LINCOLN, Neb. – Nebraska Game and Parks Commission officials have confirmed that a female mountain lion was killed by a landowner north of Hay Springs in Sheridan County for depredating poultry.
The landowner observed the mountain lion killing his chickens, shot and killed the 10- to 12-month-old mountain lion, and immediately reported to Game and Parks in accordance with state law.
Staff wildlife and law enforcement officials collected the carcass.
“State law allows livestock owners to kill a mountain lion immediately if it is in the process of stalking, killing, or consuming livestock on their property,” said Sam Wilson, carnivore program manager for the Commission.
This is the fifth confirmed case of livestock depredation in Nebraska by a mountain lion since the species’ confirmed presence in the state in 1991. In addition to the latest case, the confirmations consist of a calf in Blaine County in 2014, a calf in Sheridan County in 2017, two goats in Dawes County in 2017, and one goat in Dawes County last month.
In June, Game and Parks commissioners approved a hunting season for mountain lions in the Pine Ridge that aims to lower mountain lion densities – a response to public concerns and Commission research. The season is scheduled Jan. 1-Feb. 28, 2019.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska carried out its first execution in more than two decades on Tuesday with the lethal injection of four drugs in a combination never tried bfore, including the powerful opioid fentanyl.
Carey Dean Moore, 60, was pronounced dead at 10:47 a.m. Moore, who had been sentenced to death for killing two cab drivers in Omaha in 1979, also was the first inmate to be lethally injected in Nebraska, which last carried out an execution in 1997, using the electric chair.
Witnesses said that there appeared to be no complications in the execution process, which also was the first time a state used a four-drug combination.
At one point while on the gurney, Moore turned his head and mouthed several words to his family, including “I love you.”
Moore’s execution comes a little more than three years after Nebraska lawmakers abolished the death penalty, only to have it reinstated the following year through a citizen ballot drive partially financed by Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts. The governor, a wealthy former businessman, has said he was fulfilling the wishes of voters in the conservative state.
The Nebraska drug protocol called for an initial IV dose of diazepam, commonly known as Valium, to render the inmate unconscious; the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl; cisatracurium besylate to induce paralysis and stop the inmate from breathing; and potassium chloride to stop the heart. After each injection, prison officials sent saline through the IV to flush out any residue and ensure all the drugs had entered the inmate’s system.
Diazepam, fentanyl and cisatracurium had never been used in executions before. A fentanyl overdose killed music superstar Prince in 2016.
According to prosecutors, Moore was 21 when he fatally shot Reuel Van Ness during a robbery with his younger brother, and used the money to buy drugs and pornography. Moore fatally shot Maynard Helgeland by himself five days later, saying he wanted to prove he could take a man’s life by himself. Moore was arrested a week later. He was charged and convicted of first-degree murder, while his 14-year-old brother was convicted of second-degree murder.
Before his execution, Moore submitted a written statement that apologized to his brother, who was with him during the 1979 robbery and murder of Van Ness.
“I should (have) led him in the right way instead of bringing him down, way down,” Moore said of his brother.
Moore had faced execution dates set by the Nebraska Supreme Court seven times since he was convicted, but each was delayed because of legal challenges and questions over whether previous lethal injection drugs were purchased legally. For some relatives of Moore’s victims, that was far too long — and they hope his name and crimes will finally vanish from headlines.
“We’re sick of hearing about Carey Dean Moore,” Steve Helgeland, one of Maynard Helgeland’s three children, said ahead of the execution.
Helgeland said the numerous delays in executing Moore had left him ambivalent about whether his father’s killer dies by lethal injection or spends the rest of his life in prison. Helgeland said he plans to be present at the prison for the execution to honor his father’s memory, but that he won’t witness it.
“There was a point in my life when I probably would have pulled the switch myself, but 39 years has a way of dissipating your anger,” he said.
A Germany-based drugmaker tried to halt the execution last week, filing a lawsuit that alleged the state had illegally procured at least one of the company’s drugs. The company, Fresenius Kabi, argued that allowing the execution to go forward would harm its reputation and business relationships.
But a federal judge sided with state attorneys , who argued that the public’s interest in carrying out a lawful execution outweighed the company’s concerns. The judge also noted that Moore had stopped fighting the state’s efforts to execute him.
A federal appeals court upheld that ruling Monday, and Fresenius Kabi decided not to take the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Kearney police are working to develop a suspect after a man was shot in the head.
On August 13, 2018, at 10:34 p.m. Kearney Police Department officers were dispatched to 1925 Avenue F in Kearney, Nebraska regarding a shooting.
Officers discovered a 24-year-old male with a gunshot wound to the head and a 19-year-old male who had been physically assaulted. The 24-year-old male was transported by ambulance to CHI Good Samaritan Hospital with serious injuries.
He has been identified as Joshua Rose of Kearney. The 19-year-old male refused medical treatment. No other injuries were reported.
The investigation is ongoing and no arrests have been reported.
If you have any information, please contact the Kearney Police Department, 308-237-2104, or CrimeStoppers at 308-237- 3424, to report the information.
EMERSON, Neb. (AP) – Parents of two teenage boys in northeast Nebraska have been accused of locking cupboards and a refrigerator to keep their sons from eating snacks and sitting on the boys as punishment.
Dakota County Court records say 41-year-old Blaine Busker and his 38-year-old wife, Donella Busker, are both charged with two misdemeanor counts of child abuse. Court records don’t list the names of attorneys who could comment for them. A phone listed for Blaine Busker in Emerson was not working Tuesday. A phone listed for Donella Busker rang busy during several calls from The Associated Press.
A court document says the boys were allowed to wash their clothes only once a week and allowed to shower only every other day. The parents padlocked the bathroom that had the home’s only shower.
MADISON, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a 74-year-old driver died at a hospital after his pickup truck collided with a sport utility vehicle in northeast Nebraska.
The accident occurred around 4:15 p.m. Sunday at a U.S. Highway 81 intersection, less than a mile northeast of Madison.
Madison County Sheriff’s Deputy Tim Kruid says Ron Schroeder was turning left onto the highway when the SUV hit his pickup on the driver’s side. The SUV was being driven by 75-year-old Loran Naber.
Schroeder, Naber and three people in Naber’s SUV were taken to a Norfolk hospital, where Schroeder was pronounced dead. He lived in Madison.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A construction worker has died after a steel grate fell on him in northeast Lincoln.
Police Officer Angela Sands says the worker died Monday morning around 11:30 after a steel grate that was being used to separate different materials tipped over.
The man’s name wasn’t immediately released Monday.
Investigators from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration will investigate the incident.
TECUMSEH, Neb. (AP) — A mistrial has been declared in the case against an inmate who had pleaded not guilty to murder in connection with a 2017 prison uprising in southeast Nebraska.
The trial of 27-year-old Eric Ramos ended Monday after the judge learned that three prison investigators, who are all witnesses in the case, met over the weekend in violation of a court order.
Prosecutors will decide whether to refile charges against Ramos. He was accused of killing 31-year-old Michael Galindo during a violent outbreak at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution.
The bodies of Galindo and 39-year-old Damon Fitzgerald were found after authorities restored order.
Authorities have said the uprising began because inmates were angry that prison staffers had confiscated 150 pounds (68 kilograms) of homemade alcohol from them.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The Latest on Nebraska preparing for its first execution since 1997 (all times local):
6:10 p.m.
Death penalty opponents say they have gathered more than 60,000 signatures calling on Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts to stop the state from carrying out its first execution since 1997.
Organizers submitted the petition to Ricketts on Monday after several last-ditch legal efforts failed to halt the execution.
Death-row inmate Carey Dean Moore is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 10 a.m. Tuesday for the murders of two Omaha cab drivers in 1979.
Death penalty opponents say letting the execution proceed runs afoul of the Catholic Church’s recent statement that capital punishment is unacceptable in all cases.
Ricketts has argued he’s carrying out the will of voters who chose to reinstate capital punishment after the Legislature abolished it in 2015.
___
4 p.m.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska is asking the state Supreme Court to delay the state’s first execution in more than two decades.
The ACLU filed the request Monday, saying the execution should be delayed until the court hears arguments in a separate case focused on the Legislature’s 2015 vote to abolish capital punishment.
The ACLU argues that even though the 2015 law was later undone by voters, the law changed death-row inmates’ sentence to life in prison.
The organization represents eight Nebraska inmates on death row. But not Carey Dean Moore, who is scheduled to die Tuesday by lethal injection.
The ACLU request appears to face long odds. A district judge rejected the argument in February, and the Nebraska Supreme Court has denied other recent attempts to postpone the execution.
___
12:35 p.m.
A German pharmaceutical company says it won’t ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene after losing an appeal in a case that threatened to block Nebraska from carrying out its first execution since 1997.
Drug company Fresenius Kabi recently filed a lawsuit accusing Nebraska prison officials of improperly obtaining its drugs for lethal injections. The company said it doesn’t want its drugs used in executions and asked a federal judge to prevent the state from doing so Tuesday.
The judge refused, and the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision Monday.
An attorney for Fresenius Kabi said later Monday that the company won’t pursue an additional review with the nation’s highest court.
A federal appeals court has rejected a German pharmaceutical manufacturer’s attempt to prevent Nebraska from executing a death-row inmate using drugs that the company says it produced.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday upheld a federal judge’s ruling to let the execution of inmate Carey Dean Moore proceed as planned Tuesday.
The drug company, Fresenius Kabi, contends in a lawsuit that using the drugs for a lethal injection would harm its reputation.
But the appeals court agreed with U.S. District Court Judge Richard Kopf’s conclusion that postponing the execution would frustrate the state’s interest in carrying out the execution. One of the four drugs in Nebraska’s execution protocol expires Aug. 31, and the state says it can’t get more.
Moore was sentenced to death for the 1979 shooting deaths of two Omaha cab drivers.
___
11 a.m.
Three years after Nebraska lawmakers voted to abolish capital punishment, the state is preparing to carry out its first execution since 1997 in an about-face driven largely by the state’s Republican governor.
Carey Dean Moore is scheduled to be executed Tuesday for the 1979 murders of two Omaha cab drivers. Two drug companies are trying to halt the execution, arguing the state says may be using their drugs.
Gov. Pete Ricketts helped finance a ballot drive to reinstate capital punishment after lawmakers overrode his veto and abolished the death penalty in 2015.
His administration then changed Nebraska’s lethal injection protocol to overcome challenges in purchasing the necessary drugs. It also withheld records previously considered public that would identify the state’s supplier.
Ricketts argues he was fulfilling the wishes of voters.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – Police have arrested two more people in connection with a burglary at the home of Nebraska football coach Scott Frost.
Lincoln police said Monday that a 20-year-old man was taken into custody Saturday and a 16-year-old boy was arrested Wednesday. A 17-year-old girl also was arrested last week.
Officer Angela Sands says investigators recovered several pairs of athletic shoes believed to have been stolen.
Frost told police on July 29 that burglars entered an unlocked garage door at his house, which is unoccupied while being renovated.
Football helmets and artwork were reported missing, along with the athletic shoes. Frost originally reported 14 championship rings from his time at three schools as a player and coach also were taken. The rings were later found in the garage.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Three years after Nebraska lawmakers voted to abolish capital punishment, the state is preparing to carry out its first execution since 1997 on Tuesday in a bewildering about-face driven largely by the state’s Republican governor.
Gov. Pete Ricketts, a wealthy former businessman, helped finance a ballot drive to reinstate capital punishment after lawmakers overrode his veto in 2015. His administration then changed Nebraska’s lethal injection protocol to overcome challenges in purchasing the necessary drugs and withheld records previously considered public that would identify the state’s supplier.
“It wouldn’t even have made it to the ballot without him,” said Matt Maly, an anti-death penalty activist who has joined daily protests outside the governor’s residence. “To get something on the ballot takes a lot of money and resources. Nobody else would have cared enough.”
Ricketts argued last week that he was fulfilling the wishes of voters who opted to overturn the Legislature’s decision in the 2016 general election. He said he views capital punishment as a matter of protecting public safety and an important tool for law enforcement, despite his Catholic faith and the recent statements by Pope Francis that the death penalty is unacceptable in all cases.
“The people of Nebraska spoke loud and clear that they wanted to retain capital punishment as part of our overall state laws to protect public safety,” he said. “Our job is to carry that out.”
Nebraska prison officials are preparing to execute Carey Dean Moore, one of the nation’s longest-serving inmates, for the 1979 shooting deaths of Omaha cab drivers Maynard Helgeland and Reuel Van Ness Jr.
The 60-year-old Moore, who has had execution dates set seven previous times, has stopped fighting the state’s efforts to execute him, but two drug companies have filed legal challenges to prevent the state from using what they say may be their drugs.
On Friday, a federal judge denied the request of German pharmaceutical company Fresenius Kabi to temporarily postpone the execution. Fresenius Kabi filed an immediate appeal to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the judge’s ruling Monday. The company later said it wouldn’t pursue an additional review with the U.S. Supreme Court.
Drugmaker Sandoz Inc. also filed a motion to intervene on Saturday, but that won’t prevent the execution from moving forward.
The Nebraska Attorney General’s Office is fighting the companies’ efforts because one of the four drugs used in the state’s execution protocol, potassium chloride, expires on Aug. 31. The state corrections director said last week that prison officials won’t be able to purchase more supplies of the drug because no companies are willing to sell to the department, including its previous supplier.
Nebraska last carried out an execution in 1997, using the electric chair. The state has never conducted a lethal injection. And on Tuesday, it plans to use a combination of four drugs that has never been tried.
Lawmakers abolished capital punishment in 2015, when they voted by the narrowest margin possible, 30-19, to override the then-first-year governor’s veto.
Some legislators expressed doubt at the time that Nebraska would carry out an execution ever again because of costly legal challenges, prompting Ricketts to ask for more time to set one in motion. His administration went so far as to pay an India-based middleman $54,000 for drugs — that the state never received — because they couldn’t be legally imported. The state money was never repaid.
After lawmakers overrode his veto, Ricketts contributed $300,000 of his own money to a petition drive organized by several close associates to place the issue on the November 2016 general election ballot. The governor’s father, TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, also donated $100,000 to the Nebraskans for the Death Penalty campaign.
Nebraskans for the Death Penalty raised a total of $1.3 million for the effort, but was outspent by a death penalty opposition group that received nearly $2.7 million. Even so, the reinstatement measure won support from 61 percent of voters.
Death penalty supporters said the Legislature’s vote was a fluke that didn’t represent the will of voters in the overwhelmingly conservative state. Some moderate, Republican lawmakers who previously voiced support for capital punishment but then voted to repeal it lost their seats in the 2016 election after Ricketts endorsed their opponents.
“The public (in Nebraska) has always agreed with the death penalty — always,” said state Sen. Mike Groene, an outspoken supporter of capital punishment. “I’m not the outlier here, and neither is the governor.”
Groene said the vote to reinstate capital punishment amounted to “a direct mandate from the public” to resume executions. He noted that Ricketts has now appointed a majority of the state’s Supreme Court justices, which could help clear the way for future executions.
Nebraska uses the death penalty sparingly and only for crimes considered to be the most heinous, said Bob Evnen, a Lincoln attorney who co-founded the Nebraskans for the Death Penalty petition group.
Evnen said many of the previous delays in carrying out executions were driven by a 2008 Nebraska Supreme Court case that declared the electric chair unconstitutional, forcing the state to switch to a lethal injection protocol with drugs that are increasingly difficult to obtain for executions.
The original protocol called for three drugs to render the inmate unconscious, induce paralysis and stop the heart. After years of struggling to acquire one of the drugs, sodium thiopental, Nebraska prison officials changed their rules last year to let the state corrections director choose which chemicals to use.
“Policymakers are actually taking the voters seriously on this,” Evnen said.
