Murders Louisiana

Four leaders of Colombia's major cocaine cartel and an associate of Bahamas Prime Minister Lynden Pindling have been charged by a federal grand jury with cocaine smuggling and conducting a 15-year conspiracy that involved the assassination of a top Colombian official and the murder of a drug informant in Baton Rouge, La. The indictment, unsealed Wednesday in Jacksonville, Fla.

A man convicted of killing an elderly couple 14 years ago was released, joining his alleged accomplice in freedom after DNA tests pointed to their innocence. District Judge Cynthia Woodard agreed with prosecutors who said there wasn't enough physical evidence tying Albert Burrell, 45, to the 1987 slayings of William and Callie Frost. Alleged accomplice Michael Graham Jr., 37, was freed last week. DNA tests of blood found at the Frosts' home proved it did not match the blood of Burrell or Graham.

Heavily armed policemen sealed off a 12-block area Wednesday night after hearing sporadic gunfire in a riot-scarred neighborhood where a white woman allegedly shot a black man to death 24 hours earlier. An emergency zone was expanded late Wednesday night in the Cedar Grove section soon after police rerouted traffic off a busy thoroughfare where blacks were throwing stones, bottles and bricks at passing cars.

Michael Roy Graham Jr. walked through the Louisiana State Penitentiary gates a free man after the murder convictions that put him on death row for 13 years were dismissed, officials said. His release came one day after the state attorney general's office dismissed charges that he and co-defendant Albert Ronnie Burrell murdered an elderly couple in 1986.

An Inglewood gang member who escaped from a Southern California prison where he was sentenced for manslaughter was being sought by police in Shreveport, La., in connection with a recent drug-related murder. Detective A.J. Price identified the suspect as Roy (JoJo) Ward, 18, a member of the Bloods gang. Ward is believed to be the triggerman in the weekend killing of Jessie Hall, Price said. Elijah Johnson, 17, of Shreveport, was charged last week with second-degree murder in the shooting.

The latest fatality in escalating gang violence in Shreveport, La., has been identified as a 24-year-old Los Angeles man who had been sought by police as a suspect in a 1988 drive-by murder in the South-Central Los Angeles area. For the last year, police said, the suspect, Larry Alonzo Winters, had been living in Shreveport under the name "Dante Ford," becoming one of the leaders of a Crips faction whose war with another gang is believed responsible for scores of drive-by shootings.

The voice on the tape belongs to Officer Len Davis, but it sounds more like that of a gangster than a cop. "Man, that whore's standing out there right now with a black (expletive) coat on . . . with her (expletive) hair in that little bob . . . with (expletive) jeans on . . . standing in the middle of the (expletive) street," Davis barked into a cellular phone from behind the wheel of his squad car last October. "Get that whore!"

A policewoman was convicted Monday of killing a former partner and two other people during an attempted robbery at a restaurant. Antoinette Frank faces execution or life in prison at her sentencing today on three counts of first-degree murder. Officer Ronald Williams, a former partner who was moonlighting as a guard at the Kim Anh Restaurant, and two of the owners' children--Cuong Vu, 18, and Ha Vu, 24--were killed March 4.

A man involved in a fistfight stepped out of a crowd Monday as a Martin Luther King Day parade marched past and shot another man to death, wounding three children who were in his way. "We have a suspect, but not in hand," Police Chief Greg Phares told reporters. He said the gunman and all of his victims were black. "It appears there was no racial or political or hate-crime motive. It appears to have stemmed from a personal dispute."

Two men and a teenager were arrested in connection with a triple murder and robbery at a popular pizza restaurant in New Orleans' French Quarter. Malcolm Hill and Phillip Anthony, both 23, and a 16-year-old youth were booked on three counts of first-degree murder and one of attempted first-degree murder. Police said Hill, a dishwasher at Louisiana Pizza Kitchen, and his accomplices walked into the restaurant and, after robbing it, forced four employees into a walk-in cooler and shot them.

A prosecutor in Lake Charles, La., vowed to retry award-winning jailhouse journalist Wilbert Rideau, 58, to keep him in prison for the 1961 murder of a bank teller. Rideau's conviction for abducting and killing bank teller Julia Ferguson was overturned last week by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which said blacks had been improperly excluded from the grand jury that indicted Rideau, who is black. The 20-member jury had only one black member. Dist. Atty.

Was that Jesse James Caston, one of the FBI's 10 most wanted fugitives, getting gas last month at a Westminster service station? FBI officials said Tuesday that it might have been, based on a solid eyewitness sighting and other information--including his new work boots.

A Louisiana fisherman was charged with second-degree murder Monday for allegedly killing his captain in a dramatic fight for the only life jacket aboard their sinking shrimp boat. Alvin Latham, 46, has been jailed on $200,000 bail for the death of Raymond Leiker on the night of July 16 in stormy seas off the Louisiana coast, said John Marie, spokesman for the Plaquemines Parish Sheriff's Department. Latham, who survived without the life jacket, faces up to life in prison if convicted.

A gunman kicked open the doors of a church during services and marched down the aisle, killing his wife, 2-year-old son and another person as he fired into the pews while screaming parishioners scattered, police and witnesses said. "His little boy turned and said, 'Daddy.' That's when he shot. He hit his wife first and then the baby," congregation member Lolita Enkadi said. "And then he just started emptying his gun." Shon Miller's 25-year-old wife, Carla; their son, Shon Jr.

The Supreme Court refused Monday to block a lawsuit at its preliminary stage that seeks to hold filmmaker Oliver Stone liable for a young couple's murderous rampage in Louisiana and Mississippi. The damage claim, filed on behalf of one victim's family, maintains that Stone's 1994 movie "Natural Born Killers" was intended to incite others to go on violent crime sprees.

A doctor was convicted of attempted second-degree murder for injecting his former lover with blood from an AIDS patient, infecting her with the virus that causes the disease. A jury found Dr. Richard Schmidt guilty of walking into Janice Allen's darkened apartment on Aug. 4, 1994, and injected her with the tainted blood. Schmidt, 52, faces life in prison. Prosecutors said Schmidt injected her after Allen, 34, told him that their relationship was over after 10 years.

President Clinton met Tuesday with the parents of a 16-year-old Japanese exchange student who was shot and killed by a Louisiana homeowner who mistook him for an intruder. Masaichi and Mieko Hattori spent about 15 minutes with Clinton at the White House talking about their son, Yoshihiro. The teen-ager was killed in October, 1992, when he and another student, Webb Haymaker, mistakenly knocked on the door of Rodney Peairs' house while looking for a nearby Halloween costume party.

The Supreme Court refused Monday to block a lawsuit at its preliminary stage that seeks to hold filmmaker Oliver Stone liable for a young couple's murderous rampage in Louisiana and Mississippi. The damage claim, filed on behalf of one victim's family, maintains that Stone's 1994 movie "Natural Born Killers" was intended to incite others to go on violent crime sprees.

Two murder suspects wanted by the FBI were seen in Anaheim last week, thrown out of Knott's Berry Farm on Wednesday and arrested in Nevada on Thursday, FBI officials said. Travis Johnson, 18, and Gary Harrall, 21, are suspected of killing two men in Louisiana in late May and early June, authorities said. Johnson and Harrall were reportedly seen in an Anaheim pawnshop last week and later traced to an Anaheim hotel, said Tim White, a special agent with the FBI in Santa Ana.

A college student was arrested and accused of murder in the shooting that killed one man and wounded three children at a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday parade in Baton Rouge. Brandon Johnson, 19, a student at predominantly black Southern University, was booked on murder and attempted murder charges for the shooting that scattered the crowd of 500 marching during the King Day ceremonies.