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The nation in brief
Compiled from Times wires Police officer kills five neighbors, himselfDOVER TOWNSHIP, N.J. -- A police officer shot five neighbors to death and wounded his boss, then committed suicide, shocking a seaside community still reeling from an almost identical rampage in February. Authorities said Wednesday that Seaside Heights Officer Edward Lutes, 42, had apparently feuded with some of his neighbors in Dover Township. The authorities did not elaborate. Some acquaintances portrayed him as the neighborhood grouch and said he had gone through bankruptcy several years ago and had lost his girlfriend in a car accident about a year ago. Lutes went on his rampage with a handgun and a semiautomatic assault gun called an MP5. He shot himself in the head in his car outside a Barnegat Township home not far from where he shot his boss Tuesday night. The body of the 15-year police veteran was found Wednesday morning. The shootings happened just a mile from where a retired Newark police officer, John Mabie, allegedly went from house to house, killing his granddaughter and three neighbors Feb. 21. He has pleaded innocent. Police said Lutes went to the home of neighbors Dominick Galliano, 51, and his wife, Gail, 49, killing them with the assault weapon. He also killed the couple's son, Christopher, 25. Lutes then went to another home and killed Gary Williams, 48, and his wife, Tina, 46. The couple's 23-year-old son jumped out of a window. Lutes fled in his car and shot Seaside Heights police Chief James Costello in the leg and the wrist. Police said the chief was leaving his home at the time after hearing about the shootings. Costello was in satisfactory condition. Man indicted in hate-crime slaying of two hikersWASHINGTON -- Six years and 15,000 tips after the murder of two women near the Appalachian Trail sent a chill through hikers everywhere, federal prosecutors say they have the killer and will prosecute the case as a hate crime. Darrell David Rice of Columbia, Md., was indicted in the 1996 slayings of Julianne Williams and Laura "Lollie" Winans, the Justice Department announced Wednesday. Already jailed on an unrelated kidnapping charge, Rice told authorities the women "deserved to die because they were lesbian (expletives)," according to prosecution documents filed in court. The bodies of Williams, 24, of St. Cloud, Minn., and Winans, 26, of Unity, Maine, were found bound and gagged June 1, 1996, at a creekside campsite in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park, about a half-mile off the Appalachian Trail. Their throats had been cut. At a federal prison in Petersburg, Va., according to court papers filed by the government, Rice, 34, said he intentionally picked women to assault "because they are more vulnerable than men." Prosecutors also said in the papers that Rice "hates gays." Elsewhere ...$200-MILLION JACKPOT: The jackpot for Friday's seven-state Big Game lottery has climbed to $200-million, one of the richest prizes in U.S. history, after 17 straight drawings without a winner. Big Game tickets are sold in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, Illinois and Michigan. GRAHAM SKIN CANCER: Evangelist Billy Graham, 83, had a small, nonlethal skin cancer removed from his face Wednesday at the Mayo Clinic-Jacksonville. The basal cell carcinoma was removed from Graham's cheek near his right ear after an examination with a dermatologist. SHUTTLE DOCKS WITH STATION: Space shuttle Atlantis pulled up and docked at the international space station Wednesday, delivering nearly $1-billion worth of new construction parts, including a 44-foot girder. The two crews will begin installing the girder and its attached railcar today. PRIEST DISCLOSURE: In a major policy shift, the Diocese of Brooklyn announced Wednesday that it will give prosecutors the names of Roman Catholic priests accused of sexual abuse over the past 20 years.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
