Massachusetts: Three young boys survive plane crash

Rescuers found four plane crash survivors — three young boys and their father — in a snowy state forest Monday where they had endured a night in the bitter cold. Three other family members were killed when the plane went down the day before, and the father later died in a hospital.

It was believed the plane was carrying a couple and their five boys, ages 2 to 11.

Ronald Ferris, the father, was taken to Fairview Hospital in Great Barrington for treatment of hypothermia and cardiac arrest, a hospital spokeswoman said. He was pronounced dead just before 9 p.m.

Albany Medical Center Hospital said Ryan Ferris, 2, and 5-year-old Jordan Ferris were being treated for hypothermia. Tyler Ferris, 10, was being treated for hypothermia and a broken leg. All three boys were in critical condition.

State Police Lt. Marion McGovern said the plane was found in about 4 feet of snow with two people trapped inside. It was spotted in Beartown State Forest, a mountainous area near the Connecticut and New York state lines.

Connecticut: Guilty plea entered in Internet killing

A man accused of strangling a 13-year-old girl he met on the Internet pleaded guilty Monday in Danbury to manslaughter and sexual assault.

Saul Dos Reis, 25, entered an Alford plea, meaning he did not admit guilt but conceded the state has enough evidence to convict him of strangling Christina Long on May 17, 2002.

The Brazilian national has said that he strangled the girl accidentally while they were having rough sex in his car after he picked her up at a mall.

Police said the two met in an Internet chat room. The case led to a push in Congress for a children-only domain on the Web.

Dos Reis faces a maximum 30 years in prison; he could have been sentenced to as many as 50 years if he had been convicted at trial.

He still faces federal charges of using the Internet to entice a minor into a sexual act and traveling across state lines to have sex with a minor.

Connecticut: Nursing home fire’s toll rises to 12

A man has died from his injuries suffered in last week’s nursing home fire in Hartford, raising the death toll from the blaze to 12.

Samuel Barnes, 81, died Sunday afternoon at Hartford Hospital, four days after the Greenwood Health Center caught fire, hospital officials said Monday. Ten people died in the fire; the 11th victim, 80-year-old John Shack, died Friday.

The cause of the fire has not been determined. Authorities suspect a 23-year-old patient set her sheets on fire but are unsure whether it was intentional.

Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez’s office announced Monday it had started a relief fund for the victims’ families.

Texas: Prison escapee caught 4 decades after fleeing

A 74-year-old man who escaped from a Texas prison more than four decades ago was arrested in Mississippi over the weekend and returned Monday to prison in Huntsville.

Robert Carroll Coney was sentenced to life in prison for robbery by assault and forgery in 1962. He escaped later that year.

Officials said Coney spent time in other states’ prisons and a federal lockup in Kansas in 1976. But he always managed to avoid being sent back to Texas, either by being transferred to other states or other jails.

Coney was arrested over the weekend in Sunflower County, Miss.

“It just proves, ‘You can run, but you can’t hide,”‘ said John Moriarty, inspector general of the Texas criminal justice department.