Florida

Suspect captured after deputy’s slaying

A felon accused of gunning down one sheriff’s deputy and wounding two others was captured Wednesday in the Ocala National Forest after a daylong search by hundreds of law enforcement officers.

Jason Lee Wheeler, 29, was wounded in a gun fight with the officers who captured him in piney woods six miles from his home in rural Lake County, about 30 miles north of Orlando, officers said.

“We were able to flush him out of the woods,” said Sheriff Chris Daniels. He said he did not know the nature of Wheeler’s wounds, but the ex-convict was hospitalized in critical condition.

Wheeler allegedly ambushed the three Lake County deputies outside his home about 9 a.m. as they responded to a domestic battery call from his girlfriend. He then escaped on a motorcycle, which was later found ditched, said Nick Pallitto, a spokesman for the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.

Deputy Wayne Koester, 33, died after being taken to a hospital, Pallitto said. Deputies Tom McKane and Bill Crotty were treated for non-life-threatening injuries at a hospital.

Indianapolis

Murder suspects caught en route to Las Vegas

A brother and sister were charged Wednesday with murder for allegedly killing their mother and grandparents, burying their bodies in a basement and heading off to Las Vegas with the victims’ cash.

The siblings were charged with three counts each of murder and conspiracy to commit murder and two counts of robbery. Authorities removed the dismembered bodies of their mother and grandmother and the intact body of their grandfather from under concrete in the basement of the grandparents’ home.

All three had been killed about five weeks ago, authorities said.

Kenneth Allen, 29, and Kari Allen, 18, were pulled over for speeding Tuesday in Missouri. In the car, officers discovered bloody clothes and bedding, as well as jewelry, cash, credit cards and the driver’s licenses of two older people in Indiana, police said.

Brizzi said Kenneth Allen plotted the killings to steal his grandparents’ money, including about $200,000 in bank accounts, after his November release from a federal prison in Kentucky, where he had served time for counterfeiting.

Allen and his sister told officers they were on their way to Las Vegas.

Virginia

Droopy drawers could bring fine

Virginians who wear their pants so low their underwear shows may want to think about investing in a stronger belt.

The state’s House of Delegates passed a bill Tuesday authorizing a $50 fine for anyone who displays his or her underpants in a “lewd or indecent manner.”

Del. Lionell Spruill Sr., a Democrat who opposed the bill, had pleaded with his colleagues to remember their own youthful fashion follies.

During an extended monologue Monday, he talked about how they dressed or wore their hair in their teens.

“This is a foolish bill, Mr. Speaker, because it will hurt so many,” Spruill said before the measure was approved 60-34. It now goes to the state Senate.

The bill’s sponsor, Del. Algie T. Howell, has said constituents were offended by the exposed underwear. He did not speak on the floor Tuesday.

Baltimore

Five indicted in drug-house attack

A grand jury indicted five men Wednesday for their alleged roles in a firebombing at the home of a woman who helped police fight drug dealing, an attack that underscored the rising number of witness intimidation cases.

The 59-year-old woman was not injured in the Jan. 15 attack; her home sustained minor damage.

The men were charged with witness tampering, conspiring to use Molotov cocktails in a crime of violence, use of fire and explosives in a felony, and making firearms. The status of the case against a sixth person arrested but not named in the indictment was unclear Wednesday night.

The attack came about six weeks after a DVD called “Stop Snitching” hit Baltimore streets, warning people they could “get a hole in their head” for telling police about illegal drug activity.