Area briefs

Murder charge to be filed in sheriff’s death

The suspect in the shooting of Greenwood County Sheriff Matt Samuels was being held Thursday on suspicion of capital murder.

Scott Cheever, 23, will be charged Monday, said Whitney Watson, a spokesman for Atty. Gen. Phill Kline’s office.

Cheever was arrested Wednesday after a seven-hour standoff with law enforcement. Three other people were arrested before the standoff on suspicion of methamphetamine production; they also have not yet been charged, Watson said.

Samuels, 42, was shot around 10 a.m. Wednesday near Virgil as he was serving a search warrant at a home and an arrest warrant for Cheever, who was wanted on burglary and theft charges and for violating parole.

Cheever was paroled Dec. 29, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections Web site. He had convictions for attempted aggravated robbery in 2000 and trafficking contraband in a correctional institution in 2003.

Samuels began working as a part-time jailer for the county in 1979. He became a deputy in 1986, graduated from the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center in 1988 and served as undersheriff until his election as sheriff in 2000.

Not guilty plea entered in kidnapping, slaying

A woman charged with strangling an expectant mother and cutting the baby from her womb pleaded not guilty Thursday, and prosecutors said they were leaning toward seeking the death penalty.

Lisa Montgomery, 36, of Melvern, didn’t speak during the brief hearing in Kansas City, Mo., before U.S. Magistrate Judge John Maughmer, who asked U.S. Atty. Todd Graves if he planned to seek a death sentence.

“That is the direction we are going,” Graves said.

Montgomery is charged with a single count of kidnapping resulting in death in the Dec. 16 slaying of Bobbie Jo Stinnett, a 23-year-old who was eight months pregnant with her first child.

The baby, later named Victoria Jo by her father, survived the attack. She was found the next day with Montgomery in Kansas.

Authorities have said Montgomery admitted to the crime, the eighth of its kind recorded in the United States since 1983, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Mom found not guilty in baby’s death

Kansas City, Kan. — A Bonner Springs mother was acquitted Thursday on a charge of murdering her infant daughter in October 2003.

A Wyandotte County jury found Stephanie Thomas not guilty of a charge of first-degree murder in the death of her 10-week-old daughter, Avalon Thomas, the county district attorney’s office said. She was charged with bashing Avalon’s head against the top of a clothes dryer after becoming frustrated because the baby wouldn’t stop crying.

Thomas claimed she had overdosed on a sedative the night of the baby’s death and couldn’t remember what happened. Her defense attorneys blamed investigators for being overly aggressive and questioned autopsy reports saying the baby’s death was a homicide.