Texas

Psychiatrist: Housewife who killed sons is insane

A Texas housewife on trial for bashing her three sons with rocks, killing two, is a textbook example of insanity as defined by state law, a psychiatrist testified Friday.

Psychiatrist William Reid said he could use the case of Deanna Laney, who said God told her to kill her children last Mother’s Day weekend, to teach students about Texas’ definition of insanity.

Laney has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to charges of murdering 8-year-old Joshua and 6-year-old Luke and severely beating Aaron, then 14 months old. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.

All five mental health experts consulted in the case said Laney had psychotic delusions and was incapable of knowing right from wrong at the time of the killings, the legal standard in Texas for insanity.

Florida

20 hurt after tour bus hits truck, then trees

A bus full of high school students making their way home after a Bahamas cruise vacation rear-ended a semi-truck and barreled down a shoulder into trees Friday, injuring 20.

None of the injuries was life-threatening, officials said.

The tour bus was carrying 47 passengers, all of them students and chaperones from East Limestone High School in Athens, Ala., when it hit the truck 30 miles east of Orlando.

Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Kim Miller blamed the wreck on a car that slowed to make an illegal U-turn on the Bee Line Expressway.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Vietnam vet who killed self will be added to wall

The Pentagon has cleared the way for the name of Air Force Capt. Edward Alan Brudno to be engraved on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, his brother Robert Brudno told Knight Ridder on Friday.

Alan Brudno was shot down over North Vietnam and spent 7 1/2 years in a series of North Vietnamese prison camps before he was freed in 1973 and returned home. Four months later, a day before his 33rd birthday, Brudno took his own life.

The Air Force undertook an examination of its records in the case at Robert Brudno’s request and found that under existing rules, Alan Brudno’s name belonged on The Wall.

NEW YORK City

Monet waterlilies work to be auctioned in May

A large-scale waterlilies oil by Claude Monet from the collection of producer Ray Stark will be auctioned in May.

“Le Bassin aux Nympheas” is one of many Impressionist and modern works in the collection to be auctioned May 6 at Sotheby’s, the auction house said. It is expected to fetch $9 million to $12 million.

Other paintings from the collection include works by Georges Braque, Auguste Rodin and Henry Moore.

Washington

Girl rescued safely hours after abduction

A 9-year-old girl who was snatched from a school bus stop was rescued about six hours later after a high-speed chase, and a man was taken into custody, police said.

The child was reunited with her family late Thursday night, Mercer Island Police spokeswoman Jennifer Franklin said.

The girl was grabbed in Mercer Island after she returned from school Thursday afternoon. About an hour and a half later, her father got a phone call asking for a ransom.

A ransom drop-off was arranged at a mall in the suburb of Bellevue, where law enforcement agents were waiting. They followed the abductor’s Ford Explorer to Seattle, and eventually realized the girl was in the vehicle.