pallmeyer said.
Associated Press