COPS BUST MAN IN 2008 MARILYN HABIAN MURDER

A NORTHERN OHIO man was indicted Monday for the 2008 cold case killing of school teacher Marilyn Habian. Richard Penque allegedly murdered Habian in her Euclid home. She was a Habian was a teacher at Alexander Graham Bell Elementary School in Cleveland and also taught ballet. Penque will be arraigned today on beefs for murder, burglary, kidnapping, attempted arson and tampering with evidence. Habian died of a gunshot wound to her chest. Habian’s body was discovered when her boyfriend, Eddie Mitchell,
went to check on her the morning of April 7, 2008, after she did not show up for work. Her car was found running in the driveway so it's likely she caught Penque in the act as she was about to go to work. Her house had been broken into less than two months before the homicide. A man stole shoes and speaker equipment from Habian’s 18-year-old son who sometimes stayed at the house. Habian spent six years dancing with the Royal Winnipeg company before becoming a teacher.

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COMIC BOOK MURDER: DID 'SKINNY MAN' MURDER BABS?

THE DEFENSE has thrown a bombshell witness into the Detroit Comic Book Cold Case murder. Former comic book store owner Michael George, now 51, is on trial for murdering his wife in their suburban comic store in the summer of 1990. George killed his "overweight" wife because he was unhappy in their marriage and wanted the insurance money and his own Wonder Woman. He wanted to open a chain of comic book stores across the country with his loot. The defense contends the murder stemmed from a robbery. And Douglas Kenyon, 15 at the time of the murder, may be their ticket. He told court yesterday he noticed something odd about an "evasive" man standing in
the back corner of comic book store the day Barbara George was murdered. The guy had a "skinny build" wearing jeans, a hoodie and baseball cap — odd attire for the 90-degree day.
He said: "He was all the way in the back corner, as if he didn't want anyone to see him. He kept looking over his shoulders even as we were leaving the store."
Barbara George, rang up Kenyon's purchase and he left. Within 30 minutes George was dead with a bullet in her head in the backroom. MORE IN THE DETROIT NEWS

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LEONARD TERRANCE WOODS BUSTED FOR '92 SLAY

WOODS

HER mouth was covered in duct tape, her wrists and ankles bound with plastic zip ties and there was a deep gashes on the back of her head.
But although cops suspected Leonard Terrance Woods in 45-year-old Judith Goldman's 1992 murder, with little evidence, they were forced to let him go.
But in 2010 detectives reopened the case, conducting new interviews with witnesses and re-evalutating the physical evidence and they finally got a break.
Some of that evidence, found underneath Goodman's fingernails went in for DNA testing and they got themselves a match - the man they'd always suspected - Leonard Woods.
They believe he beat her with a decorative hook they found in her apartment KTLA  reports.
Riverside homicide detectives picked him up in his Moreno Valley, CA home and after interviewing Woods, they later booked him at the Robert Presley Detention Center. 
He is set to be arraigned one one count of murder and use of a deadly weapon Thursday in Riverside Superior Court. He could face 25 years to life in prison if he's convicted.

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AMANDA KNOX INNOCENT IN ROOMIE'S SEX MURDER

PM UPDATE: An Italian jury has overturned Amanda Knox's murder conviction. The 24-year-old American exchange student had been convicted in the grisly 2007 grisly murder of her British roommate Meredith Kercher during a sex orgy gone awry. Her Italian boyfriend and another man were also found guilty at the time. The wealthy American girl's parents spared no expense in springing her while the Kerchers appeared dumbfounded as the prosecution's case unraveled.
ABC NEWS said: When the judge cracked the tension by announcing that she was acquitted, Knox nearly collapsed. She was rushed out of the courtroom, barely able to walk, stumbling while being hauled along by court officers. The former exchange student was crying and doubled over, her head occasionally coming up for big breaths of air. Sitting stunned in the courtroom was Kercher's family. Her mother, Arline Kercher, sat stoicly long after the elated Knox family hugged each other fiercely and streamed out into the street where they were greeted by boos and the word: "DISGRACE." Knox's family has been a constant presence at the nearly year-long hearings, but Kercher's family has stayed away. The Kerchers arrived today to hear the verdict.

In her statement top the jury this morning, the woman known around the world as Foxy Knoxy for her calculated attempts at playing the vamp said she and the dead woman were friends.

She said: "I want to go home. I want to go back to my life. I don't want to be punished... I don't want my future taken away from me for something I didn't do because I am innocent. We had a friendship... She was concerned for me. She was always kind to me. She cared about me."

 FOXY KNOXY WALKS ON SEX SLAYING

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KILLER ROBERT KOWALSKI FINGERED IN '96 MURDER

A CONVICTED killer now faces charges in a 1996 Alaska cold case. Alaska State Police say a grand jury has indicted 50 year-old Robert D. Kowalski, 50,  on Friday, charging him with first and second-degree murder. In the July 1996 murder that happened at Glacier Bear Lodge in Yakutat, Sandra Perry, 39, was shot in the head. The pair were living common-law in Washington state and were in Alaska on vacation, cops say. Kowalski, then 34, claimed the couple heard a bear outside and when he got a shotgun, he tripped onto the bed and fell onto Perry. He told authorities that as he was getting up, the gun accidentally went off, shooting Perry in the head. But a man in the next room heard the poaiur arguing viciously before the gun went off. The cold case unit re-examined the case after Kowalski was convicted in 2008 of killing his girlfriend in Montana with a single shot to the head. MORE IN THE ALASKA DAILY NEWS

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HIJACKING KILLER GEORGE WRIGHT: 'I'M PORTUGESE'

THE MURDERING militant who was busted in Portugal after almost 40-years on the run for murdering a war veteran and hijacking a plane is claiming his new identity should prevent him from being deported.
U.S authorities are trying to extradite George Wright, now 68, to serve the remainder of his 15 to 30 year sentence for the 1962 murder of war hero and father of two Walter Paterson in Wall, NJ.
 ack in 1970 he escaped from prison and went on to hijack a plane with fellow members of the  Black Liberation Army, including his children securing a whopping $1million ransom  for the lives of the 86 passengers and crew on board as we reported here.
It was the biggest amount of money ever paid at the time, but after they escaped to Algeria, they never got to enjoy their spoils and it was handed
back to the US by the country's authorities. 
Wright meanwhile was granted political asylum by the west African country Guinea-Bissau in 1980s and he became a Portuguese citizen, called Jose Luis Jorge dos Santos, in 1991 after marrying a Portuguese woman.
His lawyer Manuel Luis Ferreira says that he has the right to serve the time in Portugal because he has Portuguese citizenship based on his new identity.
He said: "As a Portuguese citizen, if he has to answer to any authority or if he has to serve any sentence, it has to be to Portuguese authorities and in Portuguese territory." 
Official documents belonging to Wright and provided to the AP show Portugal accepted his new identity papers when it granted him citizenship.
Wright has a Portuguese passport, issued in 2007, and other documents including a Portuguese social security number, driving license and voter registration card.
"There's no doubt whatsoever about his nationality," Ferreira said, adding that Jose Luis Jorge dos Santos "is now his real name."
Ferreira is due to present his written arguments to the judge on Thursday after an initial hearing last Tuesday when Wright opposed his extradition.

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ACCUSED MARIA RIDULPH KILLER FINGERED IN NEW RAPE

RAPIST?

PRETTY MARIA

A FORMER cops accused of the 1957 kidnapping and killing Maria Ridulph has now been charged with sexually assaulting another teenage girl in the same small Illinois town.  
As we reported here in one of America's oldest cold cases of murder Jack McCullogh, 71, was busted earlier this year for the murder of the girl dubbed "Pretty Maria." 
She was last seen in the December of that year by a friend who she'd been playing with outside her Sycamore, IL home.  A young man walked up and introduce himself as "Johnny" and she accepted piggyback rides
from the mysterious stranger and her friend left her.  
Her body was found the following spring in a wooded area about 120 miles away.
McCullogh had been a suspect at the time of Maria’s disappearance, but he told cops that he’d been on a train from Rockford to Chicago on the day Maria was abducted.
After he ran away to join the military and changed his name "the case ran cold" according to court documents.   
But the case was re-opened last year after one of his ex-girlfriends in 2010 came across an unused and unstamped train ticket for the Rockford-to-Chicago trip, ripping apart his alibi. 
Now McCullogh, who denied any role in the murder last year has been charged in a separate case with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl from the same small town.
Illinois State Police announced the grand jury indictment of Jack McCullough on Friday for the
sexual assault which also happened in Sycamore, although they remained tight lipped on when the attack had taken place.
He's now also charged with one count of child sexual assault and four counts of indecent liberties with a child.
Illinois State Police director Hiram Grau said: "Sadly, we have another victim, and for the families of all victims, the pain never goes away,"  

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