HEADLINE: 1 held in town's grisly slaying Ex-mayor's death jolted Walsenburg

A Walsenburg teenager has been arrested in the brutal stabbing death of the town's 91-year-
old former mayor, a crime investigators believe may have been a 'thrill killing' with satanic undertones.

Joe Valentine Romero IV, 17, was arrested Friday by Colorado Bureau of Investigation agents and Walsenburg authorities on suspicion of stabbing and killing George Turner in his home July 17.

Turner's bloody body was found in a closet. The victim, who weighed little more than 100 pounds, had been stabbed at least 13 times. 

'My hopes were fading. We're very thankful there's a suspect,' said Turner's son, David, 59, who lives in Albuquerque.

'It breaks my heart. Dad would have been 92 this month. He lived all those years and had a good life. You just wonder why. It kind of shakes your faith.'

The former mayor's killing was one of several crimes - including armed robberies and a Police Department scandal - that rocked this southern Colorado city last summer.

'At least now this community can breathe a little easier, knowing an arrest has been made,' CBI agent Steve Johnson said.

Authorities have physical evidence linking Romero to the scene, according to an arrest affidavit filed by Johnson.

Romero was 16 at the time of the killing. He is being held without bond in Pueblo, and will be charged as an adult, Assistant District Attorney Cathy Mullens said. He is scheduled to appear in court Monday.

The arrest comes after an eight-month investigation that stretched to Kansas and Montana, Mullens said.

According to the affidavit, Romero's mother, Roberta Sandoval, told a friend of his that Romero killed Turner, but Sandoval on Saturday denied she knew about the slaying and defended her son.

'I don't believe he did it. He's a good kid. He helps around the house. He's always respectful. He has manners,' Sandoval said. 'I just don't believe it was him.'

Romero came home the night of July 17 in an 'anger rage,' she allegedly told the friend, according to the affidavit. Romero went to kill his friend because a band told him to through its music, the affidavit states.

But Romero decided against it and went instead to Turner's house, pulled the elderly man out of bed and slit his throat, the affidavit says.

A week after the killing, Romero was committed for a time to the state mental hospital in Pueblo because of his 'violent ideologies,' according to the affidavit. Officials said he had been home-schooled for the past year.

Sandoval said her son had been on medication for depression. Yet he had little trouble with the law, except for an underage-drinking citation, she said.

Romero's friend told investigators that they hung out with a group of teenagers, often at a home down the alley from Turner's house. The group talked about killing people and Romero mentioned he would decapitate someone if he killed, according to the friend, who cooperated with investigators.

The group also believed in Satanism and thought it was funny that Turner had been placed in the closet, the friend told officials.

Investigators believe Romero acted alone.

He probably did not know Turner, but he most likely knew the frail man lived at the home, Mullens said.

'It's a small town. I think a lot of people knew an elderly person lived there,' Mullens said.

Romero's motive was 'probably the urge to commit a violent act a and Mr. Turner just happened to be the subject of the violence. I really don't think he was targeted,' Mullens said.

Investigators believe Romero just wanted to kill someone that night.

'We think it's just random, a random act of violence. We can't rule out the possibility it was a thrill killing,' Johnson said.

At 91, Turner was the elder statesman of Walsenburg, a former mayor passing his golden years in the southern Colorado city he loved.

'It was his city,' David Turner said.

The elderly Turner's home sits across from the old Elks Lodge one block east of Main Street, a modest gray structure with children's initials written in the concrete poured in the 1950s.

Turner's daughter, Georgann Gomez, came to his house every evening to watch television and spend time with her ailing father.

On July 17, Gomez walked in and found a pool of blood. Police later found her father's body in the closet.

A former coal miner, Turner was mayor of the town for four years in the 1950s. After his term, Turner moved to Connecticut, where he was a supreme director of the Knights of Columbus.
After the death of his wife, Turner moved back to Walsenburg 10 years ago. He was in good spirits but in failing health, his family said.

But aided by a cane, Turner would venture out of his house and walk two blocks to City Hall. Keeping his hand in local politics kept him connected to the community.

Yet he rarely left the house in the weeks before his death, taking his meals at home and spending time with his daughter and family when they visited.

On the day Turner was killed, a care worker brought his meal about 3:30 p.m. Gomez showed up shortly after 6 p.m. The killing occurred sometime in between.

Turner's death was part of a summer crime spree that hit the town of 4,200 residents. An armed robbery and a fleeing parolee with a knife also jolted Walsenburg in the same three-week period.

A Walsenburg police sergeant and two emergency dispatchers also were arrested in August after a departmental probe accused them of stealing more than 4 pounds of marijuana from an evidence locker.

The crimes shook the small town, but officials say Friday's arrest should ease residents' fears.
"I think people will be sleeping a little easier in Walsenburg," Mullens said.

HEADLINE: N.O. rape-murder evidence tossed

NEW ORLEANS - A reopened investigation into a 14-year-old rape-murder has been jeopardized by an overzealous cleanup of the New Orleans Police Department's evidence room.

The department's cold-case squad had come up with a suspect in the slaying of Vanessa Boden, 19, who was abducted from her home, taken to an abandoned church and raped. A caretaker found her with her throat slashed and her face burned beyond recognition. 

However, detectives found that nearly all of the evidence had been destroyed, including the murder knife, burned clothes and other items that may have contained critical samples of DNA.

The department is conducting an internal investigation into the evidence cleanup. When the problem first surfaced, Police Superintendent Eddie Compass said officers had "incorrectly tossed evidence" in a pending arson case and two unsolved homicides.

But at least nine more cases, including Boden's killing, have been affected by missing evidence, The Times-Picayune reported Monday, citing unidentified sources in the Police Department and the District Attorney's Office.

The evidence was destroyed about two years ago during a major cleanup of the evidence room, located in the basement of police headquarters.

Police have said that, in an undetermined number of cases, the sweep went too far, leading to the unintentional disposal of still-useful evidence such as DNA samples.

"The fact that more (cases) have surfaced just emphasizes the fact that they need to complete this investigation in a timely manner," said Rafael Goyeneche, head of the Metropolitan Crime Commission, a nonprofit watchdog group.

"If mistakes were made because inadequate policies were in place, it's critically important that this investigation identify weaknesses to ensure it doesn't happen again."Sanford Krasnoff, executive director of Victims and Citizens Against Crime, has written letters to the District Attorney's Office and U.S. Attorney's Office requesting a criminal investigation by those agencies. He said the U.S. Attorney's Office wrote back to say the matter was being referred to the FBI.

"We're not just concerned about the fact that evidence has disappeared, we're concerned about victims and their families who still think that their cases can be solved," Krasnoff said.

The investigation has no timetable, said Capt. Marlon Defillo, a police spokesman.

After it is completed, Compass will determine whether any disciplinary action should be taken against officers involved in the housecleaning, Defillo said.

HEADLINE: Arrest imperils cases

HILLSBOROUGH -- The arrest last month of a Hillsborough police officer has endangered dozens of pending court cases, District Attorney Carl Fox said Wednesday. 

As an arresting officer, Sgt. Timothy Mark Brewer, 32, was scheduled to testify as a primary witness in at least 29 cases this month, Fox said, adding that most of them are misdemeanors
-- from drug possession to driving while impaired -- and many will be dismissed at the next court date. 

An eight-year veteran of the department, Brewer faces drug and multiple larceny charges in connection with break-ins at the Hillsborough Police Department and three businesses, two in Hillsborough and one in Burlington. 

Evidence recovered during a search of Brewer's home in Graham and subsequent investigation included seized firearms and 1,700 grams of cocaine, Fox said. He said the chain of custody that protects evidence was not broken nor were cases jeopardized because the firearms all have identifiable serial numbers and the cocaine case has been closed. 

"The bigger question was why that cocaine hadn't been destroyed when the case had been disposed of years ago," Fox said. He called the seized drugs, which he said were worth $ 20,000, a "temptation." 

In the wake of Brewer's arrest, Hillsborough police are reviewing evidence storage, said Detective Ross Frederick. He said items were taken not only from officers' personal lockers but also from the main evidence room, where the cocaine was kept behind two locks. 

 "We are working right now to make the facility more secure," he said.  Hillsborough police don't destroy drugs and other seized evidence from closed cases regularly, but that could soon change, Frederick said. "I think we'll certainly have to look at doing it on a more regular basis," Frederick said. 

Brewer is on unpaid, indefinite suspension. He faces three counts of larceny of a firearm, two counts of breaking and entering and larceny, and one count each of felonious larceny, misdemeanor larceny, and trafficking in cocaine by possession of more than 400 grams of the drug in connection with the Orange County cases. 

The Alamance County Sheriff's Office has charged him with cocaine possession, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of burglary tools, misdemeanor breaking into a coin machine, three counts of felony breaking and entering, two counts of larceny after breaking and entering and four counts of possession of stolen goods.  Frederick said Brewer is being held at Central Prison on $ 300,000 bail awaiting his next scheduled court appearance March 14 in Alamance County.

HEADLINE: Miami police missing drug cash; Confiscated funds can't be found

More than $24,000 confiscated during drug busts and other arrests is missing from the Miami Police Department, including $3,058 allegedly pocketed by a supervisor in the department's property room, according to a city audit.

The 59-page report by internal auditor Victor Igwe details how a substandard storage system, lax deposit procedures and shoddy record-keeping produced a system rife with deficiencies -- and theft. One employee already admitted to pilfering cash, but thousands of dollars still remain unaccounted for. 

Gilda Elaine Scott, 49, a supervisor in the property unit who had been with the city since 1980, quit a day after admitting she took about $3,000, the audit said.

Police are still investigating the matter to determine if Scott will face criminal charges, said Miami police spokeswoman Herminia ''Amy'' Salas.

Reached Wednesday evening, Scott would not comment.

The audit evaluated the department's property room from Oct. 1, 2001, to Sept. 30, 2002. The auditors suggested the city overhaul its property room, which stores lost or confiscated items, so the department can better track its seized funds, which pump more than $1 million a year into the city's coffers. 

Other problems highlighted by the audit:

• About $2 million of confiscated money that should have been deposited in the bank was kept in a vault for months.
• Inventories, which by law are supposed be performed every quarter, were not being done in a timely fashion.
• More than half the people granted access to the property room had no business being there, with some no longer employed by the city. The audit showed 21 people should not have been granted access.

''We are implementing new checks and balances in order to avoid anything like that from happening again,'' Salas said.

HEADLINE: Art Just Part Of Problem

Thefts of cash and other property have been a long-term problem at the Rikers Island jail where a valuable Salvador Dali sketch disappeared, sources said yesterday.

"It's been an ongoing problem for a long time," said a veteran correction officer who has been assigned to the Correction Institute for Men and did not want to be identified.

Another official said about $700 in cash recently disappeared from a property room, but correction officials said last night they could not confirm the report. 

Mayor Michael Bloomberg implied yesterday that Assistant Deputy Warden Benny Nuzzo is under investigation in the case of the missing Dali, which was replaced with a crude fake. The theft was discovered Saturday.

At a Bronx news conference, Bloomberg volunteered that Newsday and the Daily News had "published the names of those under investigation."

Newsday, however, reported yesterday strictly that Nuzzo had been questioned about the sketch and that his union president said Nuzzo would cooperate in the probe.

Yesterday, sources identified Mitchell Hochhauser, another assistant deputy warden, as another person questioned by investigators, along with three or four correction officers whose names could not be confirmed. One of them has business contacts in the art field, two correction sources said.

Nuzzo and Hochhauser, who also was named in the Daily News story, were not available for comment.

Bloomberg spokesman Ed Skyler said the mayor's remarks were not intended as an official confirmation of the published stories.

Until 2000, Nuzzo worked for an elite unit, the special operations division that patrolled the perimeter of Rikers.

He was transferred to the Correction Institute for Men after he was caught taking a harbor boat on an impromptu cruise with a female correction officer, a former correction official said.

The disappearance of the sketch marks an early embarrassment in the tenure of Correction Commissioner Martin Horn, who has been on the job since December.

The Bronx district attorney's office is considered the lead agency in the probe along with the Department of Investigation.

HEADLINE: Ex-cop makes bail in drug case

DATELINE: CHICAGO

A retired Chicago police officer charged with routinely stealing cocaine from an evidence room will be released soon from custody after pledging his home and another property Friday as bond.

John L. Smith, 54, has been in custody since his arrest Feb. 6 in his Olympia Fields home on drug, tax evasion and other federal charges. 

HEADLINE: Report: Special prosecutor contributed to Deter's campaign

The special prosecutor who investigated thefts at the Hamilton County prosecutor's office while state Treasurer Joseph Deters was in charge contributed $2,500 to his 1998 campaign, according to a published report.

Cincinnati lawyer Pierce Cunningham acknowledged Monday that he did not disclose the donation to Deters' treasurer campaign when he was named special prosecutor in December, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported Tuesday.

Cunningham was appointed to investigate whether Deters or anyone on his staff attempted to cover up a theft from the evidence room while Deters was county prosecutor in 1996. 

Cunningham announced last week that the grand jury probe found no evidence of wrongdoing by Deters, a former chairman of the Hamilton County Republican Party.

Cunningham said Monday that his contribution did not influence his work.

"I was very much concerned about looking into every aspect of the case, so as to be fair to everyone," Cunningham said.

The disclosure of the contribution surprised Hamilton Prosecutor Mike Allen, who said he had requested a special prosecutor on the case to avoid a potential conflict of interest involving his office.

Allen said he recommended Cunningham after asking him whether there was any reason he would be unable to "fairly and impartially" handle the investigation.
"We asked the question," Allen said. "The answer we got was no."

Deters said he did not know Cunningham before the investigation and did not recall his contribution in 1998.

"I didn't know he'd given any money to my campaign," Deters told The Enquirer. "And I certainly would have had nothing to do with the appointment of a special prosecutor in this case."
Cunningham said he did not know Deters personally, was never active in his campaign and did not mention the contribution when he was appointed special prosecutor because he did not recall it at the time.

According to the Ohio Ethics Commission, the failure of a special prosecutor to disclose a political contribution is not a violation of ethics laws.

"But that doesn't mean when someone's appointed special prosecutor they don't have other obligations to the court that appoints them," said David Freel, executive director of the commission.

Tim Burke, co-chairman of the Hamilton County Democratic Party, said one of those obligations should have been to disclose the contribution.

"When you bring a special prosecutor in, you expect him to come in without any degree of favoritism or any agenda," said Burke. "A $2,500 contribution is still, even in this day and age, a very significant contribution."

A grand jury was sent home Friday after determining that neither Deters nor anyone on his staff attempted to conceal the theft of $2,817.

Pete Marshall, a former investigator in the prosecutor's office, has been charged with the theft and is to appear in court next week.

HEADLINE: Ex-chief sentenced to 37 months for stolen guns

DATELINE: MOBILE, Ala.

Former Linden police chief Preston Bowden has been sentenced to 37 months in prison for possessing firearms stolen from the Linden Police Department.

U.S. District Judge Charles R. Butler on Tuesday also ordered Bowden, who pleaded guilty, to serve three years probation. In a plea deal with prosecutors, Bowden admitted to possessing the guns stolen from the police evidence room.

He still faces a state theft charge for stealing the guns. The state charge of second-degree theft was filed in Marengo County, but is not expected to extend the sentence.

Linden police and federal agents discovered the guns in Bowden's house on Nov. 19, 2001.
Bowden gave up his Linden City Council seat following his arrest.

Bowden could have received 10 years for each of the three federal charges of possessing stolen firearms.

Linden Police Chief Jeff Laduron said he was surprised that Bowden was not ordered to pay restitution, since investigators discovered that he had sold the guns.

HEADLINE: Escapees flee to Missouri, fire shots before surrender, police say

SALEM - Two armed escapees from the Fulton County jail fired shots at pursuing officers in southern Missouri and stole a car from a woman on her way to church before their capture Sunday, police said.

Brian Keith Shankle and Bobby W. Woodrum, both 19, escaped from the jail in Salem at 3:25 a.m. Sunday, Fulton County Sheriff Lloyd Martz said. The lone jailer on duty was handcuffed to a chair, Martz said. 

The two were captured about seven hours later in rural Texas County, Mo., about 60 miles north of Salem.

"What a day for a Sunday morning," said Howell County, Mo., Sheriff Dean Belshe, who helped pursue the escapees through three counties in two states.

Shankle and Woodrum, both of Batesville, were awaiting trial on capital murder charges in the June 2001 slaying of Fulton County resident Russell Fisk, 67.

Martz said the inmates crawled through a ceiling tile in the jail to escape. They kicked open the door to the jail evidence room and took guns and ammunition before fleeing in the jailer's Jeep Grand Cherokee, he said.

The Jeep was spotted around 5 a.m. in Howell County just across the Arkansas state line.

Belshe said the Jeep was tracked through Willow Springs and Cabool on U.S. 63. Officers set up roadblocks just north of Cabool in Texas County.  But the Jeep turned off the highway before reaching the roadblock and sped off on a gravel road, with officers in pursuit.” At that point they started shooting at the following officers," Belshe said.

The Jeep skidded out of control at an intersection, ran over a cattle guard and stopped in a pasture. The two men "jumped and ran," armed with a shotgun and a pistol, Belshe said.

At least 50 officers searched the area of farms and pasture for the escapees. A helicopter from the sheriff's office in Baxter County flew over the area to try to contain the escapees.

The next person to encounter the escapees was a woman heading to church. The woman, whom Belshe wouldn't name, had stopped at a relative's house in the Elk Creek community when two armed men ran out of the house, he said.

They took her inside, tied her to a chair, and drove off in her white Ford Taurus. The woman was shaken but unhurt, he said. Her relatives weren't home at the time.

Belshe said he told the woman to continue on to church. "Why don't you go up there, do some praying, and we'll get these guys," he said.

Meanwhile, local residents were listening to police scanners, keeping tabs on the chase, Belshe said. When the description of the white Taurus was broadcast, authorities began receiving calls from residents who'd seen the car several miles north of Elk Creek on Missouri 137.

Officers intercepted the Taurus on the highway about five miles south of Licking about 10:45 a.m. The men surrendered without incident, Belshe said. 

This story was originally published on Monday, March 24, 2003.
 

CORRECTION-DATE: March 25, 2003, Tuesday

CORRECTION:

The Democrat-Gazette wants its news reports to be fair and accurate.

We correct all errors of fact.

If you know of an error, write: Frank Fellone Deputy Editor P.O. Box 2221 Little Rock, Ark. 72203 or call 378-3475 during business hours Monday through Friday. Russell A. Fisk's body was found on June 24, 2002, at his home in southeastern Fulton County. The year of Fisk's death was incorrectly reported in a story about a jail escape in Monday's edition.

This story was originally published on Tuesday, March 25, 2003.

HEADLINE: Cops fail to find drug case evidence; Unit had civilian staffer accused of drug theft under surveillance

DETROIT -- Police repeatedly watched a civilian employee accused of stealing 222 pounds of cocaine, but failed to find any evidence of wrongdoing.

John Earl Cole Sr., 51, was charged in October, along with eight others including a retired Detroit Police officer and a Michigan State Police lieutenant, in a 17-count indictment.

Cole is accused of selling the cocaine for $1.3 million and using a lot of the money to buy 18 Detroit properties, mostly rental homes. 

In 1997, the Detroit Police got two anonymous complaints that Cole was dealing cocaine out of his home.

"The DPD public corruption squad conducted several surveillances of Cole in 1997, and observed no suspicious activities," FBI Special Agent Michael Lubisco said in a May 2001 search warrant affidavit that was unsealed in U.S. District Court Tuesday.

The U.S. Attorney's Office alleged in its indictment that Cole began stealing and selling cocaine out of the evidence room in September 1994 until at least 2000.

In June 2000, Detroit Police resumed surveillance of Cole about the same time that two kilograms of cocaine turned up missing from the police department's evidence room.

On Sept. 14, 2000 during the sixth surveillance of Cole that year, police watched him take a box from a police van and place it in his personal car. Police immediately searched Cole's car and found only cleaning supplies.

In March 2001, Detroit Police attempted to find a box of evidence stored in the evidence room that contained about 68 pounds of cocaine. It couldn't be found.

During a joint Detroit Police-FBI audit in April 2001, investigators found a box that was supposed to contain 17.6 pounds of cocaine seized in 1990. Instead, they found three sealed packages of Gold Medal flour, which the manufacturer said was made between 1993 and 1994.

That showed investigators that the flour was put in the box after it had been logged in the evidence room.

Cole, a civilian employee since 1979. He was paid $13 an hour when he was arrested last fall, had significant financial assets, including a 1998 Chevrolet Corvette, which the FBI charged he obtained by trading 6.6 pounds of cocaine for it.

A confidential informant told investigators that Cole had at least $90,000 in cash hidden in his house and family members told the grand jury that they had tens of thousands of dollars in cash stored in their homes.

Detroit Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown declined to comment on the department's performance in its investigation of Cole.

"I'm not sure how the case was managed," said Brown, who noted that Jerry Oliver took over as police chief in February 2002, months after a grand jury was already investigating the cocaine disappearance.