October 2000
Grieving Ohio father says he sees wife in eyes of son
October 13, 2000
RAVENNA, Ohio (AP) -- Jon Andrews says he sees his deceased wife when he looks at his newborn son, who was cut from his mother's womb after she was abducted and killed last month.
"He's got the beautiful blue eyes like her," Andrews told ABC's "Prime Time Thursday" in one of his first interviews since the death of his wife, Theresa.
"I feel so lucky and so blessed to have him right now. It's just been amazing. I'll always see her," he said.
Police say 39-year-old Michelle Bica killed Theresa Andrews, 23, on September 27 and then immediately performed a crude Caesarean section to pull out the baby. The heavyset Bica, who had pretended for months that she was pregnant, then passed the baby boy off as her own.
Bica killed herself as police approached her house to question her.
Police say they believe Bica fooled everybody, including friends, neighbors and even her husband.
The Andrewses and the Bicas met in early September while both couples were shopping for baby items at Wal-Mart. The couples discussed their babies' due dates and genders, and they realized they lived near each other, Andrews said.
"I've never heard anything like this," Andrews said. "If it wasn't us, it would have probably been somebody else. And there's nothing that I could have done to prevent it."
November
Samurai Scot's Rampage
AN OFF-DUTY policeman told yesterday how he overpowered a naked man who ran amok in a church with a samurai sword.
The suspect in custody last night was identified as 26-year-old Scot Eden Strang.
Hero PC Tom Tracey, 40, ripped one of the pipes from the church organ and hit the crazed attacker over the head during the bloodbath in Surrey.
He was helped by another worshipper who used a long church crucifix as a weapon, and others including a man who fended off the swordsman with an old woman's Zimmer frame.
Four elderly people were critically ill after the apparently motiveless attack on St Andrew's RC Church in Thornton Heath, Surrey, during yesterday's morning Mass. Seven others were wounded.
Police were quizzing Strang, the married father of a three-year-old girl, last night.
Strang moved to London from Glasgow home around three years ago.
The new resident in his flat off Maryhill Road said: "I didn't know him, but I still get mail addressed to him and his family."
Father-of-two PC Tracey said: "One minute I was singing a psalm, the next I was fighting a sword-wielding assailant who looked absolutely wild.
"I was very scared, but I felt obliged to try to prevent people being hurt."
Service engineer Jim Finnegan, 35, told how he and a "rugby scrum" of worshippers pinned the swordsman to the ground for 15 minutes until the police arrived.
He said: "He was a big bloke - about six foot tall, athletic and menacing.
"All the time he had this smirk on his face as if he was pleased with himself."
Detectives quiz man on church sword attack
LONDON - Detectives are questioning a suspect, a day after a naked man burst into a packed church, slashing worshippers with a ceremonial sword and a kitchen knife.
Scotland Yard said one man, aged 55, remained in a "critical condition" after losing a thumb and forefinger in Sunday's attack and suffering deep wounds to his face and neck. Five other people were still being treated at Mayday Hospital in Croydon, south London, where their condition was described as "stable".
The Independent newspaper carried an eyewitness account of the attack. Journalist John Cobb was among the 300-strong congregation when the naked man burst in to St. Andrew's Roman Catholic Church in Thornton Heath, south London, just before 10.30am.
Cobb graphically conveyed the horror of the attack as he described, in the present tense, how four worshippers, among them off-duty policeman Tom Tracey, overpowered the man with the help of a crucifix-topped pole and a length of organ pipe.
"As the swordsman swipes wildly, one man grabs hold of his body and Tom has the arms that hold the sword. Still he won't go down and wrestles with a madman's strength. He is slim, quite muscular, and wildly strong. It takes four of us to bring him to the floor and still he struggles on," Cobb wrote.
Home Secretary Jack Straw extended his sympathy to the victims of the attack and applauded the courage of the church-goers who had intervened to overpower the swordsman.
"Any crime is terrible, but it's hard to think of something worse than to have the serenity of a church service shattered in this way," he told BBC radio.
Scotland Yard said 12 people were injured in the attack, which happened as the congregation celebrated morning mass.
Most of those hurt suffered stab or slash wounds.
A Yard spokesman said a 26-year-old man from the Thornton Heath area was in custody, with a police statement expected mid-morning.
October
really November 2nd, but the sword dude deserves november more
Gunman kills 7 at Honolulu office
From CNN
HONOLULU -- Seven men were killed Tuesday at a Xerox office building in Honolulu, apparently shot by a disgruntled former employee armed with a 9 mm handgun, police said.
Capt. Richard Soo of the Honolulu Fire Department confirmed that seven people died in the shootings at the Xerox building on North Nimitz Highway shortly after 8 a.m. local time (1 p.m. EST). Soo said no one was wounded.
Police said the gunman walked into the building housing Xerox offices in a light industrial section of Honolulu and began shooting at members of his technical work group in a conference room.
The suspect fled in a Xerox company van, according to witnesses. He may have abandoned the van to use his personal car, police said.
Authorities identified the gunman as Byron Uesugi, and said he was a former maintenance worker or technician with Xerox. The suspect, 40 years old, has 17 guns registered in his name, authorities said.
Police dispatched SWAT teams to the area and closed off streets around the building.
Authorities also evacuated another Xerox building in downtown Honolulu as a precaution in case the gunman was headed that way.
Robin McColloch, chief of Emergency Medical Service, said that police were pursuing the suspect on the east side of Oahu, the island on which Honolulu is located.
The names of the dead were not immediately known.
September
Gunman opens fire at Texas church; 8 people dead
7 others wounded, some critically
September 15, 1999
FORT WORTH, Texas (CNN) -- Police tell CNN eight people were killed in a shooting at a Baptist church in southwest Fort Worth on Wednesday night, including the gunman, who opened fire during a prayer service.
Lt. David Ellis of the Fort Worth Police Department described the gunman as a slender white male in his 30s.
"We also have another subject that we have in custody," Ellis said. "He may turn out just to be a witness. We really don't know. He may be involved. It's too early to tell."
Ellis said three adults and three teen-agers were killed before the shooter turned the gun on himself. While the death toll still stood at seven, including the gunman, eight victims were hospitalized, some in critical condition, Ellis said.
Just after the 7 p.m. (8 p.m. EDT) shooting at Wedgwood Baptist Church, a pipe bomb exploded on a balcony inside the sanctuary, but police did not know of any injuries. A bomb squad was inspecting several suspicious packages found at the church, Ellis said.
Witnesses said the gunman, dressed in black, walked into a crowded youth prayer service and methodically began shooting.
"He hits the door real hard to make his presence known, and he just immediately started firing," said Dax Hughes, Wedgewood Baptist Church's college minister.
Gunman told potential victims to stay still
"He was very calm and looked normal and was smoking a cigarette," witness Christy Martin, 17, said.
Chris Applegate, a seventh-grader, said he was in choir practice when the gunman burst into the room.
"We were singing a song, and then in the middle of the song this guy opened the door and fired one shot," he said. "He just kept telling us to stay still."
"We all just jumped under the benches, and he fired about 10 more shots. ... Somebody said, 'Run, run,' and we all started running," Chris said.
"I just saw him shooting and reloading," said another witness. "As it (the gun) emptied, he'd throw some more bullets in there and kept shooting."
The gunman also fired at police, who rushed to the scene, and then turned the weapon on himself, officers and witnesses said.
The shootings happened at the church about half an hour after a youth rally and concert began. About 150 young people were attending the annual "See You at the Pole" gathering, where students affirm their faith and concern for the problems of society by holding prayer time around their school's flagpole.
Ambulances rushed to the scene, and police cars surrounded the building. Young people attending the service who escaped the gunfire were taken to a nearby elementary school until the situation could be brought under control.
While the death toll stood at seven, a spokeswoman for Harris Methodist Hospital said it admitted a 38-year-old man who suffered critical wounds to the chest and that the hospital was expecting at least one other victim, a 49-year-old woman with head wounds.
Five other surviving victims had been taken to John Peter Smith Hospital, a spokeswoman there said. Drenda Witt described the victims as one adult male, two teen-age females and two teen-age males. She said some were in critical condition. One who suffered a gunshot wound to the abdomen was taken to the operating room.
A 12-year-old shooting victim was taken to Cook Children's Medical Center, where he was in stable condition, fire officials said.