South Carolina

Teens lost at sea lived on jellyfish, seawater

The day that Josh Long and Troy Driscoll were rescued after nearly a week adrift at sea dawned with a perfect sunrise, a rainbow and dolphins capering around their tiny sailboat.

“It was amazing. (Saturday) morning something felt different, a lot different,” the 17-year-old Long said from his hospital bed Monday. “I can honestly say I never gave up hope. God had us in his hands the whole time.”

After surviving on their faith, raw jellyfish and seawater for almost a week, the two saw a fishing boat on the horizon late Saturday. They were rescued off the North Carolina coast, more than 100 miles from where they set out off South Carolina to fish.

Long and his best friend, both from North Charleston, S.C., were sunburned, dehydrated and exhausted, but otherwise in pretty good shape. They were recovering Monday at the Medical University of South Carolina.

The boys had set out to fish for shark near a sandbar a couple of dozen yards off Sullivans Island in their small sailboat on April 24. Forecasters that day were warning boaters about rough conditions.

Ohio

Witness: Shooter wanted to stop voices in his head

The man behind a string of Columbus-area highway shootings threw building materials off overpasses and fired at moving cars because he thought it would stop the humiliating voices in his head, a psychiatrist testified Monday.

Dr. Mark Mills, a psychiatrist who specializes in legal aspects of mental illness, is the main witness for the insanity defense of Charles McCoy Jr., whose attorneys concede he was behind 12 shootings that terrorized the Columbus area for months in 2003 and 2004.

The defense says McCoy did not know the acts were wrong because of untreated paranoid schizophrenia. He pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to aggravated murder and 23 other counts.

Knowing right from wrong was “close to being the farthest thing from his mind,” Mills said. McCoy’s only goal was to stop the voices, which did diminish when he dropped a bag of concrete or fired shots, Mills said.

Rhode Island

Attorney charged with perjury for leaking tape

A defense attorney was charged Monday with leaking an FBI surveillance video to a TV reporter, who nearly went to prison for refusing to identify his source.

Joseph Bevilacqua Jr., 55, agreed to plead guilty to contempt and perjury for violating a court order not to release the footage, then lying about it under oath, U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente said.

The video, which showed a mayoral aide taking a bribe, was part of a City Hall corruption investigation that eventually sent Mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci Jr. and the aide to prison. A judge had barred anyone connected to the case from releasing any of the tapes.

Bevilacqua gave the tape to WJAR reporter Jim Taricani, who aired it in 2001 on the NBC affiliate. The newsman later was found in contempt for refusing to reveal his source and served four months under house arrest before he was released April 9.

After a more than three-year investigation by a special prosecutor into who leaked the tape, Bevilacqua admitted under oath in November that he was Taricani’s source.

North Carolina

Customer finds finger in frozen custard

A man who ordered a pint of frozen chocolate custard in a dessert shop got a nasty surprise inside — a piece of severed finger lost by an employee in an accident.

Unlike a recent incident at a Wendy’s restaurant in California, no questions of truth have been raised about the finger found in a package from Kohl’s Frozen Custard.

State officials went to the shop Monday, and the owner confirmed one of his employees had cut off part of a finger in an accident while working with a food-processing machine.

Wilmington television station WWAY reported that Clarence Stowers found the finger in custard he purchased Sunday night.

Stowers said he planned to contact a lawyer.

Shop owner Craig Thomas said the employee who lost the finger had dropped a bucket while working with a machine that dispenses the custard.