Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Crime Alert 11.08.23

Episode Date: November 8, 2023

Teen randomly attacks for video. This banana tries to split! 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. Alfred Lewis walks trails at Houston Park searching for participants for a social media video. Notice I did not say willing participants. Lewis makes his choice and starts recording, then attacks, beating his victims horribly.

Bystanders pull him off the second victim and call police, but the teen leaves before cops arrive. Police find the videos posted to TikTok, then track Lewis down. Nancy Lewis attacked two men in Houston's Wortham Park. In the first attack, Lewis tried to rob a man of his cell phone at gunpoint and threatened to shoot him in the foot if he didn't cooperate. The man refused, so Lewis punched and choked him. In the second attack, Lewis sucker punched a man in the back of the head. We're now learning that Lewis had an accomplice, 18-year-old Kingston Miker, who was behind the camera and arrested several days after Lewis. He will face the same charges. Alfred Lewis, 19, charged with aggravated robbery and assault. Florida cops patrol Old Town Key West on Halloween night.

They spot a banana relieving himself on the sidewalk outside a bar. They try to stop the University of Miami student, Kyle Mortimer, but the banana tries to split. Mortimer runs, slips out of a cop's grasp, refuses to stand still so he can be handcuffed. Mortimer, 20, poses for a mugshot in the banana costume, now facing disorderly conduct. More crime and justice news after this. Now with the latest crime and justice breaking news, Crime Online's John Limley. We begin on the West Coast as a 23-year-old man has been taken into custody by police on suspicion of killing his grandmother, a woman discovered dead with her head severed in a Northern California residence. With more, here's Sydney Sumner with Crime Online.

The decapitated body of the 64-year-old woman, Elvia Lopez Arroyo, was found near Santa Rosa, north of San Francisco, last Thursday by police responding to complaints of a probable homicide. The victim's 23-year-old grandson, Luis Gustavo Arroyo Lopez, who police say was seen walking away from the crime scene, was recognized by investigators as the suspect. According to a police statement, investigators think the man took the victim's head with him when he left the residence. Officials say a patrol officer in San Francisco identified the man from law enforcement bulletins and made the arrest without incident.

Detectives have reported that the victim's head was discovered on the south bank of Santa Rosa Creek on Saturday evening. The Sonoma County Main Adult Detention Facility is holding the suspect without bail on suspicion of murder. We're learning from police that the suspect, who had been in prison for assault with a deadly weapon, had just been released from a California prison. Now to Florida, where a dentist has been found guilty of murder in the 2014 shooting death of his one-time brother-in-law, a well-known college professor outside his home in Tallahassee. The crime occurred after a long custody struggle with the dentist's sister.

The conviction indicated that jurors believe prosecutors claim that the defendant, Charles Adelson, paid to have Florida State University law professor Don Markell murdered. According to our friends at the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper, jurors found Adelson guilty of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and solicitation of first-degree murder. At trial, prosecutors presented evidence to the jury that Adelson paid to have the well-known professor killed and that he arranged for his girlfriend, Catherine McVanua, to pay Sigfredo Garcia to carry out the murder. Garcia is the father of Catherine's two children.

In Maine, a 15-year prison sentence has been handed to a 19-year-old man who the FBI says constructed homemade explosives as part of a plan to assault a mosque in the name of the Islamic State Organization. Once again, Crime Online's Sydney Sumner. Waterville resident Xavier Pelkey and the prosecution came to a plea deal in April when Pelkey admitted to giving material support to terrorists in exchange for the dismissal of a second allegation. Law enforcement officials say that Pelkey discussed the plot with two teenagers, one in Canada and the other in Chicago, and that he intended to provide weapons, ammunition, and explosives for a mass shooting at a Shiite mosque and other houses of worship in the Chicago area. After discovering three

improvised explosives in his home, FBI agents apprehended Pelkey, who was then 18 years old. According to the FBI, the devices were made of fireworks wrapped with pins, staples, and thumbtacks as shrapnel. Detectives discovered a handwritten document allegedly bearing the Islamic State group's name with details regarding the intended mosque attack. The teens were portrayed by the prosecution as a homegrown terror cell, but Chris McLean, Pelkey's attorney, countered that they were simply spurred on by one another's online arrogance. The defense had requested a six-year prison term,

claiming Pelkey had admitted guilt, had no violent criminal past, and was only a few months removed from being charged as a juvenile. John, thanks. Vern Morris works as a video game developer. He's type 1 diabetic and lives with his parents. Around 1 in the morning, he's sick from low blood sugar. His mother makes him a sandwich. He seems to improve, but Vern's confused, slurring his speech.

He says goodnight and goes to bed. When the mom goes to test his levels an hour later, he's gone. Vern was not wearing a shirt or shoes when he disappeared, leaving all his belongings behind. There have been several possible sightings of Vern Morris in Utah and Nevada towns, but none confirmed. Vern Morris, 34, now missing two and a half years. There's a $10,000 reward for info leading to Morris.

If you know anything about Vern Morris, please contact Tule City PD 435-882-8900. For the latest crime and justice news, go to crimeonline.com. With this crime alert, I'm Nancy Grace.

This is an iHeart Podcast.