Ione, California
A California serial killer who authorities said strangled and raped at least seven women was fatally chocked himself in state prison, the Associated Press reported.
Roger Reece Kibbe, 81, known as the “I-5 Strangler” in the 1970s and 1980s, was spotted unresponsive Sunday in his cell at Mule Creek State Prison southeast of Sacramento while his 40-year-old cellmate standing nearby. An autopsy showed Kibbe had been strangled manually, according to AP.
No charges have been filed in the death of Kibbe, a former suburban Sacramento furniture maker whose brother was a law enforcement officer. He initially was convicted in 1991 of strangling Darcine Frackenpohl, a 17-year-old who had run away from her home in Seattle. Her body was found west of South Lake Tahoe below Echo Summit September 1987, AP reported.
Investigators said then they suspected him in other similar slayings. But it wasn’t until 2009 a San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office investigator used new developments in evidence to connect him to six additional slayings in multiple Northern California counties, with several victims found alongside Interstate 5 or other highways in 1986, according to AP.
Washington
Capitol Police said they have uncovered intelligence of a “possible plot” by a militia group to breach the U.S. Capitol Thursday, nearly 2 months after a mob of supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the iconic building to try to stop Congress from certifying now-President Joe Biden’s victory, the Associated Press reported.
The threat appears to be connected to a far-right conspiracy theory, mainly promoted by supporters of QAnon, claiming Trump will rise to power again March 4. That was the original presidential inauguration day until 1933, when it was moved to January 20, according to AP.
Online chatter identified by authorities included discussions among members of the Three Percenters, an antigovernment militia group, concerning possible plots against the Capitol Thursday. Members of the Three Percenters were among the extremists who stormed the Capitol January 6, AP reported.
The announcement comes as the Capitol police and other law enforcement agencies are taking heat from Congress in contentious hearing this week on their handling of the January 6 riot. Police were ill-prepared for the mass of Trump supporters in tactical gear, some armed, and it took hours for National Guard reinforcements to come, according to AP.
Ankeny, Iowa
The discovery of a live pipe bomb at a central Iowa polling place as voters were casting ballots in a special election forced an evacuation of the building, the Associated Press reported. Officers called to the
Officers called to the Lakeside Center in Ankeny around 9:30 a.m. Tuesday found a device which looked like a pipe bomb in grass near the center. Police later confirmed in a news release the device was a pipe bomb, according to AP.
The banquet was being used as a polling place for an Ankeny school district special election. Police evacuated the building, and the State Fire Marshal and agents with the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were called in. Technicians safely detonated the device, and the center was reopened around 12:30 p.m. No one was injured, AP reported.
Police said other polling places in Ankeny were checked and no other bombs or suspicious devices were found. An investigation into who left the devices is continuing, according to AP.
Salem, New Hampshire
Police have made an arrest following a 15-month-long investigation into vandalism at a group of rock configurations in New Hampshire called “America’s Stonehenge,” the Associated Press reported.
Mark Russo, 51 of Swedesboro, New Jersey, has been charged with one count of felony criminal mischief, accused of defacing the stone in Salem in September 2019. A lawyer entered a plea of not guilty on his behalf Tuesday, according to AP.
Police said the rock tablet appeared to have been damaged by a power tool. It was carved with “WWG1WGA” and “IAMMARK.” Police said the first stands for “Where We Go One, We Go All,” a motto affiliated with the QAnon conspiracy theory, AP reported.
An 18-inch-tall wooden cross was found suspended between two trees, and attached to the cross were several photographs and hand-drawn images. Police arrested Russo after finding images of the stone and Russo online and linking to him an “iammark” Twitter account with a reference to “a few improvements” made to the site. Images on the cross were linked to Russo, according to AP.