In the Nation
Sect leader's mother killed
HOUSTON - The mother of infamous Branch Davidian sect leader David Koresh was found stabbed to death on Friday, and Koresh's aunt was in custody on a murder charge yesterday.
Bonnie Clark Haldeman, 64, was found at the home of her sister, Beverly Clark, in a rural area near Chandler, Texas, according to Henderson County Sheriff Ray Nutt. He said that a knife believed to be the murder weapon was found.
Clark, 54, was being held without bail pending a court appearance. Jail officials said she did not yet have an attorney to speak for her.
Haldeman wrote a 2007 autobiography,
Memories of the Branch Davidians: The Autobiography of David Koresh's Mother
, that described how her son, Vernon Howell, became David Koresh, leader of the Branch Davidian cult. A 51-day standoff with federal agents ended when the cult's complex burned in April 1993, killing Koresh and nearly 80 of his followers.
- AP
Guilty but insane in girls' drowning
CLEVELAND - A mother charged with aggravated murder in the bathtub drownings of her two daughters was found not guilty by reason of insanity Friday.
A three-judge panel in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court determined that Amber Hill, 23, suffered from a severe mental disorder when she drowned her daughters on Oct. 1, 2007. "The court concludes she did not know the wrongfulness of her horrific acts," said Judge John Sutula.
Hill could have faced the death penalty if convicted of killing 4-year-old Janelle Cintron and 2-year-old Cecess Hill. She remained jailed, where she has been held since the deaths, pending a civil commitment hearing on whether she should be hospitalized by court order.
- AP
Psychologist gets jail in porn case
FARGO, N.D. - A former mental hospital psychologist who said he became interested in child pornography while treating sex offenders was sentenced Friday to seven years in prison.
Joseph Belanger, 61, of Jamestown, N.D., pleaded guilty last year to charges of receiving and possessing materials involving the sexual exploitation of minors.
Belanger, who had worked at the North Dakota State Hospital in Jamestown for more than 20 years, paid for access to Internet pornography sites and downloaded thousands of sexually explicit images and more than 200 videos. U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson said: "He, of all people, should have known there was help available."
- AP
Elsewhere:
Officials warned
yesterday of a continuing fire threat created by high wind and dry weather across Texas, where wildfires had killed a man and blackened more than 4,500 acres of grassland. A 2,500-acre fire that destroyed six homes in Jones County, about 25 miles northwest of Abilene, was no longer active yesterday, a spokesman for the Texas Forest Service said.
Authorities searched
yesterday for the assailant who used an assault rifle in a Friday night shooting in northwest Miami that left two dead and seven injured. Two males, ages 16 and 18, were slain, and police said they did not know the motive.
