Kansas City, Mo.

Judge unseals papers in diluted drugs case

A judge unsealed documents Thursday that may reveal how much pharmaceutical companies knew about Robert Courtney’s tampering with drugs.

Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Lee Wells, who’s presiding over the first of about 400 civil lawsuits filed by hundreds of cancer victims and their relatives, ruled that many of the documents that had been filed under seal should be released.

Courtney pleaded guilty in February to charges of diluting cancer medications. He awaits sentencing.

ABILENE

Crash kills couple

A couple from northern Kansas died when their car crossed the center line and hit a tractor-trailer head-on, the Kansas Highway Patrol said.

The crash Wednesday afternoon on Kansas 15 north of Abilene killed the driver, Nina Jean Holmes, 56, and her husband, Malcolm Victor Holmes, 61, of Longford. The semi driver was not injured.

OLATHE

Suspect gets 20 years for shooting officer

A man who shot a police sergeant in the face was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison, still claiming that he never knew he was shooting at a police officer.

“I never intended to kill you,” David Grant Peterson told Sgt. Robert Kolenda during sentencing Wednesday in Johnson County District Court.

Peterson, 30, of Seattle was convicted in July of attempted second-degree murder in the shooting of Kolenda last Dec. 4.