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NEW ORLEANS — A white man whose murder conviction in the killing of a Black man was vacated because he killed himself while his appeal was pending should not have been legally exonerated, Louisiana’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
Thursday’s ruling in the case of Kenneth Gleason — convicted in one Black man’s death, charged in another and accused of an attack on a Black family’s home. It reversed an appeals court order and decades of precedent that said convictions and indictments in Louisiana must be tossed when the convicted defendant dies before his or her appeal is resolved.
The high court’s order said that from now on in such cases, appeals will be dismissed, and a note will be placed in the court record stating that the conviction removed the defendant’s presumption of innocence but was neither affirmed nor reversed on appeal.
Writing for the court, Justice Piper Griffin said the practice of vacating convictions upon a defendant’s death is short-sighted. “It ignores consideration that the state has an interest in preserving a presumptively valid conviction,” Griffin wrote. And, she said, it is unfair to victims.
“Abatement of the conviction subordinates the victim’s constitutional guarantees of fairness, dignity, and respect to the reliance interests of the convicted,” Griffin said. “To abate a conviction would be as to say there has been no crime and there is no victim.”
In a partial dissent, Justice Scott Crichton agreed that the precedent that essentially exonerated Gleason should be abandoned, but he wanted to go farther, noting evidence that Gleason had killed two men in what appeared to be racially motivated attacks.
“In my view, the victims of defendant’s shocking and senseless crimes, their relatives and friends, and the entire community impacted by defendant’s vicious spree, deserve the finality of his conviction being unambiguous in the records of the court system,” Crichton wrote.
Gleason, 27, hanged himself in his cell at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in Sept. 21. He had begun a life sentence for the first-degree murder of Donald Smart. Smart, 49, was shot in a park near Louisiana State University as he was walking to his overnight shift as a restaurant dishwasher in September 2017.
After Gleason died, a district judge, following state court doctrine and precedent, vacated the conviction and dismissed the indictment, according to Thursday’s ruling.
Gleason also had been charged in the fatal shooting of Bruce Cofield, 59, a homeless man who was sitting at a bus stop on a busy street in Baton Rouge two days before Smart was killed. And authorities also said Gleason had fired gunshots through the front door of a Black family.
He wasn’t charged with a hate crime, but an FBI agent testified that Gleason searched the internet around the time of the crimes for topics including Nazi propaganda and white nationalism. Law enforcement told The Associated Press that officers who searched his home found a handwritten copy of an Adolf Hitler speech.
BROKEN ARROW, Okla. — An Oklahoma couple considered “primary suspects” in last week’s killings of their six children faced growing financial pressures and the husband experienced recurring pain from a workplace head injury, according to family members.
Eight people were found dead Thursday in a burning home in a Tulsa-area suburb in what authorities are investigating as a murder-suicide. The Broken Arrow Police Department on Sunday identified the two adults as Brian and Brittney Nelson but provided no new information on whether both adults were involved in the killings of the children, who ranged in age from 1 to 13.
Brian Nelson’s parents, Danny and Marilyn Nelson, told the Tulsa World that their son had asked if they could babysit their grandchildren at 5 p.m. Thursday, the day of the fire.
“Five came and went. Then it was 6. I texted them — no responses,” Danny Nelson said. “I turned on the 6 o’clock news, and they said there had been a fire near Hickory and Galveston in Broken Arrow. That’s where my son lives.”
Police have not released the names of the children who died but the Nelsons identified them as grandson Brian II, age 13; granddaughter Brantley, 9; grandsons Vegeta, 7, Ragnar, 5, and Kurgan, 2; and granddaughter Britannica, 1.
All six children were found dead in a burning back bedroom and the two adults were found in the front of the home. Authorities said causes of death were still pending but they don’t believe anyone died from the fire.
Brian and Brittney Nelson had filed for bankruptcy in 2020, listing $8,803 in assets versus nearly $138,000 in liabilities, most of which was unpaid student loans, the newspaper reported. Both indicated they were unemployed at the time, the filing said.
The bankruptcy filing also listed nine guns as assets.
Years ago, Brian Nelson had suffered a concussion while stocking dairy refrigerators at a large retail chain and had been plagued by severe headaches ever since, his parents said.
“I want people to know that at one time he had all his brain together,” Marilyn Nelson said. “I just don’t understand why they did what they did. I just don’t understand why he ended up in that situation. I talk to God all the time — and I just don’t understand.”
BROKEN ARROW, Okla. — The deaths of eight family members — including six children found in a burning Oklahoma home — are being investigated as a murder-suicide, authorities said Friday. Police are trying to determine whether both adults were involved in the killings.
The children, who ranged in age from 1 to 13, were the victims, Broken Arrow Police Chief Brandon Berryhill said during a news conference. He did not provide their identities, ages or explain their relationships to one another except to say they were family members believed to be living in the home.
Police said both adults who live in the home were considered “primary suspects” because they were found dead in the front of the home while the children were all found in a bedroom, where the fire was contained. A police spokesman declined to say whether authorities believe the two adults were both responsible for the killings or whether it could be just one of them.
“It’s because investigators are still trying to piece together what happened with eight people dead,” police spokesman Ethan Hutchins said in an email to The Associated Press.
Hutchins also said police would not be able to identify the dead adults until the medical examiner’s office has completed its work.
The causes of death are still under investigation, but Broken Arrow Fire Department Chief Jeremy Moore said it doesn’t appear that anyone died because of the fire. Guns were recovered from the home, the police chief said.
“To arrive on scene yesterday and to see the looks on our first responders’ and firefighters’ faces just absolutely broke my heart,” Moore said Friday.
Sara Abel, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the agency is assisting local police in tracing guns found in the home but she did not have any details about the type or number of firearms.
The fire was reported about 4 p.m. Thursday in a quiet residential area of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, 13 miles (20 kilometers) southeast of Tulsa.
The two adults found dead in the front of the house had injuries that “appeared to be criminal in nature,” Moore said.
The children were found dead in another area of the home, he said.
Kris Welch told the Tulsa World that the couple had rented the home from her for the past eight years. She said they seemed like “a regular family” but that she had gotten “some weird vibes from him.”
“He wore some T-shirts that were kind of dark and strange,” Welch told the newspaper. “And she was quiet. She hardly ever spoke, honestly. I always wondered about that.”
Neighbor Traci Treseler told the newspaper that the kids always kept to themselves. She had thought only three children lived in the house and was surprised to find out there were six, she said.
A week ago, a similar tragedy occurred in Wisconsin, where four children and two adults were found in a burning apartment in a suspected murder-suicide.
In Broken Arrow, Catelin Powers said she was driving with her children nearby when she saw a column of smoke near her house, so she drove past to investigate.
“When I got closer to the house, I saw smoke pouring out from the very top of the house, which looked like maybe the attic,” she told The Associated Press on Thursday.
Two men and a woman on her phone were standing in front of the house, Powers said, when another man emerged from the front door dragging an apparently unconscious, unresponsive woman. “Her arms were flopped to her sides,” she said.
Suspecting the woman was dead, Powers said she drove on so her children would be spared the sight.
Tragedy has struck before in Broken Arrow, which is Tulsa’s biggest suburb with almost 115,000 residents. In 2015, two teenaged brothers killed their mother, father, two younger brothers and 5-year-old sister at their home — which was about 6 miles (10 kilometers) south of Thursday’s fatal fire.
The home where the 2015 killings occurred was later demolished and the site was transformed into a community park.
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Associated Press reporters Jake Bleiberg, Terry Wallace and Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this report.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — An attorney for a death row inmate in Tennessee who cut off his penis shortly after asking to be placed on suicide watch filed a complaint against prison officials Friday.
Kelley Henry filed a motion for a temporary restraining order in Nashville’s Davidson County Chancery Court, asking the judge to declare that the prison’s treatment of Henry Hodges violates his constitutional rights.
Hodges returned to Riverbend Maximum Security Institution from the hospital on Oct. 21. Since then, he has been held naked in 4-point and 6-point restraints on a thin mattress over a concrete slab, according to the complaint.
“Mr. Hodges treatment by Defendants places him at risk of permanent nerve damage, paralysis, pain, suffering, bed sores, sepsis, malnutrition, and death,” Henry states.
According to the complaint, Hodges periodically suffers from psychotic episodes. One of those began around Oct. 3, when Hodges started smearing feces on the walls of his cell. Rather than provide him with mental health treatment, prison officers began withholding food from Hodges, according to the complaint.
On Oct. 7, Hodges broke a window out in his cell and used a razor to slit his left wrist. In the infirmary, he told the treatment provider he needed to go on suicide watch. However, he was returned to the cell with the broken window. Less than an hour later, he severed his penis from his body with a razor blade, according to the complaint.
Hodges was taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where surgeons reattached his penis. Despite holding Hodges’ medical power of attorney, Henry was not allowed to see him during the two weeks he was there.
When he returned to the prison, he was placed naked in restraints in a cell with “no television, radio, or any other means of mental stimulation” that is lit up day and night. He was left to lie in his own defecation and has stopped eating, according to the complaint.
Henry is asking the court to order the Tennessee Department of Correction to release him from his restraints, provide him with clothing, and appoint an independent monitor of his mental and physical health treatment.
Hodges was sentenced to death in 1992 by a Nashville jury that found him guilty of murdering telephone repairman Ronald Bassett in May 1990. He also was sentenced to 40 years in prison for robbing Bassett.
He was convicted of a separate murder in Fulton County, Georgia, for the killing of a North Carolina chemical engineer in an Atlanta hotel, shortly after Bassett’s killing.
HARTLAND, Wis. — The six people found dead after an apartment fire in a southern Wisconsin village last week had been shot in an apparent case of murder-suicide, according to police.
The bodies of a couple and their four children were found early Friday after firefighters were called to their burning apartment in Hartland. Ten of the remaining tenants in the four-unit building made it out safely.
Hartland Police Chief Torin Misko said Monday evening that all victims had one gunshot wound. Connor McKisick, a father and stepfather to the four children, had a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Misko said.
The others who died include Jessica McKisick, a 14-year-old girl, a 12-year-old girl and two 3-year-old boys, all who lived with Connor McKisick in one of the apartments. Police did not identify the children, but officials at the schools the girls attended said the older girl was Natalie Kleemeier and her younger sister Sofina Kleemeier.
Misko said all of those who died had a single gunshot wound. He said there is also evidence of an ignitable liquid in the apartment where multiple guns were found.
“This is a tragic incident for the family of the deceased, for our first responders and for the Hartland community,” Misko said.
The incident remains under investigation by Hartland police with assistance from the Waukesha County Medical Examiner’s Office, the State Fire Marshal and Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation.
Hartland is a village of approximately 9,100 people about 26 miles (42 kilometers) west of Milwaukee.
SAN FRANCISCO — Relatives of a family kidnapped at gunpoint from their trucking business in central California pleaded for help Wednesday in the search for an 8-month-old girl, her mother, father and uncle.
Authorities at a news conference Wednesday showed surveillance video of a man kidnapping the baby, Aroohi Dheri; the child’s mother, Jasleen Kaur, 27; father Jasdeep Singh, 36; and uncle Amandeep Singh, 39 from their Merced business on Monday.
Family members said nothing was stolen from the trucking company but that their relatives were all wearing jewelry. Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said that after the kidnapping, an ATM card belonging to one of the victims was used in Atwater, a city about 9 miles (14 kilometers) north of Merced.
Relatives of the victims asked anyone who owns a convenience store or gas station in the area to check their surveillance cameras for images of the suspect or the family. They said they were worried the baby wasn’t being fed because the family didn’t have any baby food with them at the time of the kidnapping.
“Please help us out, come forward, so my family comes home safe,” Sukhdeep Singh, a brother of the victims, said, his voice breaking.
Relatives of Jesus Salgado, 48, contacted authorities reporting that he had admitted to them he was involved with the kidnapping of the family, Warnke told KFSN-TV on Tuesday. Salgado tried to take his own life before police arrived at a home in Atwater, and he has since been hospitalized, he said.
Warnke said the kidnapper made no ransom demands.
Family members told KXTV-TV that the trucking company office had only opened about a week earlier.
“My husband is very peaceful and calm person. We don’t have any clue why they kidnapped them,” said Jaspreet Caur, wife of the kidnapped uncle.
The sheriff said detectives believe the kidnapper destroyed unspecified evidence in an attempt to cover his tracks.
The sheriff’s office said that firefighters on Monday found a pickup truck belonging to Amandeep Singh that was on fire. Merced Police Department officers went to Amandeep Singh’s home, where a family member tried to reach him and the couple. When they were not able to reach their family members, they called the Merced County Sheriff’s office to report them missing, the office said.
The sheriff’s office said the FBI, the California Department of Justice, and other local law enforcement agencies are helping with the investigation.
Merced is a city of 86,000 people about 125 miles (200 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco in the San Joaquin Valley.
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia attacked the Ukrainian president’s hometown and other targets Sunday with suicide drones, and Ukraine took back full control of a strategic eastern city in a counteroffensive that has reshaped the war.
Russia’s loss of the eastern city of Lyman, which it had been using as a transport and logistics hub, is a new blow to the Kremlin as it seeks to escalate the war by illegally annexing four regions of Ukraine and heightening threats to use nuclear force.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s land grab has threatened to push the conflict to a dangerous new level. It also prompted Ukraine to formally apply for NATO membership, a bid that won backing Sunday from nine central and eastern European NATO members fearful that Russia’s aggression could eventually target them, too.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Sunday that his forces now control Lyman: “As of 12:30 p.m. (0930 GMT) Lyman is cleared fully. Thank you to our militaries, our warriors,” he said in a video address.
Russia’s military didn’t comment on the situation in Lyman on Sunday, after announcing Saturday that it was withdrawing its forces there to more favorable positions.
The British military described the recapture of Lyman as a “significant political setback” for Moscow. Taking the city paves the way for Ukrainian troops to potentially push farther into Russian-occupied territory.
In southern Ukraine, Zelenskyy’s hometown of Krivyi Rih came under Russian attack by a suicide drone that destroyed two stories of a school early Sunday, said Valentyn Reznichenko, governor of Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region.
Russia in recent weeks has begun using Iranian-made suicide drones to attack targets in Ukraine. In southern Ukraine, the Ukrainian air force said Sunday it shot down five Iranian-made drones overnight, while two others made it through air defenses.
A car carrying four men who wanted to forage for mushrooms in a forest in Ukraine’s Chernihiv region struck a mine, exploding the vehicle and killing all those inside, local authorities said Sunday.
Russian attacks also targeted the city of Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian authorities said Sunday. And Ukraine’s military said Sunday it carried out strikes on multiple Russian command posts, ammunition depots and two S-300 anti-aircraft batteries.
The reports of military activity couldn’t be immediately verified.
Ukrainian forces have retaken swaths of territory, notably in the northeast around Kharkiv, in a counteroffensive in recent weeks that has embarrassed the Kremlin and prompted rare domestic criticism of Putin’s war.
Lyman, which Ukraine recaptured by encircling Russian troops, is in the Donetsk region near the border with Luhansk, two of the four regions that Russia illegally annexed Friday after forcing what was left of the population to vote in referendums at gunpoint.
In his nightly address Saturday, Zelenskyy said: “Over the past week, there have been more Ukrainian flags in the Donbas. In a week there will be even more.”
In a daily intelligence briefing, the British Defense Ministry called Lyman crucial because it has “a key road crossing over the Siversky Donets River, behind which Russia has been attempting to consolidate its defenses.”
The Russian retreat from northeast Ukraine in recent weeks has revealed evidence of widespread, routine torture of both civilians and soldiers, notably in the strategic city of Izium, an Associated Press investigation has found.
AP journalists located 10 torture sites in the town, including a deep pit in a residential compound, a clammy underground jail that reeked of urine, a medical clinic and a kindergarten.
Russian officials release limited information about military activity in what the Kremlin still refuses to call a war. They routinely claim that Russia exclusively targets Ukrainian military forces, the foreigners supporting them or Western-supplied weaponry.
Putin frames the Ukrainian gains as a U.S.-orchestrated effort to destroy Russia, and last week he heightened threats of nuclear force in some of his toughest, most anti-Western rhetoric to date.
Recent developments have raised fears of all-out conflict between Russia and the West.
The leaders of Czechia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania and Slovakia issued a joint statement backing a path to NATO membership for Ukraine, and calling on all 30 members of the U.S.-led security bloc to ramp up military aid for Kyiv.
German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht, meanwhile, on Sunday announced the delivery of 16 wheeled armored howitzers produced in Slovakia to Ukraine next year. The weapons will be financed jointly with Denmark, Norway and Germany,
Russia on Sunday moved ahead with steps meant to make its land grab look like a legal process aimed at helping people persecuted by Ukraine, with rubber-stamp approval by the Constitutional Court and draft laws being pushed through the Kremlin-friendly parliament. Outside Russia, the annexation has been widely denounced as violating international law.
Meanwhile, international concerns are mounting about the fate of Europe’s largest nuclear plant after Russian forces detained its director for alleged questioning.
The International Atomic Energy Agency announced Sunday that its director-general, Rafael Grossi would visit Kyiv and Moscow in the coming days to discuss the situation around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Grossi is continuing to push for “a nuclear safety and security zone” around the site.
The Zaporizhzhia plant is in one of the four regions that Moscow illegally annexed on Friday, and repeatedly has been caught in the crossfire of the war. Ukrainian technicians have continued running the power station after Russian troops seized it, and its last reactor was shut down in September as a precautionary measure.
Pope Francis on Sunday decried Russia’s nuclear threats and appealed to Putin to stop “this spiral of violence and death.”
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia attacked the Ukrainian president’s hometown and other targets with suicide drones on Sunday, and Ukraine took back full control of a strategic eastern city in a counteroffensive that has reshaped the war.
Russia’s loss of Lyman, which it had been using as a transport and logistics hub, is a new blow to the Kremlin as it seeks to escalate the war by illegally annexing four regions of Ukraine and heightening its threats to use nuclear force. Ukraine’s recent gains have embarrassed Russian President Vladimir Putin and prompted rare domestic criticism.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday his forces now control Lyman, after Russia’s military announced Saturday its retreat.
“As of 12:30 p.m. (0930 GMT) Lyman is cleared fully. Thank you to our militaries, our warriors,” Zelenskyy said in a video address.
In southern Ukraine, Zelenskyy’s hometown Krivyi Rih came under Russian attack by a suicide drone that struck a school early Sunday and destroyed two stories of it, said Valentyn Reznichenko, the governor of Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region.
Russia in recent weeks has begun using Iranian-made suicide drones to attack targets in Ukraine. In southern Ukraine, the Ukrainian air force said Sunday it shot down five Iranian-made drones overnight, while two others made it through air defenses.
Meanwhile, Russian attacks also targeted the city of Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian authorities said Sunday. And Ukraine’s military said Sunday it carried out strikes on multiple Russian command posts, ammunition depots and two S-300 anti-aircraft batteries.
The reports of military activity couldn’t be immediately verified.
Ukrainian forces have retaken swaths of territory, notably in the northeast around Kharkiv, in a counteroffensive in recent weeks.
In the latest major development, Ukrainian forces encircled Russian troops holding the hub of Lyman in the east, forcing the Russians to withdraw in what the British military described as a “significant political setback” for Moscow. Taking the city paves the way for Ukrainian troops to potentially push farther into territory Russia has occupied.
Lyman had been an important link in the Russian front line for ground communications and logistics. Lyman is in the Donetsk region near the border with Luhansk, two of the four regions that Russia illegally annexed Friday after forcing the population to vote in referendums at gunpoint.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed to have inflicted damage on Ukrainian forces in battling to hold Lyman, but said outnumbered Russian troops were withdrawn to more favorable positions.
In his nightly address Saturday, Zelenskyy said: “Over the past week, there have been more Ukrainian flags in the Donbas. In a week there will be even more.”
In a daily intelligence briefing, the British Defense Ministry called Lyman crucial because it has “a key road crossing over the Siversky Donets River, behind which Russia has been attempting to consolidate its defenses.”
The British said they believed that the city had been held by “undermanned elements” prior to the Russian withdrawal, which prompted immediate criticism from some Russian officials.
“Further losses of territory in illegally occupied territories will almost certainly lead to an intensification of this public criticism and increase the pressure on senior commanders,” the British military briefing said.
The Russian retreat from northeast Ukraine in recent weeks has revealed evidence of widespread, routine torture of both civilians and soldiers, notably in the strategic city of Izium, an Associated Press investigation has found.
AP journalists located 10 torture sites in the Ukrainian town, including a deep sunless pit in a residential compound, a clammy underground jail that reeked of urine, a medical clinic and a kindergarten.
Russian officials release limited information about military activity in what the Kremlin still refuses to call a war. Putin frames the Ukrainian gains as a U.S.-orchestrated effort to destroy Russia, and last week he heightened threats of nuclear force in some of his toughest, most anti-Western rhetoric to date.
Pope Francis on Sunday decried the nuclear threats, and appealed to Putin to stop “this spiral of violence and death.”
Meanwhile, international concerns are mounting about the fate of Europe’s largest nuclear plant after Russian forces detained its director.
The International Atomic Energy Agency announced Sunday that its director-general, Rafael Grossi would visit Kyiv and Moscow in the coming days to discuss the situation around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Grossi is continuing to push for “a nuclear safety and security zone” around the site.
The plant is in an area of Ukraine controlled by Russia and within one of the four regions that Moscow illegally annexed on Friday, and repeatedly has been caught in the crossfire of the war. Ukrainian technicians continued running the power station after Russian troops seized it, and its last reactor was shut down in September as a precautionary measure.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine