Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Crime Alert 01.10.24

Episode Date: January 10, 2024

Brazen thief flies a stolen plane 100 miles. Speeder thinks he shakes a cop.  For more crime and justice news go to crimeonline.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Alert, I'm Nancy Grace, breaking crime news now. Air Force Search and Rescue calls Jeff Cohn when his plane's emergency locating transmitter activates. Cohn says he doesn't need help because he's not flying the plane. Damien Zucatus stole the plane from a Vegas hangar, flies 100 miles west. Cops are waiting at a California airport so Zucatus lands on a road just outside and runs into the desert. Nancy, after receiving the call, Cohn rushed to the hangar to find his plane missing. Zucatus apparently caused quite a

commotion at the North Las Vegas airport with a shaky takeoff. San Bernardino sheriffs responded to California's Barstow Daggett Airport to catch up with Zucatus, so he landed the plane outside and took off into the desert on foot. Sheriffs quickly caught the 40-year-old, who they suspect in three other attempted plane robberies. Zucatus 40 now charged with possessing a stolen aircraft. Blue lights flip on when the Florida Highway Patrol spots a late-night speeder. Instead of pulling over, Javier Rodriguez-Rafael makes a U-turn and takes off with the cop close behind. He shuts off his lights, trying to, quote, disappear, and then makes a hard left, shaking the trooper, or does he? When the 21-year-old gets home, the trooper's waiting in the driveway to book him on fleeing.

You know, there's no place like home. More crime and justice news after this. Now, with the latest crime and justice breaking news, Crime Online's John Limley. In a Nebraska court ruling, a judge has concluded that Kierre Williams was most likely the person who killed a priest because the suspect was discovered lying on top of the severely injured and blood-stained religious leader inside his residence next door to a small-town church last month. With more, here's Sydney Sumner with Crime Online. The murder case against 43-year-old Williams can proceed, according to Washington County Judge Edward Matney's ruling. He will remain behind bars without bond until he is scheduled to return to court in early February to enter a plea to the allegations of murder and weapons offenses. According to the prosecution, Williams does not seem to have any connection to the Reverend

Steven Gutzel, who was fatally stabbed December 10 inside the rectory of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in the small town of Fort Calhoun. Now a month after the crime, the one-story house is still covered in crime scene tape. The priest's death shocked the town of some 1,100 people located eight miles north of Omaha. Residents feared for their safety as it had been only four months since another seemingly senseless home invasion death. In recent days, Chief Deputy Washington County Attorney Eric Peterson summarized the main evidence against Williams, which he had primarily presented in court filings from December. Brady Tucker, a deputy sheriff, described what he saw when he raced to the house that Sunday

morning just minutes after the priest reported an intruder, and a detective summarized the results of the preliminary investigation. According to Tucker's testimony, the deputy sheriff said that he discovered Williams lying crosswise on top of Gutzel, whose face was covered in blood. Williams was immediately apprehended just moments after obeying orders to display his hands and remove himself from the priest's body. Despite Williams not having a weapon at the time of his arrest, detectives subsequently discovered a broken knife with a serrated blade in the center of an area of blood on Gutzel's bedroom floor. An Arizona rancher accused of shooting and killing a migrant on his land close to the border between the U.S. and Mexico last year now has a trial scheduled for March 21st.

Prosecutors had proposed a plea agreement to George Allen Kelly, which would have limited the charges to one count of negligent homicide had he accepted. Our friends with the Arizona Republic are reporting that Kelly rejected the offer. According to the newspaper, Kelly's trial in Santa Cruz County Superior Court is scheduled to run for three weeks. Now to California, where authorities say two individuals have now been charged with murder in connection with the shooting death of an Oakland police officer responding to a report of a break-in at a business selling marijuana. Once again, Crime Online, Sidney Sumner.

Both 28-year-old Alan Starr Brown of Chico, California, and 27-year-old Mark Sanders of Tracy were charged in the case. The two remain behind bars. After being shot in the head on December 29, 26-year-old Officer Tuan Le died in an area hospital a short time later. When Le and other police responded to a report of a burglary in progress at a suspected illicit cannabis grow house near Jack London Square, where another burglary had been reported several hours earlier, he was wearing plain clothing and driving an unmarked truck, this according to authorities. Police arriving at the scene reported witnessing multiple people leaving the establishment. The prosecution claimed Sanders

began firing his gun from a car in which Brown was also present. Officers transported their injured colleague to a hospital where he died within a few hours. Lay was the first Oakland police officer to be slain in almost 15 years and the 54th to die while performing their duties during the history of the force. Terrence Woods takes a job as a production assistant on a Discovery Channel shoot in an Idaho forest. His father drops him off at the Washington airport. He arrives to the shoot on time. A few days into the trip, he asked the company to leave early out of concern for his sick mom. The next morning, he has a panic attack and tries to grab a flying camera drone during a shoot. As they wrap for the day, he says he needs to use the restroom, leaves the group, heads down a steep hill he's never seen

again. During a week-long search, his belt, radio, and cell phone are found not far from where he took off. Cops believe he made it down to the road and got in a car. Terrence Woods, now missing over five years. If you have info on Terrence Woods, call Idaho County Sheriff's 208-983-1100. For the latest crime and justice news, go to crimeonline.com. With this crime alert, I'm Nancy Grace. This is an iHeart Podcast.