4 people, including 2 children, found dead from gunshot wounds in New Hampshire home: Police
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(MADBURY, N.H.) — Four members of a family, including two children, were found dead in a New Hampshire home and police are investigating the incident as a possible murder-suicide, authorities said.
A toddler was found alive and uninjured in the home in Madbury, a small town in the state’s Seacoast region northwest of Portsmouth, according to a statement from the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office.
Police officers discovered the bodies of two adults and two children around 8:21 p.m. on Monday after a 911 caller reported that several people were deceased inside the home, according to the statement.
“Each of the deceased family members appears to have suffered gunshot wounds, and were pronounced dead at the scene,” according to the statement from authorities.
The names of the deceased family members are being withheld by law enforcement pending autopsies scheduled for Wednesday by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and notification of next of kin, officials said.
Investigators said there is no known threat to the public.
“I think investigators still have probably more questions than they have answers,” Assistant Attorney General Ben Agati told ABC affiliate station WMUR in Manchester, New Hampshire. “One of the biggest questions they have right now is motive. Why? And I think that’s probably one of the more difficult things that they are trying to grasp, to understand how this came to be and to be able to be more definitive and to understand what the sequence of events was like inside that house.”
(WASHINGTON) — Kilmar Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty Friday to human smuggling charges, one week after he was brought back to the Unites States from detention in El Salvador.
The 29-year-old has been the subject of a prolonged legal battle since he was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison — despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution — after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13, which his family and attorneys deny.
The Trump administration, after arguing for nearly two months that it was unable to being him back, returned him the U.S. last week to face a two-count indictment alleging that, while living with his wife and children in Maryland, he participated in a yearslong conspiracy to haul undocumented migrants from Texas to the interior of the country.
Federal prosecutors say the conspiracy involved the domestic transport of thousands of noncitizens from Mexico and Central America, including some children, in exchange for thousands of dollars.
Prosecutors have also asked the judge in the case, Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes, to schedule a pre-trial detention hearing in order to determine if Abrego Garcia should continue to be held in custody pending trial. Judge Holmes is expected to consider that motion on Friday.
In a court filing on Monday, prosecutors acknowledged that Abrego Garcia would almost certainly be immediately taken in custody by ICE if Judge Holmes were to deny their motion for pre-trial detention — but they asked the court to consider, for the sake of argument, the possibility that he “would have an enormous reason to flee” if he were not immediately detained by ICE.
They also argued that Abrego-Garcia’s alleged MS-13 ties put him at risk of attempting to obstruct justice or intimidate potential witnesses against him, including his alleged co-conspirators.
“The United States would submit that at least one co-conspirator has described that the Defendant has previously used his membership in MS-13 not just to facilitate his illegal activity in the smuggling conspiracy but also to intimidate others in the conspiracy who attempted to confront him about the treatment of female smuggling victims and his smuggling of firearms and drugs which added to the conspiracy’s risk of detection and were not a goal of the overall conspiracy,” the government’s filing said.
In response, attorneys for Abrego Garcia said in a filing Wednesday that the Trump administration’s arguments for a detention hearing are meritless.
“It should also come as no surprise that the government has not cited a single case holding that a generic alien-smuggling charge provides grounds for a detention hearing,” Abrego Garcia’s attorneys said. “This case should not be the first.”
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys also argued in the filing that their client is not a flight risk, and said that the government “points to zero facts” suggesting Abrego Garcia has a history of evading arrest, has any prior restrictions, or has “systematically engaged in international travel in the recent past.”
The attorneys also argued that there is no “serious risk” Abrego Garcia will obstruct justice, arguing that the government’s “baseless gang-affiliation allegations” do not support a finding that he poses a “serious risk” of obstructive behavior.
“[The] government is not entitled to seek detention in this case, Mr. Abrego Garcia respectfully asks the Court to deny the government’s motion for detention,” the attorneys said.
(DYER COUNTY, Tenn.) — As the search continued on Monday for a 28-year-old man suspected in the homicides of four people in Tennessee, two additional individuals have been arrested on charges linked to the killings, authorities said.
Dyer County, Tennessee, District Attorney Danny Goodman said Dearrah Sanders and Brandon Powell were the latest suspects arrested in connection with the quadruple killing that included three victims from the same family. Goodman made the announcement at the arraignment on Monday of Tanaka Brown, who is charged with being an accessory to the killings after the fact and tampering with evidence.
Sanders is also charged with being an accessory after the fact, while Powell is charged with possession of schedule six drugs and criminal conspiracy, Goodman said. Also arrested in the homicide case was Giovante Thomas, who has been charged with being an accessory after the fact, authorities said.
The primary suspect, Austin Robert Drummond, is considered armed and dangerous following the killings of 38-year-old Cortney Rose, Rose’s children, 20-year-old Adrianna Williams and 15-year-old Braydon Williams, and Adrianna Williams’ boyfriend, 21-year-old James “Michael” Wilson, according to authorities and family. The victims were killed on Tuesday and found along a road in Lake County, in northwest Tennessee, authorities said.
The same day, Wilson and Williams’ baby was left in a car seat in a “random individual’s front yard” in nearby Dyer County, according to the Dyer County Sheriff’s Office.
A motive for the killings remains under investigation.
Drummond is wanted on four counts of first-degree murder, one count of aggravated kidnapping, four counts of felon in possession of a firearm and one count of possession of a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI).
A $17,500 reward has been offered for information leading to Drummond’s arrest.
Investigators believe Drummond is still in the Lake County area. Drummond’s white 2016 Audi was found last week in Jackson, Tennessee, where Drummond has ties, according to officials. A white 1988 Ford pickup truck linked to Drummond was found in Dyer County, Tennessee.
(LORAIN, Ohio) — An Ohio officer has died a day after a gunman opened fire on him and a fellow officer while they were eating lunch in their patrol vehicles, authorities said.
Lorain Police Department officer Phillip Wagner, 35, was critically wounded in what police described as an “ambush attack.” He died on Thursday in a hospital “despite the valiant efforts of fellow officers, first responders and medical professionals,” the Lorain Police Department said.
“Officer Wagner’s life and service to our city will never be forgotten,” acting Lorain Police Chief Michael Failing said in a statement. “Our department mourns the loss of a true hero and stands in unwavering support of Officer Wagner’s family, friends, and fellow officers during this heartbreaking time.”
Wagner joined the Lorain Police Department in February 2022 and had previously served in the U.S. Marine Corps, police said.
Two other Lorain Police Department officers were also injured in the shooting, which occurred at the dead end of an undeveloped industrial park in Lorain, located in northeast Ohio, police said.
The gunman was killed in an ensuing exchange of gunfire, with the motive for the shooting not yet known, the Elyria Police Department said Thursday.
The shooting unfolded around 1 p.m. Wednesday, after Wagner and fellow Lorain officer Peter Gale, 51, had picked up pizza for lunch and were parked side-by-side at the dead end, according to Failing.
The suspect had parked at the dead end and had an “arsenal of weapons with him,” Failing said at a press briefing Wednesday.
In and around his vehicle were “multiple high-powered rifles, handguns, and a substantial quantity of loaded magazines,” the Elyria Police Department, which is investigating the incident, said in a press release Thursday. A “significant quantity of improvised explosive materials” was also found in his vehicle and safely detonated away from the scene, police said.
“He was laying in wait and opened fire with multiple rounds at both of the officers who were sitting in their vehicles,” Failing said.
A third Lorain officer who responded to a call for additional officers, 47-year-old Brent Payne, was then shot by the suspect multiple times in his patrol vehicle, Failing said.
Additional officers who responded to the scene helped treat their wounded fellow officers and drove them to an area hospital, according to Failing.
Gale was shot in the hand and has since been treated and released, police said Thursday.
Wagner and Payne both suffered multiple gunshot wounds and were airlifted to another hospital for treatment, Failing said. Payne had surgery Thursday morning and is recovering, police said.
Officers returned fire on the suspect, who was armed with a “high-powered rifle,” according to Elyria Police Chief James Welsh, who spoke at a separate briefing earlier Wednesday.
The suspect was shot and pronounced dead at the scene, Failing said. The Elyria Police Department identified him Thursday as 28-year-old Michael Parker of Lorain.
Welsh said no other suspects have been located and they are “fairly confident” there was only one shooter. The area has been contained, he said.
A motive for the shooting remains under investigation, Elyria police said Thursday.
“This is a difficult day for the Lorain Police Department and the law enforcement community,” Welsh said.
“It will take time to determine exactly what transpired here today,” he said.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said he has been briefed on the shooting, saying it “appears to have been a targeted attack on law enforcement.”
“This situation reminds us that those who work in law enforcement risk their lives every day for the safety of their communities,” he said in a statement on social media. “We are so very grateful for the men and women who willingly and bravely serve and protect.”
Ohio Sen. Jon Husted said his office has offered assistance to local officials.
“There is no place for this kind of violence in our state or country,” he said in a statement on social media.
