Nation in brief

DNA leads to arrest in 12 killings

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - An employee at a trash-hauling company has been charged with strangling 12 women or girls from 1977 to 1993 in an arrest authorities said was made possible by new DNA technology.

Authorities said Lorenzo J. Gilyard preyed on prostitutes and teenage girls during his 16-year rampage, sexually assaulting all but one of the victims and strangling them with items such as nylon stockings and shoe strings.

Gilyard, 53, was arrested Friday and charged the next day with 10 counts of first-degree murder and two counts of capital murder, the law in effect at the time of two of the killings. Gilyard was held without bail.

If Gilyard is convicted of all the murders, he would be the city's worst serial killer, police said.

Police did not connect any of the cases until 1994, when two of the homicides were linked. They connected the rest during the last 10 months using technology that didn't exist until 2000.

Police said they linked Gilyard this month after analyzing a blood sample taken from him in 1987, when he was a suspect in the death of one of the women he is now charged with killing.

TRAIN CRASH: A commuter train was struck from behind by an empty Amtrak train as they approached Penn Station in New York on Monday morning and at least 130 people suffered minor injuries, authorities said. It happened shortly after 7 a.m. at the Manhattan end of the East River Tunnel, delaying some trains. Dozens of commuters with bruises and cuts were led to ambulances.

VIETNAM VETERANS: Roughly 1,000 family members and friends gathered Monday at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington to pay tribute to nearly 1,400 men and women who died of diseases related to Agent Orange, suicide, excessive drinking or drug use and other noncombat causes linked to the Vietnam War. Families and friends read aloud the names of this year's inductees - 191 of them - and placed tributes at the base of the wall.

DRUG SAVINGS: Springfield, Mass., has saved about $2-million over the past nine months by buying prescription drugs from Canada for city workers and retirees, the head of the program said Monday. Chris Collins, the city's insurance director, said about 3,000 of the 20,000 city employees, retirees and their dependents are participating in the voluntary program.

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