Search underway for 70-year-old California man who went missing after taking Jeep on off-road trail
Authorities in Placer County, California, search for missing Jeeper Warren Elliott, who was last seen on July 19, 2024. (Placer County Sheriff’s Office)
(NEW YORK) — A 70-year-old man has been missing since Friday after taking his Jeep on an off-road trail in California, authorities said.
Warren Elliott was last seen on the Rubicon Trail in Placer County Friday afternoon, according to the Placer County Sheriff’s Office.
Searchers from multiple agencies and organizations are involved in the search, according to the sheriff’s office.
The search for Elliott continued on Monday, focusing on the Rubicon Springs area, the sheriff’s office said.
Search teams were being transported to the area by California and Nevada National Guard Blackhawk helicopters.
More than 100 searchers were involved in the search and rescue operation on Sunday, the sheriff’s office said.
Elliott was last seen wearing a blue denim short-sleeve shirt and blue denim shorts, the sheriff’s office said.
The Rubicon Trail is an approximately 22-mile-long route near Lake Tahoe that features a popular off-highway vehicle trail.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an attempt by the Republican attorney general of Missouri to delay former President Donald Trump’s sentencing in his criminal hush money case in New York.
The court declined to hear Missouri’s lawsuit against New York.
The brief order was unsigned but indicated that Justices Alito and Thomas would have heard the complaint.
“Missouri’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied, and its motion for preliminary relief or a stay is dismissed as moot,” the order said. “Justice Thomas and Justice Alito would grant the motion for leave to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief.”
Trump was found guilty in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a 2016 hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election. He has said he will appeal the decision.
The former president is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 18.
Earlier this month, Judge Merchan postponed Trump’s sentencing in the case from the original July 11 sentencing date so he could consider Trump’s request to vacate his conviction based on the Supreme Court recent ruling on presidential immunity.
(REDLANDS, Calf.) — Police are searching for a couple and their dog who went missing from a California nudist community on Saturday.
Stephanie Menard and Daniel Menard were reported missing on Sunday, according to the Redlands Police Department.
The couple was last seen at their residence on Olive Dell Ranch — a family nudist resort — at around 10 a.m. on Saturday. Their unlocked vehicle was found down the road from the residence that day, according to police.
Stephanie Menard’s purse was found inside her residence along with both their cellphones, according to police.
The couple’s dog, a white shih tzu named Cuddles, is also missing.
“There’s no way that Stephanie or Dan could have walked away from that car,” friend Tammie Wilkerson told Los Angeles ABC station KABC. “She has a cane. It was at home, her purse, their cellphones — things they would never have left at home.”
She added, “They’re very sweet people. There’s not a mean bone in their body at all.”
Daniel Menard also suffers from dementia and is diabetic, according to police.
(SANTA FE COUNTY, N.M.) — The jury has been dismissed for the day in Alec Baldwin’s manslaughter trial while the court discusses a motion filed by the defense claiming live ammunition that came into the hands of local law enforcement related to the investigation into the deadly on-set “Rust” shooting was “concealed” from them.
In an expedited motion filed late Thursday, the defense argued the case should be dismissed over the handling of the ammunition evidence. During court on Friday, the state argued the evidence has no exculpatory value and is not relevant to Baldwin’s case.
The court is on break before hearing anticipated testimony on the matter, including from Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office Cpl. Alexandra Hancock, the lead detective in the case, and Seth Kenney, who supplied the film with firearms, blanks and dummy rounds.
The matter was initially raised during court on Thursday, the second day of the actor’s involuntary manslaughter trial over the death of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was fatally shot by Baldwin on the Santa Fe set of the Western in October 2021 when his revolver fired a live round.
Spiro asked state’s witness Marissa Poppell, a crime scene technician with the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office who collected evidence in the case, about a “good Samaritan” who handed over ammunition to the sheriff’s office in March — at the conclusion of “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez’s trial — that had reportedly ended up with Kenney.
Gutierrez was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Hutchins’ death, with prosecutors arguing the armorer was the source of the live bullet that killed her and saying she failed to follow safety protocols meant to protect the crew while handling the firearms.
Poppell testified that her lieutenant instructed her to create a report documenting that the individual came and gave them the ammunition and she filed it under a case number different from the “Rust” case.
“You buried it,” Spiro said.
“No,” Poppell responded. “There is a supplemental report on it, and that was placed into evidence.”
Spiro went on to ask, “Isn’t it the case that law enforcement likely has the matching rounds to the ammunition that killed Ms. Hutchins?”
“I do not know,” Poppell said.
“And you do not know because you made a doc report about this and did not put it with the rest of the ‘Rust’ evidence, correct?” Spiro asked.
“Those rounds were not placed with the rest of the ‘Rust’ evidence, correct,” Poppell said.
“Nor were they sent to the FBI for testing with the ‘Rust’ evidence, were they?” Spiro asked.
“No, they were not,” Poppell said.
During redirect on Thursday, prosecutor Kari Morrissey had Poppell confirm that Baldwin has not been charged with involuntary manslaughter for bringing live rounds onto the movie set or for loading a live round into the gun.
“Has a person already been tried and convicted for those things?” Morrissey asked.
“Yes,” Poppell said, referring to Gutierrez.
Morrissey asked Poppell if she was aware that the “good Samaritan” who provided the ammunition in question in the motion was Troy Teske, a “close friend” of Gutierrez’s father, famed Hollywood armorer Thell Reed, to which Poppell said she was not.
“Are you aware that Troy Teske had his own motivations for wanting to place blame on Seth Kenney to help Hannah Gutierrez?” Morrissey asked.
“No, I had no knowledge of that,” Poppell said.
Poppell testified that Kenney provided the sheriff’s office with his own live rounds, which were tested and found not to match the live ammunition found on set. Live ammunition found at Kenney’s prop house was also not found to be a match, she said.
Poppell testified that Gutierrez was determined to be the source of the live rounds, based on photographic evidence from the set.
During Friday’s motion hearing, Morrissey said the state initially had been provided a photograph of the ammunition by Teske, a retired officer who lives in Arizona, and determined based on the photograph that it was not a match to the live ammunition found on the set and they were “not going to continue going down this rabbit hole.”
“There is absolutely nothing about the ammunition that Troy Teske had that has any evidentiary value in the Gutierrez case. It has no evidentiary value in the Baldwin case,” Morrissey said.
Defense attorney Luke Nikas charged that the evidence was “concealed” by being placed under a different case number and said it was “critical” evidence that was required to be disclosed.
“Miss Morrissey does not get to determine what has evidentiary value and what doesn’t,” he said.
While on the stand during Friday’s motion hearing, Poppell disputed that the ammunition was hidden and said it wasn’t evidence that Kenney provided the live ammunition to the set of “Rust.”
“If you buried it, how did the defense attorneys know to cross-examine you on it yesterday?” Morrissey asked Poppell.
“I do not know,” she replied.
Gutierrez’s attorney, Jason Bowles, said it was “beyond shocking” that the live rounds provided to the sheriff’s office by Teske weren’t tested.
“They were hiding the ball until called out on it in trial. If you want to get to the truth, you run down all leads,” he said in a statement.
