Archive for the 'Evidence' Category

Details Regarding Charlie Sheen’s Arrest

Jan. 9th 2010


by:
Nora Gasparian

Charlie Sheen
Charlie Sheen was arrested on Christmas Day after cops in Aspen, Colorado received a phone call from his wife Brooke Mueller claiming that he had allegedly hit her.

When police officers arrived on the scene, they gave both Charlie and Brooke blood alcohol tests. Charlie did fine with just a .04 but Brooke registered a .13.

Let’s make a note that Mueller called the cops at 8:34AM. Who is drunk that early in the morning?

TMZ reports that Brooke even told a female cop right before the bail hearing that she was drunk when she made the phone call.

Charlie was booked for two felonies and one misdemeanor relating to domestic violence but he is claiming that he was just trying to defend himself and his wife happened to be the aggressor.

Charlie is due back in court on February 8.

Triple homicide investigation yields ‘very good leads,’ police say

Jan. 9th 2010


By Brendan McCarthy, The Times-Picayune
January 08, 2010, 10:07PM

Three people, including a brother and sister, were fatally shot and another woman critically wounded late Thursday night in a home invasion in the St. Roch neighborhood.

Inside a bedroom, the suspects killed two women with an assault rifle and wounded a third woman. They used a handgun to execute a young man in the rear yard, authorities said. They spared only a toddler.
MURDERS010910.jpg

The attack took place shortly before midnight inside a shotgun double in the 2700 block of Urquhart Street, a tough, residential neighborhood with houses cheek by jowl.

New Orleans police officers, responding to a report of a burglary, found the door ajar. Inside they discovered the female victims.

Kewanda Harris, 30, was killed by an assault rifle in one of the bedrooms. Her partner, Karen Matthews, who is in her 20s, had been fatally shot as well, according to John Gagliano, the spokesman for the Orleans Parish coroner who released the identities. Relatives and a neighbor confirmed their relationship.

Another woman, 26, was found alive but severely wounded. She was taken to LSU Interim Public Hospital in critical condition.

Desmond Harris, Kewanda’s 23-year-old brother, had been shot in the head and fell face-down in the rear yard, authorities said.

Police believe that the motive in the slayings revolves around drugs, which were often sold from the house.

“It appears that the shooting involved the sale and distribution of narcotics from that home,” said Marlon Defillo, assistant police superintendent. “We are trying to determine whether it was a drug rip-off or something else.”

Defillo said Friday evening that detectives had worked through the night and were pursing some “very good leads.”

By midmorning Friday, the house had been cordoned off, its front door affixed with a sticker from the coroner’s office. Two homicide detectives huddled in the cold as crime scene technicians snapped photographs in the rear yard of the coffee-colored home, which had sheets covering the windows.

Next-door neighbor Wallace Welsh, 45, said people frequently sold drugs in and around the home, and that drug sales are an ongoing issue in the neighborhood. Welsh, who confirmed their identities and relationships, said he heard little at the time of the incident and learned of the shooting when police arrived. He said he is haunted by what he saw.

Karen Harris, 44, a cousin of both Desmond and Kewanda Harris, said in an interview that her relatives grew up in the Magnolia public housing complex and recently settled into the Urquhart apartment.

She added that Desmond was the outgoing sibling, a “hard-working and fun-loving man,” employed at the Cat’s Meow nightclub on Bourbon Street. A manager there declined to comment Friday.

She also said Kewanda Harris was quiet, respectful and very much in love with her girlfriend.

Karen Harris had no answers for the motive in the killing of her cousins.

“I’m trying to find out myself,” she said.

Brendan McCarthy can be reached at bmccarthy@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3301.

Three people dead, one wounded in overnight New Orleans shooting

Jan. 8th 2010

Three people dead, one wounded in overnight New Orleans shooting
By The Times-Picayune
January 08, 2010, 6:00AM
nopd-badge.jpg

An overnight shooting left two young women and one young man dead, according to the New Orleans Police Department. Another woman was critically wounded.

Officers responded to reports of a shooting inside of a home in the 2700 block of Urquhart Street about 12 a.m., police said. When they arrived, they found two unidentified women and a 26-year-old woman with bullet wounds to their bodies. They also found a 23-year-old man lying in the back yard with a gunshot wound to his head.

New Orleans EMS paramedics summoned to the scene pronounced the two unidentified women and the 23-year-old man dead. They took the 26-year-old woman to LSU Interim Public Hospital, where doctors later listed her in critical condition, police said.

Investigators didn’t release any of the victims’ names. They also didn’t identify any suspects or a motive behind the attack.

Police ask anyone with information about the crime to call Crimestoppers at 504.822.1111 or toll-free at 877.903.7867. Tips leading to an indictment may receive a $2,500 reward, and callers don’t have to leave their name or testify.

Drew Peterson: Do You Need a Body in a Murder Case?

Dec. 5th 2007

drew_peterson.jpgLast night, a third search warrant was served on Drew Peterson, allowing the police to search Peterson’s vehicles.  According to Joel Brodsky, Peterson’s attorney, the warrant authorizes the search and seizure of  things which “may have been utilized in commission of the offense of first-degree murder or the concealment of a homicidal death,” along with trace elements of several materials, including blue plastic.

Peterson’s lawyer is also setting up the defense.  He’s telling the media that this third warrant overlaps with the first search warrant but expands its language to allow for seizure as well as search.  Brodsky’s already arguing that anything taken will be an illegal seizure, because the authorities can’t attempt to correct their errors like this. 

And why are the police going to this level of detail, going back for the third time?  Because they haven’t found a body.  

Do they need a body to charge Drew Peterson with Stacy’s murder?  After all, Lacy Peterson’s body was discovered and identified through DNA testing (along with Connor) before Scott Peterson was charged. 

Read the rest of this entry »