NORTH PLATTE, Neb. (AP) – Authorities say a man killed at Union Pacific’s railroad yard in western Nebraska’s North Platte was run over by a fuel truck.
The Nebraska State Patrol confirmed the victim of the accident was Ryan Ziel.
Patrol spokesman Cody Thomas said Tuesday that the 42-year-old Ziel was driving the truck Saturday when he stopped to do a refueling. Thomas says Ziel got out of the truck and then it ran over him. Thomas says investigators aren’t sure why the truck started moving.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A former Lincoln schoolteacher and Husker football player has been sentenced to prison in a child sex assault case.
Lancaster County District Court records say 41-year-old Sean Applegate was given 15 to 20 years at his Lincoln court hearing Tuesday. The records say he’d pleaded no contest to intentional child abuse and attempted sexual assault of a child.
He was arrested in April last year after a woman reported that she had been molested by him between 2013 and 2014, starting when she was 15.
Applegate was a wingback for Nebraska, 1996-1999. He had worked as an industrial arts teacher at Pound Middle School.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Most epilepsy patients taking cannabis-derived oil in a clinical trial at the University of Nebraska Medical Center continue to see improvement in their seizures.
A study authorized by Nebraska lawmakers in 2015 has shown the majority of the 23 participating patients have experienced benefits from taking cannabidiol, commonly referred to as CBD oil. Patients participating in the two-year trial have forms of epilepsy that don’t respond to regular treatments.
Christopher Kratochvil is UNMC’s associate vice chancellor for clinical research. He says the patients who saw the greatest improvement have two of the most difficult forms of epilepsy to treat, Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome.
The drug used in the study is the Epidiolex oral solution, a product approved in June by the federal Food and Drug Administration.
NORTH PLATTE, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a 42-year-old man died after an incident at Union Pacific’s railroad yard in western Nebraska’s North Platte.
Railroad spokesman Justin Jacobs says the incident occurred Saturday morning and involved a North Platte man who worked for a UP contactor.
Authorities have not released the man’s name or other information about what happened.
An investigation is continuing.
NORTH PLATTE, Neb. (AP) — A California woman accused of having marijuana for sale has been fined in western Nebraska.
Lincoln County District Court records say a judge told 51-year-old Jewel Estrada on Monday to pay fines of $5,000 and $5,000 restitution to Nebraska. Estrada took a deal and pleaded guilty to possessing more than a pound of marijuana and to not having a tax stamp. The pot charge was lowered from possession for sale.
The Nebraska State Patrol says a trooper made a traffic stop of the woman’s car on Dec. 17 just after she left Interstate 80 in North Platte. The trooper discovered the driver, Estrada, was wanted on a 2010 traffic citation for speeding in eastern Nebraska. She lives in North San Juan, California.
The patrol says troopers found around 59 pounds (27 kilograms) of pot in her car.(backslash)
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A former doctor was sentenced to death on Friday for the revenge killings of four people connected to a Nebraska medical school, including the 11-year-old son of a physician who helped fire the man from a residency program nearly two decades ago.
Anthony Garcia, 45, of Indiana entered the courtroom in a wheelchair and appeared to sleep through the hearing as a three-judge panel sentenced him to death. The judges, who heard arguments earlier this year during the sentencing phase of Garcia’s trial, also had the option of life in prison.
Garcia was convicted in 2016 for two attacks — that occurred five years apart — on families connected to Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha. Prosecutors argued the killings were motivated by Garcia’s long-simmering rage over being fired in 2001 by Dr. William Hunter and another Creighton pathology doctor, Roger Brumback.
Some of the victims’ relatives testified Friday, including Jeff Sherman, whose mother was fatally stabbed alongside Hunter’s young son when she worked at the Hunter family’s home in 2008.
“I’m left with constant images from courtroom pictures of what happened to my mom,” Sherman said. “I can’t ever get those images out of my head.”
Investigators said Garcia fatally stabbed 11-year-old Thomas Hunter and 57-year-old Shirlee Sherman at the family’s home in an upscale Omaha neighborhood. Police collected a slew of evidence but struggled to find a suspect in the killings.
The case went cold in the following years. But that changed with the 2013 Mother’s Day deaths of Brumback and his wife, Mary, in their Omaha home. Police recognized similarities in the 2008 and 2013 killings, and Garcia was quickly eyed as a suspect. He was arrested two months later during a traffic stop in southern Illinois.
On Friday, Thomas Hunter’s mother, Dr. Claire Hunter, spoke of the agony of losing her young son so violently. She said the boy “was a joy in everybody’s life.”
“You can’t begin to enumerate what an event like has had on us, on the entire community,” she said after Garcia was sentenced.
Garcia’s parents and brother, who live in California, also attended the hearing. They were tearful as the verdict was read.
His brother, Fernando Garcia, said it was hard for his family to imagine his brother committing the crimes.
“We just want the victims’ families to know we do pray for them. We feel their pain,” he said. “We’re sorry those things took place. We’re not an evil family. We hope they find peace somehow.”
During the trial, prosecutors presented massive amounts of circumstantial evidence, including credit card and cellphone records placing Garcia in and around Omaha the day the Brumbacks were killed. One receipt showed Garcia eating a meal at a chicken wings restaurant within two hours of when police believe the Brumbacks were attacked.
Prosecutors also presented evidence that Garcia had sought to attack another Creighton medical school faculty member on May 10, 2013 — the same day the Brumbacks were killed. Prosecutors said Garcia pushed in a back door of that woman’s home but fled when the home’s alarm went off. Police believe he then found the Brumbacks’ address on his smartphone and attacked them.
Roger Brumback was shot in the doorway of his home and then stabbed. His wife was stabbed to death, much the same way Thomas Hunter and Shirlee Sherman had been stabbed, according to investigators.
Nebraska had not executed an inmate in more than 20 years until last month, when Carey Dean Moore died by lethal injection for the 1979 shooting deaths of two Omaha cab drivers.
However, the state’s mode of execution remains riddled with controversy and legal challenges in the face of difficulty in obtaining some of the drugs used to carry out lethal injection.
Under Nebraska law, Garcia’s sentence will be automatically appealed.
Friday’s sentencing was briefly interrupted when the lead judge in the case suffered a medical emergency and had to be carried from the courthouse on a stretcher. Gage County District Judge Rick Schreiner took over, explaining that Randall had undergone a medical procedure earlier in the week that caused him extreme back pain.
Lincoln County authorities have arrested an Ogallala man, accusing him of several burglaries.
On September 13, 2018, Deputies were advised of a suspicious male around a residence in Sutherland, NE. The male subject reportedly took a gas can out of a storage shed at a residence. The homeowner confronted the subject and he gave the can back. After the suspect left the homeowner contacted the Sheriff’s Office and gave a very detailed description of the suspect and vehicle.
A Deputy observed the vehicle near the interstate in Hershey and stopped it. The Deputy made contact with the lone male occupant and he was identified as 48-year-old Ogallala resident Brent McEntee. The Deputy saw an abundance of tools in the vehicle and became suspicious of Mr. McEntee while speaking with him. A request to search the vehicle was denied by Mr. McEntee.
The Deputy contacted the Sutherland homeowner and asked him to check his shed to see if anything else was missing. The owner checked and found a wire feed welder was missing and described it. The Deputy had previously observed the welder in the vehicle.
Mr. McEntee was arrested for Burglary and Receiving Stolen Property over $1500.00. An inventory search of the vehicle revealed a suspected stolen Plasma Cutter from a previous burglary in the vehicle. The case continues to be investigated and additional charges are likely.
A 44-year-old Sutherland woman is facing theft charges after authorities say she stole from the local Legion Baseball club.
According to the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, investigators received information in early August of a possible embezzlement case involving the Hershland American Legion Post 279 Baseball League.
It was reported that the organization was missing a significant amount of money.
Investigators contacted a local Forensic Accountant and it was determined that around $38,000 was unaccounted for over the last two years.
The investigation revealed that Robin Hiatt was solely responsible for the finances of the organization and investigator’s attempts to speak with her about discrepancies were ignored, according to LCSO.
On September 12, with the assistance of the Keith County Sheriff’s Office, an arrest warrant was executed on Hiatt for felony theft by unlawful taking.
Hiatt was jailed at the Lincoln County Detention Center.
Officials say the investigation is ongoing and further charges are pending.
GORDON, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say a 15-year-old boy died after losing control of the pickup truck he was driving in the northern Nebraska Panhandle.
The accident occurred about 5:30 p.m. Saturday on a gravel road about a mile northeast of Gordon. Sheridan County Attorney Jamian Simmons says Eli Hunter was killed when the pickup went out of control and rolled. An unnamed juvenile passenger with him was treated later for minor injuries.
Simmons says the teen was driving under a school permit.
The Gordon-Rushville school district has canceled Friday classes so staffers and student can attend funeral services. Hunter lived in Gordon and was a freshman on the football team.
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — A former University of Nebraska football player is scheduled to go on trial next week on charges that he cashed fraudulent checks at casinos in western Iowa.
Pottawattamie County court records say 45-year-old Reggie Baul has pleaded not guilty to one count of theft, 15 counts of forgery and one of ongoing criminal conduct. He’s accused of cashing the checks from April into July at the Ameristar and Horseshoe casinos in Council Bluffs.
His trial is set to start Tuesday.
Baul joined the Husker football team as a receiver in 1993 and played through two national championship seasons.
Baul has served jail time in Nebraska for drug and other crimes since.
