Murder suspect accidentally released from California jail: Officials
Isaiah Jamon Andrews in a police photo. (Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff)
(CONSTRA COSTA COUNTY, Calif.) — Police are looking for a murder suspect who they say was accidentally released from a California jail.
Isaiah Jamon Andrews, 20, was mistakenly released from the Martinez Detention Facility, according to the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office in a press release Monday.
A native of Kent, Washington, Andrews was held in California on local charges, a juvenile warrant out of Sacramento and an arrest warrant for homicide in Seattle, per the sheriff’s office. He was intended to be extradited to a jail in Washington.
“After Sheriff’s Office staff realized Andrews had been released, we launched a search of the immediate area and confirmed that Andrews was no longer in the area. The search for Andrews is ongoing by the U.S. Marshals Service. Local law enforcement agencies have also been notified,” officials said in the press release.
“I think sometimes people forget that it is a criminal justice system. Cops, courts and corrections is kind of how I always remember it. And although we did our due diligence, the courts and that part of the system however did not,” Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes told ABC News’ San Francisco affiliate ABC 7.
Anyone with information about Andrews’ whereabouts can call (866) 846-3592 or email tips@so.cccounty.us.
(NEW YORK) — The federal indictment that makes Luigi Mangione eligible for the death penalty if he’s convicted of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson should be dismissed because a “torrent of prejudice from multiple public officials” violated his constitutional rights and made it impossible for him to receive a fair trial, defense attorneys argued in a new court filing Saturday.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to four federal charges, including one death-eligible count of using a firearm to commit murder, that accused him of tracking Thompson’s whereabouts, traveling to New York where Thompson was attending an investor conference, stalking him on the street and then firing several shots from a 9mm pistol.
The defense conceded there is a high bar to dismiss an indictment due to pretrial publicity but argued, “there has never been a situation remotely like this one where prejudice has been so great against a death-eligible defendant.”
Defense attorneys pointed to what they called a “dehumanizing, unconstitutional” perp walk in New York, during which Mangione was televised clambering out of a helicopter in shackles.
“This was done solely to prejudice him and without the slightest legitimate law enforcement objective,” defense attorneys Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Avi Moskowitz argued.
“The United States Attorney General as well as law enforcement personnel and the highest New York City elected official took every opportunity to prejudice Mr. Mangione’s chances of having a fair grand jury hearing and fair legal proceedings in this death penalty case,” the defense’s filing said. “Placing their own, and their administration’s, political agendas above the constitutional safeguards assured to every criminal defendant, and especially one facing a death sentence, they serially violated the constitution, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, this court’s local rules and traditional notions of fairness.”
The defense pointed to public statements, social media posts and television appearances by Attorney General Pam Bondi that they said made clear the decision to seek the death penalty was based on politics and not merit.
In April, Bondi directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for Mangione if he is convicted of Thompson’s murder.
“Mangione’s murder of Brian Thompson — an innocent man and father of two young children — was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America,” Bondi said in a statement at the time.
“The Attorney General of the United States is telling the public that based on her personal experience as a capital prosecutor who tried death penalty cases throughout her career that Mangione is guilty and should be executed,” the defense said. “In addition, she also called the incident ‘an act of political violence’ even though Mr. Mangione was charged in a complaint with stalking a single person who was not a politician, or an activist, and who was not otherwise engaged in politics.”
Meanwhile, a judge this week dismissed two state murder charges related to acts of terrorism as Mangione made his first Manhattan courtroom appearance in five months.
Judge Gregory Carro tossed out first and second-degree murder charges that accused Mangione of murder as a crime of terrorism. The judge said the evidence presented to the grand jury was insufficient to support the terrorism charge.
The rest of the indictment remains, with the judge refusing to dismiss another second-degree murder charge, to which Mangione has pleaded not guilty.
“We respect the Court’s decision and will proceed on the remaining nine counts, including Murder in the Second Degree,” the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said in a statement following the ruling.
A photo of Theresa Fusco is shown during a press briefing with the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office, Oct. 15, 2025. ABC News
(NEW YORK) — Authorities in suburban New York believe they have closed a murder case that had been open for more than 40 years.
In November 1984, 16-year-old Theresa Fusco disappeared after she was fired from her job working the snack bar at a roller rink in Lynbrook. Three men who had been convicted of her death were exonerated in 2003 based on DNA evidence.
On Wednesday, the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office announced 63-year-old man Richard Bilodeau has been charged with second-degree murder in connection with Fusco’s death. The indictment further charges him with second-degree murder during the commission or attempted commission of first-degree rape.
A discarded smoothie cup was the critical piece of evidence in the nearly 41-year-old murder case that Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said “sent shockwaves through the tight-knit Lynbrook community” and a fear that young women were at risk.
Investigators had been surveilling the suspect for months when a break came in February. Bilodeau went to get a smoothie not far from his home in Center Moriches and investigators recovered the discarded cup and straw from the trash and brought it for testing, officials said.
“The DNA from that straw, Richard Bilodeau’s DNA, was a match,” Donnelly said during a press briefing Wednesday. “The DNA in this case led us straight to Richard Bilodeau.”
Donnelly said Bilodeau, who lived by himself in Center Moriches, had been under investigation since early 2024.
He was arrested Tuesday and pleaded not guilty to the second-degree murder charge. Donnelly said he denied knowing Fusco, “but science proves otherwise.”
“Through his denials that he had ever known her name, who she was, he made kind of a flippant comment about the 1980s. He said, ‘People got away with murder.’ Well, I’ll tell you something, Mr. Bilodeau, I’ve got you now,” Donnelly said.
Fusco’s father said he “never gave up hope” and the indictment “brings closure” to him and his family.
“It’s heartbreaking to go through this over and over again, but this seems like a finalization and I’m very grateful, very grateful, for me and my family to come to an end like this, than to constantly be a cold case situation,” Tom Fusco said during Wednesday’s press briefing.
In 1984, Bilodeau was a 23-year-old living with his grandparents in Lynbrook, a mile from Hot Skates, the roller rink where Fusco had worked, officials said.
Fusco’s body was found buried under leaves and shipping pallets. Police said she had been strangled, sexually assaulted and beaten.
The murder stunned her Nassau County community, especially when two other teens went missing in the same area, which became known as the Lynbrook Triangle, a local take on the Bermuda Triangle, known for its disappearances.
Three men were charged in Fusco’s death, convicted and sentenced to more than 30 years in prison.
The men insisted they were innocent, and, in 2003, DNA technology caught up to the case and confirmed semen found on the girl’s body was from another man and their convictions were vacated.
One of the wrongly convicted, John Restivo, told “Good Morning America” in 2003, “For years … someone would ask me how I’m doing today. I’d say, ‘Not good, I woke up on the wrong side of the wall this morning.’ Yesterday I was able to say, ‘I woke up on the right side of the wall this morning.'”
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.
A helicopter drops water as Cal Fire firefighters battle the 6-5 Fire in the TCU September Lightning Complex on September 03, 2025 near Chinese Camp, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
(CHINESE CAMP, Calif) — The historic gold rush town of Chinese Camp, California, has been devastated by one of multiple lightning-sparked wildfires in three Northern California counties that have burned more than 13,000 acres combined, authorities said.
More than 20 wildfires in Calaveras County and neighboring Stanislaus and Tuolumne counties, where Chinese Camp is located, began on Tuesday night, when more than 17,000 dry lightning strikes hit the area, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). The blazes are part of what Cal Fire has named the TCU Lightning Complex Fire.
As of Wednesday night, the fires combined had burned 13,371 acres, destroyed multiple structures and prompted evacuations in Calaveras, Tuolumne and Stanislaus counties, according to Cal Fire. The fire was 15% contained on Wednesday night, but there were individual fires within the TCU Lighting Complex Fire that remain 0% contained.
“Armageddon” is how Randall Hoffman, a resident of Chinese Camp, described the devastation to his small foothills town, about 60 miles west of Yosemite National Park.
“I think we lost 95% of the town,” Hoffman, whose home was spared by the fire, told ABC station KFSN in Fresno on Wednesday.
The wildfire that swept through Chinese Camp, dubbed the 6-5 Fire, had grown to 6,473 acres as of Wednesday night and was 0% contained, according to Cal Fire.
Structures throughout the tiny community of Chinese Camp, a town founded in by Chinese gold miners in the 1850s, were burned to the ground or damaged by the 6-5 Fire.
“To watch it come over the ridge the way it did and as fast as it did, that’s absolute fear,” Chinese Camp resident Pete Tomaino told KFSN after he evacuated from his home.
At least 11 areas threatened by the 6-5 Fire remained under mandatory evacuation on Wednesday night, including the entire town of Chinese Camp, which has a population of less than 100 people.
Meanwhile, the 2-8 Fire in Calaveras County, another blaze that was started by lightning strikes on Tuesday night and is part of the TUC Lightning Complex Fire, had burned 1,326 acres as of Wednesday night, according to Cal Fire. Multiple air tankers and helicopters, as well as fire crews on the ground, made progress fighting the fire on Wednesday, increasing containment to 15%, according to Cal Fire.
Further north, the Blue Fire, which was also started by lightning on Aug. 26 in the Klamath National Forest in Siskiyou County, near the Oregon border, has burned 1,631 acres, according to Cal Fire. As of Wednesday night, the Blue Fire was 0% contained and mandatory evacuation orders were in place, Cal Fire said.
