MOUNT PLEASANT — A 33-year-old woman has been accused of stealing a van, and was reportedly caught in part because of DNA found on a straw.
Crayton
Ashley C. Crayton, from Anoka, Minnesota, was charged with a felony count of driving or operating a vehicle without owner’s consent.
According to a criminal complaint:
On Sept. 21, an officer was sent to a residence on Daisy Lane for the theft of a 2009 Chrysler Town & Country. The owner said the van was in the driveway and the key was inside the center console.
On Oct. 2, a sergeant was contacted by the Kenosha Police Department because the stolen van was located. It was parked in the 6600 block of 18th Avenue.
A search of the car was done and a health card belonging to Crayton was found. There was also a Big Buddy cup from a gas station and several Walgreens gift cards. Surveillance video from a Walgreens on 52nd Street showed a woman attempt to use the card but it was declined. She then got into the stolen vehicle.
INDIANAPOLIS (WXIN) — After more than 30 years, Indiana State Police have identified the so-called I-65 killer. ISP says investigative genealogy was used to name Harry Edward Greenwell as the man that killed at least three women along the I-65 corridor in the late 1980s.
According to ISP Sgt. Glen Fifield, crime scene samples were used in conjunction with investigative technology to match Greenwell. Fifield said the match was “99.9999% positive.”
Greenwell died in January 2013, officials confirmed. He had been in and out of prison several times, even escaping on two separate occasions.
Harry Edward Greenwell, provided by ISP
ISP, the FBI, and the Elizabethtown, Kentucky and Columbus, Indiana police departments made the announcement in front of a room filled with loved ones of the victims including Kim Gilbert Wright, the daughter of Jeanne Gilbert.
“I celebrate her. I encourage everyone else to celebrate her,” said Gilbert Wright about her mother.
Officials stressed no matter how old an investigation is, police will continue to look for leads and evidence.
“The message is you might be able to hide for a while but we’re going to find you,” said ISP superintendent Douglas Carter.
Display featuring photos of Peggy Gill, Jeanne Gilbert, Vicki Heath
“These cases illustrate the importance of seeing every investigation through to the very end. Law enforcement officers are taught to never give up and to follow to where the facts lead them, however an experienced officer will trust their instincts as well,” added Lt. Matt Harris of the Columbus, Indiana Police Department.
According to Herbert Stapleton, the FBI Special Agent in charge of Indianapolis office, the investigative genealogy process started in 2019.
I-65 killer timeline
February 1987: According to the Unresolved podcast, the I-65 killer first struck on February 21, 1987 in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.
Vicki Heath was 41 years old and working the front desk at a Super 8 motel the night she was murdered. The podcast recounts guests found the lobby to be in disarray the following morning with no sign of Heath. When police were called to search the property, they found Heath’s body behind the Super 8’s dumpster. She had been shot and sexually assaulted.
March 1989: It wasn’t until two years later when the killer took the lives of two Indiana women: 24-year-old Mary “Peggy” Gill and 34-year-old Jeanne Gilbert.
Photo courtesy of the Rensselaer Republican
On March 2, 1989, Peggy Gill was working as a night auditor at a Days Inn in Merrillville, Indiana. The American Crime Journal reports 70 rooms had been booked at the time of Gill’s 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift. She checked in her last guest around 1:30 a.m. on March 3 when investigators say someone forced her from the desk.
The Days Inn manager reported Gill missing after she did not call in to check with her that morning. Police arrived at the motel and found the desk’s cash drawer had been pried open with $179 missing from the till.
Officers then searched the motel and found Gill’s body shortly after 6:30 a.m. at the end of a vacant hall, according to the American Crime Journal. She had also been raped and shot twice in the head.
Police say sometime after Gill was murdered, the killer drove 52 miles south on I-65 to the Remington Days Inn.
Jeanne Gilbert of Rensselaer was behind the front desk after she agreed to switch shifts with a coworker in order to see her daughter cheer in a high school sectional game, the American Crime Journal reports.
Her last known interaction was around 4:30 a.m. when she made a courtesy wake-up call to a guest.
Jeanne Gilbert, courtesy of WLFI
Jeanne Gilbert, courtesy of WLFI
Sometime after that, she was forced from the motel and into a car for the last ride of her life.
Gilbert’s body was found less than two hours later on County Road 150 West just northwest of Brookston in White County. That’s a little more than a one-hour drive from where Peggy Gill was killed in Merrillville if you take I-65.
Gilbert had been shot three times and was also sexually assaulted.
January 1990
The American Crime Journal reports the same suspect sexually assaulted a female employee during an armed robbery at a Days Inn in Columbus, Indiana on January 2, 1990.
The woman survived and was also to give police a description which led to a composite sketch of the suspect. She said he was around 6 feet tall with a gray beard and green eyes.
Composite sketch of I-65 killer, courtesy of ISP
According to a WLFI report, in 2010, DNA linked the I-65 killer to all four crimes. The same gun was also used in the murders of Peggy Gill and Jeanne Gilbert, according to ACJ.
An Omaha man returned fire with his Glock 21 handgun after gunmen shot into a large crowd outside a North Omaha bar last summer, an Omaha police detective testified Wednesday.
Five people were injured in the shooting. One of them, 19-year-old Jazsmine Washington, died. She suffered two gunshot wounds to her right arm and a third, fatal one to her rib cage, said Omaha Police Detective David Preston Jr.
While bullets of various sizes — 9 mm, .40-caliber and .45-caliber — ricocheted in the air early on July 4, just a single .45-caliber projectile was recovered from Washington’s body.
After a traffic stop and some detective and forensics work, investigators determined Davelle Giles to be the person who fired the .45-caliber bullet that killed Washington.
Giles
Giles, 26, will stand trial on charges of second-degree murder and use of a firearm to commit a felony, Douglas County Judge Stephanie Shearer ruled Wednesday.
Giles’ attorney, Assistant Douglas County Public Defender Kyle Melia, argued that Giles unintentionally killed Washington because he returned fire after at least two others started the shooting. He therefore should face a manslaughter charge, not a murder charge, Melia said.
But Shearer said firing into a crowd is an intentional act and ordered him to face the second-degree murder charge. Nebraska law says the charge applies when a killing is done intentionally but without premeditation.
The gunfire erupted about 3:17 a.m. near a parking lot on the east side of 24th Street between Grant Street and Willis Avenue. According to video surveillance from two neighboring businesses, people in a crowd of more than 100 began to flee and duck for cover when they realized shots were being fired from at least two people in an alleyway on the west side of 24th Street, Preston said. Those people have not been identified, Preston said.
State Patrol launches search in case of missing Fairbury woman
Watch now: Fire crews work throughout night to contain blaze at West O Street business in Lincoln
Investigators later learned that Giles was at the party and caught on the surveillance videos about 3:04 a.m., wearing a white T-shirt, ripped jeans, a red hat and white tennis shoes. Three times, Giles was shown raising his T-shirt, exposing a handgun tucked into his waistband, Preston said.
As people began to run and hide from the gunshots, Giles, who was in the southwest corner of the parking lot, appeared composed and walked away after looking north toward where Washington’s body laid on the ground.
Friends Jazsmine Washington and Sylena Hernandez at their 2019 graduation from Omaha Northwest High School.
In addition to 9 mm and .40-caliber shell casings, police found five spent .45-caliber casings, which forensics testing later determined were all fired from the same gun.
On July 20, OPD gang unit officers pulled over Giles, who was a suspended driver driving a Dodge Challenger without a front license plate. After monitoring jail calls, officers learned that he also drove a 2000 Honda Accord that was registered to his mother. A .45-caliber Glock 21 handgun was found in the back pocket of the front passenger seat.
Ballistics tests confirmed that the five shell casings and projectile found in Washington’s body were fired from that gun. The gun was swabbed for DNA, and Giles was found to be a major contributor to the DNA on the gun and magazine, Preston testified.
Police also checked Giles’ cellphone, which Preston said showed GPS data connected him to the area at the time of the shooting and two videos taken before the shooting occurred — one hours before and one minutes before.
Murder warrant issued for Omaha man in Kearney shooting
Fillmore County sheriff arrested on suspicion of DUI, officials say
The first video was recorded about 10 p.m. July 3 by Giles, wearing the same clothes he was wearing in the businesses’ security videos and showing him in possession of a large-caliber Glock-type firearm, Preston said.
The second video was taken about 3:10 a.m. Giles holds his phone selfie-style, recording video of himself and people behind him smiling. They appeared to be having a good time, Preston said, before the shots rang out seven minutes later.
Getting away with murder: Nebraska cold cases
Patricia Webb
Updated
A new employee of the Adult Book and Cinema Store disappeared overnight April 18, 1974, along with 51 bondage-themed adult magazines, a calculator and $30. A cord leading to an extension from a pay phone had been cut and the shop door left unlocked.
Two and a half days later, a man went to feed cattle on a vacant farm he owned east of Hallam and found her bullet-riddled body.
Patricia Carol Webb was nude under the hay, except for a quilted jacket, one of 143 extra-large jackets distributed by a feed mill and given to customers or sold to employees. Webb, 24, had a piece of tape over her mouth.
Thirty-eight years later, her death remains one of Lincoln’s greatest murder mysteries.
“This case has been investigated, reinvestigated, reinvestigated. A lot of effort put into it,” said Lincoln Police Sgt. Larry Barksdale, who was tasked with the investigation since the early 1990s. Barksdale retired in 2012, but the case remains open.
Together, Lincoln police, the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office, Nebraska State Patrol and FBI logged nearly 15,000 man hours during the first year alone. They even consulted clairvoyants.
Courtesy photo
Tina McMenamin
Updated
Tina McMenamin, an 18-year-old UNL freshman, was stabbed and sexually assaulted in her apartment on July 25, 1995.
Gregory Gabel, a mentally ill Lincoln man, was arrested in the homicide and has always been the prime suspect, an investigator said, even after pivotal DNA evidence failed to link him to the crime scene. Gabel has a computerlike memory for numbers and facts and a history of following women at businesses and public events, retired investigator Rich Doetker said in 2005.
McMenamin was killed in the minutes before she was due at work at Godfather’s Pizza at 5:30 p.m. that night in 1995. Roommate Sarah Bognich found her friend in a pool of blood that night.
“The apartment was ransacked. I walked past the bedroom a couple of times before noticing her on the floor. My life changed after that. I tried to go back (to college), and I couldn’t ever finish.”
A single hair clutched in McMenamin’s hand led police to Gabel. It matched his DNA, a one-in-1,049 chance. Circumstantial evidence also linked Gabel to the apartment building. And a man matching Gabel’s description was seen fleeing the crime scene, Amberwood Apartments, 4600 Briarpark Drive.
That night, Gabel was a block away at a Sonic Drive-In. He was there every Tuesday night, cleaning up in exchange for food. And Gabel had earlier convictions for third-degree sexual assault and public indecency. Police arrested him a year after the crime.
But two years later, when a different DNA test proved the hair was not Gabel’s, he was released. That hair, however, didn’t necessarily belong to the killer, Doetker said. The investigator also has suspicions about the validity of the second DNA test, conducted in a Pennsylvania lab.
“There were questions that came up: Was it the right hair? The same hair?” he said.
Murder charges were dropped against Gabel with the hope that additional evidence would be found to re-arrest him, Doetker said. If the case went to trial and Gabel was found innocent, Doetker added, he could not be retried if new evidence came to light.
Mary Hepburn-O’Shea, who has worked in the mental health field in Lincoln for decades and has known Gabel for many of those years, said in 2005 that the man lost two years in jail for something he didn’t do.
Hepburn-O’Shea runs downtown O.U.R. Homes, the city’s largest provider for developmentally disabled people that also houses people with mental illnesses. Gabel lives and works there. “He’s a weird kid,” she said. “He’s not ever a violent kid.”
Then-Assistant Police Chief Jim Peschong, speaking in 2005, added that you can’t try a case on personal beliefs and supposition. Peschong said he personally believes there is a suspect in the crime, but he declined naming anyone.
Courtesy photo
Ali Saleh Al-Saidi
Updated
A 30-year-old Iraqi refugee with a new bride and a new home was slain in 2001 in the city where he came to begin a new life. Ali Saleh Al-Saidi’s body was found in June 2001 in Salt Creek, east of the North 70th Street bridge near the Abbott Sports Complex. Then-Police Chief Tom Casady said Al-Saidi suffered “significant traumatic injuries.”
Friends and family members said that Al-Saidi moved to Lincoln from Dallas a few months earlier. He had lived five years in Texas and was in a Saudi Arabian refugee camp before his arrival in the United States.
Casady called Al-Saidi a “Gulf War era” refugee and said he had recently married an 18-year-old Lincoln resident and fellow Iraqi exile.
Al-Saidi wed Azher Alghazawi on June 16. She spoke about the husband and friend she lost. “He’s a good man,” she said. “I love him very much.” A welder by trade, Al-Saidi also loved to fix cars. He enjoyed making people laugh with funny faces.
Azher said her husband left their South 18th Street apartment to find an apartment key around 10:45 p.m. the day before his body was found. It was the last time she saw him alive. Just hours earlier, said Saleh Al-Daraji, a longtime friend of Al-Saidi’s, he had helped Al-Saidi move some belongings from his old D Street apartment.
Authorities did not know whether the slaying took place near Salt Creek or whether the body was moved. Police found Al-Saidi’s 1991 Chevrolet Caprice parked beside a curb at the corner of 21st and Dudley streets, then-Capt. Allen Soukup said.
In September 2001, a Lincoln couple who had been earlier interviewed by police about the slaying were arrested while trying to flee the country, authorities said.
Rabeha Kadhim Zaher Al-Atbi and her husband, Asaad Al-Asady, tried to board a flight to Syria from O’Hare International Airport, Lincoln Police Investigator Kathy Phillips said. “I’m not going to label them suspects,” Lincoln Police Capt. Gary Engel said.
According to the affidavit signed by Phillips seeking the arrest of Al-Atbi as an accessory to a felony, she lied to police during a July 5 interview about Al–Saidi‘s whereabouts on the night of his slaying and about having had an affair with him. She later admitted to police she had had an affair with Al–Saidi, according to the affidavit.
The arrest affidavit goes on to describe how interviews with Iraqis in Lincoln have led police to believe Al–Saidi‘s death was a “crime of honor” and that Al–Saidi was killed for having brought shame or dishonor to his or another Iraqi family.
Courtesy photo
Gina Bos
Updated
Gina Bos disappeared near Duggan’s Pub in downtown Lincoln on Oct. 17, 2000, at the end of open mic night. She put her guitar in her trunk and then vanished.
More than 100 tips have been investigated, Sgt. Ken Koziol with the Lincoln Police Department said in 2016. The high-profile case has an electronic file thousands of pages long, among the largest Koziol can remember in his then-38 years on the force.
The cold case is classified as a missing persons case, although it’s highly unlikely Bos, 40 when she disappeared, is alive. Koziol declined to detail the leads the department has chased, citing the open investigation.
Bos was a middle child in a large, close-knit family; she was waiting for a Habitat for Humanity house and had begun a new job when she vanished.
Bos’ sister, Jannel Rap, became the family’s spokeswoman early in the search. She started the Squeaky Wheel Tour, traveling the country performing and bringing attention to Gina and others who are missing in the cities she visited. She also started 411 GINA, a website with a hotline for tips about her sister’s whereabouts.
Said Koziol: “Someone knows what happened to her. Hopefully one day they will finally find it in their soul to come forward.”
Courtesy photo
Ann Marie Kelley
Updated
Law enforcement hoped someone would remember seeing the dated minivan Ann Marie Kelley was driving when she disappeared. Neither has ever been found.
Ottawa police say they have one person in custody after the Rideau Centre mall was locked down Tuesday afternoon.
“One person is in custody, the police operation is ongoing,” police tweeted just after 1 p.m.
Officers with guns drawn could be seen outside the mall, including at the Rideau transit station. Heavily armed tactical officers could be seen entering a mall entrance on Rideau Street.
Employees have been evacuated from the mall and police aren’t letting anyone near the downtown Ottawa building.
A message to employees said the building was locked down due to an emergency. Employees who hadn’t been evacuated were instructed to lock down within stores and stay away from the doors.
Police earlier tweeted they responded to a shoplifting call with a “possible weapon,” that one person was arrested and there was no threat to public safety, but then deleted the tweet.
Multiple witnesses reported the power went out inside the shopping centre. Customers just inside an entrance on Rideau Street were told to leave and run west, toward Sussex Drive.
Police are asking people to avoid the area. Ottawa’s LRT service is suspended between uOttawa and Parliament stations.
It’s the mall’s first day open in more than three weeks. It closed during the ‘Freedom Convoy’ occupation of downtown Ottawa.
This is a breaking news story. More to come…
Due to an ongoing police operation, please avoid Dalhousie Street to the Canal and the Mackenzie King Bridge. ~ En raison d’une opération policière en cours, veuillez éviter la rue Dalhousie vers le canal et le pont Mackenzie King.
Ottawa police have begun to move in and arrest trucker convoy protesters after locking down the city’s core.
Police said Friday morning protesters on Nicholas Street, at the easternmost point of the convoy protests, are being told to leave immediately.
“Some protesters are surrending and are being arrested,” police said on Twitter. “We ask protesters to remain peaceful and lawful.”
Police could be seen arriving en masse to a staging area at uOttawa campus on Friday morning, and making arrests among the trucks parked on Nicholas Street.
Police have set up nearly 100 checkpoints to secure the downtown core as they move in to clear out the demonstrators, who have been camped out downtown for three weeks.
The checkpoints have been set up in a three-square-kilometre area to control traffic flow into the “red zone”, and security fencing has been installed around Parliament Hill and other federal buildings. Police are turning away convoy protesters trying to head downtown at the checkpoints, and the lineups at the checkpoints are causing delays for commuters.
The House of Commons was scheduled to debate the emergency measures the government brought in to tackle the protest, but that sitting has been cancelled.
A note from Speaker Anthony Rota on Friday morning said the sitting is cancelled because of a police operation expected to take place by Parliament Hill and other locations around Ottawa’s downtown core.
On Thursday, police arrested several people in the downtown area, including convoy organizers Chris Barber and Tamara Lich.
On Friday, police confirmed the charges against Barber: counselling to commit mischief, counselling to disobey a court order and counselling to obstruct police. Lich has been charged with counselling to commit mischief, police said. Both are due in court on Friday.
Ottawa’s interim police chief Steve Bell said Thursday things would look “very different” downtown compared to the previous three weekend of the trucker convoy demonstration.
Bell urged protesters to leave the downtown area, and promised that police action to end the demonstration would begin.
“We have a very deliberate plan that will be methodical and will take time for us to progress through to be able to completely remove anyone from the core,” Bell said.
“What I can tell you is this weekend will look very different than the last three weekends.”
The checkpoints into the secured area caused traffic delays Friday morning, with police urging people not to come downtown if they don’t have to.
The first trucks arrived on Wellington Street on Jan. 28, as part of the “Freedom Convoy” demonstration protesting COVID-19 vaccine mandates and other public health measures. Since then, hundreds of vehicles have blocked Wellington Street, the intersection of Rideau and Sussex and other roads across the Parliamentary Precinct.
Ottawa police are working with the RCMP and OPP, as well as officers from municipal police forces.
SECURED AREA
Ottawa police have set up a so-called ‘secured area’, limiting traffic into the downtown core.
Police say checkpoints will be set up in the area from the Queensway to Wellington Street and Bronson Avenue to the Rideau Canal area.
Police say anyone who lives, works or are moving through the area for reasons other than to participate in the protest will be allowed to enter.
“You will be required to show proof of exemption for your travel to the Secured Area,” police said.
ROAD CLOSURES
Ontario Provincial Police say multiple exits are closed along Hwy. 417 through the centre of Ottawa.
The eastbound exits on the Queensway are closed at Rochester, Kent, Metcalfe and Nicholas.
The westbound exits on Hwy. 417 are closed at Bronson, Metcalfe, Nicholas and Vanier Parkway.
Traffic Advisory: #Hwy_417 ebnd – multiple exits are being closed through the core. Currently includes ebnd @ Rochester, Kent, Metcalfe and Nicholas. Wbnd exits to be closed @ Bronson, Metcalfe, Nicholas & Vanier. Plan alternatives and monitor local media for updates.#OttTrafficpic.twitter.com/JyYMkNzTvf
OC Transpo says the O-Train will not be running downtown on Friday.
The Confederation Line will operate from Tunney’s Pasture Station to Pimisi and Blair Station to Hurdman Station. There will be no service between Pimisi and Hurdman stations.
CLOSURES
Ottawa City Hall, the underground parking garage and the Rink of Dreams remain closed.
The Ottawa Public Library Main and Rideau branches are closed today.
Ottawa Public Health says the vaccination clinic at the University of Ottawa Minto Sports Complex will be closed today.
UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA
The University of Ottawa says in-person activities on the main campus will be suspended until Monday.
“In light of ongoing developments near Parliament Hill, the University has made the decision to move academic and administrative activities online until Monday morning February 21,” uOttawa said in a statement on its website.
“This does not impact activities at Roger Guindon and the Lees Campus.”
Parking lots on the main campus will be closed and access to some buildings will be restricted.
ashley c. crayton, count, crime, crime laboratory, criminal law, dna, law, motor vehicle, owner, police, straw, surveillance, transports, van, vehicle, video
0 Comments
