Homicide suspect caught in Chicago

Topeka — Chicago police officers have captured a man charged with killing two women last month in Topeka.

Phillip Cheatham, 30, of Topeka, made his first court appearance in a different case Friday in Chicago. Details of that case weren’t immediately available.

Topeka Police Lt. Randy Listrom said Chicago police officers seized a 9 mm handgun while arresting Cheatham Thursday night.

Topeka Police are arranging to travel to Chicago to talk to Cheatham. It was unclear whether Cheatham planned to fight extradition efforts to return him to Kansas.

Cheatham was charged last month in Shawnee County with two counts of first-degree murder and one count each of attempted murder, aggravated battery and criminal possession of a firearm. He is accused of shooting and killing Gloria Jones, 42, and Annetta Roberson, 38, on Dec. 13 at a Topeka duplex.

Police said a third victim of the shooting survived. Her identity hasn’t been released.

According to records from the Kansas Department of Corrections, Cheatham was convicted in Wyandotte County in 1994 of involuntary manslaughter. Police said he served prison time and was paroled to Topeka.

Harry, Bess Truman letters inform exhibit

Independence, Mo. — Wherever life and politics took him, there was one constant for Harry S. Truman: Bess Wallace, the childhood sweetheart who became his wife and eventually the first lady of the United States.

Now, the thousands of letters that Truman wrote to Bess throughout their lives have been put to use in a new, permanent exhibition at the Truman Presidential Museum & Library.

“Harry S. Truman: His Life and Times” opened Saturday as the final piece of a $22.5 million museum renovation that began in the 1990s. The exhibition uses original artifacts, photographs, manuscripts and audiovisual programs to tell the story of the 33rd president.

Occupying nearly 4,000 square feet, the exhibition shows Truman’s life in five areas: his early years, his family life, his political career, his life in the White House and his retirement. The goal is to give visitors a closer look at Truman, the man.

Truman’s letters to Bess form “the thread of the narrative” in the five-part exhibition, said Scott Roley, deputy director of the museum.