Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Nation in brief

Idaho suspect's blog names girl missing from Minnesota

By wire services
Published July 9, 2005

MINNEAPOLIS - The convicted sex offender accused of kidnapping two children in Idaho wrote about a missing Minnesota girl on his Weblog, and investigators are now looking into whether he might have had anything to do with her disappearance.

On his Internet diary, Joseph Edward Duncan III wrote in early 2004 that he was afraid he would be blamed for the disappearance of 5-year-old Leanna Warner. The little girl was last seen June 14, 2003, after leaving her home in Chisholm, some 190 miles east of Fargo, N.D., where Duncan lived.

Chisholm police Chief Scott Erickson said Friday that investigators are trying to determine if there's any more of a connection between Duncan and Leanna's disappearance. But he acknowledged it's a long shot in a frustrating case.

"In reality, every community that has a missing child is going to try to connect this guy to it," Erickson said.

Duncan is charged with abducting 9-year-old Dylan Groene and 8-year-old Shasta Groene from their home, where their 13-year-old brother, their mother and her boyfriend were bludgeoned to death. The bodies were found May 16. Police say Duncan also is a suspect in the killings.

Authorities had been looking for Duncan since he jumped bail in Minnesota on charges of molesting a 6-year-old boy in Detroit Lakes in July 2004.

WASHINGTON - The government has killed and is testing 29 cows from the herd of the Texas cow infected with mad cow disease, the Agriculture Department said Friday.

Investigators have been working to identify offspring and herd mates born within a year of the infected cow's birth. The infected cow was a 12-year-old Brahma cross beef cow.

Twenty-nine adult cows were removed from the herd on Wednesday, the department said. They were euthanized, and tissue samples were removed for testing.

The samples will undergo screening referred to as a "rapid test," and if results indicate the presence of mad cow disease, two additional tests will be done.

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney got good news Friday during his annual heart checkup, with a pacemaker detecting no irregular heartbeat, his office said.

Cheney has had four heart attacks, and a pacemaker was placed in his chest in June 2001. The checkup determined that the pacemaker, called an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, was working fine and never had to be activated. The device is designed to activate automatically if needed to regulate the patient's heartbeat.

Cheney underwent the routine exam at George Washington University Medical Center. It included a physical exam, an electrocardiogram, an echocardiogram and a stress test. They are noninvasive procedures and the vice president went back to work.

COLUMNIST DIES: Judy Mann, a longtime columnist for the Washington Post who often wrote about issues facing women in American society, died Friday. She was 61. She was suffering from breast cancer when she died at a hospital in Palm Springs, Calif.

WASHING MACHINE DEATH: A 14-year-old boy was charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of his 5-year-old half sister last month in a coin-operated washing machine in Chilhowie, Va. Rebecca Hope Wagoner was found dead June 17 after her mother, Rebecca Billings Wagoner, brought the children to the laundry. The mother stepped outside and when she returned, she found her 30-pound daughter trapped inside the washer.

[Last modified July 9, 2005, 01:02:12]