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Man who ran down bikers won't get death sentence

PANAMA CITY, Fla. - A jury recommended life in prison without parole Friday for a man who ran over six motorcyclists with a stolen pickup, killing two.

Jurors deliberated just three minutes before rejecting the death penalty, the only alternate sentence for two premeditated murder convictions handed down the day before against Timothy Pilgreen.

Pilgreen, 26, of Texarkana, Ark., will be sentenced Oct. 15.

After an altercation with the bikers at a fishing pier, Pilgreen ran down and killed Donald Dunham, 61, and his wife, Nola S. Zeitler, 47, of the Outlaws' Bay City, Mich., chapter on Oct. 29 as they were riding on a motorcycle at nearby Panama City Beach.

Pilgreen said he got angry after Dunham belittled him at the pier.

PENSACOLA - Plans to sink the retired aircraft carrier USS Oriskany off Pensacola as an artificial reef will be delayed probably until June because of environmental issues, the Navy said Friday.

Initial plans were to sink the ship this summer. There have been a series of postponements over concerns about solid polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, that may be left aboard the ship due to the difficulty of removal.

The Navy and the Environmental Protection Agency will evaluate the risk, and that assessment will go through reviews by EPA and outside scientists and a public comment period.

Meanwhile, the Oriskany, the first of many aging ships the Navy wants to sink for artificial reefs as a low-cost alternative to scrapping them, remains in Corpus Christi, Texas, where environmental cleanup is being done.

LAKELAND - A Polk County jail inmate was indicted this week in the strangulation death of a 16-year-old girl who disappeared in 1999 after she left a state welfare office.

Edward Romeo, 26, already jailed in the fatal shooting of his brother in August, was indicted on a charge of first-degree murder in the death of Racheal Ann Martina.

Martina's remains were unearthed last month in Romeo's back yard, according to the Polk County Sheriff's Office.

Martina was serving time at a state boot camp for juvenile delinquents when she disappeared after a supervised visit with her father at a Department of Children and Families office in March 1999.