Tests find airport’s water OK after passengers ill

Tests find airport’s water OK after passengers ill

CLEVELAND

Health officials say testing shows the water at Cleveland’s airport is safe after six passengers became ill on a Frontier Airlines flight to Florida earlier this week.

The city of Cleveland says results that came back Thursday show no concerns with the airport’s drinking fountains and its water supply.

Officials decided to shut down the drinking fountains and test the water after Frontier reported that the sick passengers might have used one before the flight.

Health officials removed those passengers and held them for observation after their plane landed Tuesday at Tampa International Airport.

Authorities haven’t provided information on the symptoms passengers were experiencing or their conditions.

Boy Scout affiliate accused of secretly filming boys is indicted

CLEVELAND

A man accused of secretly recording boys changing clothes at a YMCA, his home bathroom and in tepees at an Ohio scout reservation has been indicted on federal charges including sexual exploitation of children.

The four counts against 39-year-old Thomas Close also include having child pornography.

An affidavit submitted by a Homeland Security investigator indicated that Close acknowledged filming boys between 2011 and 2018.

Close was arrested in November. He is scheduled for arraignment Monday.

Cleveland.com reports that his public defender, Jeff Lazarus, declined to comment.

The Boy Scouts of America Lake Erie Council in northern Ohio has said it cooperated with investigators and banned Close from future participation in its work.

Teen sentenced to life in prison for slaying of 98-year-old woman

MEDINA

A 17-year-old boy has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the strangulation death of a 98-year-old Ohio woman.

Gavon Ramsay was sentenced Thursday after pleading no contest in November. A judge found him guilty of aggravated murder, gross abuse of a corpse and other charges after his plea.

The body of Margaret Douglas was discovered in her Wadsworth home in April after she had been reported missing.

Ramsay was arrested after the woman’s pocketbook was found in his family’s home.

Investigators also found photos of Douglas sleeping in Ramsay’s phone and a journal describing fantasies about strangulation.

The Akron Beacon Journal reports Ramsay issued an apology before his sentencing and plans to appeal.

Records show Cleveland had 129 homicides in 2018

CLEVELAND

Police and medical examiner records show 129 homicides were reported in Cleveland in 2018, one less than in the previous year.

Cleveland.com reports records from the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner and Cleveland police show 130 homicides in 2017 and 136 in in 2016.

The city had more than 100 homicides in each of the last seven years.

The records for 2018 show 114 homicides that resulted from gunfire. Those deaths included three men killed in a New Year’s Eve shooting that injured two other people.

Last year’s homicide victims included a 2-year-old boy killed after ingesting cocaine and other drugs and a 94-year-old woman beaten to death by a burglar.

The number of 2018 homicides could end up higher after the medical examiner rules in several deaths.

Man with missing wife, Florida in-laws dead arrested in Ohio

TARPON SPRINGS, Fla.

Police have arrested a man caught with a car stolen from a Florida home where a couple and their son were found dead. Their daughter – the man’s wife – remains missing.

Police in Tarpon Springs identified the suspect Friday as 25-year-old Shelby John Nealy. He was taken into custody in the Cleveland suburb of Lakewood. Authorities said he was initially charged with receiving stolen property because he was driving one victim’s car. It wasn’t immediately clear if he has a lawyer.

Investigators identified the victims as 71-year-old Richard Louis Ivancic; his wife, 59-year-old Laura Ann Ivancic; and their son, 25-year-old Nicholas James Ivancic. Nealy’s wife, their 21-year-old daughter, Jamie Nicole Ivancic, is missing under what police called “suspicious circumstances,” without elaborating.

“We do fear she, too, may be a victim of foul play,” said police Maj. Jeff Young said at a news conference Friday in Tarpon Springs. “This is an ongoing investigation.”

Authorities making a welfare check on New Year’s Day said they found the bodies in a state of “advanced decomposition.” Police have not said how they died but that the killings likely happened Dec. 19 or Dec. 20. The bodies of three small dogs also were inside the home.

Tarpon Springs police investigators have interviewed Nealy – who also goes by the name Shelby Svenson – in Ohio and they say he admitted involvement in the killings.

Nealy was arrested after authorities were able to track a red 2013 Kia Sorento owned by Laura Ivancic to Ohio. He was taken into custody after walking outside toward the vehicle from an apartment, where the younger couple’s two children aged 2 and 3 were inside unharmed. They were taken to a family services agency.

Associated Press