Woman arrested for 2011 cold case murder of Iowa real estate agent
Kristin Ramsey, 53, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Ashley Okland. (West Des Moines Police)
(WEST DES MOINES, Iowa) — A woman has been arrested in the 2011 cold case murder of an Iowa real estate agent, authorities said.
Kristin Ramsey, 53, was arrested on Tuesday for first-degree murder in the death of Ashley Okland, the West Des Moines Police said.
Police and prosecutors did not elaborate on what led to Ramsey’s arrest, but Dallas County Attorney Matt Schultz said at a Wednesday news conference, “After hearing the evidence, a Dallas County grand jury issued a true bill indicting Kristin Ramsey with the murder of Ashley Okland.”
Okland was shot and killed while working at a model townhouse on April 8, 2011, according to the Iowa Attorney General’s Office Cold Case Unit.
Okland’s death sent “shockwaves” throughout the state and “haunted” the real estate community, West Des Moines Police Assistant Chief Jody Hayes said at the news conference.
“That Friday afternoon when Ashley was taken from us seems so long ago. We had lost our hope in finding answers and having any justice,” Okland’s sister, Brittany Bruce, told reporters.
She thanked the detectives and prosecutors for their relentless work on the case.
“We have full confidence in their abilities to see this through,” she said.
Lindsey Halligan, holds ceremonial proclamations to be signed by US President Donald Trump, not pictured, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, March 6, 2025. Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge wants to know why Lindsey Halligan is still using the title of U.S. attorney despite a judge ruling in November that she is legally not in the position.
Halligan, who was appointed by President Donald Trump to be the acting U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, was found by a judge to not be legally allowed to serve in the role because the law doesn’t allow the position to be filled by two interim nominees in a row.
The ruling came two months after Halligan secured indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, only to have them thrown out due to her unlawful appointment.
The issue stems from a recent case in which Halligan, on the indictment, represents that she is the U.S. attorney and “did so despite a binding Court Order entered by Senior United States District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie on November 24, 2025, in which Judge Currie found that the ‘appointment Ms. Halligan as Interim U.S. Attorney violated 28 U.S.C. § 546 and the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution,'” U.S. District Judge David Novak wrote in a filing Tuesday.
Judge Novak said that while the government is appealing the ruling, it is not subject to being ignored. He ordered the government to explain why Halligan has identified herself as the U.S. attorney within seven days.
“Ms. Halligan shall further explain why her identification does not constitute a false or misleading statement,” the judge wrote.
A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
Halligan, one of Trump’s former personal attorneys, was named U.S. attorney by Trump in September after Trump ousted her predecessor, Erik Siebert, who sources say had expressed doubts internally about bringing cases against James and Comey.
Because Siebert himself had been named interim U.S. attorney by Trump last January, Judge Currie ruled that Halligan’s appointment as interim U.S. attorney violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause that limits how long prosecutors can serve without Senate confirmation.
Mount St. Helens National Monument, Washington. (David Mcnew/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Stargazers will soon have an opportunity to view six planets in alignment in the night sky, according to NASA.
Mercury, Venus, Neptune, Saturn, Uranus and Jupiter will take part in a rare planetary parade on Saturday, the space agency said.
Planets are always on the move, so the viewing window will be brief. The best time to see the planets align will be just after sunset.
For the best view, astronomy guides recommend looking toward the western horizon about 30 minutes after sunset. This will give viewers the highest probability of spotting at least three planets at the same time, since Saturn, Mercury and Venus set in the west right after the sun.
The six planets will appear low in the western sky, with Mercury and Venus appearing the lowest and sinking below the horizon shortly after sunset, according to astronomers. Mercury and Venus are usually tricky to spot but will be visible on Saturday.
Saturn and Neptune will appear just above Mercury and Venus, while Jupiter and Uranus will appear a bit higher in the western sky, to the left of the others.
Viewers will need optical assistance via telescope or binoculars to see Uranus and Neptune, but the remaining four planets will be visible to the naked eye, NASA said.
Planets can sometimes appear “bunched together in the sky” because they orbit the sun in the same plane, known as the ecliptic, according to NASA. The planets will form a clear line along the ecliptic plane.
On the same day last year — Feb. 28, 2025 — seven planets were in alignment: Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Mercury, Saturn and Venus.
NASA says these planetary alignments happen every few years. The last one was visible from Earth in August 2025.
This year’s parade of planets is one of the first notable astronomical events taking place in 2026, according to NASA.
A total lunar blood moon eclipse will be visible from North America on March 3, especially for viewers on the West Coast. This will be the first lunar eclipse visible in the Americas since 2025.
A rare blue moon — which signifies the rare occasion of having a second full moon in the same month — will take place on May 31.
From June 8 to 9, the two brightest planets in the sky, Venus and Jupiter, will be in conjunction, appearing “only a pinky finger apart,” according to NASA.
The Perseids meteor shower, considered the best meteor shower of the year due to its swift and bright meteors, will be best seen from Aug. 12 to 13, during a darker sky courtesy of the new moon.
And the Geminids, the most reliable meteor shower of the year, will take place from Dec. 13 to 14.
A Christmas Eve supermoon — when a full moon is closest to the Earth — rounds out the most spectacular astronomical events in 2026, according to NASA.
ABC News’ Briana Alvarado contributed to this report.
Fulton County Sheriff officers in front of the Fulton County Courthouse on September 06, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia. Former U.S. President Donald Trump has entered a not-guilty plea and waived his right to appear at an arraignment hearing. Trump and his 18 co-defendants are charged in a 41-count indictment accusing them of scheming to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
(FULTON COUNTY, Ga.) — Officials in Fulton County, Georgia, are renewing their effort to have the 2020 election files seized from their election office last month returned, arguing that a recently unsealed search warrant application falls “woefully short” of establishing probable cause of a crime.
In a court filing Tuesday, attorneys for Fulton County argued that the FBI agent behind the search warrant application “intentionally or recklessly omitted material facts” about purported discrepancies in the 2020 election in Georgia, after the Justice Department last week released the sworn affidavit that was the basis for the search warrant.
“Despite years of investigations of the 2020 election, the Affidavit does not identify facts that establish probable cause that anyone committed a crime,” Tuesday’s filing from Fulton County said.
FBI agents on Jan. 28 seized 700 boxes containing ballots and other materials associated with the 2020 election from Fulton County’s Elections Hub and Operations Center after obtaining a search warrant. President Donald Trump has repeatedly made baseless claims that there was voter fraud in the 2020 election, specifically in Georgia, despite Georgia officials auditing and certifying the results and courts rejecting numerous lawsuits challenging the election’s outcome.
FBI Special Agent Hugh Raymond Evans said in the sworn affidavit that following the 2020 election “there were many allegations of electoral impropriety relating to the voting process and ballot counting in Fulton County, Georgia” and that “Some of those allegations have been disproven while some of those allegations have been substantiated, including through admissions by Fulton County.”
Fulton County filed a motion earlier this month seeking the return of the records, and revised its request in light of the recently unsealed affidavit. They argue that the FBI’s investigation focuses on “human errors that its own sources confirm occur in almost every election … without any intentional wrongdoing whatsoever.”
“The Affidavit omits numerous material facts — including from the very reports and publicly-disclosed investigations that the Affiant cites — that confirm the alleged conduct was previously investigated and found to be unintentional,” the filing said.
Attorneys also argued that the FBI’s witnesses are unreliable and that the FBI failed to disclose information that would discredit its own witnesses.
“The Affiant failed to include facts — including from the very sources he cited — that shut the door on even the faintest possibility of probable cause,” the filing said.
