WNCT Crime Headlines
Latest Crime Reports from WNCT

• NJ governor to sign bill outlawing death penalty
  

  (AP) - New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine will sign a bill today to make his state the first one in four decades to abolish the death penalty.

  The move is being hailed worldwide as a victory against capital punishment. Rome will mark the signing by putting golden light on the Colosseum in a show of support. The arena was home to gladiator fights and executions and is now a symbol of the fight against the death penalty.

  State lawmakers voted last week to replace death sentences with life in prison without parole. The decision spares eight men on New Jersey's death row.

  New Jersey reinstated the death penalty in 1982, but nobody has been executed by the state since 1963.

• Peterson expecting to hear about whether seized items will be returned
  

  (AP) - The former Chicago-area police officer at the center of an investigation to find his missing wife is due in court today.

  Drew Peterson expects to hear from a judge about whether he will get back some guns, two vehicles, computers and other items authorities seized after Stacy Peterson vanished in late October.

  Drew Peterson's attorney has suggested that prosecutors are relying on innuendo in their investigation of what happened to Peterson's wife. But prosecutors say it's far too early to give back the items before the probe is finished.

  They have agreed to give back two iPods and 23 music CDs.

  Peterson has been called a suspect in his wife's disappearance but he hasn't been charged.

• Even a dangerous city stunned by unsolved killing of 12-year-old boy
  

        (AP) - Even in a place once known as the nation's most dangerous city, the unsolved murder of a 12-year-old boy on July 4th continues to haunt residents.

        James Martin Coleman was in the back seat of an old Oldsmobile parked at a housing project in Camden, New Jersey, when he was struck by a spray of bullets this summer.

        Authorities say he was waiting out a storm in the car when a group of people walked up and one fired an automatic rifle.

        Martin's mother thinks the car was stolen, and the owner, out for revenge, opened fire without knowing who was inside.

        Police are still searching for Martin's killers, and his mother has gone door-to-door in her dilapidated neighborhood, asking people to come forward with information. But little has turned up.

        Relatives say that they had been trying to get young Martin out of Camden that summer, because they feared something would happen to him.

• Man Pleads Guilty to Second-Degree Murder in Shooting Death
  

  Prosecutors are calling it a straightforward case of vigilante action, and it's led to a guilty plea on a second-degree murder charge. John Tyner pleaded guilty on Friday in Forsyth County Superior Court, admitting responsibility in part for the June 13, 2006 death of Johnny Dee Ford Jr. Prosecutors said Tyner was drunk and angry over being called in the middle of the night. They said he took a gun and a had a friend drive him to chase away drug users from his mother's house. Tyner told the court there was no reason to go to his mother's house with a gun, but he said there was no reason for Ford to be at the house as well. The judge sentenced Tyner to 15 to 19 years in prison. Ford's father urged the punishment, but said he was disappointed by the second-degree murder plea.

   

• Another woman claims trooper kidnapped, harassed her
        (AP) - A third woman has come forward to say she was kidnapped and harassed by an on-duty state Highway Patrol trooper in Orange County.

        Trooper Michael A. Steele turned himself in to authorities Friday and made his first appearance in court. The 28-year-old worked for the Highway Patrol for three years before he resigned in September.

        Steele faces 12 charges, including sexual battery, extortion and kidnapping. The charges are based on the three women's claims that, on separate occasions in August, he forced them to get into his patrol car and made sexual advances. The women were Hispanic.

        The charges are the result of a probe by the State Bureau of Investigation and the FBI. Steele might also face federal charges, Woodall said.

        A Durham attorney who represents the woman said his client is still traumatized by the event and has had to seek counseling. He said she worries that Steele will seek revenge because she is cooperating with authorities.

• Beaufort Larceny
  

  On October 26, 2007, the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office received a report of a Larceny at Travel Store #4 on Highway 33 in Blounts Creek, NC.  The report indicated that an employee was taking money by ringing up items at a lower price and keeping the difference paid by the customer.  An investigation into the incident was conducted by the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office. As a result of information collected during the investigation, Investigator Dwight Williams applied for and obtained a warrant charging Gail Rhodes Hardy, age 54, of Moore Lane in Edward, NC with Felony Larceny by Employee.  Hardy was arrested on December 12, 2007 and released on a $5,000.00 unsecured bond.

• NEW: Jury deadlocks in castration trial
        (AP) - A Harnett County jury has been told to return to court on Monday to continue deliberations in the trial of a woman charged with castrating a man at a Christmas party.       The jury foreman told Superior Court Judge Steve Balog last night that jurors were split in the case of Rebecca Dawson. She is accused of using her fingernails to tear off Kevin Russ' scrotum at the party last year.       Prosecutors say Russ and Dawson were drinking and got into a fight. The defense contends Dawson acted in self defense because she was being held after Russ wanted her to have sex with him and his girlfriend.       Russ said he was trying to keep her from driving home because she had too much to drink and that she clawed his face and then grabbed his scrotum.
• School Stabbing Raises Safety Concerns
  

  Investigators are still putting together the pieces to try and figure out why one fifteen year old middle school girl would attack another fifteen year old girl with a knife.