(CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas) — Authorities in Texas are searching for clues in the mysterious disappearance of a college student whose family said he went missing after taking his dog out earlier this week.
Caleb Harris, a student at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, was last seen in the early morning hours on Monday near his off-campus apartment complex, according to police.
His roommates were unable to locate him later Monday morning and his family reported him missing, according to the Corpus Christi Police Department.
Harris’ father, Randy Harris, told ABC Corpus Christi affiliate KIII-TV that his dog returned home but his son never did. He left behind his keys, wallet, and vehicle, police said. He did have his phone but it has since turned off, police said.
His father said there wasn’t anything to lead them to believe the student was in any danger or planning to leave.
“There’s just nothing there that would cause us to believe he was in any danger or leaving,” Randy Harris told KIII. “He had actually ordered in his food for the next day for school.”
There was a large law enforcement presence Wednesday in an area near where he was last seen. The Corpus Christi Police Department said a search party was “looking for any information that can help us find missing person Caleb Harris.”
Corpus Christi Police Officer Antonio Contreras told KIII that Corpus Christi Police Academy cadets were helping search in fields and ditches “for anything.”
“We have not found any clues, no new evidence,” he told the station.
Contreras said they are also using drones to search nearby wetlands and a dive team to search canals in the area.
Ellee Carlisle, a friend of Harris, was among the volunteers who joined in the search effort on Wednesday.
“He means a lot to a lot of people,” she told KIII. “I think that was very evident for how many people tried to share and get the word out, and how many people came to help out today to try to look for him.”
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi said in a statement Tuesday they were made aware of a missing person’s report regarding Harris and urged anyone with information on his whereabouts to contact police.
“The safety and well-being of our students is our utmost priority,” the school said in a statement.
Harris is approximately 5’11” and 180 pounds with brown hair and eyes. Anyone with information is asked to call the Corpus Christi Police Department at 361-886-2840 or 361-886-2600.
(PHILADELPHIA) — An assailant who gunned down an 88-year-old Air Force veteran in broad daylight as he sat behind the wheel of his parked car in Philadelphia remained unidentified on Wednesday, according to police.
Richard Butler, who was also a retired driver for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, was killed Tuesday after dropping off a friend at her home, police and the victim’s family said.
“Why? What is the why? This man did nothing to anyone and he gave to everyone,” Butler’s niece, Minette Finn, told ABC Philadelphia station WPVI-TV, calling Butler “a brother to everyone.”
The shooting occurred at 1:35 p.m. Tuesday as Butler sat in his white Hyundai in the Haddington neighborhood of West Philadelphia, according to a Philadelphia Police Department incident report.
Butler suffered a gunshot wound to the chest and was taken to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
A home security camera recorded a man, considered a suspect, getting out of a silver sedan and walking toward Butler’s car moments before the shooting, WPVI reported, citing police sources.
No weapons were recovered at the scene, according to the police incident report.
Butler had just dropped off his girlfriend at her home and was planning to meet her later for dinner when he was shot, family members told WPVI, saying it appeared that Butler was intentionally targeted.
“Broad daylight, he was out doing his normal routine. Goes to the park everyday, stops at Wawa,” Finn said of Butler. “In his car, defenseless. You waited for him. You waited for this man. This wasn’t a random act.”
Following Butler’s death, Finn posted a video of Butler dancing at a recent family function.
“If you met him, you loved him. That’s all I’m going to say,” Finn said. “Anyone in this neighborhood could tell you, probably he wore his heart on his sleeve and he gave to everyone.”
(NEW YORK) — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is pursuing a “deluded fantasy” case against former President Donald Trump by tying a hush payment to an attempt to influence the 2016 presidential election, defense attorneys wrote in a court filing Wednesday.
“The People must attempt to try the case they charged, not the case the District Attorney fantasized about when he was on the campaign trial,” Trump’s lawyers said.
Trump last April pleaded not guilty to a 34-count indictment charging him with falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment his then-attorney Michael Cohen made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to buy her silence about a long-denied affair just days before the 2016 presidential election. The former president has denied all wrongdoing.
Trump’s attorneys have accused the district attorney’s office of trying to “bolster a fanciful and elaborate narrative that does not exist.”
The trial is scheduled to get underway on March 25.
In Wednesday’s filing, Trump’s lawyers also tempered their longstanding argument regarding selective prosecution — that Trump was targeted by Bragg for political reasons — and acknowledged their plans not to ask the jury for an acquittal based on that argument.
“While we disagree with the Court’s ruling, we acknowledge that the constitutional question presented is not one for the jury,” defense lawyers wrote.
Defense lawyers repeated their request that the jury should not see Trump’s infamous “Access Hollywood” tape because it would be “unduly prejudicial and confusing to the jury.” Prosecutors argue that the tape is admissible because it provided the “catalyst” for buying Daniels’ silence.
The defense also repeated its request to cross-examine Cohen about his admitted acts of perjury — including multiple instances identified by the Department of Justice — in order to discredit his testimony.
“Cohen’s lies to federal authorities are probative of bias and motivation to curry favor with New York authorities — including, but not limited, to the District Attorney — by fabricating stories regarding President Trump,” the filing argued.
(PHILADELPHIA) — At least seven people were hurt in a mass shooting at a SEPTA bus stop in Philadelphia on Wednesday afternoon, according to Philadelphia police.
The victims are believed to be juveniles, police said. Their conditions are not clear, police said.
A SEPTA bus was “caught in crossfire,” but no passengers on board reported needing medical attention, according to officials with the regional public transportation company.
“Our hearts are with the victims and their families during this difficult time,” police said.
Wednesday’s shooting is just the latest in an outbreak of gun violence in the city, and the fourth shooting involving a local SEPTA bus in one week, according to Philadelphia ABC station WPVI. Mayor Cherelle Parker declared a public safety emergency in January.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(SANTA FE, N.M.) — Prosecutors told jurors that “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez “repeatedly” failed to maintain proper firearm safety and that her negligence led to the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, while the defense countered that the 26-year-old is a “convenient scapegoat” during closing arguments in her involuntary manslaughter trial on Wednesday.
During the two-week trial in Santa Fe, New Mexico, prosecutors presented evidence they said shows Gutierrez was responsible for bringing six live rounds onto the set — and did not discover them for 12 days before the deadly shooting by failing to perform industry standard safety practices.
Actor Alec Baldwin was practicing a cross-draw in a church on the set of the Western film on Oct. 21, 2021, when the Colt .45 revolver fired a live round, striking Hutchins and director Joel Souza, who suffered a non-life-threatening injury.
“This is not a case where Hannah Gutierrez made one mistake, and that one mistake was accidental — putting a live round into that gun,” prosecutor Kari Morrissey told jurors during her closing argument. “This case is about constant, neverending, safety failures that resulted in the death of a human being and nearly killed another.”
Morrissey told jurors Gutierrez failed to maintain firearms safety on the set, “making a fatal accident willful and foreseeable.”
She showed jurors stills of footage from the set of actors pointing firearms at other crew members, including a minor actor, as well as Gutierrez pointing one at her own face. She also showed photographs of what experts determined to be live rounds in holsters and containers on the set as early as Oct. 10, 2021.
Morrissey said that meant Gutierrez was not checking dummy rounds to ensure they were not live rounds — such as by shaking them — and that there was a game of “Russian roulette” every time an actor had a gun loaded with dummies. She also said they have “mountains of circumstantial evidence” that Gutierrez brought the live rounds onto the set.
“I’m not telling you Hannah Gutierrez intended to bring live rounds on set,” Morrissey said. “I’m saying she was negligent, she was careless, she was thoughtless.”
Hutchins died from loss of blood and a lethal wound to her lung, Morrissey said.
“The astonishing lack of diligence with regard to gun safety is without question a significant cause of the death of Halyna Hutchins,” she said.
Defense attorney Jason Bowles said during his closing argument there was a rush to judgment and that detectives didn’t conduct a thorough investigation of the shooting. Gutierrez was made a “convenient fall person,” he said. He also argued that she “did not do something willfully” because she did not know there was a live round in the revolver.
Morrissey responded that she agreed that Gutierrez didn’t know there was a live round on set, and that if she did know, she would have been charged with second-degree murder, not involuntary manslaughter.
Morrissey addressed the defense theory presented during the trial that Seth Kenney, the owner of PDQ Arm & Prop who was the weapons supplier for “Rust,” was the source of the live rounds, saying the live rounds found in his store did not match the ones found on set.
“Any argument that Seth Kenney is the source of the live rounds is absolutely dishonest,” she said.
During his closing argument, Bowles said that a props manager threw out dummy rounds following the shooting that were not recovered, and that a search of Kenney’s business wasn’t conducted until a month after the shooting.
“If you don’t have all the evidence you can’t rule out all that reasonable doubt,” he said.
Morrissey also pushed back against the defense’s citation during the trial of the New Mexico Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s investigation into the shooting, which found that the management “demonstrated plain indifference to employee safety,” saying the agency’s job was to address the actions of employers, not employees.
Bowles argued Wednesday that the report found that the management was responsible for the safety on the set.
Both Gutierrez and Baldwin have been charged with involuntary manslaughter in Hutchins’ death. His trial is scheduled to start in July.
Morrissey addressed Baldwin’s role in the shooting during her closing argument.
“Alec Baldwin’s conduct and his lack of gun safety inside that church on that day is something that he’s going to have to answer for,” she told the jurors. “Not with you and not today.”
Bowles also noted Baldwin’s actions on set. During his closing argument, Bowles showed jurors a take from the filming of “Rust” that showed Baldwin firing a gun after “cut” was called, saying the actor “went off script.”
He also argued that Baldwin went off script on the day of the shooting by pointing the gun.
“Baldwin would go off script multiple times and Oct. 21 — that was one of those days,” Bowles said. “Baldwin goes off script and that isn’t something that Miss Gutierrez-Reed foresaw that was going to happen.”
In her response, Morrissey said Gutierrez knew Baldwin went off script and “didn’t do anything about it, even though it was her job.”
Gutierrez has additionally been charged with tampering with evidence, with prosecutors alleging she handed off a small bag of cocaine at her hotel on the day of the shooting after her interview with law enforcement.
Morrissey told jurors that Gutierrez handed off the bag to the crew member, Rebecca Smith, after Smith informed her that Hutchins had died. Smith testified during the trial that she is a former addict and believed it to be cocaine and threw the bag out immediately.
Prosecutors rested their case on Monday after calling nearly 30 witnesses. The defense rested on Wednesday after presenting five witnesses. Gutierrez did not testify in her own defense.
A lesser, misdemeanor charge of negligent use of a firearm is included in the first count of involuntary manslaughter. The jurors will only deliberate on the negligent use of a firearm charge if they find Gutierrez not guilty of involuntary manslaughter, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer told the court Wednesday.
There are four possible verdicts in the first count, the judge said: guilty of involuntary manslaughter, not guilty of involuntary manslaughter, guilty of negligent use of a firearm or not guilty of negligent use of a firearm.
(WASHINGTON) — Boeing has not fully cooperated with the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation into the Alaska Airlines door plug incident, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said during a Senate hearing on Wednesday.
“Boeing has not provided us with the documents and information that we have requested numerous times over the past few months, specifically with respect to opening, closing and removal of the door and the team that does work at the Renton facility,” Homendy said during a Senate Commerce Committee hearing.
Homendy said a team of 25 people at a company facility in Renton, Washington, deals with the doors. She said the manager of the team has been on medical leave, and the NTSB have not been able to interview the manager. Despite asking for the names of the 25 people on the team, Boeing has refused to give that information to the NTSB, Homendy said.
“It’s absurd that two months later, we don’t have that,” Homendy said.
ABC News reached out to Boeing for comment Wednesday but did not immediately get a response.
Homendy said the NTSB has engaged their attorney on this matter.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., asked Homendy if the fact that Boeing had not produced the documents meant that the company wasn’t able to retrieve them or if it meant they didn’t exist.
“They may not,” said Homendy. “There are two options. Either they exist and we don’t have them, or they do not exist, which raises two very different questions — several different questions, depending on which one is the right answer.”
Homendy said the NTSB was informed that Boeing has a procedure to maintain documents when work on door plugs is performed, but the NTSB has not been able to verify that.
The door plug fell off a few minutes after Alaska Flight 1282 took off from Portland International Airport on Jan. 5. Passengers captured footage showing a hole where the door plug came loose on the Boeing 737 Max 9 plane. The plane safely made an emergency landing and no one was seriously injured.
The Federal Aviation Administration grounded approximately 171 Max 9s worldwide following the incident. Alaska Airlines resumed flying the Boeing 737 Max 9 following fleet inspections on Jan. 26.
An NTSB preliminary report released last month found that four bolts designed to prevent the door plug from falling off the Boeing 737 Max 9 plane were missing before the plug blew off the flight.
Boeing said it would review the NTSB’s findings “expeditiously” in a statement following the release of the report.
“Whatever final conclusions are reached, Boeing is accountable for what happened. An event like this must not happen on an airplane that leaves our factory,” Boeing president and CEO Dave Calhoun said in a statement in February. “We simply must do better for our customers and their passengers.”
The Federal Aviation Administration is increasing its oversight of Boeing and began an audit of the company’s production and manufacturing in the wake of the door plug blow-out.
The Justice Department is also investigating the Alaska Airlines incident, three sources familiar with the situation told ABC News.
The probe will also examine specifically whether Boeing violated its 2021 deferred prosecution agreement when the company was investigated by the Justice Department over two 737 Max crashes. The deferred prosecution agreement forced Boeing to cooperate with federal government probes and fined the company $2.5 billion after Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, both 737 Max planes, crashed.
(FAIRFAX, Va.) — A man has been arrested in connection with a Virginia woman’s 1986 cold case murder, and authorities say DNA evidence also links him to a second murder from the ’80s.
Jacqueline Lard, 32, was last seen at her job, Mount Vernon Realty, on the night of Nov. 14, 1986, the Stafford County Sheriff’s Office said.
The next morning, evidence of a “horrific struggle” was found at the realty office, the sheriff’s office said.
On Nov. 16, 1986, Lard’s body was recovered in a wooded area under a pile of discarded carpet, authorities said. One month later, Lard’s car was found abandoned in Fairfax County, authorities said.
DNA evidence was collected, but authorities couldn’t connect the DNA to a suspect, authorities said.
The case turned cold, but the sheriff’s office said DNA did eventually link Lard’s slaying to another murder in Virginia: the death of 18-year-old Amy Baker.
On the night of March 29, 1989, Baker went missing after leaving a relative’s house in Falls Church, according to Fairfax County police.
The teen’s car was found that night on the side of Interstate 95, and two days later, her body was found in a wooded area off the interstate, police said.
Decades after both murders, on Dec. 14, 2023, “a family name for the suspect was identified,” the Stafford County Sheriff’s Office said.
“Detectives followed up on the leads this technology created and ultimately obtained a search warrant for DNA from Stafford County resident Elroy Harrison,” the sheriff’s office said.
Last month, the DNA from evidence was determined to be a match to 65-year-old Harrison, the sheriff’s office said.
On Monday, Harrison was indicted on charges including first-degree murder in connection with Lard’s death, the sheriff’s office said.
He was arrested at his Stafford County home on Tuesday and is being held without bond, the sheriff’s office said.
Fairfax County police and prosecutors are now working to seek charges against Harrison for Baker’s murder, the sheriff’s office said.
(NEW YORK) — Heavy rainfall is in the forecast for the Northeast, while severe thunderstorms could bring tornadoes, large hail and damaging winds to the South.
The National Weather Service has issued a flood watch from New Jersey to Massachusetts for Wednesday afternoon into Thursday, warning that heavy rain could cause flash flooding. Major cities under the flood watch include New York City, Hartford, Providence and Boston. Localized rainfall amounts of 3 inches is possible within this short period of time, which would trigger urban flash flooding.
The rain is expected to begin early Wednesday afternoon and continue into the evening for most of the Northeast. Then the rain is forecast to linger over New England into Thursday afternoon.
Friday is expected to bring a respite from the rainfall before more heavy downpours come over the weekend with yet another storm.
The rain is forecast to begin Saturday evening for the Interstate 95 travel corridor and continue into Sunday morning.
Snow is expected to fall over the mountains of upstate New York and northern New England from Saturday night into Sunday, with more than a foot possible locally. There could be additional flooding on Saturday night due to a very saturated ground.
There is also a threat for flash flooding across the South, from the Carolinas to Georgia. The National Weather Service has issued a flood watch for North Carolina’s Outer Banks barrier islands.
Meanwhile, severe thunderstorms are forecast to begin in parts of Texas on Thursday morning before moving into the Dallas metropolitan area. More severe weather is expected that night in areas of Texas and Oklahoma, including the Dallas-Forth Worth metroplex. The biggest threat there will be large hail, but the possibility of an isolated tornado or damaging winds can’t be ruled out.
The severe weather is expected to move further east on Friday into eastern Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. The biggest threat there will include tornadoes, damaging winds, hail and flash flooding.
On Tuesday, thunderstorms swept across the South and even the Midwest, with two landspout tornadoes reported in Texas and Ohio. The storms also brought heavy rain to Atlanta on Wednesday morning, prompting the National Weather Service to issue a flash flood warning there.
(NEW YORK) — A former librarian has filed a lawsuit against Llano County, Texas, and local library officials after she says she was fired for refusing to purge certain books from the library’s collection.
“A public library is a foundation of any good society,” Suzette Baker, who had been appointed head librarian of Kingland Library in 2021, said in an interview with ABC News. “It’s like the cornerstone for our society and if that cornerstone were to fall, we would collapse. We would have no basis to form our own independent thoughts.”
She is accusing county officials of violating her First and 14th Amendment rights as well as those of the library’s patrons.
Baker alleges in her lawsuit that she was fired for “insubordination,” “creating a disturbance,” “violation of policies,” “failure to follow instructions,” and “allowing personal opinions to interfere with job duties and procedures” after refusing to remove the books.
Baker said she feels particularly passionate against what she is calling “censorship” because of the oath she said she made while serving in the military to uphold the U.S. Constitution: “That still resonates with me.”
ABC News has reached out to Llano County and library officials for comment on this most recent lawsuit regarding Baker’s termination.
In 2021, community groups began pushing for the removal of books that they declared inappropriate or unnecessary for the library’s collection. In some cases, they likened the books to “pornography” or “grooming,” the lawsuit states.
These books were predominantly written by or about people of color and LGBTQ individuals. They touched on topics such as race, gender, health, and sexual orientation.
“They’re using incredibly stigmatizing and derogatory language and stereotypes, while attempting to censor these books,” said Baker’s attorney Iris Halpern. “The language that they’re using, how they’re collapsing criminality with the content of these books or their authors, I think only further highlights the animus against LGTBQ [sic] people and people of color.”
Titles like How to be an Anti-Racist,They Called Themselves the KKK: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group, and Being Jazz: My Life As A Transgender Teen were impacted by county efforts to remove the books from shelves.
In some cases, books that “depict bodily functions in a humorous manner in cartoon format,” such as My Butt is so Noisy, were criticized by these groups as “obscene” and promoting “‘grooming’ behavior,” according to court documents.
It’s Perfectly Normal, a book about human biology depicted through cartoons, was also removed because critics claimed it encouraged “child grooming,” according to federal judge Robert Pitman.
Some of these book restrictions were inspired by a 2021 list sent by Texas State Representative Matt Krause to the Texas Education Agency and several school district superintendents with more than 800 books that “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex,” he said in a letter first reported by the Texas Tribune.
In April 2022, several Llano County residents sued county officials and the library over the book removals.
Seventeen of the removed books were returned to shelves under a court order from Pitman in March 2023 that asserted that the books were protected by the First Amendment.
The county appealed the judge’s ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit where the case is still pending. At the time of the appeal’s filing, the Llano County Commissioners Court, an elected governing body of the county, called a special meeting. The presiding officer of the Comissioner’s Court, Judge Ron Cunningham, issued a press release defending the Commissioners Court’s actions and decrying the expense the litigation had cost the county.
At the special meeting, officials also considered ceasing operations of the library system.
“Our librarians weed books all the time, and almost every public library must continually weed books that aren’t being checked out to make room for new books given our limited shelf space,” according to the April 2023 press release.
It continued, “The plaintiffs have falsely accused our librarian of weeding these books because of their content, even though our librarian has stated repeatedly under oath that she hasn’t even read the books and weeded them for reasons unrelated to their content or viewpoints.”
Baker also claimed in the lawsuit that some of the books removed from shelves did not meet the standards necessary to be “weeded out” in order to make room for new content.
Baker said these books are vital for people to see themselves in different stories and learn more about the people and world around them.
“One of the lessons I grew up with was you don’t judge anybody unless you walk a mile in their shoes,” said Baker. “How do you walk a mile in their shoes, especially when it’s in a small county? … You can pick up a book at a public library, and you can walk in somebody else’s shoes, and you can learn something outside of your little bubble of community. And that’s what those books are so important for.”
Book bans have been seen across the country in record-breaking numbers: Roughly 1,269 demands were made to censor library books and resources in 2022, according to the American Library Association. The organization says it is the highest number of attempted book bans since it began collecting data over 20 years ago.
The vast majority of book banning attempts were made against literature written by or about members of the LGBTQIA+ community and people of color, according to the ALA.
(NEW YORK) — A former cheese producer in New York has pleaded guilty in connection to manufacturing raw milk products that were linked to an outbreak of listeria which resulted in two deaths and eight hospitalizations, authorities say.
Johannes Vulto and his company, Vulto Creamery LLC, each pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of causing the introduction of adulterated food into interstate commerce on Tuesday after it was discovered that a 2016-2017 outbreak of listeriosis, the disease caused by the pathogen Listeria monocytogenes, was linked back to cheese made in his factory, according to a press release published by the Department of Justice on Tuesday.
“Vulto oversaw operations at Vulto Creamery manufacturing facility in Walton, New York, including those relating to sanitation and environmental monitoring,” the Department of Justice said. “In pleading guilty, Vulto and Vulto Creamery admitted that between December 2014 and March 2017, they caused the shipment in interstate commerce of adulterated cheese.”
Environmental swabs taken at the Vulto Creamery facility between July 2014 and February 2017 repeatedly tested positive for Listeria species, according to the plea agreement.
“The Listeria family includes both harmless species and L. monocytogenes, which can cause listeriosis in humans. In March 2017, after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) linked Vulto Creamery’s cheese to an outbreak of listeriosis, Vulto shut down the Vulto Creamery facility and issued a partial recall that was expanded to a full recall within weeks,” the DOJ said.
The listeriosis outbreak caused by the sanitation issues resulted in eight hospitalizations and two deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“It is crucial that American consumers be able to trust that the foods they buy are safe to eat,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. “The department will continue to work with its law enforcement partners to hold responsible food manufacturers that sell dangerously contaminated products.”
Listeriosis is a severe, invasive illness that can be life-threatening in some cases, particularly for pregnant women and their newborns, the elderly and persons with weakened immune systems.
“This investigation and prosecution holds accountable the defendant and his business who through unsafe practices caused illness and death to consumers in an entirely preventable tragedy,” said U.S. Attorney Carla B. Freedman for the Northern District of New York. “The law enforcement and regulatory partners involved in this case will continue to work together to bring to justice those who endanger the public through unsafe and unsanitary products and facilities.”
Vulto and Vulto Creamery pleaded guilty in Syracuse, New York, and a sentencing date is expected to be set by the court at a later date.
“U.S. consumers rely on the FDA to ensure that their food is safe and wholesome,” said Special Agent in Charge Fernando McMillan of the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations New York Field Office. “When companies and individuals put themselves above the law by producing food that endangers and harms the public, as occurred in this case, we will see that they are brought to justice.”
The FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations investigated the case.
