The Daily Blog

Grand Rapids Shooting: Suspect In Michigan Rampage Commits Suicide.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A gunman opened fire in two Michigan homes Thursday, killing seven people before leading police on a high-speed chase through downtown Grand Rapids and taking three hostages. The standoff ended when he killed himself with a gunshot to the head, authorities said.

The hostages were released unharmed.

Authorities did not have a motive for the suspect, 34-year-old Rodrick Shonte Dantzler, or disclose his exact relationship with those he killed.

The manhunt for Dantzler began after four people were found dead in one home and three were discovered in another across town. Two of the dead were children.

“We believe there were prior relationships with at least one person at each location, so we think there were some difficulties there,” Police Chief Kevin Belk said.

Following the discovery of the bodies, Dantzler led officers on a chase, crashed his car and then took the hostages, police said.

Dozens of officers with guns drawn cordoned off a neighborhood near a small lake in the northern part of the city and shut down nearby Interstate 96.

Records show Dantzler was released from state prison in 2005 after serving time for assault less than murder. A spokesman for the prison system said he had not been under state supervision since then.

At one point during the chase, the suspect crossed a wide grassy median on the interstate and drove the wrong way down the highway while more than a dozen squad cars pursued him. Belk said he crashed the vehicle while driving down an embankment into a wooded area of the highway, which remained closed hours later.

Two other people were shot when the suspect fired at police during the chase, but their wounds were not considered life-threatening. One man was wounded in what Belk described as a “road rage” attack after the suspect fired through the rear window of the vehicle. A woman was hit in the arm in a separate shooting.

The names of the dead were not immediately released. Autopsies were scheduled for Friday.

Carrie Colacchio lives a little more than a mile away from the hostage situation and said she was driving in the area when the suspect’s vehicle blew through.

“I looked in my rearview mirror and see this big white SUV coming up behind me,” she said. “The only way to get out of it was to push the gas pedal.”

She couldn’t turn off the road or slow down or go any other way and reached about 85 mph.

“I almost got smacked,” she said. “I had to go up on the curb.”

Sandra Powney lives across the street from one of the homes where the shootings happened and said she had seen Dantzler at the ranch house, where a couple has lived for more than 20 years with two adult daughters.

Powney said she had been at home all day and did not realize anyone had been killed until police arrived at the cul-de-sac in the midafternoon.

“For a while we couldn’t come outside,” she said. “They didn’t know if there was someone still inside the house.”

Neighbors said police congregated at Dantzler’s home a few miles away after the shootings.

Sonia Bergers said Dantzler lived with a woman she assumed was his wife and their daughter, a girl who appeared to be about 10 years old.

Mary Lahuis and her husband had just returned home after having coffee at a nearby fast-food restaurant when police began running down their street with guns, yelling at people to get in their homes.

Of Dantzler she said: “You would see him going up and down the street. And you’d hear him going up and down the street.”

Lisa Schenden lives with her husband and their children two blocks from the home where four people were killed. She said the homeowners are a couple whose daughter has a daughter with the suspect.

Schenden said she did not hear the shooting either, but she saw the suspect and his daughter drive up to the house earlier in the day.

“Just last night, my kids went over there swimming, and I went over with them,” she said.

Outside the two-story, wood-sided home where the three people were killed, neighbors stood in clumps Thursday evening, quietly talking as investigators scoured the house. As officers left, people disappeared indoors and a single police car remained on the block.

The only indication of anything unusual was three bouquets of flowers on the porch steps.

Russia Plane Crash Kills 44, Officials Say.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — A passenger jet crashed in heavy fog late Monday on a highway in northwestern Russia, killing 44 people, officials said. Eight people survived the crash.

The Tu-134 plane, belonging to the RusAir airline, was en route from Moscow to the city of Petrozavodsk, Emergencies Ministry spokeswoman Olga Semyonova told The Associated Press.

Her ministry said in a website statement that 44 people were killed. Eight survivors, including a 10-year-old boy, were hospitalized in critical condition in Petrozavodsk.

Semyonova said the plane went down on its final approach to the airport in Petrozavodsk, making a crash landing one to two kilometers (about a mile) short of the runway. It was unclear if the plane had attempted to land on the road, or just happened to fall there, she said. Petrozavodsk is in Karelia province, near the Finnish border, about 400 miles (640 kilometers) northwest of Moscow.

Authorities had no immediate explanation for the accident, but the Interfax news agency quoted the airport director Alexei Kuzmitsky as saying there were “unfavorable weather conditions.”

Russian news agencies reported there may have also been problems with runway illumination.

Photographs on the ministry website showed fragments of metal strewn across a road as a thick fog hung over woodland in the background. A landing gear jutting out from the ground was the only recognizable plane part.

The plane was carrying 52 people, including nine crew members, Semyonova said. Russian news agencies said Russian Premier League soccer referee Vladimir Pettay and a Swedish citizen were among the victims.

The Karelia branch of the Emergencies Ministry said radio contact with the pilot was lost at 11:40 p.m. local time (7:30 p.m. EDT, 1940 GMT). The black box flight data recorders have been recovered, the news agencies said.

The accident occurred on the eve of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s planned appearance Tuesday at the Paris Air Show to support dozens of Russian firms seeking sales contracts.

Russia and the other former Soviet republics have some of the world’s worst air traffic safety records, according to the International Air Transport Association. Experts blame weak government controls, poor pilot training and a cost-cutting mentality for the poor safety record, leading to emergency landings being reported with alarming regularity.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski was among 96 people killed when his Tu-154 crashed in heavy fog while trying to land near the western city of Smolensk in April 2010. In 2006, three crashes – two in Russia and one in Ukraine – killed more than 400 people.

Explosions In Pakistan Kill At Least 34 As CIA Director Leon Panetta Visits Islamabad.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Two explosions went off minutes apart in the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar Sunday, killing 34 people and injuring nearly 100 in one of the deadliest attacks since the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden last month, officials said.

The blasts, one of which was caused by a suicide bomber, occurred just after midnight in an area of the city that is home to political offices and army housing.

The attack took place as CIA Director Leon Panetta and Afghan President Hamid Karzai visited Islamabad, 95 miles (150 kilometers) to the east, to speak separately with senior Pakistani officials about intelligence sharing and efforts to reconcile with the Taliban.

The first explosion was relatively small and drew police and rescue workers to the site, said Dost Mohammed, a senior local police official. A large explosion rocked the area a few minutes later, causing the fatalities and injuring 98 people, 18 critically, said Rahim Jan, a senior doctor at a local hospital.

The second blast was caused by a suicide bomber riding a motorcycle packed with 22 pounds (10 kilograms) of explosives, said Ejaz Khan, a senior police official. The source of the first explosion was unknown.

No group claimed responsibility, but the Pakistani Taliban have pledged to carry out attacks in retaliation for the covert U.S. Navy SEAL raid that killed bin Laden in an army town outside Islamabad on May 2.

Saturday’s attack took place across the street from the offices of the top political agent to Khyber, part of Pakistan’s volatile tribal region, and only about 100 yards from army housing units. Peshawar borders the tribal region and has been repeatedly hit by bombings over the past few years.

The dead included at least one journalist, said Mohammed Farooq, a hospital doctor. Another four journalists and at least 10 police were injured, he said. Many of the people killed were so badly burned they were difficult to identify.

Jamal Khan, a 22-year-old student, was in his apartment when the first blast went off. He rushed to the scene as the second explosion occurred, peppering his face and arms with flying debris.

“The explosion was so huge I will never forget it all my life,” said Khan as he recovered in a hospital. “It was deafening, and then there was a cloud of dust and smoke. When the dust settled, I saw people crying for help and body parts scattered everywhere.”

The attack followed a second day of meetings between Panetta, the CIA chief, and senior Pakistani officials. The talks were slated to focus on the size and scope of U.S. intelligence activities in the wake of the raid that killed bin Laden, said a Pakistani official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The bin Laden operation plunged an already strained relationship between the CIA and Pakistan’s main intelligence agency, the ISI, to new lows and threatened cooperation that is key to the U.S. fight against al-Qaida and Taliban militants battling foreign troops in Afghanistan.

The U.S. also needs Pakistan’s help to promote and guide negotiations with the Taliban that can help end the decade-long Afghan war. Pakistan and Afghanistan inaugurated a joint peace commission Saturday during a visit by Karzai, the Afghan president.

In an attempt to rebuild their relationship, Washington and Islamabad have agreed to form a joint intelligence team to track down militant targets inside Pakistan, drawing in part from the trove of records taken from bin Laden’s personal office during the raid.

Panetta and Pakistani officials planned to discuss what U.S. intelligence officers will be permitted to do, and how many will be allowed into the country as part of the team, said the Pakistani official.

But new suspicions have marred this attempt at renewed cooperation.

As an act of faith to restore relations with the Pakistanis, U.S. intelligence shared the suspected location of explosive material held by the al-Qaida-linked Haqqani network at two compounds in the Pakistani tribal areas, according to a Pakistani and a U.S. official.

The U.S. official said that after the intelligence was shared, the explosive material was moved. The Pakistani official told The Associated Press that they checked out the locations, but nothing was there, and that they intend to investigate to dispel U.S. suspicions that the Pakistani intelligence service had tipped off the militants.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence operations.

Panetta’s visit is his first to Pakistan since the bin Laden raid. His ties with Pakistan will be key in his new role as U.S. defense secretary, presuming he is speedily confirmed by Congress.

The U.S. wants the proposed joint intelligence team under discussion Saturday to pursue a list of five high-value targets it handed to the Pakistani leadership recently. The target list included al-Qaida’s military operations chief in Pakistan, Ilyas Kashmiri, who was reportedly killed by a drone strike in the Pakistani tribal areas June 3.

Karzai pressed Pakistan for support in facilitating negotiations with Taliban militants with whom the Pakistani government has historical ties.

There is a significant level of distrust between the two countries, but Pakistan promised to help as Afghanistan sees fit.

“We both want stability in Afghanistan and in Pakistan,” said Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in a news conference held with Karzai after the first meeting of the joint peace commission. “Our only aim is to support the peace process, which is Afghan-led.”

Virginia Bus Crash on I-95 Kills 4, Leaves Over 50 Injured.

A commercial tour bus traveling to New York City went off Interstate 95 in Virginia and flipped on its roof before dawn Tuesday, killing four people and injuring many more, state police said.

Sgt. Thomas Molnar says 58 people were on board, including the driver. The injured were taken to 11 Richmond and Fredericksburg-area hospitals. Duffel bags, luggage and broken glass still littered the highway hours after the crash.

The Sky Express Inc. bus was en route from Greensboro, N.C., to New York City’s Chinatown when it strayed off the interstate, hit an embankment and flipped, Molnar told reporters at a briefing. The bus has since been righted but remains at the scene.

The bus left Greensboro at 10:30 p.m. Monday night. It had seatbelts for the driver but not for the passengers.
State police believe the likely cause was driver fatigue but are still investigating, Molnar said. He said the driver, who hasn’t been identified, suffered minor injuries and is cooperating with the probe. The driver has not been charged, Molnar said.

The deaths come about two and a half months after a horrific New York City accident that focused attention on bus safety. In that March 12 crash, a speeding bus returning to Chinatown from a Connecticut casino toppled off an elevated highway and hit a utility pole, peeling off the roof. Fifteen passengers were killed and 18 injured.

Federal authorities say nearly 2,800 spot safety checks of passenger buses across the country from March 28 through April 6 resulted in about 10 percent of the vehicles or drivers being taken off the road.

David Wong, a manager in the Sky Express office in Charlotte, N.C., declined to comment. A telephone message left Tuesday for his attorney, Ruth Yang, wasn’t immediately returned.

Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center has 10 people in stable condition, but no details were released about the extent of their injuries. VCU spokeswoman Anne Buckley says the hospital expects more patients to be transferred there from other hospitals.

Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg treated eight patients, whose injuries ranged from critical to minor. Spokeswoman Deborah Morris says one has been released. Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center officials said in a release that it treated eight people for minor injuries.

The accident shut down the northbound lanes of I-95, which weren’t expected to reopen for several hours.

Omar Bin Laden, Osama Bin Laden Son: Sea Burial Demeaning, Killing ‘Criminal’: Report

A statement purporting to come from a son of Osama bin Laden denounced the al Qaeda leader’s killing as “criminal” and said his burial at sea had humiliated the family, an online monitoring service said.

The statement, attributed to Omar bin Laden, bin Laden’s fourth eldest son, said the al Qaeda chief’s children reserved the right to take legal action in the United States and internationally to “determine the true fate of our vanished father,” the SITE Intelligence Group said.

There was no independent confirmation of the authenticity of the letter, published on the website of Islamist ideologue Abu Walid al-Masri, although several specialists on militant propaganda said the text appeared genuine.

Omar bin Laden, who has been based in the Gulf in recent years, did not immediately respond to emailed and telephoned requests for comment.

The letter said, in part: “We hold the American President (Barack) Obama legally responsible to clarify the fate of our father, Osama bin Laden, for it is unacceptable, humanely and religiously, to dispose of a person with such importance and status among his people, by throwing his body into the sea in that way, which demeans and humiliates his family and his supporters and which challenges religious provisions and feelings of hundreds of millions of Muslims.”

The letter said the U.S. administration had offered no proof to back up its account of the mission. It alleged the goal of the raid had been to kill and not arrest, adding that afterwards the American commandos had “rushed to dispose of the body.”

Some Muslims have misgivings about how U.S. forces killed bin Laden in a raid in Pakistan on May 2 and disposed of his body in the ocean.

Questions have multiplied since the White House said the al Qaeda leader was unarmed when U.S. helicopter-borne commandos raided the villa where he was hiding in the city of Abbottabad.

Bin Laden’s swift burial at sea, in what many Muslims say was a violation of Islamic custom, has also stirred anger.

Veteran Afghan Pilot Fires on NATO Troops, Killing Several.

KABUL, Afghanistan - A veteran Afghan military officer opened fire on foreign forces Wednesday after a dispute at the Kabul airport, killing several NATO troops, Afghan and coalition officials said.

It was the latest in a spate of deadly incidents that have occurred inside government or military installations, a favorite target of Taliban insurgents.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, but Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said the gunman was an Afghan military pilot who “opened fire on foreigners after an argument.”

The pilot was killed in the shooting, which occurred inside a facility used by the Afghan Air Force, Azimi said.

NATO did not disclose the number or nationalities of the casualties pending notification of their families. The airport is home to the NATO Air Training Command.

Lt. Col. David Simons, a spokesman for the NATO training mission, said small arms fire was reported at the airport at about 10:25 a.m. local time.

“A quick-reaction force responded to the incident,” he said. “At this time there are reports of NATO casualties.”

Azimi said the shooter was a military pilot of 20 years. “An argument happened between him and the foreigners and we have to investigate that.”

An Afghan pilot who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the gunman was Ahmad Gul, a 50-year-old pilot from Tarakhail district of Kabul province.

In a statement, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed the gunman was impersonating an army officer and that others at the facility helped him gain access. The gunman killed nine foreigners and five Afghan soldiers, he said. The Taliban often exaggerate the number of casualties caused by their attacks.

Since March 2009, the coalition has recorded 20 incidents where a member of the Afghan security forces or someone wearing a uniform used by them attacked coalition forces, killing a total of 36.

According to information compiled by NATO, half of the 20 incidents involved the impersonation of an Afghan policeman or soldier. The cause of the other 10 incidents were attributed to combat stress or unknown reasons. The officers insisted that so far, there is no solid information that an insurgent was directed to join the army for the purpose of conducting attacks.

NATO officials said that in recent incidents:

-An Afghan man wearing a border police uniform who shot and killed two American military personnel April 4 in northwest Faryab province was upset over the burning of the Quran at a Florida church.

-An Afghan soldier who shot and killed three German soldiers and wounded six others Feb. 18 in northern Baghlan province felt he had been personally offended by his German partners.

-An Afghan border policeman who gunned down six American soldiers Nov. 29, 2010 in eastern Nangarhar province was suffering from personal stress because his father was forcing him into an arranged marriage.

It is not known how many of the 282,000 members of the Afghan security forces have been killed in these type of incidents.

A man in an Afghan army uniform penetrated to the heart of the Afghan Defense Ministry compound on April 18 and gunned down two Afghan soldiers.

Illinois Man Accused of Killing 3 Women, Taping Attack.

CHICAGO - Prosecutors said Wednesday that a suburban Chicago man charged with killing three young women, including two whom he met on telephone chat lines and a neighborhood teen he’s accused of having videotaped sex with after her death, may have more victims.

Sonny Pierce, 27, of the Chicago suburb of Blue Island, faces three counts of first-degree murder. A judge ordered him held without bail during a court appearance Wednesday. A public defender who was in court with Pierce declined comment.

Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, in announcing the charges, pointed to a “pattern” of behavior that allegedly stretched for about a year before Pierce’s arrest on another sexual assault. Authorities have not identified any victims besides the three at this time, but believe there could be more.

“We would like to hear from anyone out there who has had previous contact with Pierce or any other young woman who may have been potential victims, or any families who are missing a loved one,” Alvarez said at a news conference.

Investigators said the body of one of the women Pierce is charged with killing has never been found, and it took nearly a year to identify the remains of a second victim. This leads those working the case to think there might be additional victims.

“It is our obligation to try to identify any other women who may have been victimized,” Alvarez said.

Two of the young women were killed in August 2009. Prosecutors said Kiara Windom and Kimika Coleman, both 18, were slain within a span of about three weeks. Authorities allege Pierce lured both to his apartment, strangled them and dumped their bodies in alleys.

Alvarez said phone records show Pierce had conversations with both women. Windom’s cell phone records show she and Pierce talked about 20 times, the prosecutor said.

Investigators first interviewed Pierce in 2009 in the slaying of Coleman. They said Pierce admitted he had sex with her but told them he dropped her off on a street corner in Blue Island and drove back home.

Pierce’s name surfaced again in July of last year after investigators identified Windom’s body and determined she, like Coleman, had talked with Windom on the phone.

Around the same time, Pierce was arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl. Authorities allege that he lured her into his car, drove her to his home, dragged her inside, choked her until she lost consciousness and sexually assaulted her.

The girl survived and authorities say she identified Pierce as her attacker. He was arrested a short time later.

Investigators made a chilling discovery when searching Pierce’s home, according to court documents. They said they found a videotape believed to be from July 2, 2010, that shows Pierce having sex with the lifeless body of a young woman.

She was later identified as 17-year-old Mariah Edwards, who lived in the same suburb as Pierce, Alvarez said.According to the court documents, Pierce admitted having sex with Edwards “despite her cries for help” in his apartment while other men looked on. Investigators said he told them he and the other men beat Edwards to death, put her body in a garbage bag and dumped it.

But authorities said Pierce has refused to say where the body was taken. No others have been charged.

In addition to the phone records, Alvarez said investigators have found DNA evidence linking Pierce to two of the slayings.

Alvarez also said the slayings, particularly the ones in which the victims allegedly met Pierce over the phone, underline concerns about the safety of young women.

“These are all young girls, and I think with the social media and network and chat lines it just reminds us how dangerous that is,” she said.

14-year-old to be tried as adult in killing of Cheltenham teacher.

The young teen accused of killing a teacher at the troubled Cheltenham juvenile detention facility has been charged as an adult with first-degree murder and attempted first-degree rape. He was ordered jailed without bond Wednesday. The charges come after Prince George’s County Judge C. Philip Nichols Jr. ruled that Brian Lee Wonsom, now 14, could be tried as an adult. He was 13 at the time of the attack. Wonsom is charged in the killing of Hannah Wheeling, 65, a teacher from Bel Air whose bludgeoned and partially clothed body was found Feb. 18, 2010, at the Cheltenham Youth Facility in Prince George’s County. The Laurel youth was being held there on burglary charges. If convicted, Wonsom could be sentenced to life in prison. Prosecutors have not decided whether to seek life without parole. If the case were tried in juvenile court and Wonsom found responsible for the crime, the sentence would be served in a juvenile facility, and he would be released when he reached the age of 21. In Nichols’ ruling, which was not made public but was obtained by The Baltimore Sun, the judge expressed concerns over dangers that Wonsom might face in an adult prison. But, he wrote: “The court is simply not prepared to accept the risk of his premature release at age 21 on the chance that he would be willing to end his destructive behavior to those around him.” The judge noted that none of the juvenile facilities approached was willing to accept Wonsom. Nichols’ ruling cannot be appealed before trial. A public defender had argued during hearings that the teen should be tried as a juvenile. “[Wonsom] is emotionally, chronologically, biologically and neurologically a 14-year-old. He is probably even younger than that when you take into consideration the problems he has,” his attorney, Allen E. Wolf, said Friday. “Putting this child in an adult prison is not suddenly going to make him an adult,” Wolf said. “This is a critical time for him if he were in a juvenile facility to be rehabilitated and treated, and now that time is going to be wasted.” Prosecutors had argued that Wonsom’s problems began years ago and that he had grown increasingly violent. “This has been a tough and arduous process,” said Ramon Korionoff, a spokesman for State’s Attorney Angela D. Alsobrooks. “We strive very strongly to hold defendants accountable. This is a necessary step to gain full justice for Hannah Wheeling.” Security lapses uncovered at the Cheltenham facility after Wheeling’s death led to a staff shake-up, including the demotion of the superintendent, the firing of two staff members and the suspension of two others. The incident led to the closing of the Re-Direct program Wonsom was in, which, though considered secure, was outside Cheltenham’s barbed wire. In his ruling, Nichols wrote that he “sadly” concluded that Wonsom should be tried as an adult mostly because of the nature of the crime and public safety concerns.

Lawyer: Van der Sloot to Plead Temporary Insanity.

LIMA, Peru — Joran van der Sloot plans to plead guilty to killing a young Peruvian woman he met gambling but will argue temporary insanity in a bid to significantly shorten his sentence, his defense lawyer said Monday.

Van der Sloot, the key suspect in the 2005 disappearance of U.S. teenager Natalee Holloway on the Caribbean island of Aruba, will use a “violent emotion” defense in the slaying of Stephany Flores, attorney Maximo Altez told The Associated Press.

Altez said he filed papers three weeks ago informing prosecutors of his intent to argue that Van der Sloot became enraged and killed the 21-year-old Peruvian business student last May 30 because she had learned of his relation to Holloway by looking in his laptop.The 23-year-old Dutchman is accused of first-degree murder, which carries a 15- to 35-year sentence on conviction.

The “violent emotion” plea is typically used in Peru for crimes of passion where a spouse, for example, is surprised in the act of adultery.

If it were to be accepted by a trial judge, Van der Sloot would be sentenced to 3 to 5 years, and Altez said his client could be freed in 20 months.

Peruvian judges and prosecutors rarely speak publicly about their cases and it was not known how they would react to Van der Sloot’s planned plea.

A prominent defense lawyer not involved in the case, Mario Amoretti, told the AP that much would rest on how judges received the opinions of psychologists and other experts about the emotional state and history of Van der Sloot.The lawyer for the victim’s family called the proposed plea absurd, saying that given all the factors of the case, Van der Sloot deserved to spend a minimum of 25 years in prison.

“The manner in which the suspect killed Stephany evidenced disproportionate violence,” attorney Edward Alvarez said.

The young woman - who was killed in Van der Sloot’s Lima hotel room five years to the day after Holloway disappeared - was bludgeoned and asphyxiated, according to the coroner’s report.

Alvarez said Van der Sloot also stole money and other items from Flores before fleeing south from the Peruvian capital to Chile, where he was later captured by police.

In a signed confession last year, Van der Sloot described slamming Flores in the face with his right elbow, strangling her for a full minute then taking off his shirt and asphyxiating her. He also contended Flores threw the first blow.

Van der Sloot has admitted, however, to being a congenital liar.

He has several times confessed then recanted a role in the disappearance of Holloway, an 18-year-old Alabama student who was visiting Aruba on a high school graduation trip with classmates when she meet Van der Sloot at a casino.

Because of delays in Peru’s judicial process that Alvarez blamed on the defense, Van der Sloot has not yet been formally charged.

The young Dutchman remains in Lima’s Castro Castro prison, where his lawyer says he gives English lessons to other inmates.

An attorney for Holloway’s mother, Beth Twitty, said she considered the planned plea “outrageous.” Twitty knows the Flores family will never accept it and she plans to “make whatever noise she has to” to make sure it doesn’t happen, the lawyer, John Kelly, added.”He’s a very slippery, smart criminal,” Kelly said of Van der Sloot, adding that any suggestion he “flipped out for a moment” in killing Flores was mocked by the meticulous calculation of his attempt to cover up the crime and his escape.

Kelly also emphasized that even if Peruvian justice were to go easy on Van der Sloot he still faces prosecution in the United States on wire fraud and extortion charges.

An Alabama grand jury indicted the Dutchman in June for allegedly trying to extort $250,000 from Twitty in exchange for information on where she could find her daughter’s body.

According to court papers, Van der Sloot received a total of $25,000 a few weeks before Flores’ death - money it is believed he used to travel to Peru.

6 Killed, 3 Injured in Texas Mobile Home Fire.

GRANBURY, Texas — A fire raced through a lakefront home in North Texas early Sunday, killing six people and injuring three others, authorities said.

The fire broke out at about 5:30 a.m. Sunday in a double-wide mobile home in Lake Granbury, about 65 miles southwest of Dallas, Hood County Fire Marshal Brian Fine told The Associated Press.

The fire happened after a birthday party that had largely broken up for the night, Fine said. The dead ranged in age from 18 to 30 years old and included three men and three women who had lingered after the party, he said.

Two of the injured were airlifted to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, where they were treated for smoke inhalation and minor cuts and discharged, Fine said. The third was admitted for observation at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Fine said.

The identities of the dead and injured were being withheld until their families could be notified, Fine said. None were from Hood County, however, making family contacts difficult, he said.No cause has been determined for the fire, which was fought by multiple departments around the county, Fine said.

The Port Ridglea East development, where the fire took place, is made up mostly of retirees and weekenders.

Shirley Culberhouse, who lives about seven houses down the street from the home that burned, told the AP that it “was a group of boys who had moved in, and they were having a party.”

Another neighbor, auto mechanic Michael Brennan, said the party woke him up.

“About 2:15 (a.m.), the noise woke me up. There was an argument going on. Then, there were cars pulling out, and I was sort of waiting for the sheriff to show up when the fire happened,” he said.

The house was occupied full time, Brennan said.