
PRAYER-DEATHS-CHILDREN
$250K bail on hold in infant's faith-healing death
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A Philadelphia couple who believe in faith healing over medicine and have had two children die of pneumonia can't post bail before a hearing Friday.
Herbert and Catherine Schaible are charged with third-degree murder in the April death of their 8-month-old son, Brandon.
They were convicted of involuntary manslaughter after 2-year-old Kent died in 2009 and were ordered afterward to get their children medical care. Yet prosecutors say they instead prayed over Brandon as his condition worsened.
The couple's seven surviving children are in foster care.
A judge set bail Thursday at $250,000 apiece, but prosecutors had the decision stayed until a hearing Friday.
Defense lawyers say the Schaibles have no ill intent, and they hope to have the bail reduced.
Prosecutors want the couple held without bail until trial.
MISSING COLLEGE STUDENT
Police: Missing Pa. college student found unharmed
SKIPPACK, Pa. (AP) - Pennsylvania State Police say a missing college student from suburban Philadelphia has been found unharmed.
However, authorities on Thursday would not disclose where 21-year-old Matthew Royer was located.
State troopers say they won't comment further on the case. They say Royer's family has asked for privacy.
Royer disappeared earlier this month while returning home from the University of Rhode Island. They say he was seen leaving his apartment in Rhode Island on May 16.
Authorities say he was last seen the following day on surveillance video in Breinigsville, in eastern Pennsylvania.
Royer's parents had offered emotional pleas for their son to return home to Collegeville.
JUDGE RESIGNS-CHARGES
Defense: Ex-Pa. judge cooperating in coke case
PITTSBURGH (AP) - The attorney for a former western Pennsylvania judge charged with stealing cocaine out of evidence in cases he handled says the judge is cooperating with investigators.
Attorney Robert Del Greco Jr. wouldn't comment on the accusations themselves, but says former Washington County Judge Paul Pozonsky resigned last year to avoid disrespecting citizens or disrupting the county's bench.
The judge will next be in court June 13, but Del Greco says that preliminary hearing may be delayed after he asks the court to appoint an out-of-county judge to the case.
FIANCE DEATH
Pa. jurors weigh evidence in slaying of fiance
(Information in the following story is from: The (Easton, Pa.) Express-Times, http://www.lehighvalleylive.com )
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) - Jurors in eastern Pennsylvania are deliberating the fate of a woman accused of fatally stabbing her fiance on their wedding day.
The Express-Times of Easton reports the jury in Allentown heard closing statements Thursday morning in the trial of Na Cola Franklin.
Prosecutors say Franklin and 36-year-old Billy Brewster got into an argument early in the morning on Aug. 11, the day they were to be married.
Defense attorney John Waldron says Brewster came home drunk to their Whitehall Township apartment after an impromptu bachelor party.
He says Brewster attacked Franklin and then tried to leave with the couple's 9-month-old son. Waldron argued Franklin grabbed a knife to protect her child.
Prosecutors say the child was not in danger. They are seeking a first-degree murder conviction.
SHERIFF'S DEPUTY SLAIN
Court splits over shouting at deputy's procession
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - A divided Pennsylvania appeals court is upholding some charges, but not disorderly conduct, against a woman convicted after shouting a vulgar expression about police amid a procession of vehicles escorting the body of a slain deputy.
A Superior Court panel ruled 2 to 1 on Thursday in favor of Collette Champagne McCoy's convictions for disrupting a procession and conspiracy to disrupt it. They threw out her third charge, disorderly conduct.
McCoy was arrested in June 2011 in Reading for her actions as a group of vehicles escorted the body of Kyle Pagerly from the scene of his autopsy to a funeral home.
The majority opinion says McCoy walked through the procession, shouting an expression that denigrates police and pumping her fist, laughing.
The dissenting judge says the disruption statute isn't constitutional.
PITTSBURGH ZOO-CHILD DEATH
Parents sue Pittsburgh Zoo in boy's mauling death
PITTSBURGH (AP) - The parents of a 2-year-old boy who was fatally mauled after falling into a wild African dogs exhibit last fall have sued the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, claiming officials had ample warning that parents routinely lifted children onto a rail overlooking the exhibit so they could see better.
The lawsuit filed Thursday on behalf of Jason and Elizabeth Derkosh seeks unspecified damages in the Nov. 4 death of their son, Maddox. The boy fell from a wooden railing after his mother lifted him up to get a better look at the painted dogs.
According to the lawsuit, other zoos across the country have more and better safeguards in place to keep children safe while viewing the dogs.
A zoo spokeswoman did not immediately comment on a statement released by the family's attorney and a copy of the lawsuit.
BOY CHAINED TO TABLE
Police: W. Pa. man chained boy to table
CANONSBURG, Pa. (AP) - Authorities say a western Pennsylvania man allegedly chained his 11-year-old stepson to the dinner table after he refused to eat the food on his plate.
Police say they arrested 38-year-old Joshua Lee Smith of Canonsburg on Monday. That's about 20 miles southwest of Pittsburgh.
Smith allegedly told the boy to finish eating his dinner and when he didn't, made him get dog chains out of the yard. Smith also allegedly nailed the chains to the stairs and gave the boy a bucket to relieve himself.
Smith is being held in the Washington County Jail and was unable to post bond. He's charged with child endangerment, simple assault, harassment and false imprisonment.
No attorney was listed on court papers. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for May 28.
EMPLOYEE-ASSAULT RIFLE
Man surrenders, had come to work with rifle, gun
EXPORT, Pa. (AP) - A man who brought an assault rifle to the Pittsburgh-area business he works at shortly after he was suspended has surrendered to police.
Penn Township Police Chief John Otto says Thursday that 28-year-old Matthew Smith showed up at the Perma-Cast building around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday with an AK-47 assault rifle and a handgun. That's about 20 miles east of Pittsburgh. Otto says Smith had been suspended from work earlier that day. No injuries have been reported.
Otto says Smith told employees to leave and get away. When police arrived at the scene Smith had just left the area.
Police issued a warrant for Smith's arrest for causing or risking a catastrophe, reckless endangerment, simple assault and disorderly conduct.
ART STUDENT BEATEN
Trial delayed in alleged Pittsburgh police beating
PITTSBURGH (AP) - A young black man who claims he was wrongly beaten by three Pittsburgh police officers in January 2010 will have a new trial on 2 of his three civil rights claims starting Nov. 4.
The retrial was to have begun July 8, but it was delayed Thursday by a new judge assigned after the recent death of the judge who handled the first trial died.
Jordan Miles was an 18-year-old performing arts student when arrested by officers who claimed they thought he was prowling with a gun bulging in his coat pocket. The police say the gun turned out to be a soda bottle - though Miles denies having even that.
An eight-member federal jury in August found the officers didn't maliciously prosecute Miles, but couldn't decide whether Miles was wrongly arrested or subjected to excessive force.
APARTMENT FALL
4 serving probation for role in Pa. student's fall
BELLEFONTE, Pa. (AP) - Four Penn State students will serve probation for supplying alcohol to a party where a cheerleader was seriously hurt in a fall from a fifth-floor window.
Alexandria Hipple, Madeline Miller, Alyssa Duffy and Brooke Piccione each pleaded guilty to misdemeanor counts of furnishing alcohol to minors.
The Centre Daily Times reports each will serve one year probation, perform community service and pay fines. Other charges were dismissed as part of a plea deal.
Four others charged in the case were scheduled to appear Thursday in Centre County Court for conferences.
The eight were charged after an October party in which student Paige Raque fell 39 feet from an apartment window. Police say the fall was accidental.
PENNSYLVANIA PARKS-SUMMER EVENTS
W. Pa. parks announce summer events
PITTSBURGH (AP) - The National Park Service has announced a series of summer events at five western Pennsylvania parks.
The Park Service says over 50 special events are planned for the Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site, Flight 93 National Memorial, Fort Necessity National Battlefield, Friendship Hill National Historic Site and the Johnstown Flood National Memorial.
On May 31 the Johnstown Flood National Memorial will commemorate the 124th Anniversary of the Great Flood of 1889. Admission is free, and at the end of the day a ceremony will honor the memories of those who perished with the lighting of 2,209 luminaries from 7:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
For more information visit individual park websites.
TEACHER-FONDLING
Pa. teacher cleared in fondling, faces second case
ERIE, Pa. (AP) - A suspended northwestern Pennsylvania high school teacher has been acquitted on charges that he fondled a then-12-year-old boy during a Christmas visit which the teacher, and several defense witnesses, testified never occurred.
The Erie Times-News reports Wednesday's verdict came after just 25 minutes of deliberations by an Erie County jury.
But the teacher, 43-year-old David Montgomery, still faces a preliminary hearing next month on charges he molested another boy - now 18 - on repeated occasions between 2003 and 2010.
The alleged victim in Wednesday's verdict testified that Montgomery molested him while the boy spent the night along with two younger brothers that Christmas. Charges involving the other two boys, who also claimed they were molested, were dismissed before the trial.
Montgomery has been suspended from Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy since his arrest two years ago.
BANK ROBBERY-BOMB THREATS
Cops probe link between Pa. heist, school threats
BENTLEYVILLE, Pa. (AP) - Police and the FBI are investigating whether two high school bomb threats were phoned in to divert authorities from a southwestern Pennsylvania bank robbery that occurred about the same time.
The FBI is reviewing phone records from the Bentworth and California Area school districts which received the threats from a raspy voiced woman on Wednesday morning. Both high schools were evacuated as a precaution, though authorities didn't believe either threat was credible.
What made authorities suspicious is that the PNC Bank branch in Bentleyville was robbed shortly after the Bentworth bomb threat came in about 9:30 a.m. and was followed by the California threat shortly before 10 a.m.
Southwest Regional police Chief John Hartman says the timing of the calls makes them suspicious, though officials have yet to formally link them to the bank robbery.
CAPITOL EVACUATION
Elevator motor problem forces Capitol evacuation
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Portions of the Pennsylvania Capitol were evacuated as a precaution after an elevator motor burned out.
No one was injured, but Harrisburg firefighters were called to the scene early Thursday afternoon. Dozens of workers and tourists waited outside for about 45 minutes before officials declared the building was safe to re-enter.
Troy Thompson of the Department of General Services says crews were working to ventilate smoke on the sixth floor of the Capitol.
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