Police arrested a prison inmate at a suburban Columbus house where he holed up Monday with two hostages after overpowering a guard in a hospital, carjacking a vehicle and robbing two banks, authorities said. Billy Jack Fitzmorris, 34, was believed to have escaped hours earlier on foot from St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown with the guard’s gun and uniform.
A synagogue of ultra-Orthodox Jews was destroyed by fire on the eve of Passover, raising suspicions Monday that the blaze was deliberately set to target members who participated in an Iranian-led conference on the denial of the Holocaust. No one was injured late Sunday when flames gutted the three-story building in Monsey of the group Neturei Karta, which routinely burns the Israeli flag and prays for an end to the Jewish state.
Rape convictions in Buffalo that put a man in prison for 22 years were erased Monday because of recently found DNA evidence that tied the crimes to another man. A prosecutor last week declared Anthony Capozzi, 50, exonerated. He is expected to be freed from custody this week.
Two eighth-graders were arrested on felony charges that they tried to poison their science teacher by pouring a fabric freshener into her soda, Tampa authorities said Monday. The teacher, 51-year-old Jacqueline Hutchins – who was not hurt – noticed an odd taste when she sipped her Pepsi on Friday. Other students told deputies the boy and girl, both 15, huddled around the teacher’s soda and talked about putting the Febreeze fabric freshener in her soda, authorities said.
From Herald news services
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