A Pennsylvania judge has overturned the convictions of three men imprisoned for decades in the 1997 slaying of a 70-year-old woman even though their DNA never matched that found at the scene, but they will remain in prison while a prosecutor decides whether to appeal.
The Delaware County judge on Thursday ordered new trials for Derrick Chappell — who was 15 when he was arrested — and first cousins Morton Johnson and Sam Grasty.
“This case never should have been prosecuted. These guys never should have been charged. The evidence always was that they were innocent,” Paul Casteleiro, Grasty’s lawyer and legal director of the nonprofit Centurion, said Friday. The prosecutors, he said, “just ran roughshod” over the defendants.
The three were charged and convicted in the death of Henrietta Nickens of Chester, who told her daughter in her last known phone call that she was about to watch the 11 p.m. news. She was later found badly beaten, with her underwear removed, and her home ransacked, with blood on the walls and bedding.
The three defendants — all young people from the neighborhood — were convicted even though DNA testing at the time showed that semen found in the victim’s body and on a jacket at the scene did not match any of them, Casteleiro said.
He called the prosecution’s various theories of the case “preposterous.” To explain the lack of a DNA match, he said, they argued that the victim perhaps had consensual sex before the slaying, or that the three defendants brought a used condom to the scene, he said. Yet Nickens was chronically ill and had no known male partners, he continued.
“They just ran this absurd story and got juries to buy it,” Casteleiro said.
Common Pleas Court Judge Mary Alice Brennan at a hearing Thursday threw out the convictions and set a May 23 bail hearing to determine if county prosecutors will seek a new trial.
District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer plans to review the case next week before making a decision, a spokesperson said Friday.
Calls to lawyers for Johnson and Chappell were not immediately returned Friday. The Pennsylvania Innocence Project also worked on the case.
The men are now in their 40s. All three filed pro se petitions in federal court over the years saying they were wrongly convicted, but the petitions were denied.
A Pennsylvania man attacked and killed his neighbor this week using a knife and a chain saw while wearing a mask and costume like the one from the movie “Scream,” officials said.
The man then returned home and watched a movie until police came, according to a criminal complaint from the Pennsylvania State Police.
Police said Zak Moyer, 30, surrendered after the attack and was taken into custody without incident. He has been charged with criminal homicide and is being held at the Carbon County Correctional Facility.
Lehighton Borough police and later state police responded to an active assault incident Monday in Carbon County, in which a man attacked another man using a knife and a chain saw.
Officials found Edward Whitehead Jr., 59, who lived at the home, had been “struck” in the head with the weapons by a man who was “wearing a mask and a black costume-like garment, consistent with the ‘Scream’ movie character,” according to the criminal complaint.
Whitehead was taken to the hospital, where he died from his injuries, state police said. He had cuts on his right arm and on the right side of his head above his eyebrow, wounds on his hands that were “consistent with defensive wounds,” and “a large bleeding wound to the right side of the head,” the complaint said.
Security video showed the suspect leaving Whitehead’s home through the back door and entering the rear door of a home next door, where neighbors said Moyer lived, the complaint said.
Police established a perimeter around Moyer’s home and communicated with him through a notebook, the complaint said.
Moyer’s sister told police Monday that her brother told her a week ago that he wanted to kill Whitehead, according to the complaint.
According to the complaint, Moyer told police that he had gone to the family’s house Monday with a knife and a chain saw while wearing the “Scream” costume to scare them. Asked about the costume and the weapons, police said, Moyer admitted he had planned to kill Whitehead.
Moyer also admitted to stabbing Whitehead in the head, returning to his home to watch a movie until police arrived, and hiding the chain saw in the attic and the knife in his desk drawer, according to the criminal complaint.
Police said in a news release that the investigation is active and there is no threat to the surrounding community.
Investigators in Pennsylvania identified a suspect in an unsolved slaying through DNA obtained from a discarded cigarette butt and a bitten-off piece of a styrofoam cup, authorities said Monday.
Vallis Slaughter, 39, was arrested last week in connection with the fatal 2012 shooting of Julio Torres, 34, in a diner parking lot in West Reading, northwest of Philadelphia, Berks County District Attorney John Adams told reporters.
Court records show Slaughter was charged with multiple crimes, including first-degree murder, aggravated assault and conspiracy.
Vallis Slaughter holding a styrofoam cup on March 24, 2012.Berks County DA
A second person, Jomaine Case, was previously convicted of conspiracy in the killing, Adams said.
Adams said there was an argument before the March 24, 2012, shooting, though it wasn’t clear what else may have prompted the killing.
“To date we have never determined what the motive was for this shooting, other than some senseless dispute,” Adams said.
Adams said Case did not identify Slaughter as a possible suspect and DNA obtained from the styrofoam cup found at the crime scene a decade ago did not match anyone in CODIS, the law enforcement database that contains DNA profiles of convicted offenders.
After the case was reexamined last year, investigators extracted a photo from a cell phone that belonged to “an alleged associate” of the man authorities believed may be the suspected shooter, Adams said.
Facial recognition software identified the man in the photo as Slaughter, Adams said.
Slaughter was staying with his mother in Jersey City, and in February authorities surveilling him collected a smoldering cigarette butt that he threw to the ground before entering the relative’s home, Adams said.
A DNA profile collected from the cigarette matched a profile taken from the styrofoam cup, Adams said.
Slaughter was taken into custody last Wednesday. He is being held without bail in New Jersey and is awaiting extradition to Pennsylvania, Adams said.
A lawyer for Slaughter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Adams said Slaughter is also suspected in a homicide in Brooklyn. He did not provide additional details about the alleged crime and a spokesperson for the New York Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A drag queen story hour event at a public library in Pennsylvania was canceled Saturday after a suspicious package was found amid bomb threats, an incident that followed weeks of local criticism of the event.
Lancaster Police said that K-9 unit dogs alerted law enforcement to a potential threat during a pre-planned sweep of the Lancaster Public Library Saturday morning. The area around the library was closed off as a state police bomb squad responded to the scene.
After the package was found, police said they received “additional bomb threats via email of explosive devices” in two more locations as well as outside of Lancaster City jurisdiction.
“We can confirm that no explosive devices were found,” the police statement said. The areas are now reopened, and there is no danger to the public at this time.”
North Queen Street is deserted after police issued evacuation orders in Lancaster, Pa., on Saturday.Jim Gerberich / AP
Lancaster Pride, the volunteer organization which sponsored the story hour, expressed gratitude for community support in a post on Facebook following the threat. The organization encouraged people to support their local library, check in with each other, and “keep spreading the message that love must win.”
“While we support the freedom of speech: we stand firm and cannot and we will not let hate, fear, and intimidation stop our collective movement for love and support for all,” Lancaster Pride said.
Authorities are looking at identifying the person responsible and prosecuting them for the hoax, Lancaster Police Chief Richard Mendez said in a statement.
“Not only do bomb threats disrupt the peace and safety of our community, they waste valuable public resources,” Mendez said. “These threats trigger costly responses and stretch our resources thin, leaving our community vulnerable to genuine emergencies.”
Lancaster County Commissioner Josh Parsons said on Facebook that emails are “normally very traceable” and in a different post said he hoped that person was held responsible to the full extent of the law.
He also implied that the suspect could be an event supporter trying to sow chaos to be blamed at critics of the drag queen event.
A suspect has not been identified, and police have not yet ascribed a motive to threat. Police have not said whether they were investigating the incident as a hate crime.
Commenters criticized Parsons for insinuating a supporter of the story hour might be responsible for the bomb threat.
“We are in the middle of the police still having to deal with this mess, where you personally threw gas on the fires of outrage for the last few weeks and you choose to not only start throwing blame, but to imply it was attention seeking by the supporters of the event?” one commenter, identified on Facebook as Jason Burkholder wrote.
Burkholder and other commenters also criticized Parsons’ rhetoric ahead of the event, blaming him for “fanning the flames of paranoia and misinformation that culminated today in terror threats.”
In a March 11 post, Parsons wrote that the event did not “meet basic professional standards” and was not age appropriate for children, an increasingly common criticism of drag queen events which have been politicized in recent years.
“This is about the library signaling to the world that they are a fully woke, politicized organization and if you do not embrace their agenda completely, you are not welcomed at their library,” Parsons wrote in that March 11 post.
“This is such an absolutely shameless display of bad political showmanship and poor leadership it would be unbelievable if we weren’t reading your words ourselves,” Jason Burkholder wrote Saturday. “Violence has no place in the debate, and neither do elected officials who sow this kind of madness for their own games.”
Still, some commenters defended Parsons, saying he “did not do this or create this” and that “people can have different view points on matters.”
Lancaster County Commissioner Ray D’Agostino had also criticized the event, The Associated Press reported, alleging a link between anxiety in children and adults “trying to push adult themed issues at such an early age.”
He also condemned the violent threat on Saturday to local news, according to the AP.
Christopher Paolini was supposed to host the event on Saturday, reading to the children in drag as Miss Amie Vanité. He told local news outlet LancasterOnline that he had arrived early to change ahead of a planned protest of the event and was there when police evacuated the building.
He told the outlet he was “keeping a strong face” about the incident.
“Because that’s what I do in the face of this kind of insanity, stupidity,” Paolini said. “Like, this is not how we thought today was going to go at all whatsoever.”
Tiffany Shirley, director of Lancaster Pride, also told LancasterOnline that she was there at the time and made the decision to cancel the event to ensure everyone’s safety.
“It just breaks my heart that we were trying to make a safe, fun event for our children, and because people disagree and don’t think we should exist, (they) had to ruin it for everybody,” Shirley said.
Rescue crews are working again on Sunday morning in the hopes of finding a 6-year-old girl that was swept away in a creek in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on Saturday night, according to officials.
At 8 a.m., on Sunday, crews resumed a search for a girl who fell into Chester Creek at about 7 p.m. on Saturday night. Officials suspended the search after 10 p.m. on Saturday after searching for the girl for several hours.
Officials told NBC Philadelphia that the incident began at round 7 p.m. on Saturday night when three girls were playing by Chester Creek when two of them slipped on the mud and fell into the water.
Officials suspended the search after 10 p.m. on Saturday after searching for the girl for several hours.WCAU
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One of those girls was able to get herself out, but the 6-year-old is believed to still be in the water, officials said.
The girl’s aunt, Tyeesha Reynolds, told NBC Philadelphia that her daughter tried holding onto the young girl’s jacket but couldn’t, and she got swept away into the creek.
NBC Philadelphia has also been told that several of the girl’s family members also jumped in the water and started searching on their own before crews arrived.
The area of the creek is located near 7th Street and the Avenue of the States in Chester, Delaware County, according to the director of Delaware County’s Department of Emergency Services Tim Boyce.
Rescue boats are in the water looking for the girl as the Coast Guard circles above the scene. The search area includes the Delaware River, according to sources.
A car crashed into the second floor of a house in a Pennsylvania town Sunday, authorities said.
Authorities responded to the vehicle crash at a home in Decatur Township at 3:25 p.m., Pennsylvania State Police said, adding that an investigation determined the crash was “an intentional act” and that charges were pending.
The vehicle went into a culvert behind the house before landing on the roof, according to Junction Fire Company. The investigation found speed to be a factor in the crash, according to Decatur Fire Company.
A car crashed into the second floor of a house in Decatur Township, Pa.Junction Fire Company
The driver of the vehicle was identified as 20-year-old Evan Miller, according to the Pennsylvania State Police report. The driver was transported to the nearby Geisinger Lewistown Hospital and no deaths were reported from the incident, according to the Junction Fire Company. The occupants of the house were uninjured, according to the Decatur Volunteer Fire Company.
Charges were not filed as of Tuesday afternoon, according to the the Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania website.
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While Republican leadership on Capitol Hill has been steadfast in their criticism of Attorney General Merrick Garland amid special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Jan. 6, so too have some Democrats. Pennsylvania Congressman Brendan Boyle joins “America Decides” to discuss why he thinks Garland hasn’t risen to the occasion.
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At least three people were killed and others injured after a bus carrying as many as 50 people and a passenger vehicle crashed on a Pennsylvania freeway late Sunday night, authorities said.
The collision unfolded just before 11:50 p.m. ET on Sunday on the southbound lanes of Interstate 81 in Lower Paxton Township in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania State Police said in a news release.
The overturned bus on I-81 southbound in Dauphin County, Pa., on Monday.Trooper Megan Frazer / Pennsylvania State Police
It was not immediately clear what caused the crash, but police said the bus, which was carrying around 45 to 50 people, was left flipped on its side following the collision.
At least three people were pronounced dead at the scene, state police said.
Some were also taken to a hospital for injuries ranging from “minor to critical” police said. They said they could not yet provide a number for how many people had been injured.
The freeway was shut down southbound between exits 77 and 72. It was not clear when it would be reopened.
The Chambers Hill Fire Department was designated as a location for passengers and loved ones to reunite.
Police said more information would be provided as it becomes available.
Chantal Da Silva
Chantal Da Silva is a breaking news editor for NBC News Digital based in London.
“Multiple passengers” were killed in a collision late Sunday night between a charter bus and passenger vehicle on Interstate 81 in Dauphin County in southeast Pennsylvania, state police said.
The bus, carrying 45-50 passengers, flipped on its side and came to rest on the right berm, police said, adding that multiple people were taken to Hershey Medical Center suffering from various injuries.
The Chambers Hill Fire Department was opening up as a reunification center for passengers. The Red Cross was to be there as well.
Dauphin County is home to the state capital, Harrisburg, and Hershey Park.
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