Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Crime Alert 10.18.23

Episode Date: October 18, 2023

Man stabs wife to death while her mother sleeps. 'Vampire' straw banned at airports.  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. Shiva Gumi calls 911 and tells the operator he stabbed himself all over, but he just isn't dying. Gumi says he doesn't understand why, because his wife died when he stabbed her. Nevada cops break down a locked bedroom door and find Dr. Gwendolyn Amsrella lying next to her husband in bed, dead. Gumi, 33, charged with murder. Amsrella's mother, Nancy Pallotti, lived with the couple and let police officers in, unsure of why they had come.

Pallotti, who was partially deaf, told them she heard no disturbance in the night. After Gumi was released from the hospital for several self-inflicted stab wounds, he attended a preliminary hearing where he pleaded not guilty to murder. Gumi's public defender did not waive his right to a speedy trial, and a jury trial is now set for December 11. Arman Nair heads through TSA at Boston's Logan Airport, where he's catching a flight home to Chicago. Nair's carry-on is flagged. He's met with handcuffs after a quick search. The offending item?

A 10-inch long titanium straw with a beveled end, nicknamed the Vampire Straw. The creator, Lacey Szabo, markets the straw as a self-defense item that can be used as a dagger, but it's also a reusable straw when you don't need to stab someone. Mayor 26 now charged with carrying a dangerous weapon.

More crime and justice news after this. Now with the latest crime and justice breaking news, Crime Online's John Limley. A 17-year-old has been taken into custody in connection to a shooting at Maryland's Morgan State University. For more, we turn to Sydney Sumner with Crime Online. The attack left five people injured during homecoming festivities at the historically black campus in northeast Baltimore. Because the defendant is a minor, Baltimore police did not identify him when they made the arrest announcement.

According to the authorities, they also have an arrest warrant for Jovan Williams, an 18-year-old suspect. Authorities are still actively looking for Williams and have stated that he needs to be regarded as armed and dangerous. The juvenile suspect, according to police, was taken into custody in Washington, D.C. and is expected to face several charges related to attempted murder. Through the use of university campus CCTV footage, detectives were able to identify the suspected shooters. Officials released security photos of the October 3 shooting a few days later and requested the public's assistance in locating the people in them. The shooting occurred immediately following the coronation ceremony for this year's Mr. and Miss

Morgan State. As students were heading from the college auditorium to the student center for a coronation ball, they were scattered by gunshots. Four students were among the five injured, and authorities suspect that the intended target was not among the injured. Officers initially believed there was a threat from an active shooter, so they put the school on lockdown for hours. The remainder of the week's homecoming events, as well as classes, were canceled by university administrators. Now to South America, as prison officials say a notorious Colombian serial murderer who admitted to killing over 190 children in the 1990s has died in a hospital. He was 66 years old. Luis Alfredo Garavito,

often referred to as the Beast, admitted to killing 8 to 16-year-old children, most of them from low-income families whom he abducted and abused while masquerading as a monk, a homeless person, or a street vendor. According to the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute, Garavito died in a hospital while he was still incarcerated in the northern Colombian city of Valladolid. The cause of death was not immediately made public. Back in this country now, as the longest-serving death row inmate in Idaho

will be executed next month after a state court recently issued his death warrant. Once again, Crime Online's Sydney Sumner. After being found guilty of the 1974 killing of two people in Valley County, Thomas Creech was given a death sentence. Then, following an appeal, the sentence was lowered to life in prison. However, he was again given the death penalty in 1983 when he was found guilty of fatally beating a fellow prisoner with a battery-filled sock.

The Idaho Department of Corrections announced that Creech would be put to death by lethal injection on November 8th after 4th District Judge Jason Scott issued the execution warrant. Deborah Chuba of the Federal Defender Services of Idaho stated that her organization would fight for Creech's life by requesting clemency and questioning the efficacy of the execution drugs. She expressed disappointment with the state's decision to pursue a death warrant against Creech. According to Chuba, the state was more concerned with, quote, rushed retribution at all costs than whether executions were appropriate. Two years after her wealthy husband's death, Lydia Abrams is engaged to her ranch hand, Keith Harper, naming him beneficiary to her estate. June 6, Lydia has lunch with Harper and tells him she intends to check on her horses at another California ranch, but would be home for dinner.

When Harper comes back, Lydia is nowhere to be found. Harper reports Lydia missing, then drives all the way to Colorado for business, returning a week later. Riverside cops search the ranch home and find bedsheets with bloodstains and two spent bullet casings. They also cut out a portion of Harper's driver's seat for testing. A year after Lydia's disappearance, Harper calls 911 to report a female horse handler was in an ATV accident. But investigators determined the accident was staged and Jody Newkirk died of meth overdose. Newkirk's diary indicated she was in a relationship with Harper. Lydia Abrams now missing over three years.

If you have info on Lydia Abrams' disappearance or anything about those bloody sheets, contact Riverside County Sheriff's 951-955-2450. For the latest crime and justice news, go to CrimeOnline.com. With this crime alert, I'm Nancy Grace. This is an iHeart Podcast.