Couple in Lamborghini kidnapped and beaten while house hunting, police say
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(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.
(HUNTINGTON STATION, N.Y.) — Police are investigating after human remains were found inside a suitcase Tuesday on Long Island.
Officers responded to a 911 call Tuesday morning reporting “suspicious activity” in a wooded area near an apartment building in Huntington Station, New York, according to the Suffolk County Police Department.
“Upon arriving, police found a person deceased in a suitcase next to the building,” police said in a press release.
The victim’s identity and cause of death is not yet known.
The Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s Office will conduct an autopsy, police said.
Police are requesting anyone with information concerning the incident to contact them.
A resident at the apartment complex told New York ABC station WABC she had heard the sounds of a woman screaming at about 3 a.m. on Sunday.
Another person living in the area said she saw police respond to the incident.
“The police came and lifted it and saw it was a body,” the individual said. “The smell was rancid. Potent.”
(BALTIMORE) — A Maryland woman who pleaded guilty to a neo-Nazi plot to attack multiple energy substations surrounding Baltimore was sentenced Wednesday to 18 years in prison and a lifetime of supervision upon her release, according the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Maryland.
Sarah Beth Clendaniel pleaded guilty in May to federal conspiracy and firearms charges.
Clendaniel communicated her plans to use a high-powered rifle to shoot through key infrastructure at five substations that the U.S. government estimated could have caused roughly $75 million in damage, had the plot not been foiled, according to prosecutors.
Clendaniel and a co-defendant still set to face trial, Brandon Russell — who co-founded the neo-Nazi group AtomWaffen — believed the destruction of the substations would lead to a “cascading failure” of Baltimore’s electrical grid that would “permanently completely lay this city to waste,” Clendaniel said in recorded conversations with a confidential informant, according to federal prosecutors.
Russell had been incarcerated when the two first met, stemming from a 2018 conviction related to his possession of an unregistered destructive device, officials said.
Prosecutors described the scheme as a racism-fueled plot to spark mass chaos in the majority-Black city.
“If we can pull off what I’m hoping … this would be legendary,” Clendaniel was quoted in charging documents telling the informant.
Clendaniel agreed that if she were to carry out the attacks the total costs of repairs to the energy facilities would have exceeded $100,000, according to plea documents.
The pair crafted their plot to shoot up the five substations while both were out on probation, according to charging documents, when Russell began communicating with a confidential FBI source in 2022 about his hopes of attacking critical infrastructure sites.
Russell allegedly told the informant that “putting holes in transformers … is the greatest thing somebody can do,” and told the informant they should carry out an attack “when there is greatest strain on the grid” to incur mass disruption, according to court documents. Russell further told the informant of Clendaniel and his alleged coordination with her to attack an energy facility and offered to connect the two to coordinate their attacks in order to “maximize impact.”
Upon meeting the informant, Clendaniel told them in early 2023 that she expected she would die of a terminal illness in a few months and was hoping to obtain a rifle as soon as possible in order to attack five substations she had singled out around Baltimore — all on the same day, prosecutors said.
“[Clendaniel] described how there was a ‘ring’ around Baltimore and if they hit a number of them all in the same day, they ‘would completely destroy this whole city,'” the affidavit stated.
(LONDON, Kent.) — As the hunt for the suspected gunman in an eastern Kentucky interstate shooting that left five people injured entered its sixth day, Gov. Andy Beshear said law enforcement officers will be posted at high school football games and stationed along school bus routes in an attempt to ease fear in nearby communities.
Beshear on Thursday said four of the victims shot in Saturday’s sniper-like attack on Interstate 75 near London, Kentucky, have been released from hospitals and that the fifth victim is also expected to survive.
The governor said he is confident that law enforcement teams with the help of agents from the FBI, the U.S. Marshal’s Service and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives will catch suspect Joseph Couch and bring him to justice.
“I don’t yet have the evidence in front of me of what fully led him to this point, but there’s no excuse,” he said. “When you put a plan in place to take the lives of our fellow human beings and try to take as many of them as possible, you can and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
Beshear said the Kentucky State Police believe Couch, 32, is still in the thick woods of the 708,000-acre Daniel Boone National Forest, which he described as “some of the most rugged terrain that anyone could hide in.”
Kentucky State Police Commissioner Phillip “PJ” Burnett said more than 100 officers are combing the forest, where on the day of the rampage investigators found an AR-15 rifle believed to have been used in the the shooting as well as Couch’s vehicle abandoned on a forest road.
“We have no significant updates at this time, but we are following up on leads,” Burnett said.
The commissioner said police are using sophisticated technology in the search, including Kentucky National Guard Black Hawk helicopters, aircraft equipped with thermal imaging and multiple K-9 units, including cadaver-sniffing dogs and FBI bloodhounds brought in from Illinois.
Burnett said the search, which has focused on the area near I-75’s Exit 49, is being expanded in the Daniel Boone National Forest.
“We will keep working until we exhaust every single lead,” Burnett said.
Beshear said he’ll consider deploying National Guard troops to the forest to help in the ground search.
“Right now what was requested is some aerial assistance. The Black Hawks have proven to be very helpful. Right now we don’t have an extra request, but that’s something we would certainly look at,” Beshear said of deploying the National Guard on the ground.
However, Beshear said investigators believe Couch could still be armed and dangerous.
“This isn’t the type of search where you can put a whole bunch of people out there at once because this is an individual that we believe is still armed, would be very difficult to spot and we want to make sure we don’t lose anybody throughout this,” Beshear said.
According to an arrest warrant, Couch, a former member of the U.S. Army Reserves, is wanted on charges of attempted murder and first-degree assault. A $35,000 reward is being offered for information leading to his capture.
Couch was allegedly involved in a domestic dispute on Saturday morning and legally purchased an AR-15 rifle and ammunition at a gun store hours before allegedly opening fire on vehicles traveling on I-75, law enforcement officials told ABC News.
Up to 30 rounds were fired from a hillside near Exit 49, officials said. At least 12 vehicles were struck by gunfire, leaving five people with gunshot wounds, including one victim who was shot in the face, officials said.
Investigators said they believe all of the victims were shot at randomly and that Couch had no previous contact with any of them.
Before the interstate shooting, according to the arrest warrant, a Laurel County 911 dispatcher received a call from a woman who alleged Couch texted her and “advised he was going to kill a lot of people. Well try at least.” The text message was sent to the woman at 5:03 p.m. Saturday, about a half-hour before the interstate shooting started, according to the arrest warrant.
“Couch sent another message to [the woman] that read, in part, ‘I’ll kill myself afterwards,” according to the arrest warrant.
London city officials told ABC News the woman Couch texted is the mother of his child.
Burnett said Thursday that the police “understand there is fear in the community.” To ease fears, he said state troopers and officers will be posted at every high school football game in Laurel County on Friday night.
Beshear said the presence of law enforcement officers is being boosted at area public schools and that state police are helping local police with some bus routes to ensure students get to school safely.
The governor implored citizens not to turn Couch into a folk hero for evading capture.
“There is no notoriety, there is no celebrity in committing an act like this,” Beshear said. “There’s just evil.”
