90-year-old Navy veteran killed in Houston carjacking; $15,000 reward issued for information
(HOUSTON) — Texas officials are offering a $15,000 reward for information leading to the identification and arrest of a suspect involved in the fatal carjacking of a 90-year-old veteran over the holiday weekend.
Nelson Beckett, who served in the Navy, was shot dead and run over by his own car on Saturday in Houston, according to police.
Houston patrol officers responded to an assault in progress at an independent living community on Saturday and found Beckett lying in the parking lot with gunshot wounds, according to Houston police.
Paramedics responded to the scene and the man was transported to an area hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Beckett was in his vehicle when he was approached by an unknown man who assaulted him, according to police. The suspect shot Beckett and took his belongings before taking his vehicle and hitting him as he fled the scene, according to Houston police.
The vehicle was later recovered at an apartment complex, according to the Houston Police Department.
“He was always an outgoing person until his very last day,” Nelson Beckett’s son, Tim Beckett, told Houston ABC station KTRK. “We’ll miss him.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to the identification and arrest of the person involved in Beckett’s murder. Crime Stoppers of Houston is offering an additional $5,000.
“Cecilia and I are deeply saddened to hear of the murder of 90-year-old Navy veteran Nelson Beckett in Houston. Our hearts go out to his family and loved ones, and the entire Houston community during this difficult time,” Abbott said in a statement.
“I encourage anyone with information relating to this terrible crime to call the Texas Crime Stoppers hotline or submit an anonymous tip online. Texas will always support the brave men and women who answered the call to serve in our nation’s military, and with the public’s help we will capture the murderer and put them behind bars,” Abbott said.
Houston police are asking anyone with information to contact its homicide department at 713-308-3600 or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.
(GROSSE POINT, Mich.) — The parents of a teenage passenger killed in a high-speed car crash in Michigan are pushing for authorities to charge the mother of the driver.
In November 2023, Flynn MacKrell was riding in a car with his then-16-year-old friend who was driving over 100 mph in a 25 mph residential zone, according to police. The 16-year-old lost control and crashed into a tree, killing the 18-year-old MacKrell, according to police.
MacKrell died two months into his freshman year at the University of Dayton, according to his obituary.
The teen driver was charged with second-degree murder and has pleaded not guilty. He is awaiting trial. A lawyer for the family declined to comment, citing pending litigation.
But MacKrell’s family said they want the driver’s mother held responsible, too, saying the mother knew her son had a habit of driving excessively fast.
“He had no regard for his passenger safety, no regard for pedestrian safety. And the mother knew it,” MacKrell’s dad, Thad MacKrell, told ABC News.
The 16-year-old’s phone had Life360 — an app that shows how fast a car is going and where it is, according to an investigation report obtained by ABC News.
The driver’s mom repeatedly texted him in the weeks and months before the crash to stop speeding, at one point writing, “I have screen shots of you … driving 123 mph,” according to the report.
“Any reasonable person would have done something very, very simple — they would have taken the keys away. And she didn’t do it. And our son is dead,” Thad MacKrell said.
“Every day, we wake up in shock and disbelief that our beloved Flynn is gone,” MacKrell’s mom, Anne Vanker, said. “And it was 100% preventable.”
The MacKrell family is pointing to the Oxford, Michigan, school shooter case, in which the teenage gunman’s parents were held criminally responsible for giving their son the gun he used in the 2021 shooting, which killed four people. This April, the gunman’s parents, Jennifer and James Crumbley, were sentenced to 10 to 15 years after each was found guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter in separate trials.
ABC News legal contributor Brian Buckmire said, “In the Crumbley case, we’re talking about a gun that is a, per se, dangerous weapon. One of its intentions is to harm or kill another. A vehicle or car is not necessarily a, per se, dangerous weapon.”
“It becomes a dangerous weapon when used reckless or negligently,” he continued. “So the way we view those two objects may have a different opinion as to how this case is pursued.”
The prosecutor’s office said it is reviewing the MacKrell case. Investigators have submitted a “warrant request” for a relative of the teen driver, prosecutors told ABC News.
The driver’s case is “adult designated,” according to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office. If convicted, “an adult designation allows the judge to have the option of sentencing the defendant as a juvenile, or as an adult, or to fashion a blended juvenile sentence with the option of imposing an adult sentence if the juvenile is not rehabilitated,” the prosecutor’s office said.
(NEW YORK) — An OceanGate whistleblower testified during a United States Coast Guard hearing into the deadly 2023 implosion of the Titan that he had “no confidence” in the way the experimental submersible was being built.
David Lochridge, the former director of marine operations for OceanGate, said he was known as a “troublemaker” in the tourism and expeditions company because he was so outspoken about his safety concerns — voiced years before five people were killed when the Titan catastrophically imploded during a deep-sea voyage to the Titanic wreckage in June 2023.
Lochridge said Tuesday during an ongoing Coast Guard hearing into the deadly implosion that he was hired in 2015 to in part work on the operations for the Titan but was ultimately not involved in its development. Lochridge said he was “phased out” after butting heads with OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush — one of the five people who died in the implosion.
When asked by the Marine Board of Investigation for the U.S. Coast Guard if he had confidence in the way the Titan was being built in 2017, Lochridge said, “No confidence whatsoever, and I was very vocal about that, and still am.”
Lochridge submitted a report in January 2018 outlining his concerns about the submersible’s carbon-fiber hull, including imperfections, after he said Rush asked him to inspect it.
“At the end of the day, safety comes first,” Lochridge said. “Yes, you’re taking a risk going down in a submersible, but don’t take risks that are unnecessary with faulty, and I mean faulty, deficient equipment.”
Lochridge testified Rush “liked to do things on the cheap.” Asked why the company resorted to cost-cutting measures, Lochridge said, “The desire to get to the Titanic as quickly as we could to start making profit.”
He said he did not know about the financial side of the company, but that “there was a big push to get this done.”
“A lot of steps along the way were missed,” he said.
Lochridge testified that Rush wanted to do manned testing of the first Titan prototype, though Lochridge recommended doing unmanned testing due to his concerns.
“I knew that hull would fail,” he said. “It’s an absolute mess.”
Lochridge was fired from OceanGate in 2018, days after submitting his report and attending an hourslong meeting with OceanGate executives, including Rush, ABC News previously reported. Documents reviewed by ABC News stated that it was clear Lochridge and Rush were “at an impasse” regarding the Titan hull, and “the only option was the termination of your employment.”
Lochridge testified Tuesday he was terminated because he was “anti-project.”
“I didn’t want to lose my job,” Lochridge said. “I wanted to go to Titanic. It was on my bucket list. I wanted to dive this, but dive it safely.”
Following his termination, Lochridge said he reached out to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in February 2018 with his concerns about public safety and was placed under the agency’s Whistleblower Protection Program. Recent Stories from ABC News
“I wouldn’t want to see anybody dying for the sake of going in a sub,” Lochridge said Tuesday. “It’s a magical place. I love it. I’m very passionate about what I do. If there’s risk like that, don’t do it.”
A defect was discovered in the first prototype of the carbon-fiber hull in 2019, and it was not used on Titanic missions, the Coast Guard said.
A second carbon-fiber hull was subsequently made that was used on Titanic missions, including the doomed dive on June 18, 2023.
OceanGate suspended all exploration and commercial operations after the implosion.
The Coast Guard’s hearing into the implosion is scheduled to last two weeks. Lochridge is the only witness scheduled to testify on Tuesday.
During his testimony, Lochridge said he started being phased out of his duties after he inadvertently “embarrassed” Rush during a 2016 dive to the Andrea Doria shipwreck on OceanGate’s Cyclops 1 submersible.
Lochridge, a veteran submersible pilot, said he was meant to take several paying clients down to the wreck to take a 3-D model, but Rush wanted to pilot the dive instead. Lochridge said he objected, noting that the wreck is “dangerous” and that over a dozen people died during dives to the site at the time — and eventually persuaded Rush to let him go along.
He said Rush ended up getting the vessel stuck in the wreck and refused to relinquish control of the submersible to Lochridge until one of the crew members yelled at Rush to give Lochridge the PlayStation controller that piloted the vessel.
Lochridge said Rush threw the controller at his head and one of the buttons came off, though he testified that he was able to repair it and get them back to the surface.
After that, Lochridge said Rush stopped talking to him.
Lochridge testified he raised objections after OceanGate phased out its relationship with the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory in 2016. He said Rush decided to do all engineering for the Titan in-house.
Asked by the board why that was the case, Lochridge said, “Arrogance.”
He also testified the company only cared about making money and it wasn’t interested in scientific research.
“The whole idea behind the company was to make money, that’s it,” Lochridge said. “There was very little in the way of science.”
OceanGate sued Lochridge following his termination, alleging, among other things, breach of contract, fraud and misappropriation of trade secrets. Lochridge alleged in a counterclaim lawsuit that he was fired for raising concerns about quality control.
During the hearing on Tuesday, Lochridge said he dropped his OSHA case and walked away from the lawsuits in late 2018 because he didn’t want to “put my family through any more of this,” financially and emotionally.
“It was going nowhere,” he said. “It was too much for us as a family.”
Lochridge and OceanGate settled the dispute out of court in November 2018. Lochridge said OSHA closed the case in December 2018 following the settlement agreement.
“I never paid a penny to OceanGate, I’m going to state that clearly,” Lochridge said Tuesday. “I gave them nothing, they gave me nothing.”
In his final remarks, Lochridge said he hopes the investigation will shed light on “why OSHA did not actively address my concerns.”
“I believe that if OSHA had attempted to investigate the seriousness of the concerns I raised on multiple occasions, this tragedy may have been prevented,” he said. “As a seafarer, I feel deeply let down and disappointed by the system that is meant to protect not only seafarers but the general public as well.”
ABC News has reached out to OSHA for comment. OSHA had previously declined to comment to ABC News on the case.
The Coast Guard hearing is scheduled to resume on Thursday, with testimony from the company’s former scientific director and a crew member who was on board OceanGate’s 2016 dive to the Andrea Doria shipwreck.
(NEW YORK) — A couple in their 50’s were kidnapped and assaulted this weekend while house hunting in Connecticut, police have said.
The incident occurred on Sunday afternoon in the city of Danbury, when a group of six men intentionally rear-ended the couple’s Lamborghini sports car before forcing them into the back of a van.
The men — all of whom live in Florida — beat the couple with a baseball bat, duct taped their hands and feet and covered the male victim’s eyes. Some members of the group then drove off with the Lamborghini while the others sought to escape with the victims in the van.
“It seems like they were struck with a bat,” Sgt. Steven Castrovinci said of the kidnapped couple, as quoted by ABC News’ New York City station WABC-TV. “The male victim was pretty bruised, pretty swollen and they indicated they were struck with a bat several times.”
A witness alerted law enforcement and followed the van until it lost control and crashed. Police were then able to apprehend the four men in the van and free the kidnapped couple. The other two men were arrested later.
Police told WABC that the two victims were taken to the hospital and are recovering from their injuries, which are not life-threatening.
All six suspects now face charges including first-degree assault, first-degree kidnapping and reckless endangerment. The motive remains unclear, and there is no clear connection between the suspect and the victims.
WABC named the arrested men as Angel Borrero, 23; Reynaldo Diaz, 22; Anthony Pena, 23; Josue Romero, 26; Ricardo Estrada, 21; and Michael Rivas, 18.