Murders England

The drifter who tried to murder Los Angeles actress Theresa Saldana 15 years ago was sent to a psychiatric hospital Wednesday after he pleaded guilty to killing a man 30 years ago. The Old Bailey criminal court accepted Arthur Jackson's plea of guilty of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility and dismissed a charge of murder. The length of his psychiatric commitment is indefinite.

Arthur R. Jackson, the Scottish drifter who brutally attacked actress Theresa Saldana in 1982, will be arraigned today in an English court on murder charges for the shooting death of a civilian during a Chelsea bank robbery 30 years ago. Jackson, who completed his sentence this month for the knife attack that nearly killed Saldana, was transferred Wednesday from a California prison to a jail near London where he will be tried for the 1966 murder.

Arthur R. Jackson, the Scottish drifter who was convicted of attempted murder in the 1982 knife attack on actress Theresa Saldana, will soon be released from state prison and turned over to British authorities to face murder charges in London, state officials said Wednesday. Saldana is expected to be on hand when state officials give details of the transfer at a downtown Los Angeles news conference today.

Two girls ages 12 and 13 were accused of kicking a 13-year-old girl to death in a fight at a fairground. The accused, who were not identified because of their ages, were charged with manslaughter in the death of Louise Allen in Corby, about 90 miles north of London. The slain youth reportedly was trying to stop a fight Monday when she was surrounded by about 30 girls and beaten.

The principal of a London school died after being stabbed in the chest trying to save one of his students from a youth gang. Philip Lawrence, 48 and a father of four, raced out of his school in Maida Vale in west London when he saw bandanna-wearing youths attack the student as he left school Friday. Lawrence was stabbed once in the chest. He was taken to a hospital after open-heart surgery at the scene but died eight hours later. Teachers have complained that attacks on teachers are on the rise.

The moment was so exhilarating that the well-bred Alex Scott forgot his English drawing-room manners. When Sheikh Albadou, a 3-year-old colt, hit the wire three lengths ahead of Pleasant Tap in the 1991 Sprint Stakes, becoming the first European horse to win a Breeders' Cup race on dirt, a euphoric Scott raced down from his box seat to track level at Churchill Downs, while shouting a salty anti-American epithet in the direction of trainer Wayne Lukas.

For the British, it is the most intriguing murder mystery of the century, with enough sensational elements of class and criminality to satisfy any tabloid editor's dream. The story: Richard John Bingham, dashing seventh Earl of Lucan and a gambling rakehell whose great-great-grandfather ordered the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War, allegedly tries to murder his wife, the Countess, but kills the nanny instead by mistake.

A Cabinet minister has nearly doubled the minimum sentence to be served by two boys convicted of kidnaping and murdering a 2-year-old boy in a case that horrified Britain. Home Secretary Michael Howard, after a campaign for longer sentences by the victim's parents, set minimum terms of 15 years for Robert Thompson and Jon Venables. In February, 1993, the boys, both 10 at the time, lured James Bulger from a shopping center in Liverpool, killed him and left his body on a railroad track.

As politicians, police and psychiatrists searched for clues to why two schoolboys brutally murdered 2-year-old James Bulger, his grief-stricken family swore revenge if his 11-year-old killers are ever freed. The parents of the murderers, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, feared reprisals and began living at secret addresses, their lawyer said. After a three-week trial, the boys were sentenced to the juvenile equivalent of a life sentence, but Bulger's family said no punishment was too harsh.

Two 11-year-old boys were convicted and imprisoned indefinitely Wednesday for luring a toddler from his mother and beating him to death with bricks and an iron bar. The savagery of 2-year-old James Bulger's death at the hands of the defendants, who were 10 at the time of the Feb. 12 killing, stunned Britain and set off nationwide soul-searching over the rise in juvenile violence.