Daily Herald | Posted: Sunday, April 6, 2008 11:00 pm
Bodies of 2 missing boaters found
TAMPA, Fla. -- Authorities have found the bodies of two missing boaters in Tampa Bay a day after fielding a distress call about a boat on fire.
Authorities say one of the bodies retrieved Sunday is that of 56-year-old Alton Earl Jones. A female victim has yet to be identified. Coast Guard officials say there may have been a third boater.
The search for the boaters began Saturday at 8:30 p.m. when the Coast Guard received a call from a Spanish-speaking person reporting the blaze. About half an hour later, officials came across a fire-damaged, unoccupied boat near MacDill Air Force Base.
Ga. man's suicide same as his heart donor's
HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. -- A man who received a heart transplant 12 years ago and later married the donor's widow died the same way the donor did, authorities said: of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
No foul play was suspected in 69-year-old Sonny Graham's death at his Vidalia, Ga., home, investigators said. He was found Tuesday in a utility building in his backyard with a single shotgun wound to the throat, said Greg Harvey, a special agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Graham, who was director of the Heritage golf tournament at Sea Pines from 1979 to 1983, was on the verge of congestive heart failure in 1995 when he got a call that a heart was available in Charleston.
That heart was from Terry Cottle, 33, who had shot himself, Berkeley County Coroner Glenn Rhoad said.
Grateful for his new heart, Graham began writing letters to the donor's family to thank them. In January 1997, Graham met his donor's widow, Cheryl Cottle, then 28, in Charleston.
"I felt like I had known her for years," Graham told The (Hilton Head) Island Packet for a story in 2006. "I couldn't keep my eyes off her. I just stared."
In 2001, Graham bought a home for Cottle and her four children in Vidalia. Three years later, they were married after Graham retired from his job as a plant manager for Hargray Communications in Hilton Head.
Killer escaped from Pa. jail, caught in California
GIRARD, Pa. -- A killer who escaped from a Pennsylvania prison in a trash can was captured in California after boasting of an appearance on Fox's "America's Most Wanted," state police said Sunday.
Malcolm Kysor, 54, was arrested Saturday in a Bakersfield, Calif., park after someone notified police about the claim, police said.
"Basically, it's a citizen's tip. He was in a park and he started bragging," Trooper Donald Claypoole of the Girard barracks said.
Kysor was carried out in a truck hauling garbage from the medium-security State Correctional Institution at Albion, near Girard in northwestern Pennsylvania. He had been serving a life sentence since 1988 for an early 1980s slaying in Erie County.
Armed robber left his name on job application
ATHENS, Ga. -- Police say they got a major clue to the identity of a suspect in the armed robbery of a convenience store -- his job application.
Investigators in Athens, Ga., say Demetrius Robinson filled out the application to kill time while waiting for the Golden Pantry store to empty of customers.
Authorities say it was Robinson who then produced a knife and held up the store last week.
The job application gave Robinson's name and an uncle's phone number, but a phony address.
Police arrested the 28-year-old man Saturday on armed robbery charges.
An official at the Clarke County Jail said Robinson remained in custody Sunday but did not know whether he had an attorney.
Clinton campaign senior strategist steps down
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Mark Penn, the pollster and senior strategist for Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential bid, left the campaign Sunday after it was disclosed he met with representatives of the Colombian government to help promote a free trade agreement Clinton opposes.
"After the events of the last few days, Mark Penn has asked to give up his role as chief strategist of the Clinton Campaign," campaign manager Maggie Williams said in a statement released Sunday. "Mark, and Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates, Inc. will continue to provide polling and advice to the campaign."
Communications director Howard Wolfson and pollster Geoff Garin will direct the campaign's message and strategic efforts for the campaign going forward, Williams said.
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Penn, who serves as chief executive of public relations giant Burson-Marsteller, met with Colombian officials March 31 to help craft strategy to move the Colombian Free Trade agreement through Congress. Penn later issued a statement apologizing for the meeting, calling it an "error in judgment."
Obama emphasizes western issues in pitch to Montana voters
BUTTE, Mont. -- Hunting for votes out West, Democrat Barack Obama on Saturday rejected the idea that the region's sparsely populated states aren't important in the presidential race and renewed his promise to appoint a high-level adviser on Indian issues if elected.
Obama also cast his usual message in more Western-friendly terms, talking about clean-coal technology as a way of protecting Montana's beautiful mountains and civil liberties as part of the state's tradition of independence.
An Obama supporter had scolded all the presidential candidates earlier for not addressing Western issues.