Murders, Attempted Murders and Homicides

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      More Than a Thousand Mourners Pack Church to Honor Student Killed in Georgia

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      Laken Riley, whose death became enmeshed in the nation’s bitter debate over immigration, was remembered as a warm and caring woman who “shined so bright.”More than 1,000 mourners braved the rain and blustery chill outside to pack the Woodstock City Church on Friday for the funeral of Laken Riley, the 22-year-old nursing student killed last week on the University of Georgia campus, 70 miles away.Laken Riley in a photo from a social media account. Ms. Riley was attacked while out jogging on Feb. 22. She was pursuing a nursing degree at Augusta University, after having been a student at the University of Georgia until May.“When the world loses someone like Laken, whose light consistently shined so bright, it seems that much darker in their absence,” Samer Massad, the lead pastor of the nondenominational church that Ms. Riley and her family attended, said in a statement before the funeral on Friday afternoon. He continued: “Laken was special. She was a gift to anyone who knew her.”Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, a migrant from Venezuela who entered the United States illegally in September 2022, was charged with her murder in a case that was immediately thrust into the bitter national debate over immigration. He was staying in an apartment complex less than a mile from the University of Georgia’s intramural fields where Ms. Riley’s body was found near a wooded running path..Instead of flowers, Ms. Riley’s family requested donations that would be used to cover funeral expenses, establish a scholarship in her name and create a foundation to focus on women’s safety and homicide awareness. Red, rubber bracelets reading “Laken Hope Riley Foundation” were handed out to those in attendance at the funeral service.Nearly $180,000 had been raised by Friday afternoon. More

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      London Police Should Not Have Hired Officer Who Killed Woman, Inquiry Finds

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      Troubling information about the past of the man who killed Sarah Everard in 2021, a case that shook Britain, should have prevented him from joining the force, a long-awaited report said.An inquiry published Thursday into the murder of a young woman three years ago by a London police officer — a case that rattled Britain and set off a broader reckoning in the country about violence against women — has found that the police force missed signs of a troubling past that should have prevented him from being hired.The woman, Sarah Everard, 33, was abducted, raped and murdered in March 2021 by Wayne Couzens, a member of London’s Metropolitan Police Service. Mr. Couzens was later sentenced to life in prison for the killing.Ms. Everard’s murder cast a spotlight on how bad behavior and violence against women had been allowed to thrive within the country’s police ranks, prompting soul-searching and demands to improve the processes of hiring and overseeing officers.“It is time for all those in policing to do everything they can to improve standards of recruitment, vetting and investigation,” Elish Angiolini, a lawyer who led the inquiry, said at a news conference. “Wayne Couzens was never fit to be a police officer. Police leaders need to be sure there isn’t another Couzens operating in plain sight.”The inquiry found that Mr. Couzens’ initial vetting when he applied to join the Metropolitan Police Service in 2018 had been deeply flawed, missing available information, including on troubling incidents when he served in another police force in Kent, in southeast England. The information was overlooked when Mr. Couzens applied to work in London in 2018 and again when he applied for a specialized firearms role the next year, the inquiry found.Earlier reports included a concerning use of pornography, an indecent exposure allegation that was never acted upon by the authorities and an incident, which the inquiry did not detail, in which he was reported missing from his home.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Chad Opposition Leader, Yaya Dillo, Reported Killed in a Shootout

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      Yaya Dillo, who was expected to run in national elections in May, was killed alongside many others in a gun battle in the capital, the national prosecutor said.The main opposition leader in the central African nation of Chad was killed on Wednesday in a shootout at his party headquarters in the capital, the country’s prosecutor has announced.Yaya Dillo, who had been expected to run for president in an election planned for May, was among dozens of people killed and injured in an exchange of gunfire with security forces in Ndjamena, the capital. Heavy gunfire was heard in Ndjamena on Wednesday, and the internet was cut off.A landlocked, desert country surrounded by neighbors battling insurgencies, plagued by coups or at war, Chad has long been seen as a linchpin for stability and is an important U.S. ally in the region, despite its political travails.After its longtime president Idriss Déby was killed on the battlefield in 2021, his son took power in what analysts agree was a coup d’état. But Western nations did not condemn the move to the same extent that they did coups in neighboring Niger and Sudan.The death of Mr. Dillo — a former rebel who was the cousin of the country’s president, as well as his most vocal critic — leaves a void in Chad’s political opposition less than three months before national elections are set to be held.Chadian officials said previously that there had been an attack on the country’s National Security Agency, and accused Mr. Dillo’s party, the Socialist Party Without Borders, of being behind it — which Mr. Dillo denied.In a news conference broadcast on national television on Thursday, Oumar Mahamat Kedelaye, the national prosecutor, accused Mr. Dillo of heading a band of armed men that had launched an attack on the intelligence agency.“This well-armed group in 11 vehicles attacked the National Security Agency, and this attack led to dozens of people wounded, and deaths, among them Yaya Dillo,” Mr. Kedelaye said. More

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      Videos Show Exchange of Gunfire at Houston Megachurch

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      The videos released by the Houston police left open the question of who shot a 7-year-old boy as his mother, armed with an assault-style rifle, exchanged fire with off-duty officers.Just before opening fire with an assault-style rifle in the lobby of a Houston megachurch this month, Genesse Ivonne Moreno walked around the side of her sport utility vehicle and opened a rear passenger door for her 7-year-old son, who got out of the vehicle and followed her into the church.Moments later, as deafening gunfire erupted in the church, the boy stood in an alcove with his hands pressed to his ears, according to surveillance and body-camera videos released on Monday by the Houston Police Department. At one point, the boy appeared to reach up for Ms. Moreno, as if asking to be picked up.Security camera footage shows the shooter entering Lakewood Church with her 7-year-old son.Houston Police DepartmentLater, he could be seen lying motionless on the carpeted hallway floor after being shot in the head.The videos provided a clearer picture of the Feb. 11 shooting in Lakewood Church, one of the nation’s largest megachurches, led by the televangelist Joel Osteen. But they did not provide a complete account of what took place.And they did not show the boy being struck, leaving open the question of who shot him. He remained hospitalized in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the head, officials said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Subway Cameras Led to Arrests in Bronx D Train Shooting, NYPD Says

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      Investigators say that an early morning argument on a D train last week ended with the fatal shooting of William Alvarez, 45.The police on Monday said footage from a surveillance camera in a subway car helped lead to the arrests of three people in connection with the fatal shooting of a 45-year-old man last week.Justin Herde, 24, Alfredo Trinidad, 42, and Betty Cotto, 38, were in custody in connection with the killing of William Alvarez, 45, of the Bronx, according to the New York Police Department.Mr. Alvarez was riding a southbound D train around 5 a.m. on Friday morning when the three suspects boarded at the Fordham Road station and got into an argument with him, the police said. Mr. Alvarez was shot in the chest, Michael M. Kemper, the Police Department’s chief of transit, said at a Monday news conference. Chief Kemper added that Mr. Alvarez’s attackers fled the train at the 182nd-183rd Streets station.About 1,000 of the system’s roughly 6,500 cars are equipped with cameras, part of a broader effort begun in 2022 by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which plans to install cameras in the rest of the cars by the end of this year.Killings on the subway are rare, but attract intense public attention. This year there have been two other fatal incidents in the system. Earlier this month, a 35-year-old man was killed and five other people were wounded in a shooting at the Mount Eden Avenue station in the Bronx during the evening rush hour. And in January, a 45-year-old father of three was shot on a No. 3 train in Brooklyn after intervening in an argument.Transit leaders are under intense pressure to bring ridership back to prepandemic levels, and making the system feel safe is critical to that mission. Ridership rose by about 3 percent in January, hovering on average at about 3 million daily passengers. In 2019, daily ridership was about 5 million.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Suspect in UGA Killing Is Denied Bond as a Shaken Campus Mourns

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      As more details emerged about the suspect in the death of a nursing student, the community remained in shock of the first homicide on the campus in decades.A 26-year-old man charged with kidnapping and murdering a nursing student at the University of Georgia in Athens will remain in jail after he was denied bond at a hearing on Saturday, the authorities said.The suspect, Jose Antonio Ibarra, lived in an apartment complex about one mile from a wooded trail where the body of Laken Riley, 22, was found on Thursday afternoon, said Jeffrey Clark, the chief of university police. Ms. Riley, a student at nearby Augusta University and a former student at the University of Georgia, had been reported missing by friends after she did not return from a run. Mr. Ibarra, a resident of Athens who is not a U.S. citizen, migrated to the United States from Venezuela, the authorities said. He was arrested by the Border Patrol for crossing the border illegally in September 2022 and was released quickly with temporary permission to stay in the country, a federal law enforcement official said Saturday. That release, or parole, was a practice the administration used when officials were overwhelmed with high numbers of crossings. The administration ended that practice about six months later. It was typical for many Venezuelans to be released with permission to stay temporarily because they could not be repatriated back to their country due to strained diplomatic relations. Some six million Venezuelans have fled their troubled country, the largest population displacement in Latin America’s modern history.On Saturday, it was not clear what Mr. Ibarra’s immigration status was. Many conservative politicians, including Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, on Saturday linked the killing to the immigration policies of President Biden, which they contend have overwhelmed the country with more migrants than the system can handle. Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House, urged the president to close the border. “House Republicans will continue to fight tooth and nail for a return to law and order,” Mr. Johnson said in a post on X.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Arrest Made in Campbellsville University Student’s Killing

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      An 18-year-old Campbellsville University student was found unresponsive in his dorm room early Saturday and later pronounced dead at a hospital, officials said.The police in Campbellsville, Ky., arrested a 21-year-old man who was wanted in connection with the killing of a Campbellsville University student on Saturday, officials said.The student, Josiah Malachi Kilman, 18, was found unresponsive in his dorm room around 12:43 a.m. and transferred to Taylor Regional Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the police said in a statement.The police identified the man they arrested as Charles E. Escalera, 21. Officials said they had obtained a warrant for his arrest, charging him with murder.The university, which confirmed Mr. Escalera’s arrest on Saturday evening, said he was a student.The Campbellsville police said in a statement that Mr. Escalera was taken into custody after the Green County Sheriff’s Office and Kentucky State Police “received a call of a suspicious male inside a barn.” The State Police responded to the call and arrested Mr. Escalera.Details of what led up to Mr. Kilman’s death were unavailable.John D. Bertram, the county attorney for Taylor County, said in an interview on Saturday night that he believed Mr. Escalera and Mr. Kilman knew each other, but “I’m not aware of any history between them.”Video surveillance helped lead the authorities to identifying Mr. Escalera as a person of interest, he said.Calling the case “way beyond unusual,” Mr. Bertram said he was not aware of “anything of this nature occurring on the campus, and it’s a relatively small campus.”Joseph Hopkins, the president of Campbellsville University, said in a statement that the university was “grieving the loss of one of our family.”“We have lost a student and our hearts are broken,” he said. “During this devastating time, the continued safety of our students and the residents of our community are our primary concern. With consultation from local law enforcement, we will continue to implement every measure necessary to protect and support students and our community.”Campbellsville University is a Christian university with a main campus of more than 100 acres, 85 miles southeast of Louisville, Ky. It has an enrollment of about 12,000 students.Mr. Kilman’s death was the third case of fatal violence involving college students since Feb. 16.A University of Colorado student was arrested on Monday on murder charges related to the fatal shooting of two people, one of them his roommate. And on Friday, the authorities in Georgia arrested a 26-year-old man in the killing of an Augusta University student whose body was found in a wooded area at the University of Georgia in Athens.Rebecca Carballo More

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      Man Is Shot Dead on Subway Train in the Bronx

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      The 45-year-old man was shot in the chest on a southbound D train early Friday morning. The police said his assailants fled, and it was unclear what set off the violence.A 45-year-old man was fatally shot inside a subway car early Friday morning in the Bronx, the police said.The man was hit in the chest aboard a southbound D train near the 182nd-183rd Streets station just after 5 a.m., the police said. He was taken to St. Barnabas Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.The police identified three men who were wearing all black as potential suspects, and said they fled the train after the shooting.It is not clear what led to the shooting or whether the victim knew his assailants. No arrests have been made, the police said.Shortly after the shooting, more than a dozen bystanders remained on the station platform and on the stalled trained. They watched quietly as three emergency medical workers tried to save the victim’s life. With medical equipment strewed across the concrete floor around them, the workers performed CPR for several minutes, but the man did not respond.Outside the station, a police officer monitored the entrance, which was cordoned off. A police cruiser and an ambulance with its lights flashing were parked outside.Northbound and southbound B and D trains were bypassing the station as the police continued their investigation, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.Shootings on subways in New York are rare and make up a fraction of the gun crimes in the city. But the trains have been the setting for several outbreaks of violence this year.Earlier this month, a 35-year-old man was killed and five other people were wounded in a shooting at the Mount Eden Avenue station in the Bronx during the evening rush hour. And in January, a 45-year-old father of three was fatally shot aboard a No. 3 train in Brooklyn after intervening in an argument.This is a developing story and will be updated.Dakota Santiago More