A City of Lawrence bus driver on Monday testified that a woman pried the bus doors open, physically intimidated her, called her foul names, then stole her bus and drove it across town last September. "Bitch, we're going to the TRC," the woman told her, she testified. TRC is a reference to the Treatment and Recovery Center at 1000 W. Second St. The driver said that at the time she was seated in her bus, ...
Judge Sally Pokorny warned the crowd at her retirement ceremony Friday that she was a "crier," and sure enough she shed a few tears almost immediately as she declared "I'm the luckiest woman in the world." That was the "bottom line of my entire life," she said: luck. Luck in having the parents, neighbors, teachers and lifelong friends she made growing up in Independence, Kansas. Luck in her education, ...
Two Hispanic construction workers on Thursday told a Douglas County judge that they still have nightmares about an armed and angry man assaulting them one summer morning two years ago as they worked. They thought the man, Craig Endecott, of Baldwin City, was going to kill them with his rifle, they said in written statements read aloud in court by a Spanish-language interpreter. A third statement, written in ...
When Kris Wilcoxson heard recently that Judge Sally Pokorny would be retiring on April 10, he made a beeline over to the courthouse to thank her. Pokorny had just wrapped up one of her final sessions of Behavioral Health Court, which she presided over in a multi-zippered black leather jacket — prompting some to ask where her Harley was. As people milled about, Wilcoxson charged up the aisle and ...
A 34-year-old man was convicted on Tuesday in Douglas County District Court of trying to kill his grandfather last summer by firing multiple bullets into his Lawrence residence. The defendant, Douglas Adam Speight, was originally charged with attempted first-degree murder in the June 3, 2025, incident, but pleaded no contest Tuesday to attempted voluntary manslaughter with a firearm — a plea agreement that ...
A property manager for a landlord accused of numerous child sex crimes testified on Monday that the landlord asked him to procure sworn affidavits from the alleged victims "recanting their story." According to the state, the 74-year-old landlord, Mark Duane Strand, dangled the promise of college scholarships as an inducement for two individuals to disavow their claims and to refuse to testify against him, ...