Authorities investigating the deaths of a North Texas district attorney and his wife appear to have narrowed their focus on a former justice of the peace prosecuted last year by the official for theft.

One day after 46-year-old Eric Lyle Williams was arrested on a charge of making a terroristic threat, authorities would not publicly name a suspect or confirm the results of a search of his home in Kaufman County, east of Dallas.

No suspects have been named in the deaths of Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, who were found slain in their home March 30.

That came two months after one of McLelland’s prosecutors, Mark Hasse, was gunned down near the Kaufman courthouse.

Williams was convicted of stealing three computer monitors. Both prosecutors criticized Williams’ character.

A lawyer says a Colorado jury has awarded $11.5 million to a man whose family sued helmet maker Riddell Inc. and his coaches over brain injuries from a high school football practice in 2008.

Rhett Ridolfi’s lawyer Frank Azar says the jury found Saturday that Riddell was negligent in failing to warn people wearing its helmets about concussion dangers.

The jury assessed 27 percent of the fault for Ridolfi’s injuries to Riddell and the rest to coaches. Azar said Sunday that he’ll ask a judge to find Riddell responsible for paying all $11.5 million in damages.

Riddell says it plans to appeal the verdict but is pleased that jurors determined its helmet wasn’t defective.

Riddell also is named in a lawsuit by former NFL players against the league.

Omaha police are investigating an early-morning crash that killed a 59-year-old man.

Police say the crash happened around 3:45 a.m. Sunday on 42nd Street near the University of Nebraska Medical Center in midtown Omaha.

A northbound 2011 Ford Ranger driven by Dennis Lahood veered across the oncoming lanes of traffic and struck a street light. The truck then rolled onto its passenger side.

Paramedics responded but Lahood was declared dead at the scene.

Police say speed and alcohol do not appear to be factors in the crash.

Omaha police have arrested four people after finding several dogs in a feces-strewn basement.

The arrests were made Wednesday following complaints from people who said they had responded to an online ad selling dogs. The complaints said the dogs were kept in poor conditions and that the sellers were verbally aggressive and threatening.

Investigators say occupants of the home refused to answer the door for more than an hour. Once inside, officers say they found nine dogs — including a Chihuahua, a Great Dane and a St. Bernard.

Police also found four people hiding in the house.

The four, ranging in age from 28 to 51, face a variety of charges, including obstruction, giving false information and harboring too many dogs in unsanitary conditions.

(AP) — A Grand Island man has pleaded no contest to kidnapping and sexual assault of a child for raping a 4-year-old girl in 2011.

27-year-old Abraham Richardson entered the plea Friday afternoon. He faces up to 50 years in prison on each charge when he’s sentenced June 11 in Lancaster County.

The assault occured in Grand Island, but the case was moved to Lincoln earlier this year because of pretrial publicity. Richardson is already serving a 20-year federal sentence handed down in August for receiving and distributing child pornography.

Prosecutors say Richardson abducted the 4-year-old girl from a Grand Island apartment in October 2011 and raped her. The girl had to have surgery to repair her injuries from the attack.

 

The National Weather Service has confirmed that a powerful spring storm system spawned 12 tornadoes in six states in recent days.

Forecasters confirmed three tornadoes in Missouri, including two in the St. Louis area; three each in Arkansas and Alabama; and one each in Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia.

Emergency officials said three people were killed in the storms, which unleashed tornadoes and winds strong enough to peel the roofs from homes in the Deep South and heaped snow and ice on the Midwest, leaving thousands without power.

The weather service is predicting that another storm system will bring wintry weather to the north-central U.S. starting Saturday afternoon, potentially bringing 6 to 12 inches of snow to parts of eastern Montana, much of North Dakota, northern South Dakota and northern Minnesota.

Police say three people whose bodies were found inside a Topeka, KS home died in an apparent double murder-suicide.

Topeka police Lt. Scott Gilchrist says officers and emergency medical responders arrived after getting a 911 call around 9:15 p.m. CDT Friday from a woman at the home reporting that several people had been shot. He declined to give any identifying information about the three people who were found dead, including whether they lived in the house.

Police were searching for a person of interest. He says the person isn’t believed to be a threat to the general public.

The city of Topeka had recorded only two homicides this year prior to Friday, the newspaper reported.