Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Crime Alert 03.15.23

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

Boyfriend holds woman hostage in their hotel room and brutally beats her. An inmate escapes during a work detail.  For more crime and justice news go to crimeonline.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Alert, I'm Nancy Grace. Breaking crime news now. Joseph O'Buckley and his girlfriend take a trip to North Carolina. O'Buckley then locks the girlfriend in their hotel room and threatens to kill her, repeatedly assaulting and strangling the woman over 11 hours. When he falls asleep, she manages to escape. Crime Online's John Limley.

Nancy O'Buckley prevented the woman from leaving by blocking the door, and his beating left her with severe injuries that required hospitalization. After his arrest, O'Buckley continued to contact the woman from jail and threatened to kill her if she testified against him. But it was ultimately several hours of her testimony that led to O'Buckley's conviction. O'Buckley now convicted of kidnapping, attempted murder, and assault. He's looking at 37 years behind bars. William Knight, an inmate at a Georgia prison, sneaks away from work detail, takes off in an abandoned car. Cops spot the car in the next county, abandoned again.

Police set up a perimeter and search teams eventually track down Knight. Knight is serving out his sentence at Baldwin State Prison for involuntary manslaughter and drug possession charges stemming from a 2015 conviction. Knight got into a gray Toyota Corolla after leaving his work detail that he later ditched in Washington County the next day. Knight now back behind bars to finish his 10-year sentence and will face additional time for eluding. More crime and justice news after this.

Now with the latest crime and justice breaking news, Crime Online's John Limley. Three Mesa, Arizona police officers have been injured while fighting a man who refused to leave a coffee shop. Officers were called to the scene around 9 a.m. Saturday and said 21-year-old Tegan Williams refused to leave when asked by police, who used a stun gun on him before a six-minute fight ensued. As Williams was being arrested, he allegedly squeezed an officer's hand with such force to break bones and require surgery to repair.

Police said another officer was kicked while apparently unconscious, while a third officer needed x-rays on his injured hand. Williams is jailed on a $100,000 bond and is facing charges that include aggravated assault, disfigurement, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, and criminal damage. A Northwest Louisiana teen has been found guilty of second-degree murder in the shooting death of a star high school basketball player. Sydney Sumner is with Crime Online. Local news outlets report that 19-year-old Shea Michael Antonio Pearson was convicted by Cato Parish jurors on Thursday in the fatal shooting of Devin DeWayne Myers. Jurors deliberated less than an hour. Myers was a basketball player at Shreveport's Huntington High School. The 17-year-old had gone to a friend's house to get a phone charger when he ran into Pearson in March 2022.

Officials said Pearson shot Myers in the back up to 13 times. Court testimony showed Pearson shot at least twice while standing over Myers' body. He and Myers had previously argued. Police later found a handgun in a freezer at Pearson's house with testing showing it was the murder weapon and was connected to Pearson by DNA. Pearson will be sentenced on March 27th. He faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole. An Ohio judge is scheduled to decide this week on the validity of the insanity defense submitted by a man charged with fatally shooting two of his girlfriend's three young sons and wounding the

third. Judge Eric Allen Marks last week heard assessments from two psychologists of the state of mind of 29-year-old Kevin Moore at the time of the February 2021 shootings in Toledo. Marks then recessed the non-jury trial until Thursday afternoon and now must decide whether Moore knew the wrongfulness of his actions when he shot the victims, including 14-month-old Gabriel Phillips and 5-year-old Amir Phillips and wounding a 4-year-old boy. Moore is charged with two counts of aggravated murder and single counts of attempted aggravated murder and felonious assault. A second felonious assault count was dismissed at the end of testimony last week. A federal judge has issued an arrest warrant for Roy McGrath, the one-time aide to former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

This after McGrath failed to appear in court as his trial on federal fraud charges was set to begin. Once again, Crime Online's Sidney Sumner. U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman issued the arrest warrant in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. McGrath had an arraignment scheduled for 9 a.m. Monday and a superseding indictment in his federal case. Jury selection was scheduled to begin later that same day. McGrath faces an eight-count federal indictment. Charges include wire fraud, including securing a $233,648 severance payment equal to one year of salary as the head of Maryland Environmental Service. He also faces fraud and embezzlement charges connected to roughly $170,000 in expenses. McGrath has pleaded not guilty.

McGrath resigned in August 2020 when he was just 11 weeks into the job as Hogan's top aide, after the payments became public. McGrath was appointed by Hogan to serve as executive director of the environmental agency in December 2016. The corporation, owned by the state, provides environmental services such as water and wastewater management and other services to state and local government agencies, federal government entities, and private clients. Shannon Hunter, on probation for drugs and theft, has to give urine samples once a week. Easy, right? Wrong. Hunter creates a fake sample by filling a prescription bottle with watered down soda and tries to pass it off as urine. Well, authorities are not fooled. Her probation now revoked and a urinalysis fraud charge added on.

For the latest crime and justice news, go to CrimeOnline.com. With this crime alert, I'm Nancy Grace. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.