Wednesday, June 08, 2011
EKB Capsule News...West Virginia...6-9-'11
- Delegate Larry Border, R-Wood, a longtime member of the West Virginia House of Delegates died Wednesday at St. Joseph's Hospital in Parkersburg where he was taken Tuesday after suffering a massive stroke. The House Minority Whip is serving his 11th term in the House after first being elected in 1990. He also serves as minority chairman of the House Health and Human Resources Committee and is a pharmacist, farmer and developer. He celebrated his 60th birthday on June 3rd.
- Police say, David Wayne Popp Jr. escaped from the Huntington Work Release Center Wednesday, making him the third person who escaped from the center in the past five days. Popp was serving time for daytime burglary in Mercer County. Popp is described as a 25 year old white male. He is 6'3" tall and 200 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. David Knight and Dejuan Jones also escaped. Knight was caught Wednesday evening.
- Frank Imperiale, an 88 year old Mercer County man, traveled to the Capitol on Tuesday where he received $169,491.20 from the West Virginia Unclaimed Property Division. State Treasurer John Perdue presented Imperiale with a check from a savings account Imperiale opened in the 1940s. It had not been active and ended up in the state's hands. Frank said he began depositing money into the bank while working on the East Coast in places ranging from New Jersey to Boston to Washington, D.C. and making about $64 per week. He has spent most of his life working construction and traveling to places such as Guam, Alaska and Canada. Frank's brother, Xavier, 80, received a check from the state for $630,837 in 2003 for unclaimed property. The state also found another $25,000 that belonged to him that year. The brothers have received a combined $825,328.20. So far, the office has returned more than $100 million to its rightful owners, but Perdue says more than $120 million remains in the state's unclaimed property holdings. To check the list of unclaimed properties, go online to www.wvtreasury.com.
- Brandon Sherrod, 20, of Charleston, who was sentenced to life in prison, with a recommendation of mercy, for the first-degree murder in the shooting death of James Williams, 19, of Charleston, said in court Wednesday that he will appeal his case to the state Supreme Court. The jury decided he should receive mercy, meaning he will be eligible to go before a parole board after serving 15 years. Williams was shot through the kitchen window of his Grant Street apartment in November 2009. Sherrod denied killing Williams, but he did not testify in his own defense. Sherrod's court-appointed defense attorney, Ed Bullman, made a motion for a mistrial after witness Michelle Bailey told the jury Sherrod looked different in court than he did at the time of the murder. Asked what she meant, Bailey replied, "You look much healthier when you are in jail." Bullman immediately objected to the comment that revealed Sherrod was incarcerated, a fact the jury wasn't supposed to know. The judge instructed jurors to disregard the question and the answer but denied Bullman's motion for a mistrial.
- Guy Escue III, 26, of St. Albans, was sentenced to seven years in federal prison Tuesday on charges of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Escue was prohibited from owning a firearm based on two felony convictions when police found a loaded .380 pistol underneath his mattress. Following a drug tip, police went to Escue's residence on May 24, 2010 and found him possessing a firearm that had been previously reported as stolen.
- Larry Allen Hayes Jr., 22, of South Charleston was arrested in October and charged in the death of his girlfriend's 18-month-old daughter. Kanawha Circuit Judge Paul Zakaib refused to lower his $500,000 cash bond, meaning he will remain jailed until his July trial. His trial was scheduled to begin last week but prosecutors requested a postponement to have time to review a medical opinion from the defense. Hayes' court-appointed attorney, Richard Holicker says a physician believes the child's injuries were older, and the injury the state is attributing to Mr. Hayes is not in fact the cause of the child's death. Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer Meadows asked the judge to keep the bond at $500,000 cash, saying she believes the state will have adequate evidence to refute their witness.
- Allen Thomas, 22, of Detroit, pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy to sell more than 1,000 prescription pills in the Charleston area. Thomas admitted that, between July 2010 and March 23, 2011, he possessed, distributed and intended to sell a total of 950 40-milligram oxymorphone hydrochloride pills and 100 30-milligram oxycodone pills. Thomas also admitted he and another man rented a hotel room at the Microtel Hotel in South Charleston in March where police found him with $5,544 in cash along with more than 100 prescription pills. Police say Thomas would restock on the oxymorphone hydrochloride, known as "Opana," and oxycodone, known as "Roxicodone," in regular trips back to Detroit. Thomas faces up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine when sentenced on September 7th.
- Kanawha County Sheriff's Deputies say Ronald Gene Reynolds, 46, of Clendenin, was walking along U.S. 119 near Spencer Road about 6:00 A.M. Wednesday morning when he was struck by a vehicle driven by 36 year old Carolyn Sue Brown of Bomont. Reynolds was taken to Charleston Area Medical Center General Hospital where he was pronounced dead. Brown was transported to St. Francis Hospital and treated for minor injuries.
- Hundreds gathered along Interstates 79 and 77 in West Virginia on Wednesday to get a look at the US Airways Flight, forever know as "Miracle on the Hudson", as it rolled by at a controlled 50-mile an hour trek on its way from New Jersey to Charlotte, North Carolina where it will be forever enshrined in a museum. The plane left Flatwoods, West Virginia around 8:00 A.M. Wednesday and arrived around noon in Charleston. The plane spent the night in Bluefield, and, by Friday, it will roll into its permanent home at the Carolina Aviation Museum in Charlotte.
- Dozens of motorcycles rumbled into Charleston Wednesday morning as part of the annual Ride4COPS event in memory of the 181 West Virginia police officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty, and it is a way to raise money for the fallen officers’ families. The ride started at the West Virginia State Police Academy in Institute and ended at the law enforcement memorial at the Capitol complex. A former officer founded Ride4COPS in 2009, and he plans memorial rides in each U.S. Capitol city to raise awareness and funding.
# posted by Homer Owens @ 11:20 PM 
