(AP) — Police have identified a man found dead near Omaha’s Westroads Mall.
Omaha police said in a news release Thursday that it was the body of 50-year-old Ronald Price found the afternoon of April 3 in some bushes near an office building northwest of the mall.
Police say Price, of Omaha, was reported missing on Oct. 15 and that foul play is not suspected in his death.
Police did not release details on how Price died.
(AP) — Authorities say the Nebraska woman whose body was found near her wrecked car froze to death.
Cuming County Attorney Daniel Bracht says an autopsy shows Donna Baumert died of hypothermia, not her crash injuries.
The body of the 56-year-old woman was found March 5 near her car about a mile south of Beemer. Authorities say it appeared her car ran through a dead end and went about a half-mile through a field before coming to rest in a creek bed.
The accident appeared to have occurred about two weeks before the wreckage and Baumert’s body were found. She lived in West Point.
(AP) — A North Carolina man who sucked an unwilling woman’s toes inside a Wal-Mart has been sentenced to 60 days in jail.
Michael Anthony Brown apologized for his actions during his court appearance Thursday. He was convicted of assault, but a judge agreed to subtract the three weeks Brown has spent behind bars from the sentence.
Police said the 31-year-old Brown told the victim he was a podiatry student and asked her to try on shoes for him in the shoe department of the Wal-Mart in Lincolnton last month.
Investigators said Brown eventually stuck the woman’s foot in his mouth and sucked on her toes, then offered to pay for her groceries after she appeared outraged.
Brown was apprehended at his home in Concord and turned over to Lincolnton police.
(AP) — An Arizona woman who left her 5-week-old baby in a car seat on the roof of her car when she drove off has been sentenced to 16 years of supervised probation.
Catalina Clouser pleaded guilty to child abuse and misdemeanor DUI in February. She was sentenced Wednesday by Cynthia Bailey of Maricopa County Superior Court.
Phoenix police arrested Clouser last year after an infant strapped in a safety seat was found in an intersection. The baby was in good condition.
According to police, Clouser forgot the boy was on the roof her car when she left the home of friends where she had smoked marijuana.
Clouser was sentenced to three months of deferred time in jail, but she won’t have to serve that time if she successfully completes probation.
(AP) — Authorities in Omaha say a man is in custody in connection to a stolen vehicle found damaged and on its side.
Police say the man was arrested Wednesday after he was removed from the SUV at a Kmart store parking lot. His name was not released.
The owner of the vehicle told police that a man pulled her out of the SUV as she waited in a different store parking lot for her work shift to begin.
Officers tracked the stolen car a short time later. Police say the driver of the stolen car entered the Kmart parking lot but accidentally drove down a grass embankment.
The man was arrested and taken to a local hospital for injuries sustained in the crash.
(AP) — A Dodge County couple accused of animal cruelty has been barred from owning animals for 20 years.
Roland and Lori Peterson received the sentence Tuesday in Dodge County Court. They were ordered to serve two years of probation.
The couple pleaded no contest in February to four counts each of attempted animal abuse as part of a plea deal.
Authorities investigated the couple in connection with the deaths of 30 dogs, cats, horses and goats found in their residence last August. Deputies found animals in various stages of decay in a freezer.
Lori Peterson said she believed a highly contagious disease called the canine parvovirus killed the animals.
(AP) — A 37-year-old southern Nebraska man has pleaded no contest to charges that he sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl.
The Nebraska Attorney General Office says that Christopher Shoemaker, of Franklin County, pleaded no contest Wednesday to one count of first-degree sexual assault of a child and faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.
Shoemaker is set to be sentenced on May 21 in Franklin County District Court.
Prosecutors say Shoemaker knew the girl and had sex with her last year.
(AP) — Two Buffalo men have been convicted in the fatal beating of a 96-year-old church deacon during a break-in at his home.
Authorities say 18-year-old Shaquar Pratcher and 23-year-old Elhajii Elshabazz (ehl-HAH-zhee ehl-shuh-BAHZ) were part of a group that set out to rob Levi Clayton’s house in 2012, believing Clayton’s caretaker had money inside from drug sales.
A state Supreme Court judge convicted them Wednesday of second-degree murder and burglary.
Surveillance cameras captured the pair in the deacon’s backyard with a knife and gun and the deacon throwing a lamp out a window trying to thwart the break-in.
Clayton suffered severe head injuries from the beating and died about four months later.
Two others, 19-year-old Justice Feggans and 20-year-old Jordan McKinnon, pleaded guilty earlier to burglary.
(AP) — Police say they have linked some of the apparently random shootings targeting vehicles traveling on Kansas City-area highways over the past month.
Kansas City, Mo., police didn’t indicate Wednesday what led them to that conclusion. Federal authorities are helping investigate 13 shooting incidents between March 8 and April 6, three in which drivers were wounded. Ten of the shootings took place in Kansas City, while the other three were in the suburbs of Blue Springs and Lee’s Summit, Mo., and Leawood, Kan.
Police say several other possible victims came forward after hearing about the shootings in the media, but it’s unclear how many are connected. They also say victims and witnesses have provided inconsistent statements, making it difficult to get a grip on how many of the shootings are related.
(AP) — Federal authorities say a northeast Ohio man has pleaded guilty to charges alleging he tried to buy a 10-year-old girl to engage in illegal sexual activity.
U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach (DEHT’-ehl-bahk) in Cleveland said Wednesday that 37-year-old Robert W. Thomas Jr. pleaded guilty to enticement and receiving and distributing visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
Thomas’ attorney hasn’t commented. A phone message was left after business hours at his law office.
The Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH’-guh) Falls resident was arrested in January after an online sting. He was accused of asking an undercover officer in Alliance to arrange a marriage between him and the officer’s daughter.
The officer says Thomas told him he wanted the girl for sex.
Thomas is scheduled to be sentenced July 24.
