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Tag: crimes against persons

  • Oscar Pistorius denied parole | CNN

    Oscar Pistorius denied parole | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Disgraced South African Paralympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius was denied parole on Friday, according to local authorities who said he has yet to complete his minimum sentence.

    According to South African law, inmates can be considered for parole after serving half of their sentence if they meet conditions, like good behavior in prison.

    The former Olympic sprinter shot his partner Reeva Steenkamp four times through the bathroom door of his house in 2013, denying that he killed her in a fit of anger and saying instead he had mistaken her for an intruder. He was originally sentenced to 13 years and five months imprisonment.

    A spokesperson for South Africa’s Correctional Services, Singabakho Nxumalo, told CNN that Pistorius’ submission for parole was not granted because he was not yet eligible – an issue clarified by the country’s top appeals court earlier this week.

    “The parole board has granted Mr. Pistorius a further profile for August 2024 and the reason behind that is that Mr. Pistorius is yet to serve a minimum detention period as per the clarification order provided by the Supreme Court of Appeal, which was only provided to the department on the 28th of March 2023,” Nxumalo said.

    Pistorius must now continue to serve his sentence until a new parole hearing in August 2024.

    The parole board’s decision was quickly hailed by Steenkamp’s parents, who had opposed an early release, according to their lawyer.

    “While we welcome today’s decision, today is not a cause for celebration. We miss Reeva terribly and will do so for the rest of our lives. We believe in justice and hope that it continues to prevail,” their lawyer Tania Koen told CNN.

    In 2018, the athlete’s father Henke Pistorius told the UK’s Times newspaper that he ran bible classes and prayer groups for prisoners, including the jail’s most feared gang leader.

    To be eligible for parole, Pistorius had to participate in South Africa’s “Restorative Justice” process, which gives offenders the opportunity to “acknowledge and take responsibility for their actions.”

    The athlete – once feted as an inspirational figure after competing in the 2012 Olympics – became the center of a trial that was followed around the world.

    During the trial, Pistorius pleaded not guilty to one charge of murder and a firearms charge associated with Steenkamp’s killing.

    Prosecutors argued her killing was deliberate and that the shooting happened after the couple had an argument.

    He frequently broke down in court and his past behavior was closely scrutinized.

    Pistorius was convicted of manslaughter in 2014 and sentenced to five years. But a higher court overturned the conviction and changed it to murder a year later, increasing his sentence to six years in prison.

    The ruling was appealed by prosecutors who claimed the sentence was too lenient. Pistorius’ sentence was increased to 13 years and five months by South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal in 2017.

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  • Ex-Fox producer said she gave misleading testimony in Dominion case ‘to keep my job’ | CNN Business

    Ex-Fox producer said she gave misleading testimony in Dominion case ‘to keep my job’ | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Abby Grossberg, the former Fox News producer who accused the right-wing network of pressuring her into giving misleading testimony in the Dominion defamation case, told NBC News Thursday in her first TV interview that she was “bullied, intimidated and coerced” into protecting the right-wing network to keep her job.

    “It felt awful. I mean it felt terrible because I knew that I was bullied, intimidated, and coerced into saying that just to keep my job and stay at the company,” Grossberg told NBC.

    Asked why she did that, Grossberg said “Because I made the decision to keep my job so that I can keep paying my bills. It seemed like the safer decision for me at the time.”

    Her latest comments echo what she said last week in an interview with CNN’s Oliver Darcy, where she said she filed the lawsuit to protect her career and “expose the lies and deceit” that she says is rampant at the right-wing network.

    Fox News contests all of her allegations, and said in a prior statement that, “the assertion that Ms. Grossberg was coached or intimidated into being dishonest during her Dominion deposition is patently false.”

    Fox News also denies wrongdoing in the underlying Dominion case, and says it didn’t defame anyone.

    Last week, Grossberg filed explosive lawsuits in New York and Delaware accusing Fox News lawyers of pressuring her into providing misleading testimony in the Dominion case – testimony that would protect the network and its top talent. Since filing the lawsuit, she submitted new sworn testimony in the Dominion defamation case that undermines some of Fox’s defenses.

    She also claimed in her lawsuit that she had been subjected to a toxic and sexist work environment while at Fox News. The network has vehemently pushed back against these allegations.

    After filing the lawsuit, Grossberg was fired from Fox News. The right-wing network said in a statement that she violated corporate rules improperly exposed legally privileged information in her lawsuit.

    During Thursday’s interview, Grossberg said that she experienced harassment so severe that she thought about killing herself.

    “I reached a breaking point where the harassment was so bad that I called a crisis line,” Grossberg told NBC News. “I thought I could just walk in front of a car and I wouldn’t have to go to work tomorrow.”

    Describing the allegedly toxic workplace at the right-wing network, Grossberg said: “Women were objectified. It was a game. It was a sport. Female politicians who came on the show were mocked. There were debates about who they’d rather sleep with. C-word all the time.”

    A Fox News spokesperson didn’t offer any comment when asked about Grossberg’s mention of suicide. But the spokesperson denied Grossberg’s claims of workplace misogyny, saying her lawsuit was “riddled with false allegations against the network and our employees.” The spokesperson also noted that women are currently serving as the CEO of Fox News Media and the presidents of two of its networks.

    Fox News is no stranger to claims of workplace sexism. Fox News founder Roger Ailes, former primetime star host Bill O’Reilly and other men were forced out amid sexual harassment allegations, and the network has paid tens of millions to settle related lawsuits.

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  • As more details emerge about how the Nashville school shooting unfolded, expert says the quick thinking of teachers saved lives | CNN

    As more details emerge about how the Nashville school shooting unfolded, expert says the quick thinking of teachers saved lives | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    As more details emerge about how a deadly mass shooting unfolded inside a private Christian school in Nashville, a former police officer who provided active shooter training at the school said the quick-thinking actions of teachers who locked down classrooms helped save lives.

    The shooter who got into The Covenant School on Monday fired multiple rounds into several classrooms but didn’t hit any students inside the classrooms, “because the teachers knew exactly what to do, how to fortify their doors and where to place their children in those rooms,” security consultant Brink Fidler told CNN.

    “Their ability to execute literally flawlessly under that amount of stress while somebody trying to murder them and their children, that is what made the difference here,” Fidler said.

    “These teachers are the reason those kids went home to their families,” he added.

    Six people were killed in the Monday morning school shooting. They were three 9-year-old students: Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs. The adults killed were Cynthia Peak, 61, a substitute teacher; Katherine Koonce, the 60-year-old head of the school; and Mike Hill, a 61-year-old custodian, police said.

    All of the victims who were struck by gunfire had been in an open area or hallway, said Fidler, who did a walk-through of the school with officials Wednesday.

    “The only victims this shooter was able to get to were victims that were stuck in some sort of open area or hallway,” Fidler said. “Several were able to evarocuate safely. The ones that couldn’t do that safely did exactly what they were taught and trained to do.”

    While the shooter had targeted the school, it’s believed the victims were fired upon at random, police have said.

    Also credited with saving lives are the officers who rushed into the school and fatally shot the attacker, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, ending the 14 minutes of terror that unfolded at the school.

    “We had heroic officers that went in harm’s way to stop this and we could have been talking about more tragedy than what we are,” Drake told CNN Wednesday.

    The law enforcement response in Nashville stands in contrast with the response in Uvalde, Texas, where there was a delay of more than an hour before authorities confronted and killed the gunman. The attack in Uvalde left 21 people dead.

    Monday’s school shooting in Nashville was the deadliest US school shooting since last May’s massacre in Uvalde. It also marked the 19th shooting at a school or university in just the past three months that left at least one person wounded, a CNN count shows.

    A Nashville city councilman also said a witness told him Koonce, the head of The Covenant School, spent her last moments trying to protect the children in her care.

    “The witness said Katherine Koonce was on a Zoom call, heard the shots and abruptly ended the Zoom call and left the office. The assumption from there is that she headed towards the shooter,” Councilman Russ Pulley said. He did not identify the witness.

    Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake said he can’t confirm how Koonce died but said, “I do know she was in the hallway by herself. There was a confrontation, I’m sure. You can tell the way she is lying in the hallway.”

    Fidler said that Koonce had been adamant about training school staff on how to respond during an active shooter situation.

    “She understood the severity of the topic and the severity of the teachers needing to have the knowledge of what to do in that situation,” he said.

    Koonce and the other victims were honored at a citywide vigil in Nashville Wednesday, where residents came together to pray and grieve.

    “It’s such a tragedy and felt so deeply by everyone here,” Nashville resident Eliza Hughes said. “Nashville is a close tight-knit community. We definitely feel the tragedy. It’s an awful situation.”

    After the shooting, police found that Hale had detailed maps of The Covenant School – which the shooter had attended as a child – and “quite a bit” of writings related to the shooting, according to the police chief.

    The FBI, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and police have been combing through the maps and writings Hale left, including looking at a notebook, Drake said.

    Authorities have called the attack “calculated,” with Drake saying Wednesday that the maps “did have a display of entry into the school, a route that would be taken for whatever was going to be carried out.”

    The shooter is also believed to have had weapons training and had arrived at the school heavily armed and prepared for a confrontation with law enforcement, police have said.

    But as details of the pre-planning are uncovered, it’s still unclear what motivated the attack. Drake said police have met with the school and found no indication that Hale had any problems while attending The Covenant.

    Hale had been under care for an emotional disorder and legally bought seven guns in the past three years, but they were kept hidden from Hale’s parents, Drake said. Three of the weapons, including an AR-15 rifle, were used in the attack Monday.

    Tennessee does not have a “red flag” law that would allow a judge to temporarily seize guns from someone who is believed to be a threat to themselves or others.

    The police chief said law enforcement was not contacted about the shooter previously, and Hale was never committed to an institution.

    Hale’s childhood friend, Averianna Patton, told CNN on Tuesday the killer sent her disturbing messages minutes before the attack, saying “I’m planning to die today” and it would be on the news.

    Patton called the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office in Nashville but was on hold for “maybe like 7 minutes,” she said. By then, the shooting had already started.

    Asked about the messages, Drake told CNN, “If their timeline was accurate, the actual call came in after the officer had already arrived on the scene. So, it plays no bearing on that.”

    “The moment we got the call, we responded immediately to the scene. Officers pulled up, were taking gunfire, pulled the gun out, went inside, did not wait,” Drake said.

    The shooter entered the school by firing at glass doors and climbing through to get inside, surveillance video shows. The first call about the shooting came in at 10:13 a.m., and police arrived on scene at 10:24 a.m., according to the police chief.

    Body-camera footage from the first responding officers shows them rushing in and clearing classrooms before racing to the second floor of the school, where an officer armed with an assault-style rifle shot the assailant multiple times. The shooter was dead at 10:27 a.m., police said.

    Police have referred to Hale as a “female shooter,” and later said Hale was transgender. Hale used male pronouns on a social media profile, a spokesperson told CNN when asked to clarify.

    The Covenant School shooting victims (top row) Katherine Koonce, Mike Hill, Cynthia Peak, (bottom row) Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney.

    Nashville residents came together for a citywide vigil Wednesday to mourn the victims, pray and sharex in the heartache.

    First lady Jill Biden was in attendance, as was singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow, who performed her song “I Shall Believe” to the grieving crowd.

    “Nashville has had its worst today,” Mayor John Cooper told the crowd. “Our heart is broken. Our city united as we mourn together.”

    The police chief also addressed the community, saying that a school shooting like the one officers faced at The Covenant School on Monday is a moment officers have trained for but hoped would never come.

    “Our police officers have cried and are crying with Nashville and the world,” Drake said.

    As the community grieves, families are mourning loved ones lost in the shooting.

    First Lady Jill Biden at the Nashville Remembers candlelight vigil Wednesday.

    William, one of the children killed, had an “unflappable spirit,” friends of the Kinney family shared on GoFundMe.

    Hallie’s aunt Kara Arnold said the 9-year-old had “a love for life that kept her smiling and running and jumping and playing and always on the go.”

    Evelyn’s family called her “a shining light in this world.”

    The family of Hill, a father of seven children and grandfather to 14, remembered his love for cooking and spending time with his family.

    “Violence has visited our city and brought heartache and pain. In the midst of sorrow, we are yet looking for hope,” said Tennessee Representative Rev. Harold M. Love, Jr. as he ended the vigil with a prayer.

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  • Maryland court reinstates murder conviction of ‘Serial’ subject Adnan Syed | CNN

    Maryland court reinstates murder conviction of ‘Serial’ subject Adnan Syed | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A Maryland appellate court on Tuesday reinstated the conviction of Adnan Syed, the man who spent over two decades behind bars for the 1999 killing of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee and whose murder case was featured in the landmark podcast “Serial.”

    In a 2-1 ruling, the appellate court said the lower court had violated the rights of the victim’s brother, Young Lee, to attend a key September hearing when a judge vacated Syed’s conviction, leading to his release.

    “Because the circuit court violated Mr. Lee’s right to notice of, and his right to attend, the hearing on the State’s motion to vacate … this Court has the power and obligation to remedy those violations, as long we can do so without violating Mr. Syed’s right to be free from double jeopardy,” the court’s opinion said.

    “We remand for a new, legally compliant, and transparent hearing on the motion to vacate, where Mr. Lee is given notice of the hearing that is sufficient to allow him to attend in person, evidence supporting the motion to vacate is presented, and the court states its reasons in support of its decision,” it added.

    The Lee family is “very pleased” with the ruling, their attorney Steve Kelly told “CNN This Morning” Wednesday.

    “We think it really represents a step toward transparency and the rule of law. You can’t have a trial by podcast or a trial by publicity,” Kelly said, contending the proper judicial process was not followed when Syed’s conviction was tossed out.

    “It’s in everyone’s interest, including Mr. Syed’s, to have all the evidence aired publicly,” Kelly said, adding later that the Lee family is “not vengeful.”

    “We want the truth,” he said. “If Adnan Syed is not the guy, then we want him out.”

    David Sanford, another Lee family attorney, similarly told CNN in a statement the family was “delighted” with the court’s decision and the order for a “transparent hearing where the evidence will be presented in open court.”

    Assistant Public Defender Erica Suter, Syed’s attorney and director of the Innocence Project Clinic, said the appellate court reinstated the conviction “not because the Motion to Vacate was erroneous, but because Ms. Lee’s brother did not appear in person at the vacatur hearing.”

    “We agree with the dissenting judge that the appeal is moot and that Mr. Lee’s attendance over Zoom was sufficient,” Suter said in a statement provided to CNN by the Maryland Office of the Public Defender.

    “There is no basis for re-traumatizing Adnan by returning him to the status of a convicted felon. For the time being, Adnan remains a free man,” the attorney said.

    “We remain optimistic that justice will be done,” Suter added. “We intend to seek review in Maryland’s highest court, the Supreme Court of Maryland, and will continue to fight until Adnan’s convictions are fully vacated.”

    The decision to vacate Syed’s conviction came nearly eight years after the podcast dug into the case and raised questions about the conviction and Syed’s legal representation.

    In explaining her decision to vacate, Baltimore City Circuit Judge Melissa Phinn cited material in the state investigation ​that was not properly turned over to defense attorneys, as well as ​the existence of two suspects ​who may have been improperly cleared as part of the investigation.

    Lee’s brother had requested a redo of that hearing, arguing in part he didn’t have enough notice to attend in person. Attorneys for Lee, who was able to watch September’s proceedings by Zoom, previously alleged in court documents that prosecutors and the circuit court that overturned Syed’s conviction had violated the brother’s rights.

    That happened, they allege, by failing to give him adequate notice, withholding evidence from the family and not giving the brother a proper chance to be heard at the proceedings.

    Sanford, the family’s attorney, told Maryland’s appellate court last month that the circuit court and prosecutors “failed repeatedly” ahead of September’s decision to vacate Syed’s conviction.

    “The victim, or victim’s representative … has a right to be heard,” the attorney said.

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  • Children and teens are more likely to die by guns than anything else | CNN

    Children and teens are more likely to die by guns than anything else | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Guns are the leading cause of death for US children and teens, since surpassing car accidents in 2020.

    Firearms accounted for nearly 19% of childhood deaths (ages 1-18) in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wonder database. Nearly 3,600 children died in gun-related incidents that year. That’s about five children lost for every 100,000 children in the United States. In no other comparable country are firearms within the top four causes of mortality among children, according to a KFF analysis.

    The shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville on Monday, marks the 16th shooting this year in grades K-12 and the deadliest since the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, last year, according to a CNN analysis of school shooting data. Six people — three children and three adults — were killed.

    There have been 130 mass shootings so far in 2023, the highest number of shootings recorded at this point in any year since at least 2013, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive.

    Child and teen mortality overall surged during the Covid-19 pandemic — driven not by Covid-19 deaths but by fatal injuries, according to a new study in JAMA. Firearms accounted for nearly half of the increase in mortality in 2020.

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  • Using artificial intelligence and archival news articles, this teen found that Black homicide victims were less humanized in news coverage | CNN

    Using artificial intelligence and archival news articles, this teen found that Black homicide victims were less humanized in news coverage | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Using artificial intelligence and archival news articles, a teenager in Northern Virginia created a program to measure media biases – and in researching older news articles, she found that Black homicide victims were less likely to be humanized in news coverage.

    Emily Ocasio, an 18-year-old from Falls Church, Virginia, created an AI program that analyzed FBI homicide records between 1976 and 1984 and their corresponding coverage published in The Boston Globe to determine whether victims were presented in a humanizing or impersonal way.

    After analyzing 5,042 entries, the results showed that Black men under the age of 18 were 30% less likely to receive humanizing coverage than their White counterparts, Ocasio told CNN. Black women were 23% less likely to be humanized in news stories, Ocasio added.

    A news article was considered humanizing when it mentioned additional information about the victim and presented them “as a person, not just a statistic,” Ocasio said in her project presentation.

    Her findings have not been reviewed by the larger scientific community, but she told CNN she hopes to expand her research and get it published in a scientific journal.

    Ocasio’s project earned her second place in the prestigious Regeneron Science Talent Search on March 14 as well as a $175,000 scholarship.

    Every year about 1,900 high school students from across the country participate in the competition, which started in 1942 and seeks to serve as a platform for young scientists to share original research.

    Ocasio was among 40 finalists from more than 2,000 applications, according to Maya Ajmera, president and CEO of the Society for Science and executive publisher of Science News, two of the competition’s sponsors.

    “By using AI to document these biases, Emily shows that it can be safely used to help society answer complex social science questions,” her biography on the Society for Science website says.

    Ocasio said she has always been interested in social justice and science and saw this project as an opportunity to combine them. “Without the research, and without the statistics, you have no ability of understanding that entire communities are being left behind,” she said.

    Ocasio analyzed The Boston Globe’s news coverage because the newspaper had digital copies of its articles for the ’70s to ‘80s time period she focused on for her project, she said. CNN has reached out to the Boston Globe for comment.

    Despite her findings, Ocasio believes science can’t explain everything: “You can never run an experiment in a lab that tells you about how racism works in society.”

    Ocasio, who has Puerto Rican heritage, said her own experiences helped shape her perspective of different races and cultures, and drew her to researching racism and inequalities. She wants to replicate her research to analyze other news outlets as well, she said.

    The talent search’s first-place winner, Neel Moudgal, told CNN the research done by the teenagers across the US is essential to helping solve some of society’s greatest challenges.

    Neel Moudgal won first place in the Regeneron Science Talent Search.

    “I firmly believe that science is going to be the solution to a lot of our problems,” Moudgal said. His prize-winning project was a computer model that predicts the structure of RNA molecules to help develop tests and drugs for diseases such as cancer, autoimmune diseases, and viral infections.

    Ajmera said seeing such projects from high school students gives her “an enormous hope for the future.”

    “We’re looking for the future scientific leaders of this country,” she said.

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  • Covenant School shooter was under care for emotional disorder and hid guns at home, police say | CNN

    Covenant School shooter was under care for emotional disorder and hid guns at home, police say | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: This story contains graphic descriptions of violence.



    CNN
     — 

    The 28-year-old who killed three children and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville was under care for an emotional disorder and had legally bought seven firearms that were hidden at home, Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake said Tuesday.

    The parents of the shooter, Audrey Hale, spoke to police and said they knew Hale had bought and sold one weapon and believed that was the extent of it.

    “The parents felt (Hale) should not own weapons,” the chief said.

    On Monday morning, Hale left home with a red bag, and the parents asked what was inside but were dismissed, Drake said.

    Three of the weapons were used in the attack Monday. Police also said Tuesday they did not know a motive.

    The shooter targeted the school and church in the attack but did not specifically target any of the six people killed, police spokesman Don Aaron said. He also said Hale’s writings mentioned a mall near the school as another possible target.

    Live updates: Nashville Covenant School shooting

    The news conference came a day after Hale, a former student at the Covenant School, stormed into the elementary school and killed six people before being fatally shot by responding police officers.

    The attack was the 19th shooting at an American school or university in 2023 in which at least one person was wounded, according to a CNN tally, and the deadliest since the May attack in Uvalde, Texas, left 21 dead. There have been 42 K-12 school shootings since Uvalde.

    The victims included three 9-year-old students: Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs, the daughter of lead church pastor Chad Scruggs. Also killed were Cynthia Peak, 61, believed to be a substitute teacher; Katherine Koonce, the 60-year-old head of the school; and Mike Hill, a 61-year-old custodian, police said.

    Earlier Tuesday, police released body-camera footage from the two officers who rushed into the Covenant School on Monday and fatally shot the mass shooter.

    The footage is from the body-worn cameras of officers Rex Engelbert and Michael Collazo, who police said fatally shot the attacker on Monday at 10:27 a.m. The videos show a group of five officers entered the school amid wailing fire alarms and immediately went into several rooms to look for the suspect.

    They heard gunfire on the second floor and so hustled up the stairs as the bangs grew louder, the video shows. The officers approached the sound of gunfire and Engelbert, armed with an assault-style rifle, rounded a corner and fired multiple times at a person near a large window, who dropped to the ground, the video shows.

    Collazo then pushed forward and appeared to shoot the person on the ground four times with a handgun, yelling “Stop moving!” The officers finally approached the person, moved a gun away and then radioed “Suspect down! Suspect down!”

    The video adds further insight into the timeline of the shooting and the police response. The first 911 call about the shooting came in at 10:13 a.m., and the shooter was killed 14 minutes later, according to police. The bodycam footage of Engelbert entering the school and shooting the attacker lasts about three to four minutes.

    The Covenant school is a private Christian school educating about 200 students from Pre-K through 6th grade. The school is a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church, its website states.

    Nashville Mayor John Cooper told CNN the swift police response prevented further disaster.

    “It could have been worse without this great response,” the mayor of the police response. “This was very planned and numerous sites were investigated.”

    The police chief similarly praised the response as swift.

    “I was hoping this day would never ever come here in the city. But we will never wait to make entry and to go in and to stop a threat especially when it deals with our children,” Drake said in a Monday news conference.

    This undated picture provided by the Metro Nashville Police Department shows Audrey Elizabeth Hale.

    Police said the shooting was targeted, closely planned and outlined in documents from the shooter.

    Hale left writings pertaining to the shooting and had scouted a second possible attack location in Nashville, “but because of a threat assessment by the suspect – there’s too much security – decided not to,” Drake said on Monday.

    The shooter left behind “drawn out” maps of the school detailing “how this was all going to take place,” he added.

    The writings revealed the attack at the Christian school “was calculated and planned,” police said. The shooter was “someone that had multiple rounds of ammunition, prepared for confrontation with law enforcement, prepared to do more harm than was actually done,” Drake said.

    Three weapons – an AR-15, a Kel-Tec SUB 2000, and a handgun – were found at the school, he said. A search warrant executed at Hale’s home led to the seizure of a sawed-off shotgun, a second shotgun and other evidence, according to police.

    “They found a lot of documents. This was clearly planned,” Mayor Cooper said. “There was a lot of ammunition. There were guns.”

    Police have referred to Hale as a “female shooter,” and at an evening news conference added Hale was transgender. Hale used male pronouns on a social media profile, a spokesperson told CNN when asked to clarify.

    Hale graduated from Nossi College of Art & Design in Nashville last year, the president of the school confirmed to CNN. Hale worked as a freelance graphic designer and a part-time grocery shopper, a LinkedIn profile says.

    nashville teammate lemon split

    Former teammate of Nashville school shooter got unusual Instagram messages before rampage

    Information from police and from the shooter’s childhood friend helped illuminate a timeline of the deadly attack.

    Just before 10 a.m. Monday, the shooter sent an ominous message to a childhood friend, the friend told CNN on Tuesday. In an Instagram message to Averianna Patton, a Nashville radio host, just before 10 a.m. Monday, the shooter said “I’m planning to die today” and that it would be on the news.

    “One day this will make more sense,” Hale wrote. “I’ve left more than enough evidence behind. But something bad is about to happen.”

    Patton told CNN’s Don Lemon she was the shooter’s childhood basketball teammate and “knew her well when we were kids” but hadn’t spoken in years and is unsure why she received the message. Disturbed by its content, she called a suicide prevention line and the Nashville Davidson County Sheriff’s Office at 10:13 a.m.

    At that very minute, police in Nashville also got a 911 call of an active shooter inside Covenant School and rushed there.

    The moment school shooter Audrey Hale arrived at the Covenant School was captured in 2 minutes of surveillance video released by Metro Nashville Police.

    Armed with three firearms, the shooter got into the school by firing through glass doors and climbing through to get inside, surveillance video released by Metro Nashville Police shows. Pointing an assault-style weapon, the shooter walked through the school’s hallways, the video shows.

    As the first five officers arrived, they heard gunfire from the second floor. The shooter was “firing through a window at arriving police cars,” police said in the news release.

    Police went upstairs, where two officers opened fire, killing the shooter at 10:27 a.m., police spokesperson Don Aaron said.

    After the shooter was dead, children were evacuated from the school and taken in buses to be reunited with their families. They held hands and walked in a line out of the school, where community members embraced, video showed.

    “This school prepared for this with active shooter training for a reason,” Nashville Metropolitan Councilman Russ Pulley told CNN. “We don’t like to think that this is ever going to happen to us. But experience has taught us that we need to be prepared because in this day and time it is the reality of where we are.”

    Patton, meanwhile, had “called Nashville’s non-emergency line at 10:14 a.m. and was on hold for nearly seven minutes before speaking with someone who said that they would send an officer to my home,” she told CNN affiliate WTVF. An officer did not come to her home until about 3:30 p.m., she said.

    Students from the Covenant School hold hands Monday after getting off a bus to meet their parents at a reunification site after a mass shooting at the school in Nashville.

    Two Covenant School employees are among the victims of Monday’s mass shooting, according to the school.

    Katherine Koonce was identified as the head of the school, its website says. She attended Vanderbilt University and Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville and got her master’s degree from Georgia State University.

    Sissy Goff, one of Koonce’s friends, went to the reunification center after the shooting and suspected something was wrong when she didn’t see Koonce there.

    “Knowing her, she’s so kind and strong and such a voice of reason and just security for people that she would have been there in front handling everything, so I had a feeling,” Goff said.

    She said Koonce was a calming influence and even got a dog named “Covie” who greeted students before and after school.

    “Parents are so anxious, kids are so anxious, and Katherine had such a centering voice for people,” Goff said.

    Mike Hill was identified in the staff section of the Covenant Presbyterian Church’s website as facilities/kitchen staff. Hill, 61, was a custodian at the school, per police. A friend confirmed his image to CNN.

    Cynthia Peak, 61, was believed to be a substitute teacher, police said Monday.

    The family of Evelyn Dieckhaus, one of the 9-year-old victims, provided a statement to CNN affiliate KMOV.

    “Our hearts are completely broken. We cannot believe this has happened. Evelyn was a shining light in this world. We appreciate all the love and support but ask for space as we grieve,” the family said.

    The Covenant School issued a statement Monday night grieving the shooting.

    “Our community is heartbroken. We are grieving tremendous loss and are in shock coming out of the terror that shattered our school and church. We are focused on loving our students, our families, our faculty and staff and beginning the process of healing,” the school said in a statement.

    “Law enforcement is conducting its investigation, and while we understand there is a lot of interest and there will be a lot of discussion about and speculation surrounding what happened, we will continue to prioritize the well-being of our community.

    “We appreciate the outpouring of support we have received, and we are tremendously grateful to the first responders who acted quickly to protect our students, faculty and staff. We ask for privacy as our community grapples with this terrible tragedy – for our students, parents, faculty and staff,” the statement said.

    Cooper, the Nashville mayor, said he is “overwhelmed at the thought of the loss of these families, of the future lost by these children and their families.”

    “The leading cause of kids’ death now is guns and gunfire and that is unacceptable,” Cooper said.

    A recent study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics in December backs that point, finding that homicide is a leading cause of death for children in the United States and the overall rate has increased an average of 4.3% each year for nearly a decade.

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  • New Jersey Attorney General’s Office takes control of Paterson Police Department, citing ‘crisis of confidence’ | CNN

    New Jersey Attorney General’s Office takes control of Paterson Police Department, citing ‘crisis of confidence’ | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office announced it has assumed control of the Paterson Police Department until new leadership can be installed, saying there is a “crisis of confidence” in the city’s law enforcement.

    “People throughout Paterson deserve a public safety system that protects and serves all members of its community, just as the members of the Paterson Police Department deserve adequate resources, support, and innovation from their leadership,” Attorney General Matthew Platkin said in a release Monday.

    The top prosecutor said the decision is due to “a number of events and concerns” related to the police department, but he didn’t mention a specific case.

    Platkin appointed Isa Abbassi, a 25-year veteran of the New York Police Department, to lead the Paterson Police Department beginning in May.

    The state takeover follows a call from nearly 50 state groups, including the ACLU New Jersey, for the US Justice Department to investigate Paterson police after the fatal police shooting of 31-year-old Najee Seabrooks earlier this month.

    Seabrooks was apparently having a mental health crisis when he barricaded himself in a bathroom on March 3 and called police for help, according to a statement from the attorney general’s office. Family members told responding officers Seabrooks was hallucinating and behaving erratically, the statement said.

    The family and police officers tried to talk him out of the bathroom, where Seabrooks had knives and told officers he had a fully loaded gun and was threatening to shoot police, the statement said.

    In body camera footage, police can be seen pleading with Seabrooks to come out of the room and asking him to drop a knife.

    The attorney general’s office says Seabrooks lunged at police with the knife and was shot and killed.

    The case is under investigation, but New Jersey state law requires all officer-involved death investigations be brought before a grand jury, to determine whether the officers should be indicted.

    “All I want is justice for my son,” said Melissa Carter, Seabrooks’ mother, at a news conference Monday, reports CNN affiliate WCBS.

    Carter was one of the family members present when her son was killed.

    “I can’t sleep at night. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. It’s just painful, very painful. I won’t wish this on no mother,” Carter said.

    In a letter to the Justice Department, the state groups accused Paterson police of having “a history of excessive force” and referenced Seabrooks’ death.

    “A trend of widespread, unconstitutional (Paterson Police Department) misconduct is unmistakable – and has disproportionately impacted Black and Brown residents, depriving them of their civil rights,” the letter said.

    In September two Paterson police officers were sentenced to prison after each pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to violate individuals’ civil rights, using unreasonable and excessive force and filing a false police report, a release from the attorney general’s office said.

    From October 2020 to February 2023, there were 736 use-of-force reports submitted by Paterson Police to the state attorney general, according to a database maintained by the attorney general’s office.

    More than 55% of use-of-force reports in Paterson involved a Black person, though 23% of Paterson’s residents are Black, an analysis by NJ Spotlight News shows. Statewide, 45% of use-of-force reports involved a Black person, the analysis shows.

    ACLU New Jersey’s executive director, Amol Sinha, called Platkin’s announcement a “welcome step” but stressed the importance of giving community leaders a chance to work with the attorney general’s office during this time.

    “As we await next steps it is imperative that Paterson community leaders have a voice at the table,” Sinha, said in a statement Monday. “We hope that this process is a collaborative one that will help bring about trust and integrity to the Paterson Police Department, and safety from police violence for the people of Paterson. The community deserves nothing less.”

    Paterson Police Chief Bert Ribeiro, who was sworn in the same day Seabrooks was shot, has stepped down, CNN affiliate WCBS reported.

    Until Abbassi begins overseeing the police department in May, New Jersey State Police Major Fred Fife will act as interim officer-in-charge, the attorney general’s office said. Fife will be joined by State Police Captain Jafca Mandziuk, Assistant Attorney General Joseph Walsh and other public safety officials.

    “Chief Abbassi is an experienced, proven leader who has built community trust and achieved excellence through his innovation at the highest levels of law enforcement in this country,” Platkin said in his office’s release. “I am grateful for his service and I look forward to working with him to ensure public safety in Paterson.

    Platkin acknowledged that the change in leadership is just the first step in the long process of trying to regain public trust.

    “It will not immediately restore public confidence that the police are committed to providing every resident of Paterson with fair, just, and effective public safety,” he said. “Nor will it address the concerns of officers asked to do a hard and dangerous job in a community that – after years of fiscal challenges and a revolving door of police leadership – has lost faith in its police department, making the jobs of those officers even more difficult.”

    New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy applauded Platkin’s announcement, calling the takeover a “bold action.”

    “I am confident that his actions will ensure needed reform and give police officers in Paterson the resources, support, and training they need to serve their community,” Murphy said in a statement on Twitter.

    The attorney general said he aims to provide officers with more adequate support, resources and supervision.

    Platkin also announced a handful of new initiatives, including revising the state’s use of force policy and expanding an initiative that pairs crisis intervention-trained officers with mental health personnel on personal crisis calls.

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  • Pope Francis expands Catholic Church sexual abuse law to cover lay leaders | CNN

    Pope Francis expands Catholic Church sexual abuse law to cover lay leaders | CNN

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    Rome, Italy
    CNN
     — 

    Pope Francis has updated a 2019 church law governing clerical sexual abuse and extended it to include accountability for Catholic lay leaders of Vatican-approved religious organizations.

    Lay leaders are people other than clergy members who are on the professional rosters of the church.

    The norms were first defined by Francis in an Apostolic letter, Vos estis lux mundi, in 2019 and were originally mandated for a four-year period.

    Francis has now made minor changes to that document and made it permanent, effective April 30, according to a document released by the Vatican on Saturday.

    For decades the Catholic Church has been plagued by a series of sex abuse scandals in countries around the world.

    The new norms represent Pope Francis’ pledge to offer “concrete measures” to combat sexual abuse.

    One of the changes includes provisions for holding lay leaders of Vatican-approved associations accountable for cover-ups of sexual abuse. The norms previously only related to bishops and religious superiors.

    Another change involves the definition of abuse victims, which previously referred to “minors and vulnerable persons.”

    The updated document now specifies “a minor, or with a person who habitually has an imperfect use of reason, or with a vulnerable adult.”

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  • Site of Atlanta’s proposed ‘Cop City’ training center is partially closed after deadly traps found | CNN

    Site of Atlanta’s proposed ‘Cop City’ training center is partially closed after deadly traps found | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A large portion of a public park near Atlanta on the proposed site of a police and fire training facility – dubbed “Cop City” by critics – has been temporarily closed by an executive order, after county officials said they located “life threatening” hidden traps scattered in the park.

    “They confiscated booby traps, boards with nails that were hidden by leaves and underbrush. You could kill a small child or a pet with those,” DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond told CNN by phone.

    Thurmond said the park is a very popular area where people walk and enjoy nature.

    “It’s just not safe right now,” he added.

    The planned facility has received fierce pushback since its conception, by residents who feel there was little public input, conservationists who worry it will carve out a chunk of much-needed forest land and activists who say it will militarize police forces and contribute to further instances of police brutality.

    Thurmond said he “understands the pushback against Cop City, but this is too far.”

    Under the executive order, unauthorized persons entering the properties will be subject to prosecution for criminal trespass, and unauthorized parked vehicles will be towed and impounded, according to a news release about the executive order.

    DeKalb County has been unable to send its parks employees into the site of the proposed $90 million, 85-acre training facility because “they have been attacked with rocks” and other objects, Thurmond said.

    Tensions between law enforcement and protesters have continued to rise since the January shooting death of a protester, who law enforcement says fired on officers first and seriously wounded a state trooper.

    The Georgia Bureau of Investigation on Friday released an incident report in which a trooper with the state’s Department of Public Safety SWAT team described law enforcement officers calling for the protester, Manuel Paez Terán, to come out of his tent during a clearing operation.

    Paez Terán refused to leave, the report says, and as the protester was zipping up the front door of the tent, the trooper fired pepper bails into the opening. Paez Terán then started shooting “steadily,” the report says. The trooper says he ditched the pepper ball launcher and fired his pistol at the shooter.

    “While shooting I observed a small explosion at the front of the tent and a large plume of white powder going into the air,” the officer writes in the report.

    The officer says he fired until it became clear Paez Terán was no longer shooting or had set off additional explosive devices. A use of force report indicates in addition to the trooper firing at the protester, five other troopers shot their weapons.

    A spokesperson for Paez Terán’s family sent CNN a statement calling on the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to release witness statements and evidence. It also criticized the bureau for investigating the shooting, which came during an operation the bureau planned.

    “The GBI is investigating its own tragic operation. The family calls upon the GBI to explain what steps it has taken to preserve the integrity of its investigation of its own operation,” said Enchanta Jackson.

    Jackson noted the incident report was filed February 13.

    “The officer narratives released today by the Department of Public Safety were drafted weeks or, in some cases, months after the incident,” Jackson said. “When officers drafted these statements, each had the opportunity to review the publicly available video and the press releases issued by the GBI.”

    Kamau Franklin, the leader of the Community Movement Builders organization which opposes the facility, calls the latest move by DeKalb County an excuse to close the park and criminalize the climate activists working to preserve the green space.

    “I think part of the reason is to stop and quell protests and then, to continue putting out a narrative that suggests that people who are protesting against Cop City are criminals or criminal-minded,” he told CNN. “They want to put fear into people who use the park by suggesting it’s sabotaged and booby-trapped, but without presenting any real evidence that links anything that they allegedly found to any organizers or activists.”

    He says the claim that organizers sought to hurt anyone trying to enter the park flies in the face of why they’re protesting in the first place.

    “The very reason we use the area, the very reason that these protests are happening is to stop the Cop City training center from going on so that the community around here can have continued access, as was promised, to that environment and to that park.”

    The South River Forest Public Safety Training Center is set to be built on a piece of land which used to be a prison farm. Though it is just outside Atlanta city limits, the plot of land is owned by the city, meaning residents who live around the site do not have voting power for the leaders who approved it.

    The training center would be built in a predominantly Black and Brown neighborhood.

    Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens has established a community task force to address the opposition and controversy surrounding the training center.

    More than 40 “experts and community stakeholders” will join the South River Forest Public Safety Training Center Community Task Force, according to the mayor’s office. The task force adds members to the existing advisory committee.

    “The new Community Task Force will add more voices and broaden the scope of community input to include the surrounding green space and the nearby site of the former Atlanta Prison Farm, as well as public safety training curriculum,” the mayor’s office said in a news release.

    Included in the task force are representatives from the Georgia NAACP, ACLU, and Georgia State University, as well as other community and clergy members.

    “The ACLU of Georgia is committed to helping ensure the safe and unencumbered right to protest, and as such, joins the City’s task force with demonstrators’ First Amendment rights at the forefront,” officials from the organization said in a statement.

    The organization said “dozens of people” at the site have been charged with domestic terrorism in recent months. They call the charges “an over-criminalization of demonstrators under a constitutionally dubious statute.”

    “The ACLU of Georgia is committed to helping ensure the safe and unencumbered right to protest, and as such, joins the City’s task force with demonstrators’ First Amendment rights at the forefront,” the ACLU of Georgia, which is part of the new task force, said in a statement.

    Like many of those who are part of the new task force, the ACLU of Georgia opposes the training center’s construction.

    Noticeably absent from the task force is anyone from the Muscogee Nation, or “Creek” Native American tribe. When asked by CNN why there was no Native American representation on the task force, the mayor’s office did not reply.

    The “Creek” have maintained the land in the Weelaunee Forest, which is expected to house the training center, is sacred Native American land. Their fight has been joined by a robust coalition of decentralized activists, including climate activists who believe paving the 85 acres would – among other things – lead to an increase in flooding in an already flood-prone area.

    Anti-policing activists, some of whom have traveled from as far as France and Canada, have also joined the movement.

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  • Actor Jonathan Majors is arrested on assault charge in New York, police say | CNN

    Actor Jonathan Majors is arrested on assault charge in New York, police say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Actor Jonathan Majors, who has recently starred in “Creed III” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” was arrested Saturday morning in an alleged domestic dispute, New York police say.

    Majors, 33, was taken into custody following a 911 call made from an apartment in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, according to a statement from the New York Police Department.

    “The victim informed police she was assaulted,” the statement said. The 30-year-old woman had “minor injuries to her head and neck,” police said.

    Majors faces charges of strangulation, assault and harassment, according to the NYPD.

    A spokesperson for Majors denied any wrongdoing by the actor.

    “He has done nothing wrong,” the spokesperson told CNN Saturday. “We look forward to clearing his name and clearing this up.”

    Majors is no longer in police custody, according to the NYPD Saturday night.

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  • Florida couple has been kidnapped in Haiti and remain held at ransom, family says | CNN

    Florida couple has been kidnapped in Haiti and remain held at ransom, family says | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A Florida couple has been kidnapped in Haiti and remains captive under ransom demands, family members say, who are asking for help and pressuring US officials to find them.

    Abigail and Jean-Dickens Toussaint, both 33, were kidnapped on March 18 around Port-au-Prince, the nation’s capital, according to a statement from their families provided to CNN.

    “Please share this and get the word out as much as you can,” the statement says, hoping the two return safe “to their child and family.”

    A US State Department spokesperson told CNN they are “aware of reports of two U.S. citizens missing in Haiti.”

    “When a U.S. citizen is missing, we work closely with local authorities as they carry out their search efforts, and we share information with families however we can,” the spokesperson said. “We have nothing further to share at this time.”

    The couple went to Haiti to visit family and to attend a festival but were kidnapped on their bus ride from Port-au-Prince, according to a woman named Christie, claiming to be the victims’ niece.

    “They stopped the bus at a stop and then asked for Americans to get off the bus and their escorts off the bus, and then they took them,” she told CNN affiliate WPLG.

    The kidnappers asked for $6,000 for the couple’s release, but after their family paid, they asked for more money, WPLG reports.

    “Once we sent that money, they tried to up the price to $200,000 per person and we don’t have that type of money,” Christie told WPLG.

    CNN has reached out to authorities in Haiti for more information but has not received a response.

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  • Stephen Smith’s death is being investigated as a homicide, law enforcement says, 2 years after Murdaugh case prompted a fresh look | CNN

    Stephen Smith’s death is being investigated as a homicide, law enforcement says, 2 years after Murdaugh case prompted a fresh look | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The death of Stephen Smith, whose body was found in the middle of a road in 2015, is being investigated as a homicide, a spokesperson for the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division told CNN on Tuesday.

    The development comes almost two years after the murders of Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh and Paul Murdaugh brought renewed scrutiny to the fate of the 19-year-old nursing student.

    Smith’s body was discovered lying on a Hampton County road on July 8, 2015 and his death was deemed a hit-and-run in an initial incident report and by a medical examiner’s report. The report cited the cause of death as blunt head trauma sustained from being hit by a vehicle.

    But the SLED spokesperson on Tuesday confirmed there was no indication in the investigation that was actually the case.

    Attorneys for Smith’s family welcomed the news, which follows SLED’s announcement in June 2021 it was opening the investigation into Smith’s death based on information learned while probing the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh earlier that month.

    The agency has not provided details about what was found in that investigation, and authorities have not announced a connection between Smith’s death and the Murdaugh family, whose patriarch, Alex Murdaugh, was found guilty earlier this month and sentenced to life in prison for killing Maggie and Paul, on the night of June 7, 2021. Murdaugh has appealed his convictions.

    The case file from the initial South Carolina Highway Patrol investigation into Smith’s death – released by the patrol to CNN – shows the Murdaugh name was mentioned dozens of times by both witnesses and investigators, including the name of Alex Murdaugh’s surviving son, Buster.

    In one audio recording of a witness interview, then-Trooper Todd Proctor is heard saying, “Buster was on our radar. … The Murdaughs know that.” But why he was on investigators’ radar is unclear. Neither Buster Murdaugh nor anyone else has been charged in the case.

    Buster Murdaugh, a former classmate of Smith’s, released a statement Monday – his first on the matter – denying any involvement in Smith’s death and “requesting that the media immediately stop publishing these defamatory comments and rumors about me.”

    “This has gone on far too long,” his statement said. “These baseless rumors of my involvement with Stephen and his death are false.”

    An incident report from the state highway patrol indicated Smith had suffered blunt force trauma to the head.

    While a pathologist cited in a SLED report said Smith appeared to have been hit by a vehicle, the responding officer referenced in a report by the highway patrol’s Multidisciplinary Accident Investigation Team noted there was “no vehicle debris, skid marks, or injuries consistent with someone being struck by a vehicle.”

    Smith’s shoes were also both on and loosely tied, the report added, and investigators saw no evidence suggesting he was struck by a vehicle.

    Notes from investigators in the case file say that “according to family, Stephen would never have been walking in the middle of the roadway” and that he was “very skittish.”

    Smith had injuries to his left arm, hand and head, according to notes taken by a SLED investigator at the scene.

    His vehicle was found about three miles away, that report said, with the gas tank door open and the gas cap hanging out on the side of the car. The vehicle’s battery was functional but the car wouldn’t start, the report added.

    Attorneys for Smith’s family praised the decision to classify Smith’s death as a homicide, which came on the heels of an announcement by Smith’s mother and her legal team that they would seek to exhume her son’s body and pursue a private autopsy.

    “We have a chance to right eight years of wrongs, and we intend to do just that,” attorney Eric Bland said in a news release Tuesday.

    Smith’s family has raised more than $86,000 through a GoFundMe page for what Sandy Smith hopes will be “a new, unbiased look at his body and an accurate determination of his cause of death based on facts.”

    Smith’s mother and her attorneys said they will petition a court to proceed with exhuming Smith’s body, which requires a judge’s permission.

    “Our job is not to find out who did it,” Bland told reporters in a virtual news conference Monday. “That’s not what we do, we’re not law enforcement, we’re not doing a criminal case … What we’re really trying to do is give a mother answers.”

    The investigation will also involve looking at Smith’s life, Bland added, and what kind of communication the teen had and who he was associating with in the days before his death. Anything learned, Bland said, would be shared with law enforcement.

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  • Items from Murdaugh Moselle property will be auctioned on Thursday | CNN

    Items from Murdaugh Moselle property will be auctioned on Thursday | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The contents of the home of convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh and his family will be auctioned off on Thursday, according to a South Georgia auction house.

    The house is located in Colleton County, South Carolina, on a hunting property called Moselle. The property became a household name during the nationally televised trial of its former occupant, Alex Murdaugh. Murdaugh was convicted earlier this month of shooting and killing his wife and son on the property.

    The Savannah-based Liberty Auction house was hired to clean out the home and sell all its contents, according to owner Lori Mattingly. Cleaning out the Moselle estate was “just like any other job,” she said to CNN over the phone on Tuesday.

    “Their things are not any better or nicer than any other things that we pick up from other people’s homes,” Mattingly added. “We go into a lot of very nice expensive homes … And we’ve had much nicer things than theirs, but their things are nice.”

    Among the items being auctioned are beds, chests, tables, chairs and picture frames that once hung on the walls of the Moselle estate. The Murdaugh items will be sold among items from other estates, and each item will be identified by a lot number, according to Mattingly. The auction house did not have an exact number of items being auctioned from the Murdaugh estate.

    Photos of some of the items up for sale have been posted online and there are plans to post more photos in the coming days, Mattingly told CNN.

    Bids will only be taken in-person, according to Liberty Auction, which is selling the contents of the home

    The auction will take place on Thursday at 4 p.m. in Pembroke, Georgia, a small town just outside of Savannah. Bids will only be accepted in-person.

    “It’s unbelievable how many phone calls I have had, and I have only been able to answer so many,” said Mattingly. She told CNN the auctions usually draw a few hundred people, but they expect many more than normal for this sale.

    Murdaugh’s wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, were found fatally shot on the property on June 7, 2021. He has maintained that he did not kill them. Prosecutors argued that Murdaugh committed the murders to distract and delay from investigations into his long string of alleged financial crimes and lies.

    Murdaugh was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences for the murders. He is appealing the conviction. The former attorney is also facing additional charges for other alleged financial crimes for which he has yet to face trial.

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  • 1 student killed, 1 injured in high school shooting near Dallas | CNN

    1 student killed, 1 injured in high school shooting near Dallas | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    One student died and another was injured Monday in a shooting outside a high school in Arlington, Texas, police said.

    Arlington police say they responded to Lamar High School just before 7 a.m. after reports of a shooting just outside the school building. Officers found a male student with an apparent gunshot wound; he was taken to a hospital but later died of his injuries, Arlington police said.

    A female student was grazed by gunfire, police said.

    The school day begins at 7:35 a.m., police spokesperson Tim Ciesco said, so not all students had arrived by the time the shooting happened.

    The suspected shooter was taken into custody, police said.

    “Because the suspect is a juvenile, the department is unable to release his name. He has been charged with one count of Capital Murder and is currently being held at the Tarrant County Juvenile Detention Center. Additional charges are pending the outcome of the ongoing investigation,” police said in a news release Monday afternoon.

    “The suspect never entered the school building and ran from the campus immediately after firing the shots. The motive for the shooting remains unclear,” added the release.

    Lamar High School went on lockdown after the shooting and students and staff were dismissed for the day, school district spokesperson Anita Foster said.

    Arlington is a city between Dallas and Fort Worth with a population of just under 400,000.

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  • These are the deaths and investigations connected to the Murdaugh family | CNN

    These are the deaths and investigations connected to the Murdaugh family | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Alex Murdaugh, the disgraced former South Carolina attorney, was sentenced to life in prison earlier this month after he was found guilty of murdering his wife and son – the most serious and grisliest of the allegations faced by the scion of what was once one of the state’s most influential dynasties.

    The murder convictions, which Murdaugh has appealed, came almost two years after he called police to report he had found his wife, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, and his grown son, Paul Murdaugh, shot dead at their rural estate. Murdaugh said he found the bodies after returning from a visit to his mother.

    But the deaths weren’t the only ones to which the Murdaugh family name was tied. And as yearslong mysteries surrounding the family are garnering fresh attention, so are several other deaths.

    Alex Murdaugh called 911 on June 7, 2021, to report he found his wife Margaret, 52, and son Paul, 22, shot dead outside their Islandton home about an hour from Hilton Head Island, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, or SLED, said.

    Murdaugh denied involvement in their killings, even as he was buried under an avalanche of charges related to alleged financial crimes. But he was eventually indicted in July 2022 with two counts of murder and two weapons charges – to which he pleaded not guilty.

    Prosecutors argued during the trial that Murdaugh killed his wife and son to distract from and delay investigations into his alleged misdeeds, which included stealing millions of dollars from his clients and his law firm – crimes Murdaugh generally admitted to when he took the stand to testify in his own defense.

    The defense team, in the meantime, argued Murdaugh was a loving father and husband and painted a picture of a sloppy investigation.

    In the end, it did not convince the jury, which was shown a video in which Murdaugh’s voice could be heard at the scene of the killings minutes before they happened – an indication, the state said, that he had lied about his whereabouts when they were shot.

    He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Murdaugh has since appealed the convictions.

    Weeks after Murdaugh’s conviction, the family of Stephen Smith – whose body was found in the middle of a Hampton County road on July 8, 2015 – announced it would petition a court to have his body exhumed for a private autopsy as part of an effort to reexamine his death.

    “We think that he did not die on that road that fateful night,” Eric Bland, an attorney for Smith’s family, told reporters in a news conference. “We think that there was other reasons and other causes that caused his death.”

    “Our job is not to find out who did it,” he added. “That’s not what we do, we’re not law enforcement, we’re not doing a criminal case. … What we’re really trying to do is give a mother answers.”

    Authorities have not detailed any connection between Smith’s death and the Murdaugh family.

    On June 22, 2021, SLED announced it was reopening an investigation into the 19-year-old’s death based on information gathered while investigating the double homicide of Margaret and Paul Murdaugh.

    SLED has not specified what that information was but confirmed in a statement to CNN it had “made progress” in the investigation into Smith’s death. The inquiry remained “active and ongoing,” the agency said.

    According to an incident report from the South Carolina Highway Patrol’s Multidisciplinary Accident Investigation Team, or MAIT, Smith’s body was found in the road with blunt force trauma to the head.

    While a pathologist cited in a SLED report states that Smith appeared to have been hit by a vehicle, the responding officer referenced in MAIT’s report cited “no vehicle debris, skid marks, or injuries consistent with someone being struck by a vehicle.”

    Smith’s shoes were also both on and loosely tied, the report added, and investigators saw no evidence suggesting he was struck by a vehicle.

    Notes from investigators in the case file say that “according to family, Stephen would never have been walking in the middle of the roadway” and that he was “very skittish.”

    According to notes taken by a SLED investigator at the scene, Smith had injuries to his left arm, hand and head.

    His vehicle was found about three miles away, that report said, and added the gas tank door was open and the gas cap was hanging out on the side of the car. The vehicle’s battery was functional but the car wouldn’t start, it added.

    Smith’s death remains unsolved, but his family hopes a private autopsy will provide them a “new, unbiased look at his body and an accurate determination of his cause of death based on facts,” according to a GoFundMe page that raised more than $60,000.

    Mallory Beach was one of six people in the boat when it crashed.

    Mallory Beach was a 19-year-old woman killed in a February 24, 2019, boat crash.

    Beach was ejected from the boat – along with a male – when the boat struck a bridge, according to an affidavit from an officer who was supervising the scene.

    According to a report from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, a doctor who treated Paul Murdaugh after the boat crash reported that Murdaugh was “clearly intoxicated” and slurring his speech.

    Beach’s body was found about a week after the crash by volunteer searchers, according to a Department of Natural Resources accident report.

    Three people who were on the boat told investigators that Paul Murdaugh was driving, but another passenger named a different person who was also aboard that night as the driver, according to the affidavit.

    At the time of his death, Paul Murdaugh was facing charges including boating under the influence, causing great bodily harm, and causing death in connection to the boat crash.

    Gloria Satterfield died in February 2018.

    SLED has also announced it was opening a criminal investigation into the February 26, 2018, death of the Murdaughs’ longtime housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, 57, and the handling of her estate.

    Satterfield was the Murdaugh family housekeeper for more than two decades before dying after what was described as a “trip and fall accident” at the Murdaugh home, according to Bland, the attorney, who is also representing her estate.

    Investigators open criminal investigation into 2018 death of Murdaugh family’s housekeeper

    SLED opened its investigation based on a request from the Hampton County coroner that highlighted inconsistencies in the ruling of Satterfield’s manner of death, the agency said in September 2021, as well as information gathered during SLED’s other ongoing investigations involving Alex Murdaugh.

    Satterfield’s death was “not reported to the coroner at the time, nor was an autopsy performed,” the coroner’s request to SLED said. Additionally, her manner of death was ruled “natural,” which was “inconsistent with injuries sustained in a trip and fall accident,” the coroner said.

    SLED announced in December 2022 it would seek to exhume Satterfield’s remains, saying it had sought and received the permission of the housekeeper’s family.

    In December 2021, Murdaugh agreed to a $4.3 million settlement with Satterfield’s family, stemming from the alleged misappropriation of funds they should have received after, according to affidavits released by SLED, Murdaugh coordinated with the family to sue himself and seek an insurance settlement.

    In the aftermath of Satterfield’s death, a $500,000 wrongful death claim was filed against Alex Murdaugh on behalf of her estate, Bland said. But the estate did not receive any of the $500,000 owed as the result of a wrongful death settlement in 2018, Bland added.

    Bland has told CNN he does not believe Satterfield was murdered, but he does not want to rule anything out.

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  • Three people stabbed in incident at high school in Nova Scotia | CNN

    Three people stabbed in incident at high school in Nova Scotia | CNN

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    Ottawa
    CNN
     — 

    Police in Halifax, Nova Scotia say three people were stabbed in an incident at a high school Monday morning.

    In a statement, Halifax Regional Police say three people were injured and all were taken to a hospital for treatment. The extent of their injuries is unknown.

    Officers took one person, a youth who is a student at the school, into custody at approximately 9:31 a.m.

    Police continue to conduct a search of the school in Bedford, Nova Scotia, a suburb of Halifax.

    The school has been closed for the remainder of the day. Police and school board officials are working with school administration to safely release students and staff from the property.

    The incident comes nearly three years after a mass shooting that killed 22 people, unfolding over the course of 12 hours between April 18 and 19.

    Of the 22 people killed, 13 were shot and nine died in house fires, Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.

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  • Trump and E. Jean Carroll agree to combine rape defamation trials | CNN Politics

    Trump and E. Jean Carroll agree to combine rape defamation trials | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump and E. Jean Carroll have agreed to combine two upcoming trials next month regarding Carroll’s claim that Trump raped her in the mid-1990s.

    In a joint court filing Friday, lawyers said they wanted to hold the trial April 25 in New York in two suits Carroll has filed – one for allegedly defamatory comments Trump made as president in 2019, and a second for battery and other statements Trump made after he left office.

    Trump denies all claims brought against him by Carroll.

    Carroll, a former magazine writer, alleged Trump raped her in a New York department store dressing room and defamed her when he denied the rape, said “she’s not my type” and alleged she made the claim to boost sales of her book.

    “[E]vidence relating to this central factual question ‘is relevant to both cases,’ and will be presented at both trials,” the lawyers wrote Friday. “Because of the overlapping nature of these proceedings, a single trial will reduce costs across the board, avoid the risk of inconsistent factual rulings or jury confusion, and economize matters for the Court (as well as for both parties’ witnesses).”

    A federal judge must still approve the proposal to combine the trials.

    The proposed combined trial, the lawyers added, should continue regardless of the ongoing legal attempt by the former president to have the first defamation lawsuit thrown out.

    Trump and the Justice Department said he was a federal employee and his statements denying Carroll’s allegations were made in response to reporters’ questions while he was at the White House. They argue that the Justice Department should be substituted as the defendant, which, because the government cannot be sued for defamation, would end the lawsuit.

    A Washington, DC, appeals court is reviewing if Trump was acting within the scope of his employment when he made the allegedly defamatory statements.

    Carroll brought her second lawsuit against Trump last November, after New York passed the Adult Survivors Act, which allows adults alleging sexual assault to bring civil claims years after the attack.

    At the same time, Carroll alleged that Trump continued his defamatory statements on his social media platform, Truth Social.

    “It is a Hoax and a lie, just like all the other Hoaxes that have been played on me for the past seven years. And, while I am not supposed to say it, I will. This woman is not my type!” the post said.

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  • Suspect charged after allegedly shooting Olivet College baseball player after game at Muskingum University | CNN

    Suspect charged after allegedly shooting Olivet College baseball player after game at Muskingum University | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A suspect is facing charges of attempted murder and felony assault after authorities say he shot and injured an Olivet College baseball player after a Friday night game at Muskingum University in Ohio.

    The player was taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and has since been released, according to a statement from Olivet College, in Michigan.

    On Sunday, the Muskingum County Prosecutor’s Office announced that a suspect, 26-year-old Franklin J. Grayson, of Jacksonville, Florida, would face charges of attempted murder with a firearm and felony assault with a firearm.

    Grayson, who was taken into custody Friday, is accused of shooting the victim three times and could face up to 14 years in prison if convicted, the prosecutor’s office said, adding that additional charges could be filed in the case. The office has requested $1 million bail for Grayson, who remains in custody.

    Olivet College said Grayson was a 2021 graduate of the school but said authorities are unclear of any relationship between him and the player.

    The victim’s name has not been released and it is unclear if Grayson has an attorney to speak on his behalf.

    Muskingum University is in New Concord, about 70 miles east of Columbus.

    The shooting occurred around 7 p.m. local time at Mose Morehead Field after Olivet defeated Muskingum. Olivet said one of its players went back to the dugout to get a personal item when “an incident occurred involving an unknown individual with a firearm.”

    No faculty, staff or students for Muskingum University were injured, according to an alert posted on the university’s website.

    Olivet College Athletics tweeted that the team will not play its games scheduled for Saturday and Sunday in Ohio.

    “The team is together and safe at the hotel and we have been in communication with their parents,” McCauley told CNN. “The team will remain at the hotel tonight and they will return to the Olivet College campus Saturday.”

    In its alert, Muskingum said all athletic events this weekend were canceled.

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  • The shooting deaths of 3 missing rappers were ‘gang violence related,’ Michigan police say | CNN

    The shooting deaths of 3 missing rappers were ‘gang violence related,’ Michigan police say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The deaths of three Michigan rappers whose bodies were found in an abandoned apartment building in early February were related to gang violence, state police said, asking members of the public who might have information about the case to come forward.

    In a series of tweets Friday, Michigan State Police confirmed they were continuing to investigate the triple homicide of Armani Kelly, 28; Dante Wicker, 31; and Montoya Givens, 31, who were reported missing after their January 21 performance at a Detroit club was canceled.

    Their bodies were found almost two weeks later in the apartment complex in Highland Park, about 6 miles northwest of Detroit, and state police later said they each died of multiple gunshot wounds.

    “This was a gang violence related incident,” Michigan State Police said on Twitter on Friday, addressing what it said were “rumors” circulating about the investigation. “This homicide was not random and had nothing to due (sic) with music or a performance.”

    While no one is in custody, police said, “There are other people that know the details and we need them to come forward.”

    “Together we can bring closure to these families,” state police said.

    Police were first alerted to the men’s disappearances by Kelly’s mother, who reported him missing on January 23, Michael McGinnis, commander of major crimes at the Detroit Police Department, previously said.

    As the story of Kelly’s disappearance gained media attention, “other family members of the other missings come to realize that that’s a friend of their loved ones and they haven’t seen them either, so then they both get reported missing,” McGinnis said.

    The bodies were discovered February 2, in the complex police described as “rat infested.” Several days later, state police confirmed “this was not a random incident” and said investigators believed they had determined a motive.

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