Woman found murdered at Hamptons resort, police investigating
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(NEW YORK) — Police are investigating the murder of a woman at a high-end resort in the Hamptons.
A staff member at the Shou Sugi Ban House found the victim dead in a guest room on Monday afternoon, Suffolk County police said. The resort is in Water Mill, located between Southhampton and Bridgehampton.
The woman hasn’t been identified, police said, adding that her cause of death will be determined after an autopsy.
No one has been taken into custody.
Police ask anyone with information to call the department at 631-852-6392 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-220-TIPS.
(SPRINGFIELD, Ohio) — Two elementary schools were evacuated and a middle school was closed on Friday in the wake of a new threat sent via email in Springfield, Ohio, according to the school district and the mayor.
The elementary schools released students to their parents, officials said.
It’s unclear if the person who sent Friday’s threat is the same person who sent Thursday’s, Springfield Mayor Rob Rue told ABC News.
On Thursday morning, bomb threats were sent via email “to multiple agencies and media outlets” in the city, according to the city commission office.
Explosive-detecting K-9s helped police clear multiple facilities listed in the threat, including two elementary schools, City Hall and a few driver’s license bureaus, Springfield Police Chief Allison Elliott told reporters. The county court facilities were also cleared “out of an abundance of caution,” she said.
The FBI is working with local police to help identify the source of the threat, Elliott said.
The mayor said there’s a lot of fear in Springfield in the wake of the threats.
“This is a very concerning time for our citizens, and frankly, a lot of people are tired of just, you know, the things that have been spread about our community that are just negative and not true. We need help, not hate,” Rue told ABC News on Friday.
The mayor said he believes these threats are directly connected to the baseless rumors spread online in the wake of viral social media posts claiming Haitian migrants were abducting people’s pets in Springfield order to eat them. The rumors were amplified by right-wing politicians, including former President Donald Trump and his running mate Sen. JD Vance.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” Trump said at Tuesday night’s presidential debate. “The people that came in, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
A spokesperson for the city of Springfield told ABC News these claims are false, and that there have been “no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals in the immigrant community.”
“Additionally, there have been no verified instances of immigrants engaging in illegal activities such as squatting or littering in front of residents’ homes,” the spokesperson said. “Furthermore, no reports have been made regarding members of the immigrant community deliberately disrupting traffic.”
The mayor added, “Your pets are safe in Springfield.”
Springfield estimates there are around 12,000 to 15,000 immigrants living in the county; migrants have been drawn to the region because of low cost of living and work opportunities, according to the city. The rapid rise in population has strained housing, health care and school resources, according to the city. City officials also said the migrants are in the country legally and that many are recipients of Temporary Protected Status.
The Haitian Bridge Alliance condemned the “baseless and inflammatory” claims about Haitian migrants, arguing they “not only perpetuate harmful stereotypes but also contribute to the dangerous stigmatization of immigrant communities, particularly Black immigrants from the Republic of Haiti.”
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who dispelled the rumors this week, said the state would send more resources to Springfield.
The mayor stressed, “Anybody on the national stage that takes a microphone, needs to understand what they could do to communities like Springfield with their words. They’re not helping. They’re hurting communities like ours with their words.”
(GATESVILLE, Tx.) — The family of Melissa Lucio, a death row inmate whose execution was delayed in 2022, expressed hope that the Texas woman would be freed after a judge concluded last month that Lucio is “actually innocent” after she was convicted of capital murder in 2008 for the death of her 2-year-old daughter.
“This is the best news we could get going into the holidays,” said her son, John Lucio, and daughter-in-law Michelle Lucio in a statement released by the Innocence Project.
“We pray our mother will be home soon,” the Lucios added, joined by Lucio’s son, Bobby Alvarez.
In a 62-page ruling that was signed on Oct. 16, 2024, and reviewed by ABC News, Senior State District Judge Arturo Nelson recommended that Lucio’s conviction and death sentence be overturned in the 2007 death of her daughter Mariah.
The judge found that prosecutors suppressed evidence and testimony – including statements from Lucio’s other children – that could support the argument that Lucio was not abusive and that her daughter’s death was accidental after a fall down the stairs.
“This Court finds (Lucio) has satisfied her burden and produced clear and convincing evidence that she is actually innocent of the offense of capital murder,” Nelson wrote in the ruling.
“(T)his Court concludes there is clear and convincing evidence that no rational juror could convict Applicant of capital murder or any lesser included offense,” Nelson added.
The judge’s recommendation was sent to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for review. ABC News reached out to the court for updates in the case.
“Melissa Lucio lived every parent’s nightmare when she lost her daughter after a tragic accident,” Vanessa Potkin, director of special litigation at the Innocence Project, and one of Lucio’s attorneys, said in a statement on Thursday.
“It became a nightmare from which she couldn’t wake up when she was sent to death row for a crime that never happened. After 16 years on death row, it’s time for the nightmare to end. Melissa should be home right now with her children and grandchildren.”
Lucio has maintained her innocence over the years.
ABC News reached out to the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted this case, but a request for comment was not immediately returned.
Lucio’s story gained national attention through filmmaker Sabrina Van Tassel’s 2020 Netflix documentary, “Melissa vs. the State of Texas,” a documentary that follows Lucio’s journey on death row as she filed her last appeal.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers backed the calls to free the Texas woman and her case was further bolstered by celebrities who called for her freedom, like Kim Kardashian and Helen Prejean, the Catholic nun who wrote the book “Dead Man Walking.”
Abraham Bonowitz, coordinator of the #FreeMelissaLucio Campaign and executive director of Death Penalty Action, told ABC News in a statement on Thursday that Lucio credits the film with bringing attention to her case.
“Melissa Lucio was once two days from execution. It took a film viewed by millions and a massive public relations campaign just to halt her execution and get the courts to order a fresh look at the evidence,” Bonowitz said.
“If it were not for the film that was created, there would never have been enough pressure to stop the execution, which should concern us all — that if you don’t have a film and you don’t have a big campaign, then you can’t be heard,” Bonowitz added in a phone interview on Monday with ABC News.
Amid growing calls for the court to review her case in 2022, Lucio was granted a stay of her scheduled April 27, 2022, execution by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on April 25, 2022 – after nearly 15 years on death row.
“I thank God for my life,” Lucio said in an April 2022 statement reacting to the stay. “I am grateful the Court has given me the chance to live and prove my innocence. Mariah is in my heart today and always. I am grateful to have more days to be a mother to my children and a grandmother to my grandchildren.”
(KNOXVILLE, Tenn.) — A convicted Jan. 6 rioter has now been found guilty of plotting to murder FBI agents who were investigating the Capitol insurrection.
Edward Kelley, 35, was convicted Wednesday in the federal case against him in Knoxville, Tennessee, according to the Department of Justice.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 7, and could face a sentence of up to life in prison.
Kelley made a “kill list” of FBI agents who were investigating the Jan. 6 riot, the Department of Justice said in a press release following the conviction.
Prosecutors said he plotted to attack the Knoxville FBI office with “car bombs and incendiary devices appended to drones,” and to assassinate FBI agents “in their homes and in public places such as movie theaters.”
“The safety of our men and women in law enforcement is of paramount concern,” U.S. Attorney Francis M. Hamilton III said Wednesday. “There is simply no room in society for those who would engage in this kind of reprehensible conduct and threaten to assassinate FBI agents and others who are honorably serving to uphold the law, and this office will pursue all such threats against civil servants working for the public good.”
Earlier this month, Kelley was convicted on multiple counts, including assaulting law enforcement, at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., said Kelley was identified in photos and videos from the insurrection, and was seen in an “altercation” with a United States Capitol Police officer “where he and two other men throw the officer to the ground.”
Kelley was seen in the footage pushing against a metal barricade guarded by police to access the Capitol building. He then used a piece of wood to smash a window, then entered the building through the window, prosecutors said.
While inside the Capitol, Kelley confronted U.S. Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman, and was also spotted in the Senate Gallery, according to prosecutors.
He is expected to be sentenced in Washington, D.C., federal court on April 7.
