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Guard taunted in jailbreak note kills himself

NEWARK, New Jersey (AP) — A guard who was named in a cheeky thank-you note left by two jail inmates when they chiseled their way out of their cells has committed suicide, his lawyer said Wednesday.

Rudolph Zurick, 40, was found dead at his home in Middlesex County, said attorney Michael J. Mitzner.

Zurick had not been charged in the December 15 break from the Union County Jail and had been cooperating with the investigation, Mitzner said.

Everything I understand, he did nothing wrong, said Mitzner, who spoke to Zurick on Monday. It’s hard to know what goes through someone’s head.

Mitzner did not have Zurick’s cause of death.

In a statement, Union County Prosecutor Theodore J. Romankow said the death is being investigated by Middlesex County authorities.

This is not a time for speculation, but a time for mourning, Romankow said. He declined further comment.

Officials in Middlesex County did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Zurick had been scheduled to be interviewed Wednesday about the daring break by inmates Otis Blunt, 32, and Jose Espinosa, 20. Both remained at large Wednesday.

The two used photos of bikini-clad women to hide holes they dug through the cinderblock walls of their adjoining cells in a high-security unit, authorities said. They jumped onto a lower roof, then made it over a 25-foot-high fence topped with razor wire.

The inmates left behind a thank-you note, signed with a smiley face, that named Zurick, thanking him for the tools they used — a thick piece of wire and a 10-pound steel water shut-off wheel.

You’re a real pal! Happy Holidays, said the note, which also included a drawing of a hand with an upraised middle finger.

The note, Mitzner said, was definitely sarcastic.

There was no way he gave them any help. He was the one who had noticed they were missing.

Blunt was awaiting trial for robbery and weapons offenses. Espinosa was awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to manslaughter in a 2005 drive-by shooting.

Authorities are reviewing security measures and have barred inmates from putting pictures cut from magazines on their cell walls.
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Slain wife points accusing finger from the grave

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (AP) — Julie Jensen will essentially testify from the grave when her husband’s murder trial begins this week.

Shortly before her death in 1998, Jensen told police, a neighbor and her son’s teacher that she suspected her spouse was trying to kill her, court documents show.

She gave a letter to the neighbor that said that if she died, Mark Jensen should be the first suspect.

I pray I’m wrong + nothing happens … but I am suspicious of Mark’s suspicious behaviors + fear for my demise, she wrote.

Until recent years, using such evidence in court was virtually unheard of because of constitutional guarantees that give criminal defendants the right to confront their accusers.

But the Wisconsin Supreme Court created new rules, prompted by a U.S. Supreme Court decision that laid the groundwork for her accusatory letter and statements to police to be used as evidence in the trial.

At a hearing this summer, it was determined the letter and statements to police should be allowed at trial. Jury selection begins Thursday; opening statements were scheduled for Monday.

The hearing gave a glimpse of what both sides would argue.

The prosecution alleges that Mark Jensen, now 48, poisoned his wife with at least two doses of ethylene glycol, commonly used as antifreeze, so he could be with his girlfriend, now his wife. They argue he got the information on poisoning from doing Web searches.

The defense counters that a depressed and disturbed 40-year-old Julie Jensen did the Internet searches and poisoned herself — to frame her cheating husband.

Special Prosecutor Robert Jambois wouldn’t comment on his case. Defense lawyers didn’t return a call for comment.

Julie Jensen was found dead in her Pleasant Prairie home in December 3, 1998. Mark Jensen was not charged until 2002, and legal wrangling over evidence delayed the trial.

In March 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a 1980 case that laid out complex rules about when statements can be used without the opportunity for cross-examination. The court said the case complicated a part of the Constitution that guarantees a criminal defendant the right to confront his accusers.

Kenosha County Judge Bruce Schroeder then ruled the letter and voice mails to police were inadmissible, but testimony of the neighbor and teacher could be allowed. Prosecutors appealed and the state Supreme Court ruled previously inadmissible testimony could be used if a judge determined the defendants’ actions prevented the witnesses from testifying.

After the hearing this summer, Schroeder decided it was reasonable to believe that Mark Jensen’s actions prevented his wife from testifying.

Marquette University Law Professor Dan Blinka said the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturned 24 years of precedent, leaving states and lower federal courts to make sense of the new rules.

Each state has had to deal with the new rules, and their decisions on how to interpret them vary, he said.

Every criminal prosecution features some use of hearsay evidence against a criminal defendant and the problem for prosecutors and for trial courts and for defense lawyers is to figure out what the boundaries are, he said.

Among the witnesses expected to testify is Tadeusz Wojt, the neighbor Julie Jensen gave the letter to and one of several people she talked to about her marital problems.

During a hearing, he described Julie Jensen as a perfect mom who spent most of her days with her two sons, jumping and laughing in the yard and swimming in the pool.

Wojt said that about two weeks before her death, she told him and his wife that she found syringes in their bedroom. She said the next day her husband tried to force her to drink wine. She suspected he was trying to get her drunk so he could inject her with something, he said.

He was like going after her from one room to another, pushing her to drink it, to drink it, he testified.

One of Julie Jensen’s four brothers, Paul Griffin, said he expects closure from the trial. I am very strongly confident that the right outcome will happen, he said.
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Police scour D.C. for escapee

LAUREL, Maryland (CNN) — Police were searching in the nation’s capital Wednesday for a prisoner who overpowered two guards at a suburban Washington hospital, shot a driver and fled in his car, officials said.

Police found the stolen car shortly before 1 p.m. in Washington and shifted the focus of the search there.

The incident began shortly after noon Tuesday, after Jessup Correctional Institution inmate Kelvin Poke, 45, complained of chest pains, Maryland State Police said in a news release.

Poke, who was serving life plus 40 years on kidnapping, carjacking and robbery convictions, was accompanied by two guards from the maximum-security facility to Laurel Regional Hospital, about eight miles away, where he was admitted, said Greg Shipley, a spokesman for the Maryland State Police.

About 8:15 a.m. Wednesday, on the fourth floor of the hospital, the prisoner overpowered a correctional officer and took his .38-caliber revolver, Shipley said.

Poke, who was not wearing handcuffs, then fired the weapon to free himself from his leg shackles, Shipley added. Watch Shipley detail the escape

Two other correctional officers — who had been escorting another prisoner to the hospital — entered the room, where the one carrying a weapon was also disarmed, Shipley said.

When a hospital security guard who had heard the shooting entered the room, Poke — now armed with two revolvers — took him at gunpoint through the hospital lobby and outside, Shipley said.

During their trip downstairs, Poke apparently placed one of his two guns on the floor in order to open a door and left the weapon there, Shipley said.

Outside in the hospital parking lot, Poke let go of the security guard and fired at least one shot into a 1993 blue Toyota Camry. The 51-year-old driver was shot in the head and pulled from the car, and Poke drove off, Shipley said.

The wounded man, who had been waiting to pick up a relative employed by the hospital, is doing well, Shipley added.

That individual is still being treated here at the hospital. He has spoken with investigators, though, and his prognosis is good, he said.

Police were searching the northeast quadrant of Washington, where the stolen Toyota was found, for Poke. Poke was described as a black man, 6 feet 3 inches tall and 235 pounds. He was wearing prison-issue blue jeans, white socks and no shirt, Shipley said.

About the time the Toyota was found, a white Ford Explorer Sport Trac pickup truck, license number DC 3690, was carjacked nearby, Shipley said. Police believe the carjacker may be Poke and that no one was hurt or kidnapped in that incident.

The hospital — which is just east of Interstate 95, about midway between Washington and Baltimore — is near residential areas, and three schools were locked down, according to a public information officer for the Prince George’s County Schools System.

Maryland State Police provided a phone number — 301-345-3101 — for people to give tips about Poke.

Another prisoner escaped from the Laurel hospital in November after taking a state trooper’s gun and was captured a few hours later.

Asked how a similar incident could occur so soon afterward, Shipley said, We’ll certainly be looking into that.
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Intense snowstorm heads for New England

CONCORD, New Hampshire (AP) — Snow fell across parts of New England for the third day in a row Wednesday, adding to last month’s record accumulations and closing schools.

Flurries also extended into the Ohio Valley, and some children had an extra holiday as classes were canceled in parts of West Virginia and Ohio.

Temperatures fell to freezing levels as far south as the Florida Panhandle, and wind chill readings were below zero in parts of northern Kentucky.

Following the snowiest December on record, many areas of New Hampshire got about a foot of snow on New Year’s Day, with a couple of inches added during the night and a couple more likely Wednesday. Storm totals could reach 18 inches in parts of Maine and New Hampshire and up to a foot in Vermont. Watch cold, snowy forecast for Wednesday

The latest snowfall in New England followed a storm on Monday that made for the area’s snowiest December in decades. December’s snowfall at Concord, New Hampshire, totaled 44.5 inches, toppling a record of 43 inches that had stood since 1876. Burlington, Vermont, got 45.7 inches, far above its 17.2-inch December average, and Portland, Maine, amassed 37.7 inches for its third-snowiest December on record.

It’s been unbelievable. It just keeps coming, said Bill Swain, spokesman for Maine’s Sugarloaf USA ski area, which got 70 inches of snow in December.

The snowfall delayed the start of the 2008 state legislative session in Augusta, Maine, from Wednesday morning until the afternoon.

On the southern fringes of the storm on Wednesday, show was scattered from Ohio through eastern Kentucky and West Virginia into parts of Virginia and Maryland.

The heaviest snowfall was in West Virginia’s rugged Randolph County, with 13 inches at Kumbrabow State Forest, the weather service said. Up to 6 inches of snow was possible at higher elevations of eastern Kentucky, although 1- to 2-inch accumulations were likely in most areas, the weather service said.

At least 40 of West Virginia’s 55 counties closed all public schools Wednesday because of snow-covered roads and freezing temperatures.

Dozens of schools also were closed Wednesday in southeastern Michigan, where a six-hour burst of snow early Tuesday dumped as much as 16 inches in a three-county area north of Detroit, the weather service said. Watch cars slide, kids sled, as snow falls

The storm blacked out 10,000 customers Tuesday in northeast Ohio, where 15 inches of snow fell at in Pierpont, east of Cleveland. About 4,000 more lost power Tuesday evening in southwest Ohio when circuit breakers failed because of the cold. Service had been restored to nearly everyone Wednesday morning, utility officials said.

One person was killed in a weather-related traffic accident in Ohio, the Highway Patrol said.

All of Florida was under a freeze warning with temperatures expected to drop into the 20s and teens in parts of the state by Thursday morning. Northern Florida had already chilled to 30 degrees early Wednesday.

Much of Florida’s prime citrus growing area was expected to get temperatures in the 20s, and Gov. Charlie Crist had signed an emergency order and relaxed restrictions in getting harvests moved to processing centers.

Everybody’s scurrying around to do what they can to protect their plants, said Terry McElroy, spokesman for the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
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I-Reporters escape, document chaos in Kenya

VIDEO PHOTOS
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