Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Crime Alert 01.11.23

Episode Date: January 11, 2023

Man shot after driving through security gate.   Woman finds pets intentionally poisoned.  Uber driver shot after picking up a rider who's having a gunfight. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Alert, I'm Nancy Grace. Breaking crime news now. William Strausser rams his car through an acquaintance's driveway gate, walks up to the front door, tries to break in. The homeowner, hearing the commotion, arms himself, stands on the other side of the door. When Strausser does break through, the homeowner shoots him in the leg. Nancy, Strouser attempted to break into the Texas home on an otherwise quiet weekday in the tiny town of Valley Mills with a population of just over 1,000. Authorities declined to state how the suspect knew the victim, but did let on that this was not a random burglary attempt. The homeowner calls 911

immediately after shooting the suspect. The homeowner holding Strausser at gunpoint till Texas cops arrive. Officers disarm the homeowner, give aid to Strausser, take him to the hospital. Strausser now charged with attempted burglary. A woman calls police after her beloved pets, Bella and Mr. Cat, start having seizures and die at the vet months apart. The vet's testing indicates both pets have been poisoned. Florida cops learned seven pets in the neighborhood recently died from ingesting chemicals. They find several bowls of food outside Jeremy Stromwell's home. Testing reveals it's mixed with antifreeze. Authorities partnered with an expert from the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine, Nancy, who performed forensic necropsies on Mr. Cat and the exhumed remains of Bella and two other cats,

Lil' Peanut and Tiger. This confirmed that the pets were poisoned. Authorities also partnered with Texas A&M University's Medical Diagnostic Laboratory to have the food left outside of Stromwell's home tested for poison. Stromwell admits he doesn't like seeing cats around the neighborhood and has been leaving out bowls of food mixed with antifreeze and fish-flavored rat poison to kill cats. Well, he's now facing aggravated animal cruelty. Marco Batista pulls up at an Indiana home to give an Uber ride to Rakesia Rogers. Batista sees Rogers arguing with a male in the home, and the man comes running out of the house, jumps in Batista's car, shouting, drive.

As Batista tries to calm the man down, Rogers starts firing shots at the Uber car, hitting Batista in the back. The fight between Rogers and her boyfriend apparently began when he took her cell phone. In an interview with police, Rogers insisted that she fired shots into the air to scare her boyfriend, but video from cameras in Batista's car show the 20-year-old clearly firing directly at the car. The bullet went through the trunk, backseat, and driver's seat before striking Batista at waist level. Batista flees the scene before calling 911. He's taken to the hospital for a gunshot wound, expected to recover. Rogers, 20, who was aiming for her boyfriend, or should I say ex-boyfriend, now booked on ag battery. More crime and justice news after this. Now with the latest crime and justice breaking news, Crime Online's John Limley.

A third stabbing death of a homeless person on a Las Vegas sidewalk has now been linked to a man already in custody, pending competency evaluations following his arrest last September in knife attacks on four people, including two who died. 33-year-old Christopher Stephen Martell was identified by police as the suspect in the killing of 43 year old Jeffrey Philip Pridgen. Pridgen was found early February 15, 2022 on a sidewalk not far from where the September attacks occurred on streets around the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The Clark County coroner says Pridgen had no known address and died of stab wounds to the head, neck, and torso.

His death was ruled a homicide. A Connecticut man has been sentenced to 40 to 72 years in prison on kidnapping charges in connection with the 1984 home invasion attacks on four women who say they were sexually assaulted, crimes that were solved in 2020 with the help of a genealogy database. 71-year-old Michael Sharp, a former leader of a charter school organization, apologized to the women during the hearing in Hartford Superior Court after saying he has memory problems and has no recollection of the crimes. Three of the women were in the courtroom and cried during his comments, while the fourth took part via videoconference. A death row inmate in Oklahoma, who's scheduled to be executed on Thursday, cannot have his spiritual advisor with him inside the execution chamber because of the

minister's history of anti-death penalty activism, including an arrest. 61-year-old Scott Eisenberg had requested that his spiritual advisor, the Reverend Jeff Hood of Arkansas, be allowed inside the execution chamber during his lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAllister. But DOC officials expressed concern that Hood would not ensure the dignity of the process. A homeowner sends Oklahoma police video of a man stealing a package off their porch while wearing women's underwear over his face. Cops ID the man as Spencer Gausley almost immediately. Why? He's been caught doing the same thing, wearing the same underwear,

on another occasion. Cops find the stolen package in Gausler's home. He's charged with theft, with underwear on his face as an aggravating circumstance. For the latest crime and justice news, go to crimeonline.com. With this crime alert, I'm Nancy Grace. This is an iHeart Podcast.