Murders Arizona

A jury Monday convicted a drifter of murder, paving the way for the trial of a 16-year-old Lancaster girl charged in the same killing spree that left three members of an Arizona family dead two years ago. Robert "Bobby" Poyson, 21, was found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and burglary in the deaths of Robert Delahunt, 15, his mother, Leta Kagen, 39, and her boyfriend, Roland Wear, 50.

Prosecutors moved closer to seeking the death penalty for Jared Lee Loughner, charging him for the first time with the murder of a federal judge and a congressional aide in the shooting rampage earlier this year that also critically wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). Loughner, 22, was indicted by a federal grand jury on the new murder allegations, and federal prosecutors in Phoenix said the case now involved "potential death-penalty charges. " Six people were killed and 13 others wounded by gunfire Jan. 8 at Giffords' Congress on Your Corner event in Tucson.

Five former Arizona Boys Ranch employees will not be tried for murder in a California teen's death, but three face child abuse charges. A Pima County, Ariz., Superior Court judge ordered that Linda Babb be tried on charges of manslaughter and child abuse in the death of Nicholaus Contreraz. Troy Michael Jones, 27, faces trial for intentional or knowing child abuse. Montgomery Hoover, 31, will be tried for reckless child abuse.

A suburban Phoenix man pleaded not guilty Friday to charges of killing an Indian-born Sikh out of racial hatred sparked by the Sept. 11 attacks. Frank Roque, 42, is charged with first-degree murder and nine other counts in a shooting rampage that left Balbir Singh Sodhi dead outside his Mesa gas station Sept. 14. Prosecutors said Sodhi, 49, was killed because of his appearance.

Kimberly Lane, a 16-year-old runaway from Lancaster, dropped her head and cried as a jury handed down guilty verdicts at the end of her triple-murder trial here Thursday. Three female members of the jury also wept, one of them sobbing uncontrollably, as Lane was convicted on three counts of first-degree murder, conspiracy and armed robbery in the deaths of an Arizona family in August 1996.

The frozen body of a woman, found in a truck rented by a former Lake Forest man, cannot be examined for the cause of death until it thaws, authorities in Prescott, Ariz., said Friday. "There is no apparent cause of death, and we wouldn't know until (Saturday) when the medical examiner can perform the autopsy," Yavapai County sheriff's spokeswoman Laurie Berra said Friday. "She is still partially frozen."

A U.S. Border Patrol agent charged with first-degree murder in connection with the shooting death last month of a Mexican man near Nogales, Ariz., was previously accused of stealing cocaine seized as evidence in a major drug bust, according to documents filed this week in U.S. District Court in Tucson.

The murders of three members of a family--two shot in their car on a Culver City street, the third in his suburban Phoenix home--were committed by the same person, police said Sunday. "We have a suspect" who is the target of an interstate manhunt, Culver City Police Detective Hank Davies said late Sunday. "I'd say there's a good likelihood that the suspect is responsible for all the murders." The same type of weapon--a .

Just after midnight on Aug. 10, 1991, six Buddhist monks, two young initiates and an elderly nun were made to kneel on their temple floor, and one by one were shot dead for $2,600 and some cameras. After a frustrating month of investigation, then-Maricopa County Sheriff Tom Agnos made four arrests based on a tip from a patient in a Tucson mental hospital. Three men and the tipster were rounded up and separately interrogated virtually nonstop for up to 20 hours.

With a swagger in keeping with their bold prison tattoos and impressive arsenal of stolen guns, the men had evidently bragged to one of the young ladies of Blue Springs, Mo., that they were going to make a name for themselves. And if celebrity is achieved by murder and plunder scattered across 2,000 miles from the South to the Pacific and perhaps into Nevada's high desert, so they have: The name they have made for themselves, authorities say, is "killers."

Balbir Singh Sodhi was a businessman, not a terrorist. He was Indian, not Arab. He was a Sikh, not a Muslim. But his dark skin and the turban he wore to cover his flowing black hair made him uneasy in the days after the terrorist attacks. He told customers at his Chevron gas station that he had gotten at least two threats. For days, he scoured stores, unsuccessfully trying to buy a U.S. flag that he could fly outside his business--a symbol to show his love for America.

Police charged Frank Roque, 42, with one count of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted murder and three counts of drive-by shooting after he allegedly fired at two gas stations and a home in Mesa, killing an Indian immigrant inside one gas station. No one was hurt at the other station, where a man of Lebanese descent was working, or at the home of a family of Afghan descent. Roque was being held on a $1-million bond. Police had yet to decide whether to add hate-crime charges.

A gunman fatally shot the Sikh Indian owner of a convenience store Saturday and sprayed bullets at two other locations in the span of a few minutes, authorities said. Mesa police are investigating the shootings as possible hate crimes because the targets may have been Muslims, said Mesa police Sgt. Mike Goulet. The Sikh Indian was killed at a Chevron gas station parking lot at 7956 E. University Drive, Goulet said.

A doctor was convicted of manslaughter Tuesday in the death of a patient following a botched abortion, and a former clinic administrator was found guilty of negligent homicide. Dr. John Biskind, 75, and Carol Stuart-Schadoff, 63, were both charged with manslaughter in the death of LouAnne Herron, who died three hours after an abortion at the now-closed A-Z Women's Center in Phoenix in 1998. An autopsy found Herron's uterus had been ruptured by a medical instrument.

A heavily armed man who burst into a retirement community's homeowner meeting and killed two people was apparently seeking revenge for having lost his home at the complex to foreclosure, police said Thursday. Richard Glassel, 61, was arrested Wednesday after the shootings at the Ventana Lakes retirement community northwest of Phoenix. Three people were wounded.

A man armed with a rifle and handguns walked into a meeting at a retirement community recreation center and opened fire Wednesday, killing one woman and injuring four persons, one critically. The unidentified gunman was arrested at the scene, police said. The shooting occurred about 2 p.m. while the victims were attending a meeting of the Ventana Lakes community association. Sgt. Shawn Gormley said there was no known motive.

An Arizona appellate court has overturned the conviction of Kimberly Lane, a teenage runaway from Lancaster who was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of three people in northwest Arizona. Lane, who left home at 14 with the middle-aged manager of her Lancaster trailer park, was convicted for her role in the 1996 slayings of an Arizona family. The trailer park manager and another man were sentenced to death for the crime.

The room has been cleaned and checked, equipment has been tested and the invitations have gone out, but the occasion that Arizona officials are preparing for is a grim one--the state's first execution in nearly 30 years. Don E. Harding, 43, who has confessed to seven slayings in four states, is scheduled to be led into Arizona's gas chamber at five minutes after midnight Sunday.

A man who murdered a couple after posing as a bounty hunter was sentenced in a Phoenix court to life in prison without the possibility of parole. David Brackney, 47, was one of five masked men who claimed to be in search of a California bail jumper when they burst into the couple's home in August 1997, according to prosecutors. Christopher Foote, 25, shot at the men as they tried to break down his bedroom door.

A man who contended that he was sleepwalking when he killed his wife by stabbing her 44 times and holding her head under water was sentenced Monday to life in prison without any possibility of parole. Scott Falater, who never denied that he killed Yarmila Falater, was convicted of first-degree murder on June 25. Jurors said Falater's claim of sleepwalking was hard to believe. Falater, 43, showed no emotion when Superior Court Judge Ronald Reinstein sentenced him.