Deaths of 8 in burned Oklahoma home investigated as murder-suicide

(AP) — The deaths of eight family members — including six children — found in a burning Oklahoma home are being investigated as a murder-suicide, authorities said Friday. Police are trying to determine whether both adults were involved in the killings.

The children, who ranged in age from 1 to 13, were the victims, Broken Arrow Police Chief Brandon Berryhill said during a news conference. He did not provide their identities, ages or explain their relationships to one another except to say they were family members believed to be living in the home.

Police said both adults who live in the home were considered “primary suspects” because they were found dead in the front of the home while the children were all found in a bedroom, where the fire was contained. A police spokesman declined to say whether authorities believe the two adults were both responsible for the killings or whether it could be just one of them.

“It’s because investigators are still trying to piece together what happened with eight people dead,” police spokesman Ethan Hutchins said in an email to The Associated Press.

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Hutchins also said police would not be able to identify the dead adults until the medical examiner’s office has completed its work.

The causes of death are still under investigation but Broken Arrow Fire Department Chief Jeremy Moore said it doesn’t appear that anyone died because of the fire. Guns were recovered from the home, the police chief said.

“To arrive on scene yesterday and to see the looks on our first responders’ and firefighters’ faces just absolutely broke my heart,” Moore said Friday.

Sara Abel, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the agency is assisting local police in tracing guns found in the home but she did not have any details about the type or number of firearms.

The fire was reported about 4 p.m. Thursday in a quiet residential area of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, 13 miles (20 kilometers) southeast of Tulsa.

The two adults found dead in the front of the house had injuries that “appeared to be criminal in nature,” Moore said.

The children were found dead in another area of the home, he said.

A week ago, a similar tragedy occurred in Wisconsin, where four children and two adults were found in a burning apartment in a suspected murder-suicide.

In Broken Arrow, Catelin Powers said she was driving with her children nearby when she saw a column of smoke near her house, so she drove past to investigate.

“When I got closer to the house, I saw smoke pouring out from the very top of the house, which looked like maybe the attic,” she told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Two men and a woman on her phone were standing in front of the house, Powers said, when another man emerged from the front door dragging an apparently unconscious, unresponsive woman. “Her arms were flopped to her sides,” she said.

Suspecting the woman was dead, Powers said she drove on so her children would be spared the sight.

Tragedy has struck before in Broken Arrow, which is Tulsa’s biggest suburb with almost 115,000 residents. In 2015, two teenaged brothers killed their mother, father, two younger brothers and 5-year-old sister at their home — which was about 6 miles (10 kilometers) south of Thursday’s fatal fire.

The home where the 2015 killings occurred was later demolished and the site was transformed into a community park.

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By JILL BLEED and SEAN MURPHY Associated Press writers

Associated Press reporters Jake Bleiberg and Terry Wallace in Dallas contributed to this report.

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McKinsey & Company remains on hook in class action over opioid crisis

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — Global consulting firm McKinsey & Company must face multidistrict litigation seeking to hold it accountable for its part in fueling a nationwide opioid crisis with aggressive marketing strategies, after a federal judge found it cannot use jurisdictional grounds to escape liability.

McKinsey is accused of devising strategies for its client, Oxycontin maker Purdue Pharma, that boosted sales of high-dose pills with deceptive messaging to doctors that downplayed the risks of addiction.

The plaintiffs are private citizens, city governments, Native American tribes, school districts, and children with neonatal abstinence syndrome from opioid exposure in the womb. They are from 19 states: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawai’i, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, and the cases have been consolidated into a multidistrict litigation.

The plaintiffs argued that McKinsey consultants conducted extensive research that helped Purdue carry out a targeted marketing plan to increase sales.

“McKinsey’s documents contain email after email describing its consultants riding along with Purdue’s sales team visiting doctors, including in Tennessee, Maryland, Indiana, Louisiana, and other states where McKinsey claims it did not work. For example, Purdue arranged to have a McKinsey consultant spend a day working with a sales representative in Tennessee,” a recent court filing says. “Don’t think McKinsey didn’t know the consequences of its field research and doctor targeting. McKinsey analyzed those, too, developing a method for Purdue to identify abuse and diversion hot spots — but without ever acting to address them. McKinsey knew exactly the places it was targeting and where the harms of its work impacted communities.”

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, who is overseeing the sprawling case, sided with the plaintiffs in a ruling Thursday.

“Plaintiffs have established that McKinsey committed intentional acts directed toward the subject states,” he wrote. “McKinsey performed numerous acts directed at the subject states. These acts included creating granular analyses of market attractiveness of the subject states, creating target lists of prescribers in the subject states, working alongside Purdue sales representatives in the subject states, and working with Purdue to implement sales strategies in the subject states.”

In its bid to fend off negligence, fraud, public nuisance, and state consumer protection claims, McKinsey claimed it never manufactured, distributed or sold prescription painkillers in any of these states, nor has it ever interacted with any of the plaintiffs, “much less made any representations to them about opioids.”

Accordingly, “McKinsey is not subject to expansive nationwide personal jurisdiction in the same way that other defendants in other opioid-related litigation may be,” the company said.

In rejecting that argument, Breyer wrote, “McKinsey effectively contends that it can help Purdue develop and manage strategies to increase opioid sales in the subject states, but that it cannot be subject to jurisdiction when those strategies result in increased opioid sales that cause harm in the subject states.”

The judge determined the plaintiffs showed more than random negligence. “To the contrary, plaintiffs plausibly allege that McKinsey’s actions significantly contributed to the wide-ranging harms that have affected the subject states,” he wrote. “McKinsey is more akin to an advertising agency that advised a manufacturer on how to sell boilers to residents of specific states, despite knowing that the boilers carried a significant risk of exploding. There is no random or attenuated chain of contacts here. Plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that McKinsey intentionally and purposefully directed contacts at the subject states for several years.”

He also found the plaintiffs had adequately asserted that McKinsey’s methods to increase opioid sales caused foreseeable harm because their consultants delivered presentations to Purdue that mentioned prescribers’ concerns about opioid abuse, and even worked with Purdue to “counter emotional messages from mothers with teenagers that overdosed in [sic] OxyContin.”

Breyer’s ruling allows the litigation to move forward, though McKinsey will likely try to get it dismissed on the merits.

Attorneys for the parties did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

The decision comes just as the firm announced it had reached an agreement to settle lawsuits brought by school districts and local governments. The details of the agreement have not been made public, but the parties expect to have an update for Breyer at a hearing in December.

McKinsey also admitted no wrongdoing as part of a nearly $600 million settlement with 47 states, the District of Columbia and five territories last year.

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Exhumations resume for DNA to ID Tulsa Race Massacre victims

(AP) — A team of scientists started the process of re-exhuming human remains Wednesday in their effort to identify people killed in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, one of the worst-known examples of white mob violence against Black Americans in U.S. history.

The team plans to dig up some of the 19 sets of remains, which were initially exhumed a year ago from Oaklawn Cemetery in Tulsa, to test for more DNA.

Of those 19 remains previously exhumed, 14 fit the criteria for additional DNA analysis, but just two of the 14 had enough usable DNA recovered to begin sequencing by Intermountain Forensics, which is examining the remains. Intermountain Forensics plans to take DNA from the remaining 12.

None of the remains recovered are identified or confirmed as victims of the massacre in which more than 1,000 homes were burned, hundreds were looted and a thriving business district known as Black Wall Street was destroyed in the racist violence. Historians have estimated the death toll to be between 75 and 300, with generational wealth being wiped out.

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Victims were never compensated, however, a pending lawsuit seeks reparations for the three remaining known survivors of the violence. They are now more than 100 years old.

Danny Hellwig, director of laboratory development for Intermountain Forensics, a nonprofit foundation based in Salt Lake City, said Wednesday that the DNA previously recovered from the remains had degraded during the more than 100 years they were buried, creating a need for more testing.

“There are samples that are very light right now on DNA, some that are semi-viable, some that are just on the threshold,” Hellwig said.

Hellwig said work to develop a genealogy profile for the two remains with enough viable DNA is expected to start in about a week and could be completed within a few weeks, but efforts to identify the remains could take years.

The latest search of the graveyard is expected to end by Nov. 18.

Intermountain Forensics also continues to seek people who believe they are descendants of massacre victims to provide genetic material to help scientists find potential matches.

Following the exhumations, another search will begin for 18 bodies with gunshot wounds whose burials in plain caskets were previously documented, but without information on where the caskets were within the cemetery, according to forensic anthropologist Phoebe Stubblefield.

“We will be targeting in our excavations plain-casketed individuals” who are male, based on reports from 1921, Stubblefield said.

That search area is south and west of previous excavations conducted in 2020 and 2021, said state Archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck, who is leading the project.

The remains will be reburied, at least temporarily, at Oaklawn, where the previous reburial was closed to the public, drawing protests from about two dozen people who said they are descendants of massacre victims and should have been allowed to attend.

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By KEN MILLER Associated Press

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Closing arguments delivered in governor kidnap scheme trial

JACKSON, Mich. (CN) — A Jackson County jury heard closing arguments Monday in the trial of three Michigan men accused of assisting the leaders of a plot to kidnap the state’s Democratic governor, with deliberations expected to begin Tuesday. 

Attorneys for Joe Morrison, his father-in-law Pete Musico and their onetime fellow militia member Paul Bellar argued that prosecutors and the FBI had tried hard – and failed – to keep their clients in touch with chief conspirators Adam Fox and Barry Croft, and raised questions as to the credibility of major FBI witnesses.  

Prosecutors will have time to rebut the trio’s arguments before jury instructions are issued Tuesday. On Monday, they started proceedings by laying out their case. 

Michigan Assistant Attorney General Sunita Doddamani began with an overview of the memes and ideologies the three Wolverine Watchmen leaders shared with each other and with Fox. That included admiration of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who cited both anti-government and white supremacist beliefs in justifying his bombing of a federal building that killed 168 people in 1995. McVeigh visited with a group also known as the Wolverine Watchmen before carrying out his bombing, though it’s unclear whether the modern Watchmen have any relationship to that one. 

Doddamani then moved toward the training the Watchmen allegedly engaged in and provided to Fox. Claims that their trainings were “defensive,” she said, should not be taken seriously. 

“The Wolverine Watchmen were willing to walk up to the edge of violence over, and over and over again, and were more than willing to help those two out,” she said, name-checking Fox and Croft. “These three defendants had been pushing towards violence for months. They had stepped up at the [Michigan State] Capitol doors, they had provoked law enforcement… Even if they weren’t going to go and actually do an act of terrorism themselves, they were more and willing and happy to help someone else to.” 

She also objected to the defense attorneys’ interactions with confidential FBI informant Dan Chappel, who has received criticism from all three defendants’ counsel for receiving money from the FBI, appearing to encourage the group’s connection to Fox and providing at least part of the firearms training the group received. Bellar’s attorney Andrew Kirkpatrick also accused Chappel of stealing valor at one point in the case, questioning his contention that he received a traumatic brain injury while serving in Iraq. 

“What was Dan’s reward for his service to the FBI in this case? Endless amounts of testimony,” Doddamani said. “Sitting in the witness stand, defense attorneys implying that he’s stealing valor for his time in combat– that’s the reward that he got. And perhaps you have noticed the tone in the courtroom…. Disrespect, sarcasm, yelling– that’s what you do, ladies and gentlemen, when you don’t have the facts on your side.” 

Morrison’s attorney Leonard Ballard took a few minutes of his turn at the bench to explain moments when he raised his voice. He was angry, he said, in part because of question-dodging from the state’s witnesses and because the three Watchmen had not committed any crimes.

“We have taken the Constitution in this case and basically shredded it,” Ballard said. 

On Musico’s behalf, attorney Kareem Johnson said that the use of memes and chat logs to boost the government’s case was a façade to disguise a lack of criminal activity.

”They have spent hours showing you First Amendment-protected speech – speech that you may not agree with,” he said, in an effort to make jurors dislike the Watchmen. “In this country, you are allowed to talk the talk, but you only get convicted if you walk the walk.” 

Johnson also took issue with the government’s focus on the men’s participation in protests after the murder of George Floyd. Talk of defending people from police, he said, was legal and in line with the Black Lives Matter message.

“What if one person would have stopped that officer?” he said of Floyd’s death under the knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. “That’s what they’re talking about when they talk about defending people.”

Kirkpatrick returned to his argument that Bellar was out of state and out of the group by the time Fox began his mission to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Chappel, he said, “was the only common denominator” in the case. 

The trial was put on hold for much of last week after Kirkpatrick contracted Covid-19. On Monday, the attorney reassured jurors that he had consistently tested negative, but both Morrison and Musico observed proceedings remotely, having both tested positive. 

Bellar, Morrison and Musico could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted on charges of providing material support for a terrorist act, unlawful possession of firearms and committing those acts for the benefit of a gang. 

Fox and Croft have both been convicted in federal court, and several other people connected with the plot have taken plea deals.

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Oklahoma execution

Read the order and prior coverage.

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National

Oath Keepers push back at trial: No plan, no smoking gun

Defense attorneys for five Oath Keepers associates charged with seditious conspiracy fought Wednesday to poke holes in the government’s core claim that they had a plan ahead of Jan. 6, 2021, to breach the Capitol building.

(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Right-wing challenge to student debt forgiveness plan heads to Supreme Court

A conservative law firm appealed to the Supreme Court on Wednesday to halt President Joe Biden’s forgiveness plan for student loan debt. 

(AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Air Force urges panel to lift block on Covid vaccine mandate

Air Force members who won a preliminary injunction to prevent being disciplined for their refusal to get the Covid-19 vaccine were not entitled to relief and threaten to impair the military mission, the federal government argued Wednesday before an appeals court panel.

(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Star witness in 1-800-GET-THIN fraud trial sentenced to probation

The government’s star witness in the trial that led to the conviction of the mastermind of the 1-800-GET-THIN fraud scheme was sentenced to probation for his role in the conspiracy.

(Edvard Pettersson/Courthouse News)

Mentally ill man will be executed after high court denies stay

Despite warnings from attorneys that their client is not competent, the Supreme Court refused Wednesday to block the execution of a man who snapped the spine of his 9-month-old child after she interrupted him playing video games.

(Oklahoma Department of Corrections via Courthouse News)

Regional

Appeals court hears dispute over change to Ohio clean air standards

Environmental watchdogs challenging the removal of a critical air pollution control standard first implemented in Ohio in 1974 told an appeals court panel Wednesday the decision was based largely on lobbying by an energy industry law firm.

(Ralf Vetterl/Pixabay via Courthouse News)

International

Eurozone inflation inches toward double digits

Year-over-year inflation in the 19-nation eurozone stood at 9.9% in September, one point below the 10.9% annual inflation rate experienced in the broader 27-member European Union, according to a report released Wednesday by the EU statistics agency.

(Eurostat via Courthouse News)

López Obrador refuses to let defense secretary address army hack

Claiming it would “stain” his morning press conference, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador Wednesday refused to allow Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval to address reporters’ questions about a recent leak of army documents. 

(AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

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Mentally ill man will be executed after high court denies stay

WASHINGTON (CN) — Despite warnings from attorneys that their client is not competent, the Supreme Court refused Wednesday to block the execution of a man who snapped the spine of his 9-month-old child after she interrupted him playing video games.

No justice offered any dissent or opinion this morning in denying the emergency application and certiorari petition from Benjamin Cole. Now 57, Cole was sentenced him to death in 2004 for the first-degree murder of of his daughter shortly before Christmas in 2002. According to court documents, Cole snapped the child’s spine, severing her aorta, after she disrupted him while playing video games.

Though he was later diagnosed with schizophrenia, defense attorneys say the man’s mental health and competency have always been in question. In 2015, the prison warden refused Cole’s request for a jury trial on his competency to be executed. Neither the trial court nor the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals intervened, but Cole’s execution nevertheless faced an indefinite delay when the state’s lethal injection protocol came under scrutiny. 

Because challenges to the state’s lethal injection procedures ended this year, however, Cole’s execution has been put back on. Cole provided the new warden with multiple reports from a psychologist detailing his severe mental illness, decompensated mental condition and incompetency for execution. The reports also included information from a neuroradiologist on an abnormal MRI and brain lesion. 

Despite the reports submitted by Cole, a psychologist at the Oklahoma Forensic Center deemed Cole fit for execution in July. Cole’s attorneys tried to convince the warden to reconsider the July evaluation and provided a doctor’s declaration that the July report was inaccurate, however, Warden Jim Farris declined to initiate court competency proceedings. 

Cole filed a petition in federal court this past August, claiming the warden abused his discretion. An evidentiary hearing was held but the court denied relief. This week the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals denied Cole’s pending petition, leaving the high court as his last option. 

After nearly two decades, Cole is scheduled for execution on Thursday morning. 

In a Hail Mary, Cole’s attorney’s submitted an emergency application on Friday night, hoping to prevent the execution from moving forward. Cole claims the state court violated precedent by bypassing procedural safeguard. He also questioned the warden’s conflict of interest in competency proceedings. Cole additionally submitted a petition before the full court, asking the justices to add his case to their docket. 

“Absent a stay of execution, Mr. Cole’s attempts to vindicate his right to due process on his Eighth Amendment claim of execution incompetency will not be resolved before his execution, causing irreparable injury for which Mr. Cole cannot seek any redress,” Thomas Hird, a public defender representing Cole, wrote in the application. 

Cole argues that his case is owed review by the high court because, starting in November — just 11 days after his scheduled execution — the prison warden will no longer be able to have authority over competency proceedings. 

“Mr. Cole’s case presents the question of whether a pre-Ford state statute imbuing the death row warden — the same official charged with carrying out executions — with the duty of gate-keeper to execution competency proceedings can pass constitutional muster,” Hird wrote in Cole’s cert petition. “A new state statute that removes and remedies this particular constitutional defect will go into effect eleven days after Mr. Cole’s execution. Beginning November 1, 2022, the warden will no longer have decision-making power over the initiation of competency proceedings.” 

Oklahoma meanwhile called Cole’s incompetence claims “patently without merit.” 

“His focus on procedure is unsurprising given that his substantive claim of incompetence is patently without merit — a neutral, court-appointed psychologist recently interviewed Cole, reviewed more than 1,000 pages of records, and concluded unequivocally that Cole is competent to be executed,” Oklahoma Assistant Attorney General Tessa Henry wrote in the state’s opposition brief. “Without making a substantial showing of incompetence, Cole is not entitled to further due process on his incompetence claim; thus, his case is an inappropriate vehicle for the examination of Oklahoma’s competency procedures.” 

Justice Neil Gorsuch, a former 10th Circuit judge who would have handled federal appeals out of Oklahoma during that 11-year tenure, did not participate in the ruling. 

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