Man confesses to 7 killings, police say

Man confesses to 7 killings, police say

GARY, Ind.

Police say an Indiana man has now definitively confessed to killing seven women whose bodies were found over the weekend in northwestern Indiana.

Gary Police Chief Larry McKinley also told a news conference that authorities have enough evidence to charge Darren Vann, 43, with murder in at least three more of the cases involving bodies discovered in abandoned buildings around the city over the weekend. McKinley said those charges were expected to be filed within a few days.

Vann was arrested over the weekend after a missing person’s report led police to a body in a bathtub at a Motel 6 in Hammond. He confessed to that murder and directed police to six more bodies. The first murder charge was filed against him Monday.

Sighting of shooting suspect leads to school closures

SWIFTWATER, Pa.

With two possible sightings in four days, a man charged in the deadly ambush of a state police barracks appears to have moved out of the deep woods and into a more heavily trafficked area of the Pocono Mountains.

The sightings led to another round of school closures and a feeling among some residents that law enforcement is spinning its wheels more than five weeks into the massive manhunt.

Officials in the Pocono Mountain School District canceled classes shortly after 5 a.m. Tuesday, reversing course after saying the night before that schools would stay open.

Pistorius receives 5 years in prison

PRETORIA, South Africa

Oscar Pistorius was sentenced to five years in prison Tuesday for killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, completing a transformation from an acclaimed sprinter at the 2012 Olympics to a convicted criminal led away in a police van with barred windows.

Wearing a dark suit, the double-amputee athlete was subdued when Judge Thokozile Masipa announced the punishment in a Pretoria courtroom, ending a televised trial that was closely followed at home and abroad by those who once admired him.

The man known as the “Blade Runner” because of his carbon-fiber running blades will have to serve 10 months in prison before he is eligible to be moved to house arrest, legal analysts say.

Jurors get opposing views of Jodi Arias

PHOENIX

A prosecutor at the sentencing retrial of convicted murderer Jodi Arias showed jurors two photos Tuesday of her ex-boyfriend and victim, Travis Alexander.

One was an unremarkable picture of his face taken some time before his death. The other was a crime-scene photo showing his slit throat.

“She loved him so much that this is what she did to him,” prosecutor Juan Martinez said in his opening statement, describing the gruesome suffering Arias inflicted on Alexander before his death in 2008.

“There are no mitigating circumstances in this case. None,” Martinez said. “The only just punishment for this crime is death.”

Defense attorney Kirk Nurmi said Tuesday that Arias was the victim of profound sexual humiliation by Alexander, and that she is mentally ill and a victim of child abuse. He urged jurors to sentence her to life in prison, saying she is remorseful about killing the man who never acknowledged to others that she was his girlfriend.

Associated Press