Saturday, August 25, 2007

Sex Offender to Be Executed Over Florida Girl's Slaying

INVERNESS, Fla. -- A convicted sex offender was sentenced to death for kidnapping 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, raping her and burying her alive in his yard.

John Evander Couey looked straight ahead as Circuit Judge Ric Howard told him Friday that he should be executed for the 2005 crimes, which led to new laws in many states cracking down on convicted sex offenders.

The jury that convicted Couey in March recommended that he die for his crimes, but the decision was left to Howard.

The jury convicted Couey, 49, of taking the girl in February 2005 from her bedroom to his nearby trailer, prompting an extensive search.

The third-grader's body was found, about three weeks after she disappeared, in a grave in Couey's yard -- about 150 yards from her home.

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� ATLANTA -- The minister husband of evangelist and gospel singer Juanita Bynum turned himself in to face charges that he beat her. He was later released on bond but was ordered to have no contact with his wife. Thomas W. Weeks III, known to his followers as Bishop Weeks, faces charges of aggravated assault and terroristic threats after a confrontation outside a hotel earlier this week in which police said he left his estranged wife badly bruised.

� JACKSON, Miss. -- James Ford Seale, a reputed Ku Klux Klansman, was sentenced to three life terms for his role in the 1964 abduction and murder of two black teenagers in southwest Mississippi. Seale, 72, was convicted in June on federal charges of kidnapping and conspiracy in the deaths of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee, both 19, who disappeared from Franklin County on May 2, 1964.

� CANTON, Ohio -- A police officer pleaded not guilty in the killing of his pregnant girlfriend, whose toddler son gave investigators some of their strongest clues. Bobby Cutts Jr., charged with aggravated murder in the deaths of Jessie Davis and her unborn daughter, nodded to his parents and his pastor in the makeshift courtroom at the Stark County jail.

� SAN DIEGO -- A federal bankruptcy judge ordered immediate jury trials in 42 sex-abuse lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego. Trials in five cases had been suspended in February, when the diocese filed for bankruptcy protection the night before the first trial was slated to begin. The diocese and the plaintiffs remain far apart on a settlement after more than three years of negotiations, and plaintiffs' attorneys told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Louise DeCarl Adler that letting those trials go forward is the only path toward resolving the impasse.

� CAPE CANAVERAL -- NASA will replace cracked adhesive beneath the foam insulation on the fuel tanks of the space shuttles in an effort to eliminate a problem that damaged Endeavour's heat shield earlier this month, the space agency said. The work is not expected to delay the next shuttle launch, scheduled for Oct. 23, officials said.

-- From News Services