(AP) — The Nebraska Supreme Court will hear the appeal of a 23-year-old man sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 2011 death of an Omaha drug dealer.

Nicholas Ely was one of three people convicted of first-degree murder last year and sentenced to life for the July 2011 death of Kris Winters.

Winters was killed after a botched robbery attempt at his home. Ely was one of four men who sent a teen girl in to Winters’ home to pose as a marijuana customer before the robbery.

Ely argues in his appeal that there was not enough evidence to convict him and that his trial judge gave a faulty jury instruction and wrongly admitted some evidence.

The high court will hear arguments in the case on Sept. 3.

(AP) — A recent spate of random, violent killings around Omaha have stood out, even in a city that about 80 percent of Nebraska’s homicides.

The cases include the May killings of a Creighton University professor and his wife in what police say was the work of a serial killer. In June, a 93-year-old woman was raped and beaten to death in her home. Earlier this month, the body of woman was found in a freshly dug cemetery grave. And on Wednesday, a mother of three was found shot to death in a suburban Omaha intersection.

University of Nebraska at Omaha criminology professor Ryan Spohn says the killings are unusual for their brutality and back-to-back occurrences and because the victims are “not who we think of as the typical homicide victim.”

(AP) — One person has died in a rollover crash near Palmer in east-central Nebraska.

The crash happened late Friday night.

Investigators say a car went out of control on a county road near Palmer, rolled and hit a tree. The patrol says both the driver and a passenger, who were not wearing seat belts, were thrown from the car. The passenger died at the scene.

Authorities say the driver was taken to a Grand Island hospital.

The patrol has not released the name of either person, pending notification of their families.

(AP) — A 46-year-old Omaha woman has been charged in a two-count federal indictment with fraudulently getting and using Social Security supplemental income payments.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office says Latosha Bolton was indicted this week. She faces one count of receiving a Social Security check through the mail based on false representations. She faces a second count of stealing money from the Social Security Administration.

Prosecutors say Bolton filed for the payments for her daughter, shortly after the girl was born in 1993, saying the girl lived with her. But authorities say the girl did not live with Bolton, and Bolton did not spend the payments on the girl. In all, prosecutors say, Bolton fraudulently collected nearly $125,000.

Bolton faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

(AP) — A 53-year-old Nebraska man has pleaded not guilty to a charge that he robbed a northwest Iowa bank last fall.

Richard Shaffer, of Omaha, Neb., made his plea on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Sioux City. Shaffer is accused of robbing Heritage Bank in downtown Sioux City on Oct. 12.

Police say a robber gave a teller a note demanding cash and escaped with more than $3,700. The robber didn’t appear to be armed.

Shaffer’s trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 7.

(AP) — Police in Spokane, Wash., say they have arrested one of two teens suspected of fatally beating an 88-year-old veteran of World War II who had survived the Battle of Okinawa.

Authorities say the two young men, between 16 and 19 years old, approached Delbert Belton in his car Wednesday night outside an Eagles Lodge as he was waiting for a friend.

Belton was found by police with serious head injuries and died in the hospital Thursday.

Spokane Police say they have surveillance images of the attackers.

The Spokesman-Review reports Belton was born and raised in Spokane before he joined the Army. Friends say he was shot in the leg during the Battle of Okinawa, where thousands of American soldiers died.

After the war, he spent 33 years working for Kaiser Aluminum, before retiring in 1982.

(AP) — The Nebraska Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of an Omaha man convicted of second-degree murder in a 2010 shooting at a south Omaha auto shop.

Shawn McGuire was sentenced to 105 to 125 years in prison for murder and two other convictions. Authorities say McGuire was the getaway driver in the slaying of 36-year-old Cesar Sanchez-Gonzalez, who was a government drug informant.

In his appeal McGuire alleged several errors by the trial court. Among them, he said the trial judge’s should not have accepted McGuire’s waiver of conflict of interest after his former lawyer began working for the prosecutor’s office.

The high court disagreed in its ruling issued Friday, saying there is no evidence to show district court’s decision to accept the waiver was erroneous.

(AP) — A Philadelphia woman has turned up alive nearly two weeks after her family held a funeral and burial.

50-year-old Sharolyn Jackson showed up at a mental health facility last Friday.

A body found July 20 on a Philadelphia street had been identified as Jackson. A spokesman for the Philadelphia Health Department says Jackson’s son and a social worker who knows her viewed pictures of the body and identified it as being hers.

Services for Jackson were held Aug. 3.

The now-buried body will be exhumed in hopes of correctly identifying the remains.

(AP) — Omaha’s police chief says a man accused of killing his girlfriend spoke to a police detective just hours earlier.

19-year-old Mikael Loyd called Omaha homicide detective Teresa Negron on Aug. 14 after he was released from an Omaha mental health assessment center. Loyd had been held at the center for several days after police questioned his mental stability.

News of the call comes after police said Wednesday that the center’s staff did not alert police of Loyd’s release. Police are trying to determine why Loyd wasn’t arrested immediately after his release on a warrant accusing him of assaulting his girlfriend.

Police have said Loyd killed 19-year-old Melissa Rodriguez hours after his release and dumped her body in a freshly dug cemetery grave.

(AP) — The second of three suspects in a Columbus stabbing death has pleaded not guilty.

26-year-old Quentin Critser entered his pleas this week. He’s charged with first-degree murder and use of a weapon in the slaying of Steven Jorgensen at Jorgensen’s Columbus home on May 18. Critser’s trial is scheduled to begin Dec. 16.

Authorities say the three intended to rob the 51-year-old Jorgensen, but the robbery turned violent when Jorgensen resisted.

The two other defendants, Eric Henry and Kimberly Henderson, both 31 and from Columbus, face the same charges.

Henry’s pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to begin trial on Oct. 28. Henderson’s attorney, Nathan Sohriakoff, said Thursday that he expects she’ll plead not guilty at her arraignment on Sept. 19.