Florida

Bodies found in wreckage of missing family’s plane

Rescue workers Monday discovered bodies amid the wreckage of a plane belonging to a Florida family that has been missing since they fled Hurricane Ivan last month.

Authorities confirmed the plane found in dense woods about 40 miles southeast of Jackson, Miss., belonged to Kevin Bomback, of Molino, Fla.

Bomback apparently told officials at the Atmore (Ala.) Municipal Airport that he was getting out ahead of the storm. He said he was unsure where he was going and did not file a flight plan, said Elaine Godwin, a secretary for the Atmore Flying Service.

Colorado

Removal of organs deemed homicide

A western Colorado coroner said Monday that two hospitals allowed vital organs to be removed from a man before they had proven he was brain dead, and he declared the death a homicide.

The cause of William Rardin’s death was “removal of his internal organs by an organ recovery team,” Montrose County Coroner Mark Young said.

Young said Montrose Memorial Hospital in Montrose and St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction did not follow “accepted medical standards” or meet state guidelines in determining that 31-year-old William Rardin was brain dead after he shot himself last month. Rardin’s heart, liver, pancreas and two kidneys were transplanted into waiting patients.

Colorado

Four soldiers charged in Iraqi general’s death

The Army charged four Fort Carson soldiers with murder Monday, accusing them of suffocating an Iraqi general during an interrogation last fall.

Chief Warrant Officers Jefferson L. Williams and Lewis E. Welshofer Jr., Sgt. 1st Class William J. Sommer and Spc. Jerry L. Loper could get life in prison without parole in the Nov. 26 death of Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, 57, at Qaim, Iraq.

The Army said Mowhoush, a member of the Republican Guard’s air defense branch, died of asphyxiation from chest compression and from being smothered. Welshofer was part of a two-person interrogation of the general, according to the Army.

Boston

Briton charged in plot for ‘shoe-bomb’ attacks

U.S. authorities brought charges Monday against a British man they contend conspired with admitted al-Qaida member Richard Reid to use shoe bombs to blow up planes in midair.

A seven-count federal grand jury indictment charges Saajid Badat, 25, with attempted murder, trying to destroy an aircraft and other charges related to the alleged conspiracy with Reid, who also is a British citizen and Muslim convert.

Reid’s attempt to blow up an American Airlines Paris-to-Miami flight on Dec. 22, 2001, was thwarted by attendants and passengers after he tried to light a fuse leading to the concealed plastic explosives in his sneakers.

The indictment says Badat “admitted that he was asked to conduct a shoe bombing like Reid” when he was arrested in Britain last November. Bomb components similar to Reid’s were found at his home.