Free Republic

A 60-year-old man out for his morning jog in a quiet suburb of Kansas City was gunned down in a drive-by shooting that appears to be a purely random murder. It has been one week since someone in a passing car fired a single shot that struck Harry Stone. The car never slowed down and the driver continued speeding along, leaving Mr Stone to die on the side of the road in Raytown, Missouri. A law enforcement task force convened in the wake of the shooting suggested the killing could be some kind of gang initiation. However, police in the...

KNOXVILLE — The case against the alleged leader in the torture slaying of a young Knoxville couple went to the jury Tuesday with the defense trying to poke holes in a mountain of circumstantial evidence. Lemaricus Davidson, 28, faced 38 counts including kidnapping, theft, rape and murder in the January 2007 carjacking deaths of University of Tennessee student Channon Christian, 21, and her boyfriend Christopher Newsom, 23. The counts were consolidated from an original 46. The state intends to seek the death penalty if he is convicted. The case has touched a racial nerve because the defendants are black and...

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Amid beefed up security, students at Fenger High School went back to class Monday, but without one of their peers. Derrion Albert wasn't there after he was violently murdered in a melee Thursday that was caught on tape. Four Chicago teenagers charged with murder Monday afternoon for the vicious beating death of the 16-year-old Fenger High School honors student. Police said they were searching for at least three more suspects. Silvonus Shannon, 19; Eric Carson, 16; Eugene Riley, 18; and Eugene Bailey, 18, allegedly kicked and punched Derrion, an innocent bystander in a fight between two groups...

The superintendent of schools in Lexington, Mass., said it all started when two first-grade boys argued over who should sit where in the cafeteria. One of them punched the other several times on the playground while at least five children stood by and watched, the superintendent said. But according to a Massachusetts group that opposes gay rights, a band of first-graders singled out 7-year-old Jacob Parker for a schoolyard “beating” in retaliation for his father’s campaign to stop Estabrook Elementary School from including information about same-sex parents in its curriculum. The May 17 incident was triggered by a climate of...

Dorm beating defendant testifies: 'I was embarrassed' By BILL MONTGOMERY The Atlanta Journal-Constitution • Atlanta/South Metro community page A Fulton County Superior Court jury deliberates today on the fate of an expelled Morehouse College student accused of beating a fellow student with a 26-inch baseball bat because he was being stared at in the shower."I was scared; I was embarrassed because I was naked and he was looking at me," Aaron Price testified Tuesday afternoon about the events leading to his striking junior Gregory Love. Prosecutors contend Price seriously wounded Love on Nov. 3 because he thought he was the...