Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Crime Alert 01.25.23

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

Escaped inmates back behind bars. High-heeled Hijacker is brought to justice. 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. Five inmates at St. Francois County Detention Center, Missouri, escaped by breaking down a door. The group caught on surveillance video discarding their uniforms and stealing a car and driving away. Nancy, 52-year-old Kelly McShawn, 26-year-old Dakota Pace, 42-year-old Michael Wilkins, 30-year-old Aaron Sebastian, and 37-year-old LaJuan Tucker escaped late Tuesday from a secured cell. Wilkins, who went straight to a Missouri bar, was recovered in a matter of hours, while Ohio police helped to locate the other four who were returned to jail on Saturday. One escape he found hours after in Missouri. The other four located days later in Ohio.

All five now back behind bars and have brand new charges of escape and eluding. Lisa Coleman threatens a woman for cash, forcing her to make withdrawals at several ATMs. Coleman, 58, then robs a sandwich shop, a hotel, and a bank of the cash in their registers, all wearing heels, earning her the nickname the High-Heeled Hijacker. Coleman's victims never saw a weapon, but the woman kept a hand in her pocket, implying that she had a weapon. She robbed all three Houston businesses using threatening notes and fled from the bank in a car, giving cops a solid lead to track down the high-heeled hijacker that victims described as nicely dressed but having a strong body odor. Texas cops used surveillance video and a license plate to identify Coleman as the hijacker. She's now

charged with kidnapping and three counts of robbery. More crime and justice news after this. Now with the latest crime and justice breaking news, Crime Online's John Limley. Two Illinois paramedics face first-degree murder charges, having been accused of strapping a patient face down on a stretcher while taking him to a hospital last month. Sidney Sumner is with Crime Online. Illinois authorities filed the charges against Peggy Finley and Peter Cadigan on January 9th, nearly a month after 35 year old Earl Moore died. Under Illinois law, a first-degree murder charge can be filed when a defendant, quote, knows that such acts create a strong probability of death or great bodily harm.

Sangamon County State's Attorney Dan Wright announced the charges after an autopsy. The medical examiner's report listed Moore's cause of death as homicide, caused by compressional and positional asphyxia as he lay face down on the paramedic stretcher with straps tightened across his back. If convicted, Finley and Cottingham could face between 20 and 60 years in prison. A Boston man offered to pay a total of $8,000 to someone he thought was a contract killer, but who was actually an undercover federal agent to have his estranged wife and her new boyfriend killed. 46-year-old Mohamed Chowdhury was held at an initial hearing on a murder-for-hire charge in federal court.

Authorities were tipped off by an informant in November that Chowdhury was soliciting assistance to have his wife killed, and the informant provided his phone number to law enforcement. An undercover agent posing as a contract killer then contacted him. Chowdhury met with the undercover agent and agreed to pay $4,000 per killing. The third trial of Dana Chandler, a Kansas woman accused of the 2002 murders of her ex-husband and fiancé has been postponed until autumn. Crime Online's Sydney Sumner. The case had previously been scheduled for February 6th, but the judge set a new date of October 16th. In Chandler's first trial in 2012, a jury found her guilty of the shooting deaths of Mike Sisko and Karen Harkness,

but the conviction was overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct. Her second trial in 2022 ended with a hung jury. She has consistently maintained her innocence. Shawnee County Judge Cheryl Rios ordered the continuance, delaying the third trial after the defense recently submitted reports from six of its experts to the prosecution. Actor Alec Baldwin and a weapons specialist will be charged with involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer who was killed on a New Mexico movie set. Prosecutors made the announcement, citing a, quote, criminal disregard for safety. Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altweese issued a statement announcing the charges against Baldwin and Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who supervised weapons on the set

of the Western Rust. Helena Hutchins died shortly after being wounded during rehearsals at a ranch on the outskirts of Santa Fe on October 21, 2021. Baldwin was pointing a pistol at Hutchins when the gun went off, killing her and wounding the director, Joel Souza. Del Scotti visits an ATM, but gets frustrated when the machine won't return his debit card. Bank employees in a meeting hear yelling and look out the window to see Scotti screaming at the machine and shaking it. When that doesn't work, he gets a hammer from his car and starts beating it. Scotty returns home, and when Florida cops come knocking, he answers, you hear about the ATM, aren't you?

And then goes willingly. He's now charged with criminal mischief. For the latest crime and justice news, go to CrimeOnline.com. With this crime alert, I'm Nancy Grace. This is an iHeart Podcast.