Prisoners New York State

Wanda Walkowicz was found dead in Webster. Michelle Maenza's body was dumped in Macedon. And Carmen Colon's was discovered near Churchville. More than 22 years later, acting on a tip from a prison informant, investigators are revisiting the "double-initial murders." All three girls--Wanda and Michelle were 11, Carmen was 10--had first and last names with the same initial and were abducted not far from their homes while running late-afternoon errands to the store for their mothers.

A two-time killer who was at the center of a tug-of-war between Gov. Mario M. Cuomo and Oklahoma's governor was sent to the Sooner State on Wednesday to face execution, just days after Cuomo left office. During his successful campaign for governor last year against Cuomo, Republican George Pataki vowed to send the prisoner, Thomas Grasso, 31, back to Oklahoma and reinstate New York's death penalty. Grasso and Oklahoma Gov.

The kingpin of a drug ring that used Hasidic Jews to smuggle more than 1 million ecstasy pills from the Netherlands to the United States pleaded guilty. Sean Erez, 31, faces up to 20 years in prison and $1 million in fines when he is sentenced Oct. 11 for conspiring to import the drug. Federal officials described Erez as one of the biggest importers of ecstasy, a synthetic drug that combines the effects of amphetamines and hallucinogens.

New York state agreed Tuesday to pay $8 million to inmates caught up in the 1971 Attica riot, settling a 25-year-old lawsuit over the nation's deadliest prison uprising. The money will go to 1,280 inmates--or their survivors--who claimed they were tortured, beaten and denied medical treatment in the aftermath of the revolt and authorities' bloody efforts to put it down. The original class-action suit, filed in 1974, sought $100 million.

Suspected serial killer Gary Evans leaped to his death during an escape attempt as he was being driven back to jail from a federal courthouse in Albany, N.Y., the U.S. Marshal's Service said. Evans, who was handcuffed and shackled, smashed a window as the van was crossing a bridge over the Hudson River. He then dove off the side of the bridge, fell about 65 feet and landed on rocks at the river's edge in about a foot of water. Evans, 43, was dead when the marshals reached his body.

A judge on Thursday opened the way for Amy Fisher's possible parole within days after the so-called Long Island Lolita apologized in court to Mary Jo Buttafuoco, the woman she shot in a jealous rage. "What happened to you, it wasn't your husband's fault . . . it wasn't my father's fault. It was my fault, and I'm sorry," Fisher, 24, said in a barely audible voice, looking directly at Buttafuoco.

A parole board has voted to release Amy Fisher after nearly seven years in prison for shooting her lover's wife in the face, Associated Press has learned. A state official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Wednesday that a three-member panel voted, 2-1, to release Fisher. She is expected to be freed next week. Fisher, 24, was interviewed by the panel Tuesday at Albion Correctional Facility in western New York and was to be notified today of its decision.