Car-theft suspect carjacks woman just after jail release

Car-theft suspect carjacks woman just after jail release

FAIRVIEW PARK

Authorities say a man who had left jail after being released on bond for possessing a stolen vehicle walked about 1,000 feet before robbing a woman of her SUV outside of Cleveland.

Fairview Park police say they are searching for 32-year-old Sean Vanderlin of Cleveland and that he should be considered dangerous.

Police say Vanderlin on Thursday afternoon pulled out a utility knife and after a brief struggle drove off in the woman’s SUV. She wasn’t injured.

The SUV was found Friday morning.

Inmate convicted in Ohio prison riot fights execution date

COLUMBUS

An inmate sentenced to die in the slayings of five fellow inmates during a 1993 prison riot in Ohio is fighting a prosecutor’s request to set his execution date.

Lawyers for 49-year-old Keith LaMar told the Ohio Supreme Court on Thursday the only evidence against him came from inmates that authorities never corroborated and that further proof of his innocence was withheld.

The filing also challenges the death penalty as disproportionately affecting minorities. LaMar is black.

LaMar was convicted of aggravated murder in 1995 for the deaths of five inmates during a riot at the Southern Ohio Correctional Institution in Lucasville. He received the death penalty for four of the killings.

A special prosecutor asked the court last week to set an execution date, saying LaMar had exhausted his appeals.

FBI searches home of Columbus police vice detective

COLUMBUS

The FBI has searched the home of a Columbus vice detective under investigation for what officials say was a complaint made against him a week before he killed a prostitute inside his unmarked car.

The Columbus Dispatch reported an FBI spokesman said the search occurred Wednesday at 30-year police veteran Andrew Mitchell’s home.

Columbus Police Chief Kim Jacobs announced Thursday she’d asked the FBI’s public corruption task force to take over an internal probe of the vice unit for what’s been described as a “variety” of allegations.

Police say Mitchell was under investigation before the fatal shooting of 23-year-old Donna Castleberry in August. A department spokesman said Mitchell was relieved of duty with pay Wednesday.

A union official declined to comment about the FBI taking over the vice-unit investigation.

Ohio woman hiking in Smoky Mountains park is missing

ASHEVILLE, N.C.

An Ohio woman has been missing for nearly three days while hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park that borders North Carolina and Tennessee.

Park spokeswoman Julena Campbell told The Ashville Citizen-Times that 53-year-old Mitzie Sue “Susan” Clements, of Cleves, Ohio, was last seen Tuesday evening.

She was hiking with her daughter near Andrews Bald and the Clingmans Dome parking area when they separated. Rangers began searching that night.

Experienced searchers have been on the Appalachian Trial to interview hikers. The park’s Search and Rescue Team has continued searching since then.

Man indicted in slayings of mother, brother

CANTON

A man who authorities say killed his mother and brother and then turned the gun on himself in June 2017 at their family farm in northeast Ohio has been indicted on two murder counts.

The Canton Repository reported the Stark County prosecutor waited until this week to charge 26-year-old Jacob Stockdale in the slayings of 54-year-old Kathryn Stockdale and 21-year-old James Stockdale until he’d sufficiently recovered from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Stockdale turned himself in Thursday.

Stockdale along with his father and slain brother performed together in the bluegrass-themed Stockdale Family Band. Jacob Stockdale was a celebrated fiddler. Kathryn Stockdale appeared on the reality show “Wife Swap” in 2008.

Authorities haven’t offered a motive for the slayings.

Associated Press