1 boy killed, 2 hurt in stabbing outside their high school; 2 classmates arrested
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(SANTA ANA, Calif.) — One student was killed and two others were wounded in a stabbing outside their Southern California high school, and two of their classmates have been arrested, authorities said.
The students were attacked during a fight in front of Santa Ana High School at about 3:25 p.m. Wednesday, shortly after dismissal, according to school officials and police in Santa Ana, which is about 30 miles southeast of Los Angeles.
A 14-year-old boy was hospitalized in critical condition and later died from his injuries, police said. He was identified later in the week by the Orange County coroner as Armando Morales.
A 15-year-old boy and 16-year-old boy were hospitalized in stable condition, police said. The Santa Ana Police Department later identified the boys as brothers.
The attack appeared to be gang-related, Santa Ana police spokesperson Natalie Garcia told reporters.
Garcia said Wednesday that police were searching for the two unidentified suspects. On Thursday, police said the suspects — a 15-year-old boy and a 17-year-old boy — were identified and turned themselves in.
“Based on interviews with the parents, witness statements, and other video surveillance, both suspects were arrested and booked into juvenile hall for murder and attempted murder,” Garcia told reporters.
The unidentified boys were taken to Juvenile Hall and booked for murder and attempted murder, police said.
“Our thoughts are with the family of the student who passed, and with all those impacted by this senseless act of violence,” the Santa Ana Unified School District said in a statement.
“Out of an abundance of caution, there will be an increased presence of Santa Ana School Police on and around Santa Ana HS on Thursday,” the district added.
(BOSTON) — A first responder testified Monday in Karen Read’s murder retrial that she heard the defendant say, “I hit him,” multiple times after her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, was found unresponsive in the snow outside a Massachusetts home in 2022.
Prosecutors allege, following a night of drinking in Canton, that Read struck O’Keefe with her Lexus SUV outside of a get-together at another officer’s home and left him to die in a blizzard in January 2022. An autopsy found that the 46-year-old died of hypothermia and blunt force injuries to the head.
After a jury was unable to reach a verdict in the initial murder trial last year, Read is being retried on charges including second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter while operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of a collision causing death. She has pleaded not guilty and maintains her innocence, with her attorneys arguing the police investigation was “riddled with errors” and alleging that witnesses colluded on their narrative about O’Keefe’s death.
Katie McLaughlin, a Canton firefighter paramedic who responded to the scene after Read and two others found O’Keefe in the snow outside the residence, was one of several witnesses who testified Monday in the ongoing trial.
As she did when she testified during the first trial, McLaughlin told the court that Read told her, “I hit him,” while she was trying to get details on O’Keefe during the early morning of Jan. 29, 2022.
“I asked if there had been any significant trauma that happened that preceded this, and she answered with a series of statements that she repeated — ‘I hit him. I hit him,” McLaughlin testified.
McLaughlin testified that she heard Read say, “I hit him,” four times.
An officer who was also present then signaled for his sergeant to come down, she said.
McLaughlin said she didn’t ask Read to clarify what she meant.
“I felt at that point, given the situation and how disturbing — and it was a very emotional situation, the woman was very upset — I didn’t feel comfortable pushing and asking for more. I just didn’t think that it was the right time for that,” she said. “And it was also really not my place at that point, and I feel like that was something that the police were — that’s more their role.”
McLaughlin said she subsequently told two colleagues in the ambulance at the scene what Read allegedly said.
O’Keefe was found by a flagpole near the home of Boston police officer Brian Albert.
Similar to the first trial when McLaughlin testified, defense attorney Alan Jackson grilled the witness on her relationship with Albert’s daughter, Caitlin, while mentioning times the two have attended the same social functions.
McLaughlin described Caitlin Albert as someone she went to high school with, shares mutual friends and socializes with, but wouldn’t consider a friend.
“We’ve known each other for years, but we are not close friends,” McLaughlin said. “We don’t have a relationship, just her one-on-one. It’s just group settings.”
Jackson also questioned if McLaughlin took any notes on what she said she heard Read say. The paramedic said she didn’t, and had only jotted down demographic information on O’Keefe onto her glove, such as his name and date of birth.
Asked by the prosecutor how she remembered Read’s alleged remarks, she said, “I won’t ever forget those statements.”
Jennifer McCabe, a key witness for the prosecution, testified last week that she also heard Read say, “I hit him,” while standing with Read and McLaughlin.
(CHANDLER, AZ) — Lori Daybell, the mother convicted of murdering two of her children in a so-called doomsday plot, has now been found guilty of conspiring with her brother to kill her fourth husband.
The jury in Maricopa County, Arizona, was handed the case Monday afternoon before reaching a verdict Tuesday afternoon.
Lori Daybell, 51, represented herself in the Phoenix trial. She did not take the stand or call any witnesses.
Dubbed the “doomsday mom,” Lori Daybell has maintained that her brother shot her then-husband of 13 years, Charles Vallow, in self-defense in her home in Chandler, Arizona, in July 2019. Her brother, Alex Cox, died from natural causes months after the shooting.
She had pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, said the shooting was a ploy for Daybell to get rid of her estranged husband so she could get his $1 million life insurance policy and be with her current husband, Chad Daybell, whom she married four months after the shooting.
Prosecutors further said she invoked their “twisted” religious beliefs as justification for the murder and gave her brother “religious authority” to kill Vallow because they believed he was possessed by an evil spirit they referred to as “Ned.”
Over two weeks, the state called more than a dozen witnesses, including Daybell’s other brother, Adam Cox, who testified that he had “no doubt” his two siblings conspired to kill Vallow upon learning that his brother had fatally shot him.
In her closing argument, Maricopa County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Treena Kay said the evidence at the scene showed that Vallow was not shot in self-defense, but was “executed” and the scene “staged.” She recounted text messages sent from Lori Daybell to her husband, Chad, seven days after Vallow was killed, discussing her now-deceased husband’s life insurance policy. Kay said that, upon learning she was no longer the beneficiary of the plan, the defendant messaged Chad that “Ned” probably changed it “before we got rid of him.”
The prosecutor also discussed a text message the defendant sent Alex Cox days before the deadly shooting in which she said they could “be like Nephi,” a prophet in the Book of Mormon who God commanded to kill Laban.
“Lori Vallow wanted the million dollars, and she wanted Chad Daybell, and she and Alex used that twisted religious beliefs they had so that they could kill the evil, possessed Charles and ‘be like Nephi,'” Kay said.
Three jurors who spoke to reporters following the verdict said the text message evidence in the case had stood out while they were deliberating. The jurors said they had no knowledge of Lori Daybell’s prior convictions, which were not discussed during the Phoenix trial.
Members of Vallow’s family expressed relief at the guilty verdict.
“I’m ready to move on,” Vallow’s sister, Kay Woodcock, told reporters outside the courthouse.
“This was thrust upon us, and our lives just went into, like a tornado, for a long time,” she said.
Following the guilty verdict, Lori Daybell agreed to several aggravating factors in the case, instead of having a jury make a finding on them. Among them, she agreed that this was a dangerous offense and that it involved the presence of an accomplice. When asked if she agreed that as a result of her conduct, the victim or the victim’s family “suffered emotional or financial harm,” she said, “Absolutely.”
She will be sentenced following another upcoming trial in Maricopa County, where she is further accused of scheming with her brother Alex Cox to kill Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of her niece.
Three months after the shooting of Vallow, Boudreaux called 911 to report that someone driving by in a Jeep shot at his vehicle outside his home in Gilbert, Arizona.
She has pleaded not guilty in that case.
Both Lori and Chad Daybell were found guilty of first-degree murder for the deaths of her children, Joshua “J.J.” Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16, who went missing months after Charles Vallow was killed. In separate trials in 2023 and 2024, prosecutors argued the couple thought the children were possessed zombies and murdered them so that they could be together. The children’s remains were found on an Idaho property belonging to Daybell in June 2020 following a monthslong search.
Lori Daybell is currently serving life in prison without parole for the murders of her two children. She has denied killing them.
Chad Daybell was sentenced to death after being convicted of murdering the two children, as well as his first wife, Tamara Daybell, and now awaits execution on Idaho’s death row.
(WASHINGTON) — The Federal Housing Finance Agency has referred information about New York Attorney General Letitia James to the Justice Department regarding a loan on James’ Virginia property, according to a letter obtained by ABC News.
William Pulte, the director of the FHFA, alleges in his letter to the Justice Department, dated April 14, that James listed her Norfolk, Virginia property as her “principal residence” in August of 2023, “despite being a statewide public office holder in the state of New York at that same time and primarily residing in the state of New York.”
The FHFA alleges in the letter that a July 2024 building permit “lists her New York property as the ‘JAMES RESIDENCE’ and states ‘Remain Occupied’.”
“At the time of the 2023 Norfolk, VA property purchase and mortgage, Ms. James was the siting [sic] Attorney General of New York and is required by law to have her primary residence in the state of New York – even though her mortgage applications list her intent to have the Norfolk, VA property as her primary home,” according to the letter. “It appears Ms. James’ property and mortgage-related misrepresentations may have continued to her recent 2023 Norfolk, VA property purchase in order to secure a lower interest rate and more favorable loan terms.”
Pulte, whom Trump appointed in March to lead the FHFA, further alleges in the letter that James “appears to have falsified records in order to meet certain lending requirements and receive favorable loan terms,” which he says “could be violations of the criminal code,” including wire, mail and bank fraud “and/or other relevant state and federal laws.”
The letter concludes by stating that the FHFA “look[s] forward to cooperating with the Department of Justice to support any actions that the Department of Justice finds appropriate.”
“Attorney General James is focused every single day on protecting New Yorkers, especially as this Administration weaponizes the federal government against the rule of law and the Constitution,” a spokesperson for James’ office said in a statement provided in response to an ABC News request for comment. “She will not be intimidated by bullies – no matter who they are.”
James’ office filed a business fraud suit against Trump and his organization in 2022, which resulted in a February 2024 ruling against Trump and fines in excess of $350 million. Former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty to lying under oath in the civil trial and served five months in prison.
