JUDGE ASKED TO UNSEAL DOCUMENTS IN RAMSEY CASE

Tuesday, August 22, 2006 Judge asked to unseal documents in Ramsey case BOULDER, Colo. — Media organizations asked a judge Monday to unseal the arrest warrant and other documents involving John Mark Karr, who claims he was with 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey when she was killed. "There is great public interest to learn whether the arrest of John Mark Karr solved the case after a decade or is yet another 'mistake,'" the media court filing said. "Only with disclosure can the public evaluate the competency of the investigation that led to the issuance of the warrant." Little is publicly known about what evidence Boulder officials may have on Karr. The 41-year-old teacher has told reporters that he was with JonBenet when she died in the basement of her Boulder home Dec. 26, 1996, and that it was an accident. Karr returned to the U.S. from Thailand early Monday and was immediately locked up in a high-security jail cell in Los Angeles. An extradition hearing set for this morning will determine when he will be sent to Colorado. Escaped inmate captured BLACKSBURG, Va. — A manhunt for an escaped convict suspected in the slayings of a hospital guard and a deputy sheriff shut down the Virginia Tech campus on the first day of classes Monday as sharpshooters were posted on university rooftops and students scrambled for safety. Authorities later captured William Morva, 24, after he was found hiding in a briar patch along a trail off-campus, Blacksburg Police Chief Kim Crannis said. The spot was about 150 yards from where the deputy was slain during the intense search Monday morning. A weapon also was recovered, but police would not elaborate. Hundreds of police scoured the 2,600-acre campus as Virginia Tech Vice President Kurt Krause canceled classes for the school's 26,000 students and sent some 6,000 professors and other workers home. Morva had escaped from a hospital — about two miles from campus — where he had been taken for treatment of a sprained wrist and ankle early Sunday. Deputy, inmate injured in shooting at courthouse JEFFERSON, Ga. — An inmate in chains and leg irons grabbed a deputy's gun and shot him outside a county courthouse Monday but was gunned down by other deputies as he drove away in a police van. The deputy was returning four prisoners to jail when one of them attacked him, Sheriff Stan Evans said. "At some point, the inmate obtained the officer's weapons, shot him apparently three times, then took control of the van," Evans said. The inmate, who was not identified, got only about 100 yards before he was shot by two deputies, the sheriff said. Television reports showed a deputy's van crashed into a chain-link fence along a lane leading to the Jackson County Courthouse. The van's windshield had three bullet holes. Deputy Kimsey Gray, a 14-year veteran, suffered gunshot wounds to the abdomen, left arm and right leg, but they did not appear to be life-threatening, said Dr. Leon Haley Jr., chief of the emergency room at Grady Hospital in Atlanta, where the deputy was taken by helicopter. 14 Taliban killed in fighting in Afghanistan KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — NATO and Afghan forces used aircraft in clashes that left 14 militants dead, capping several days of intense fighting that killed more than 100 people and threatened efforts to stabilize southern Afghanistan. But in a sign that the government has not closed off channels of communication with their Taliban enemies despite the bloodshed, authorities in southern Kandahar province returned the bodies of 22 militants to their families through tribal elders, officials said. Afghanistan's volatile south, where a NATO-led multinational force recently took over control of security from a U.S.-led coalition, has seen the bloodiest and fiercest fighting this year since the end of the Taliban rule in 2001. AOL search data fallout NEW YORK — AOL's chief technology officer left the company and two other workers were fired in the aftermath of a privacy breach that involved the intentional release of more than 650,000 subscribers' Internet search terms. Although AOL had substituted numeric IDs for the subscribers' user names, the search queries themselves contained Social Security numbers, medical conditions and other data that could be traced to an individual. Maureen Govern, the technology chief, will be replaced on an interim basis by John McKinley, who had held that position before becoming AOL's president for digital services. The change takes effect immediately, according to a memo AOL Chief Executive Jonathan Miller sent to employees Monday. "This incident took place because some employees did not exercise good judgment or review their proposal with our privacy team," Miller said in a second memo. "We are taking appropriate action with the employees who were responsible." Associated Press