Neighbor saves women from burning home

MAGNA — When Becky Romero went outside and saw her neighbor's house on fire, she looked around to try to find her 19-year-old son, who had run out the door ahead of her.

When she couldn't find him, she knew right away where he was: He had run into the burning house to try to help the people inside.

"I knew he'd do that," Romero said. "I knew where he was."

Early Tuesday, Michael Romero, a certified EMT, kicked in the door of his neighbor's house and helped three adult women, who were asleep, get out safely.

"If my house were on fire, I'd want someone to return that favor," said Michael Romero, who has worked for Wendover Ambulance.

Investigators say the fire near 8600 West and 3400 South was intentionally set by the estranged husband of one of the female residents. Travis Dominguez, 25, was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail for investigation of aggravated arson and burglary.

"It didn't surprise us at all," said Cassie Dominguez when she heard about who was arrested.

She has been going through a volatile divorce with her estranged husband for several months. Several times Travis Dominguez threatened her, she said.
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Beverly man gets 22 years in plot to murder wife, daughter, mother-in-law

Orlowski was going through a divorce and had been jailed on charges that he violated a restraining order when he began seeking out someone who could kill his estranged wife, his 65-year-old mother-in-law and his own 9-year-old daughter. He reached out to a former fellow inmate, a member of the notorious Crips street gang.

He offered to pay $2,000 for the job, instructing the hit man to make it look like a drug-related home invasion, and gave him a map of the home and directions.

"It's got more to do with my wife than anything," Orlowski told the inmate, who, troubled by the request to kill a child, had secretly gone to authorities. "The tree's got to be cut down. Everything has to start anew."
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Defense testimony begins during Turner murder trial

MOCKSVILLE, N.C. – Defense testimony is now under way in the murder trial of Clemmons dentist Kirk Turner.

He's accused of stabbing his estranged wife Jennifer during an argument in September 2007.

The pathologist who performed the autopsy on Jennifer Turner's body was the state's last witness.

Prosecutors tried to show Turner's wounds were self-inflicted after he killed his wife, bringing out the spear the defense says he was attacked with.
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Murder victim fought to keep husband away

Annette Sowders did everything she could to get her estranged husband out of her life.

She went to court just last week to maintain a restraining order against him. She called the sheriff's department when he showed up at her home in Oildale.

She even had him arrested last Tuesday for violating the restraining order.

He was released on bail sometime during the week.

And then, in the early hours of Saturday morning, Robert Dale Fuller shot and killed Sowders and her 69-year-old mother Sharon Sue Cannon, deputies say.
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Edward Kyttle convicted of murder

Last week I brought you the story of Edward Kyttle (61), who is being sentenced in the 1993 murder of his wife, Eleanor Kyttle. Mark Kyttle (30), the defendant's son took the stand on Wednesday August 5, 2009 and gave a chilling account of the events that led up to the death of his mother 16 years ago.

Mark was 14 years old at the time. His family owned a chicken ranch in Ranburne, Ala. Mark was awakened by the sound of his parents arguing down the hall. They were angry with each other and shouting, at one point, Mark heard the word, "divorce". The shouting came to an abrupt stop with a loud "thud" sound at which time he got up to investigate. He found his father standing over his mother as she sat motionless in her recliner. Kyttle said his father told him, "We've got to get her out of here."
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A Song Sadly Comes to Life

HolyCoast Mom runs an email prayer line and they had been praying for a family in Bakersfield that was going through a terrible divorce. The father had attempted suicide earlier this summer, and yesterday morning things came to a tragic head:

Early this morning (August 8, 2009), at 2:25 a.m., the Sheriff’s Office Communication Center received an emergency 911 call.

The 911 caller was a child reporting that her mother and grandmother had been shot in their residence in the 200 block of South Plymouth Street.
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OC man gets 15 years to life for killing wife

The Associated Press
Posted: 08/08/2009 10:31:19 AM PDT

SANTA ANA, Calif.—An Orange County man has been sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for fatally stabbing his estranged wife two years ago. Before the sentencing Friday, a lawyer for 48-year-old Terry Raymond Snyder Jr. of Tustin read a statement from Snyder expressing remorse for the killing.

In April 2007, Snyder attacked Yolanda Snyder in her home. After their three sons, ages 2, 4, and 7, fled to a neighbor's house, Snyder repeatedly stabbed his wife with a kitchen knife.
Before the murder, Snyder had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor domestic violence charge. A short time later, Yolanda Snyder filed for divorce.
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Darren Mack Updates

Darren Mack Updates
August 9, 2009 by Asianews
Filed under World News

An emotional judge sentenced a former Reno pawn shop owner to life in prison on Friday for killing his wife and shooting the judge who was handling their bitter divorce.

District Judge Douglas Herndon sentenced Darren Mack to a minimum of 36 years in prison before issuing a tearful plea for reconciliation among the families involved on behalf of Mack’s daughter.

Mack, 46, pleaded guilty in November to murder in the June 2006 stabbing death of his wife, Charla, and the equivalent of no contest to attempted murder in the same-day sniper-style shooting of Family Court Judge Chuck Weller. Weller, who was struck by fragments of a bullet, shot through a window at the Washoe County courthouse, has recovered from his wounds.
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Bronx Doctor Only Survivor After 3 Die in LI Murder-Suicide

A doctor who practiced in The Bronx was the only one of four victims to survive her estranged husband's shooting rampage yesterday at their former home on Long Island. 40-year-old family practitioner Haleh Mohseni is in stable condition and expected to live after her husband, 49-year-old Mohamed Shojaeifardshowed, showed up at the house his wife was moving out of and fatally shot Mohseni's mother, the couple's daughter and then killed himself. The murder-suicide rocked the quiet town of Roslyn, with the police commissioner saying, "It's very unusual that we have three, possibly four people shot dead."

Witnesses say that Shojaeifard showed up at the house yesterday morning and got in an argument with his wife when he spotted moving trucks clearing her things out of the home. The two had been separated for a year and had an impending divorce. He then returned with a gun inside a case and opened fire around 12:30 p.m. While most neighbors told reporters that the shooting came as a complete shock, the Post talked to one who said that Shojaeifard had been a menace to the family. The neighbor said, "He was really violent and kept the mother and daughter as prisoners. The daughter was scared to go to school sometimes because she came covered in bruises. He moved four blocks away, but he drove by all the time, stalking them. It was creepy."
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Dentist's Attorneys Make Case For Self-Defense At His Murder Trial

Mocksville, NC -- Self-defense or murder?

Attorneys for a Clemmons dentist are building their argument their client acted in self-defense.

State prosecutors say Kirk Turner's actions against his wife amount to first degree murder.

State prosecutors and defense attorneys are each building their case and it takes time.

They planned to get through four days worth of testimony in one day, yesterday, but needed one more day to do it.

Defense co-counsel Brad Bannon brought out the weapon allegedly used against Dr. Kirk Turner.
He also went over the pocketknife the doctor allegedly used to kill his estranged wife Jennifer.

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911 Transcripts Released in Harris Murder-Suicide

08/13/2009 11:19 AM KSTP.com

Chisago County officials released the 911 transcripts in an apparent murder-suicide in Harris Wednesday night.

The transcripts outline the call from one of Douglas and Candice Ouellette's 8-year-old daughters as she contacted police around 9:15 p.m.

The child tells the dispatchers that her father was choking her mother in the kitchen and she and her 8-year-old sister ran upstairs to hide in the bedroom.

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Murder for hire defendant appears in court

Steve Stout, newsroom@mywebtimes.com,

An Ottawa woman who was arrested June 3 in an alleged murder-for-hire plot appeared in a brief status hearing Thursday in La Salle County court.

Christina D. Dent allegedly paid an undercover detective posing as a hit man a down payment on a $7,000 "contract" to kill her husband. The 28-year-old mother of two is in La Salle County jail under a $500,000 bond. She needs $50,000 to be released.

At the hearing, her attorney, Public Defender Tim Cappellini, said he expects to file a motion next week that would ask the court for a mental examination of Dent to address the question of her sanity at the time of the arrest. A hearing was scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 20.

Dent and her husband had been in contentious divorce proceedings last winter after being married less than two years. According to reports, tips from Dent's own acquaintances led police investigators to bring in an undercover officer.

Dent's trial date had been set for Thursday, Aug. 24.

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John Ludwig sues ex-wife

Breaking a streak of silence, John Ludwig is in the news again, this time with legal action against his ex-wife:

The Greenville entrepreneur who faces a murder charge after crashing his Maserati through a home, killing the homeowner, has sued his ex-wife and her former divorce attorney for $2.7 million.

John Ludwig Jr.’s malicious prosecution and defamation lawsuit filed in Greenville County civil court alleges that his wife, Donavan Ludwig, and her former attorney, Jimmy Brehm, threatened criminal domestic violence charges against him to exact a higher divorce settlement.

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Husband Charged With Grisly Murder

Andrew Korner 14th August 2009

IPSWICH police have charged a man with the brutal murder of his estranged wife at the home they used to share at Springfield Lakes.

Known to her neighbours as “Violet”, the body of 32-year-old Linjin Cui's was discovered on Thursday after her family in China had reported her missing.

Police found her corpse in the Woodridge home of her husband, 43-year-old Jiagen Pan.
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