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All articles drawn from the Associated Press unless otherwise noted. Commentary is created in house.

Sunday, November 18, 2012


Sex offender suspected in 1970 Wis. child murder

By CARRIE ANTLFINGER | Associated Press – 9 hrs ago
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Virginia Davis describes says the pain left behind by her 9-year-old sister's 1970 rape and strangulation as being like "a million holes."
Only 4 years old at the time, Davis knew little about the crime. The subject remained off-limits for the next four decades for many in a family that hoped to forget the hurt. But Davis couldn't forget, and after years seeking help to solve her sister's killing, she's preparing to face the man police believe is responsible.
On Monday, prosecutors will argue that a childhood neighbor and convicted sex offender — who they say confessed to the killing but has since recanted — should go to trial in the death of Donna Willing. With physical evidence in the case lost or destroyed, prosecutors say the will argue under the state's sex offender law that Robert Hill, 73, is a sexually violent person and must remain in custody indefinitely.
Davis says that when she was a child, her sisters would scold her for talking about Donna, warning, "You don't want to make mom cry, do you?" Most of the siblings don't discuss it even now.
But Davis needed answers. At 15 she found the courage to go to the library and read news coverage about her sister's death. Every detail discovered since has helped.
"I didn't feel like so lonely, I didn't feel so empty, I didn't feel like I had a million holes anymore," said Davis, now a mother of three who lives in suburban Milwaukee. "I just started feeling like it's easier, it's easier, it's easier now. I can talk about her now. I can speak her name."
Davis clearly remembers the afternoon of Feb. 26, 1970. Her big sister Donna was reading to her from a favorite book about animals as they sat on the couch. Her mother wanted Donna to go to the bakery for bread, but Virginia purposely delayed the trip, begging for one more story.
"I remember seeing out the window, it was getting dark and thinking 'Mom won't make her go if it gets dark. She'll send (my brother) or somebody else. She can't go,'" Davis recalls. "We were afraid of the boogeyman and stuff back then. The boogeyman will get her if she goes out after dark."
Donna walked out at 5:15 p.m. A witness later saw her get into a green car. Less than two hours later, a man discovered her bruised and bloodied body under a car in his garage about a mile away.
Newspaper reports at the time said police had people of interest, but no leads panned out.
In 2004, Virginia Davis saw a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story about police arresting an 83-year-old man for a 1958 murder based on DNA evidence. She called the reporter for help getting police to take another look at her sister's case.
A cold case unit that formed in 2007 did, and soon focused on Hill. He had lived next door with his wife and five children and Davis said she remembered playing with his son. She also remembered his wife, who always yelled, but not him.
Prosecutors soon discovered physical evidence in Donna Willing's case had been lost during a flood or when detectives cleaned out the evidence room in the 1990s, according to police Lt. Keith Balash. So investigators in 2008 began interviewing Hill in prison — where he was serving a 10-year sentence for sexually assaulting four children under the age of 10 between 1995 and 2002.
Hill first told police he sexually assaulted Donna after she got into his car that night, according to court documents. She began to squirm and slapped him. He became angry, afraid she would tell on him. He strangled her and dumped her in a garage. It all took about 10 minutes, he said.
In another account outlined in court documents, Hill said he molested Donna for years, picked her up and had sex with her. After she screamed, he put his hand over her mouth and strangled her.
Hill, who is now being in held a supervised facility, has since recanted both statements. Balash said Hill knew specifics of Donna's injuries that hadn't been released.
Hill's attorney, Robert Prifogle, didn't return a phone call seeking comment before Monday's hearing.
Before her mother died in 2009, Davis finally asked why she needed Donna to go to the bakery. Her mother said she wanted to make French toast for dinner. That filled a big hole. This year, Davis met the man who discovered his sister's body — another big hole filled. She said she had blamed herself when she was younger for delaying her sister's trip until after dark, but no more.
Davis chokes up when talking about her gratitude for the cold case detectives who pursued the case.
"I want to invent or create a word and I can't come up with anything yet that is the equivalent to how I feel," she said.
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Rupert Murdoch's Jewish problem. And his Egyptian one.

What the media baron's twitter feed says about his worldview.

By Dan Murphy | Christian Science Monitor – 7 hrs ago
One of the pleasures of following Rupert Murdoch's account onTwitter is that the brief notes left there seem to have been written by the man himself.
Unlike hundreds of political and celebrity twitter feeds that maintain only the thinnest pretenses of being written by their supposed owner (either that or Senator Lindsey Graham is one of the greatest multitaskers of all time), you're really getting Mr.Murdoch, unfiltered.
Unlike say, with Israel's ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, whose Twitter account last night deleted a tweet in which the ambassador had said Israel was willing to sit down with Hamas if rocket fire stopped from Gaza, explaining: "The earlier tweet about my CNN interview was sent erroneously by a staffer."
No, Murdoch is Murdoch, which is what makes two tweets of his from last night so interesting. Thefirst: "Can't Obama stop his friends in Egypt shelling Israel?" And the second: "Why Is Jewish owned press so consistently anti-Israel in every crisis?"
I'm not sure what great friends Obama has in Egypt. It's true that the US didn't stand in the way of the Egyptian uprising that saw longstanding dictator Hosni Mubarak driven from power in 2011. And theObama administration has been seeking to craft a workable relationship with the new civilian government of President Mohamed Morsi, a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood, since.
But A. US influence is limited in Egypt, given the hostility of a large swathe of President Morsi's constituency to the US and its strong military support for Israel; And, B. (And this is the important bit.) Egypt is not firing anything at Israel.
Israel is taking missile and mortar fire from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, of course. But that's much as has been happening since 2001, all but one of those years occurring when Mr. Mubarak was in power in Egypt. Though Egypt then, as now, has some influence over events in Gaza (it hosted failed talks on a failed cease-fire attempt overnight) Hamas very much marches to its own drummer. Hopefully someone at Fox News will fill Murdoch in.
The second quote from Murdoch up above is equal parts troubling and illuminating. He seems to believe that the owners of media outlets should require their reporting to conform to their owners political preferences and world-views, rather than reflect observed reality. It's fair to assume that's what happens at his sprawling press holdings, particularly his US-based flag-ship Fox News.
That's the illuminating part. The troubling part is his apparent belief that Jewishness should be synonymous with support for the current Israeli government, even for Jewish-Americans. It's long been an anti-Semitic trope in US and European life that Jews are not truly loyal to the countries of their birth and citizenship, that for them Israel comes first. Such false claims are rightly pushed back on. Then there's the frequently made anti-Semitic claim that the "Jews control the media," usually made within various conspiracy theories.
Imagine if Murdoch's sentence was turned around, but used the same logic: What if he had asked: "Why is Jewish owned press so consistently pro-Israel in every crisis?" That statement would rightly be decried as anti-Semitic.
Murdoch apologized, sort of, today: " 'Jewish owned press' have been sternly criticised, suggesting link to Jewish reporters. Don't see this, but apologise unreservedly."
There is of course a lively debate among Jewish-Americans, and Jews in Israel, about the rightness and wrongness of Israeli government behavior. In the pages of the Jerusalem Post you will find an editorial-line closer to Mr. Murdoch's heart, and in the pages of Haaretz a general approach that he would disprove of.
But no matter. Murdoch forthrightly speaks his mind and that's refreshing and unusual. It's a useful data-point to consider when consuming news produced by his employees.
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Father, Son and Daughter Arrested in Bank Robberies

By  | ABC News Blogs – 10 hrs ago
A father, son and daughter may be responsible for robbing as many as seven banks in two states, according to authorities.
Ronald Scott Catt, 50, and his two children, 20-year-old Hayden and 18-year-old Abby were arrested last week on charges they robbed a credit union in Katy, Texas.
Deputies with the Fort Bend Sheriff's Office in Texas say the family, which recently moved to the area, could also be responsible for several other robberies in Texas and their native Oregon.
During the Oct. 1 robbery in Texas, two figures, who appear to be Ronald and Hayden Catt, entered the bank in disguises and toting guns before leaving with money and jumping into a getaway car driven by Abby Catt.
The break in the case came when authorities were able to track down the distinctive orange vests the men wore to a local Home Depot. A review of the surveillance tape showed the family purchasing the disguises at the store.
Eric Lundeen told ABC News he knows the Catt family and said they seemed like "really solid community members".
"He was a single dad. I think he lost his wife and he had the responsibility to take care of his kids and I got to tell you, he was there for them," Lundeen said.
The father and son duo are being held in the Fort Bend County Jail on $140,000 bonds after being charged with robbery.
Abby Catt's bond has been set at $100,00
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Saturday, November 17, 2012


'Odd Little Creature' Skips Sex and Eats DNA

By LiveScience Staff | LiveScience.com – 10 hrs ago
The tiny, all-female bdelloid rotifers have endured the past 80 million years without sex. New research shows that gobbling up foreign DNA from other simple life-forms might be the asexual animal's secret to survival.
In the study, scientists discovered that up to 10 percent of the active genes in microscopic bdelloids comes from bacteria and other organisms like fungi and algae. The finding adds to "the weirdness of an already odd little creature," said Alan Tunnacliffe, a University of Cambridge professor and lead author of the study.
"We don't know how the gene transfer occurs, but it almost certainly involves ingesting DNA in organic debris, which their environments are full of," Tunnacliffe explained in a statement. "Bdelloids will eat anything smaller than their heads!"
Many asexual creatures are thought to be doomed to extinction due to the lack of genetic diversity and build-up of mutations that often come with reproducing from just one parent's DNA. Butbdelloids have managed to avoid such pitfalls of asexual life, diversifying into at least 400 species.
One of the critters' more remarkable qualities is their ability to withstand extreme dehydration, which could be, in part, thanks to the alien DNA. The new study found that some of the foreign genes are activated when the bdelloids begin to dry out in their ephemeral aquatic homes. These genes also might be behind powerful antioxidants thought to protect bdelloids from the by-products of drying out.
"These antioxidants have not yet been identified, but we think that some of them result from foreign genes," Tunnacliffe added.
Bdelloids' success could also be attributed to their potent DNA repair mechanisms, which seem to have evolved thanks to a duplicate set of genes, according to research detailed in 2008 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The new findings were detailed in the journal PLoS Genetics Thursday (Nov. 15).
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Sextant owned by master of Carpathia, which responded to Titanic sinking, up for auction

By The Associated Press | Associated Press – 12 hrs ago
LONDON - A sextant owned by the captain of the first ship to respond to distress calls from the Titanic is being offered at auction.
English auctioneers Henry Aldridge & Son estimates that Sir Arthur Rostron's sextant will fetch 70,000 pounds ($111,000) at the sale next Saturday.
The auctioneer said Rostron acquired the navigational device in 1883, and it has remained in the family ever since. The instrument "would certainly have been the instrument he used to navigate through the ice floes," the auctioneer quoted great-granddaughter Janet Rostron as saying.
Rostron captained his ship as it dashed to the last known location of Titanic. Arriving two hours after Titanic sank on the night of April 14-15, 1912, Carpathia managed to rescue 705 people. Two other ships that arrived later found no survivors.
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Monkey dies from blow to head after zoo break-in

By KEITH RIDLER | Associated Press – 3 hrs ago
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A break-in at Zoo Boise early Saturday left aPatas monkey dead from blunt force trauma to the head and neck and police were analyzing blood found at the scene to determine if it came from the monkey or one of two human intruders.
Two males wearing dark clothing were spotted by a security guard at 4:30 a.m. outside the fence near the primate exhibit, police said. Both fled, one of them heading into the interior of the zoo. Boise police used a thermal imager in searching the 11-acre zoo grounds but didn't find the person.
"I've been here for 15 years and we haven't had anything like this happen," Zoo Boise Director Steve Burns said. "It's unfortunate that we have to let kids know that something like this happens. Monkeys are always among the most favorite animals here."
Patas monkeys, often called the military monkey, have reddish-brown fur with grey chin whiskers and distinctive white moustaches. They are widely distributed across central Africa south of the Sahara Desert and can live more than 20 years in captivity.
During a search of the zoo before dawn, Burns heard a groan that at first he thought sounded human. It turned out to be an injured Patas monkey barely moving near the perimeter fence.
The zoo's veterinarian was called, but the monkey died just before 6 a.m. as it was being examined. A necropsy later determined that blunt force trauma was the cause of death, police said.
An inventory done by zoo staff found no other animals missing or injured. The zoo has one remaining Patas monkey — another male — but it's unclear if it will remain at the zoo or will be sent to another zoo where it can socialize with other Patas monkeys, Burns said.
"They're not endangered in the wild, but there are not many in zoos in the United States," he said. "Monkeys are social animals. We only have one."
The two Patas monkeys came to Zoo Boise about three years ago from Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo in Florida. They had an outdoor enclosure during the summer in Boise but were moved indoors to the primate building when colder weather arrived.
Burns said the monkeys hadn't been given names, and he didn't know their ages. The monkey that was killed was about 2 ½ feet tall and weighed about 30 pounds, Burns said.
Burns declined to discuss details of the police investigation, including how the intruder entered the primate building, if the monkeys might have been specifically targeted, or how the monkey ended up near the perimeter fence. The zoo doesn't have surveillance cameras, he said.
"It's very disturbing that someone would intentionally break into the zoo and harm an animal," said Sgt. Ted Snyder of the Boise Police Department in a statement. "We're doing all we can to find who did this."
Amy Stahl of Boise Parks & Recreation said the death shocked zoo workers.
"They're hit hard," Stahl said. "They care for the animals on a daily basis and they care about them deeply."
The zoo was supposed to open at 10 a.m. but remained closed while police gathered evidence, opening about 2:30 p.m.
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Dolphins found shot, slashed, stabbed with tool

Associated Press – 5 hrs ago
GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) — Authorities are investigating several attacks on dolphins in the northern Gulf of Mexico after some were found with gunshot wounds, cuts and missing jaws.
The Sun Herald reports (http://bit.ly/QN0xUt ) that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has issued a "heads up" directive. That puts officials on alert for an increase in human interaction with dolphins in the waters across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
Authorities say cases of gunshot wounds, mutilations and other injuries have been detected in recent months.
Scientists from the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport have responded to four dolphin strandings. And on Friday, a team went to Deer Island and found a second dolphin dead with a portion of his jaw missing.
A dolphin found dead earlier near Gautier had a 9mm bullet wound.
"It went through the abdomen, into the kidneys and killed it," said Moby Solangi, IMMS executive director.
He said recovering the dolphins and performing a necropsy to determine the cause of death is heartbreaking for his staff.
"We think there's someone or some group on a rampage," he said. "They not only kill them but also mutilate them."
The public can help by reporting any information they may know about the mutilations, he said. He also asked recreational and commercial fishermen to be on the watch for anyone killing the dolphins.
Attacks on the dolphins carry fines and jail sentences.
Solangi said he doesn't know why anyone would want to kill the dolphins. "They already are under a lot of stress from the oil spill, the dead zone," he said. However, in the past fishermen and charter boat captains have been convicted of harming dolphins they thought were taking bait or fish.
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Information from: The Sun Herald, http://www.sunherald.com
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