Salt Lake City

Mother charged in baby death denies scar fears

A woman charged with murder for allegedly refusing a Caesarean section that could have saved her unborn twin said she never imagined having a stillborn child would result in prosecution or national news coverage.

“I feel like I’m getting a lot of attention that (should be) my private business.” Melissa Ann Rowland said Friday during a jail interview.

Prosecutors this week charged Rowland with exhibiting “depraved indifference to human life” in avoiding the C-section. One nurse told police Rowland said she would rather “lose one of the babies than be cut like that.”

Rowland denied claims she avoided surgery because she feared scarring.

“It was all medical concern. None of it was vanity,” Rowland said. Her other two young children, ages 7 and 9, both were delivered by C-section, she said.

Her attorney said she had a history of mental illness.

North Carolina

96-year-old charged with drug possession

A 96-year-old woman facing drug charges said she did not know how the crack cocaine deputies found on her got into her wheelchair.

Julia Roberts, Kings Mountain, was charged with possession of crack with intent to sell and deliver, and with possessing a crack pipe, sheriff’s officials said. She was freed pending a hearing March 30.

“I’ve never seen (the drugs) in my life,” she told The Charlotte Observer for a Saturday story. “I don’t know how they could get there.”

A search warrant for the arrest said it was the third time Cleveland County deputies had seized crack at the mobile home Roberts shared with her son.

Harold Roberts, 61, was charged with possession of stolen goods.

Boston

Bostonian suspected in two beheading deaths

A man charged with killing and beheading a prostitute has reportedly confessed to another beheading death in the Boston area, and authorities from as far as Miami are looking for connections to other killings.

Police say Eugene McCollom, 39, told them he strangled the prostitute on Nov. 11, 2000, after arguing with her over money. He later described beheading and mutilating her body in his room at a YMCA in Lynn, a few miles north of Boston.

“I really have no idea. I was just experimenting with the knife,” he said in a written statement transcribed by an investigator.

McCollom has also claimed responsibility for the slaying of John “Jackie” Leyden, according to a law enforcement source who requested anonymity.

Leyden’s beheaded body was found March 19, 2001, in his apartment in the East Boston neighborhood.