Texas

Sex offender convicted in 5-year-old’s death

A sex offender was convicted of capital murder Wednesday in the slaying of a 5-year-old girl whose abduction from a Wal-Mart was captured on the store’s security camera.

Jurors in El Paso deliberated for about 40 minutes before convicting David Renteria in the 2001 strangling death of Alexandra Flores.

Alexandra, the youngest of eight children, had wandered away from her mother while her family shopped for Christmas on Nov. 18, 2001. Grainy tape from a surveillance camera showed a man roaming the store, pushing an empty shopping cart for 40 minutes before starting to follow the girl.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Renteria was convicted in 1994 of indecency with an 8-year-old child involving sexual contact.

Illinois

College student dies after binge-drinking

As Bradley University accepted another award this week for its efforts to curb binge drinking, students on campus mourned a senior who authorities say had been drinking for more than 12 hours before he died.

Robert Schmalz, 22, died Sunday. He was not breathing when friends found him in his room at an on-campus house.

Chief Deputy Coroner Johnna Ingersoll said she was awaiting toxicology results to determine the cause of death. But students said Schmalz and his Phi Kappa Tau fraternity were celebrating the end of the fall pledge process, known as rush, with a party where alcohol flowed freely.

On Tuesday, university officials picked up the school’s sixth consecutive award from the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse.

Florida

Feeding tube ordered removed for patient

The feeding tube that has kept a brain-damaged woman alive for more than a decade must be removed Oct. 15, a judge said Wednesday, also denying her parents’ request for therapy to show the woman how to eat without the tube.

Court-appointed doctors have testified that Terri Schiavo’s brain damage is so severe she cannot be rehabilitated.

Circuit Court Judge George Greer and Florida’s appellate courts have sided consistently with Terri Schiavo’s husband, who contends his wife would not have wanted to be kept alive artificially.

Terri Schiavo collapsed in 1990 after her heart stopped, probably because of a potassium imbalance, doctors said.