Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Crime Alert 06.14.24

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

Scorned student kills professor who gave him a bad grade. Senior on senior battery over water usage!  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. University of Arizona grad student Murad Dervish is banned from campus and later expelled for harassing a professor, Thomas Meixner. Meixner gave Dervish a bad grade. University staff are given a picture of Dervish and told to call 911 if he's spotted on campus. Dervish, 48, dons a baseball cap and a face mask and gets into a campus building, waits outside Meixner's office, and shoots the professor 11 times, also hitting a building manager. Nancy, Dervish was arrested three hours after the shooting during a traffic stop. His attorneys claim that Dervish lost his mind the day of the shooting and had severe mental health issues,

but jurors determined the crime was premeditated because Dervish had purchased the gun nearly a month ahead of the shooting. Marad Dervish, 48, found guilty of murder and aggravated assault, now facing life behind bars. All over a bad grade? Sandra Rogers, 80, watches her neighbor, John Ferroni, washing his motorcycle just outside their homes in a Florida senior living community. Rogers gets increasingly upset about the amount of water Ferroni's using, and she confronts him. Well, the argument gets heated. 80-year-old Sandra Rogers spits on Ferroni's using and she confronts him. Well, the argument gets heated. 80-year-old Sandra Rogers spits on Ferroni, 72, and then yanks his beard. Cops are called. Witnesses confirm Rogers is the aggressor. Sandra Rogers, ironically, taken to jail from her home on

peaceful lane and booked for battery on A Senior Citizen. More crime and justice news after this. Now with the latest crime and justice breaking news, Crime Online's John Limley. We begin in Oregon as a man enters a not guilty plea to all counts, alleging that he killed three women in the Portland area last year, then dumped their remains. For more, we turn to Sydney Sumner with Crime Online. Various news outlets are reporting that Jesse Lee Calhoun's lawyer filed the not guilty pleas to three counts of second-degree murder and three counts of abuse of a corpse in connection

to the deaths of 24-year-old Charity Lynn Perry, 31-year-old Bridget Leanne Webster, and 32-year-old Joanna Speaks. Calhoun remained silent during his arraignment in Multnomah County Circuit Court in Portland, Oregon. Speaks' body was discovered in an abandoned barn in southwest Washington, while Perry and Webster were discovered in Oregon. Concern was sparked that a serial murderer might be targeting young women in the area when their remains were discovered over several months beginning in February 2023. The bodies were found in wooded areas,

under a bridge, and in a culvert, all within a radius of around 100 miles. Although Speaks' body was discovered in southwest Washington in April 2023, authorities have stated that they think she was murdered close to Portland. What evidence the police and prosecutors have that connects Calhoun to the deaths is currently unknown. The Multnomah County District Attorney's Office has stated that investigations are still ongoing into the deaths of two additional women that occurred during the same time period. Reporters were informed by the victims' families that the three women suffered from mental health problems or addiction. The 39-year-old Calhoun was apprehended at the Snake River Correctional Center in Eastern Oregon in June 2023 after being charged on unrelated parole

warrants. It was in May that he was indicted in the women's deaths. Calhoun was later transferred to Portland, this according to the Multnomah County Jails roster. Calhoun was indicted just weeks before he was to be freed from state prison, where he had been sent to serve out a four-year sentence for a variety of offenses that included attacking a police officer and attempting to strangle a police dog. Calhoun was first released in 2021, a year ahead of schedule, to serve as part of a group of inmates assisting to fight destructive wildfires in 2020. The commutation was granted by then-Governor Kate Brown,

the commutation was granted by then-Governor Kate Brown, but was later rescinded by Governor Tina Kotek after police started looking into his involvement in the death last year. Calhoun would have been freed prior to the deaths even if Brown hadn't commuted the sentence. According to the San Francisco Public Defender's Office, a judge has now dismissed a number of state charges against Paul Pelosi's attacker, a man found guilty in federal court last month. As Crime Online's Sydney Sumner tells us, the judge based the decision on the claim that the counts were subject to double jeopardy. It was in May that David DePapp was

found guilty of making an attempt to kidnap a federal official and attacking a family member of a federal official. In addition to any possible punishment resulting from the state trial, DePapp was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison. After serving his sentence, he will probably be deported back to Canada. After the federal court win, state prosecutors proceeded with their own prosecution against DePapp, who in 2022 used a hammer to beat the husband of former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi inside their San Francisco home. Paul Pelosi was 82 years old when the attack occurred. Thanks, John. Elena De La Cruz, 62, plans to visit Virginia and celebrate her breast cancer remission with all of her grandchildren and daughters, Tyna and Jamie. Days before her flight, Tyna gets a call from her mom's Bronx building manager who says no one has seen Elena for days.

Elena doesn't answer dozens of calls from Tyna or Jamie. Surveillance video catches Elena leaving her apartment around 11.30 p.m. with a small purse. Now, that's not unusual for Elena, who frequently goes out for late-night snacks. Inside her apartment, there is food left on the stove, and most of her belongings are all left behind. Elena De La Cruz, 5'3", 100 pounds, usually wears a short blonde wig to cover up hair loss from chemo. She was last seen wearing a white and blue striped shirt with gray jeans and orange sandals. If you have any information on Elena De La Cruz, now missing three years, please call NYPD 800-577-TIPS. For the latest crime and justice news, go to CrimeOnline.com. With this crime alert, I'm Nancy Grace. This is an iHeart Podcast.