Soldier charged in $630,000 theft of high-tech military gear

The mystery of missing sophisticated military equipment from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state may have taken a step toward being partially resolved Thursday when the Army announced it had charged a 22-year-old infantryman with theft.

But the Army's terse news release only hints at the full story -- which also includes charges of drugs and a murder threat -- that led to a days-long base lockdown in January for up to 100 members of the 4th Stryker Brigade.

"The bottom line is, the lockdown did work. As an administrative action to gather the information that they needed, it was a plus," Lt. Col. Gary Dangerfield, I Corps Army spokesman, told The Times.

Pvt. Nicholas A. Solt of Slatington, Pa., has been charged with stealing and selling military targeting equipment valued at $630,000. He is also charged with possession of drugs and steroids and with communicating a threat to kill an individual. He is in pretrial confinement on base and, if convicted in military court, faces up to 59 years in prison.

Dangerfield, citing the ongoing investigation, declined to describe the nature of the purported threat. Nor would he say how the private came into possession of the stolen equipment, which went missing after soldiers of 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division's "C" company went on holiday break in December.

But the Army's statement said speedy detective work by the Army's criminal investigative division and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives helped locate and recover 98% of the missing equipment.

The high-tech gear, which was eventually tracked down at off-base residences, included sophisticated optics and sights for rifles and night-vision goggles. 

Criminal Investigation Command "agents were able to move quickly because of the administrative actions taken and the I Corps Command appreciates their hard work, dedication and terrific police work," I Corps Chief of Staff Col. Steven Bullimore said in the statement.

Solt joined the Army in June 2008, trained at Ft. Benning, Ga., and arrived at Lewis-McChord in October 2008. He was deployed to Iraq from September 2009 to September 2010.

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Photo: A soldier in Baghdad uses night-vision goggles similar to those that were among the  equipment stolen at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Credit: Chris Hondros/Getty Images

 

Dougherty gang: Ex-fugitive brothers plead guilty in Colorado

The “Dougherty gang” brothers -- accused of robbing a bank, shooting at a police officer and outrunning authorities in multiple states with their sister last summer -- pleaded guilty Thursday to charges in Colorado, where they were apprehended.

Ryan and Dylan Dougherty will be sentenced in April, along with their sister, Lee Grace, who entered her own guilty plea last week. Ryan faces up to 20 years in prison for charges stemming from a chase and shootout in southern Colorado; his sister and brother face up to 28 and 32 years, respectively, the Associated Press reported. All agreed to reduced charges in a deal with prosecutors.

The Doughertys’ crime spree stirred up nationwide interest because of the siblings’ youth -- all are in their 20s -- and its resemblance to a Hollywood screenplay. Ryan and Dylan were carpenters, Lee Grace an exotic dancer. Some dubbed the trio “Bonnie, Clyde & Clyde.”

According to a recent GQ magazine story, Ryan was facing up to 15 years in prison for violating his probation in Florida; he had been convicted of sending sexually explicit text messages to an underage girl. So the siblings hatched a daring -- some would say foolish -- plan.

They packed their Subaru with an AK-47 and nine other guns, 2,000 rounds of ammunition and some clothes and food, and took off with vague hopes of escaping to Mexico, GQ said.

It didn’t take long before a Florida cop tried to pull them over for speeding -- an effort thwarted, he reported, when someone in the Subaru fired off about a dozen rounds. After that, authorities said, the trio robbed a Georgia bank at gunpoint, zipping away with $5,200 in cash. (The siblings still face charges in those states.)

The chase ended in Colorado, where authorities stopped the Subaru with a spike strip and rounded up the Doughertys when they ran.

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Photo: Ryan Edward Dougherty, 21, Dylan Stanley-Dougherty, 26, and Lee Grace Dougherty, 29, have all pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a chase and shootout in southern Colorado. Credit: Pueblo County Sheriff's Office/Associated Press

Starved, sexually abused, kept in basement: Teen's horror revealed

It's a case that has the nation asking: How could this happen?

Police say a 15-year-old girl was kept for years in a Madison, Wis., basement, beaten and starved by a father and stepmother who often forced her to eat her own feces and drink her own urine. And, they say, her stepbrother had been sexually abusing her in the cellar since she was just 10  years old.

Moreover, it appears that child protective services had repeatedly been called to the home or otherwise alerted to something amiss.

On Thursday, the girl's father, Chad C. Chritton, 40, and stepmother, Melinda J. Drabek-Chritton, 42, were charged with reckless endangerment, child abuse and child neglect, according to the Madison State Journal. The girl's stepbrother, Joshua P. Drabek, 18, was charged with sexual assault and child abuse, the newspaper reported.

The girl, whose name is not being released, is in protective custody. Two other children have  been removed from the home, although there were no immediate reports on their condition.

The girl, who escaped this month, told law enforcement authorities that she had been virtually trapped in the unfinished basement. Video equipment was trained on the cellar door, and it was rigged with an alarm that would go off if it opened, according to a police affidavit obtained by the Associated Press. The girl said that if she was caught eating without permission, she would have to throw out -- or throw up -- the food as punishment.

On Feb. 6, the day she escaped, she had been let out of the basement by her stepmother so she could clean up some papers. When the girl did not do so quickly enough, the stepmother threatened to cut her throat and throw her back in the basement. Fearful of what would happen next, the girl said, she escaped out a window, according to Madison.com

The 15-year-old was wandering the streets of Madison, barefoot and in her pajamas, when she was spotted by motorist Mike Vega, above. He stopped the car. Instinctively, he knew something was terribly, terribly wrong. She was so slight -- authorities later said she weighed about 70 pounds --  that he initially took her for an 8-year-old. The girl was bleeding from a gash on her face.

Vega called police.

"It was the most shocking thing I have ever seen," he told Madison.com. "I've never seen anybody look like that."

But the horror of what had happened to the girl was only just beginning to reveal itself.

A neighbor next door and another across the street each said they had called child protective services after catching a glimpse of the rarely seen girl -- and suspecting something was wrong. One of the neighbors, Mark Stuntebeck, said he made the call after watching the girl take out the garbage and then scavenge through it for food.

"She seemed to be hiding and munching on crumbs or remnants of something," he told the Wisconsin State Journal.

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Photo: Mike Vega points to the site in Madison, Wis., where he found a starving 15-year-old wandering the streets in her bare feet. Credit: Todd Richmond/Associated Press

Facing outrage, Josh Powell's family gives up on burial near sons

Josh Powell's family has abandoned the plan to bury him in the same Washington state cemetery as the two young sons he killed in a gas-fueled explosion almost two weeks ago.

Kirk Graves, the brother-in-law of Josh Powell, told the Associated Press that the family had been divided over the plan and ultimately succeeded in convincing Powell's mother, Terrica, to reverse course.

"We felt very strongly that it wasn't appropriate to put him anywhere near the boys, and we did our best over the last 48 hours to convince her to do something different," he told the news service. "It wasn't that hard to convince her -- she just got started off on the wrong path."

Terrica Powell later released the following statement to the media:

"We have tried so hard to be loving and considerate and respectful in making Josh’s burial arrangements," Terrica Powell wrote in the statement posted by the Salt Lake City Tribune. "We love our little Charlie and Braden and want their resting place to be a place of peace and comfort.

"We have made the determination that Josh will not be buried at Woodbine Cemetery, but are in the process of making other arrangements.

"Thank you to all who have so lovingly supported us in this time of inexpressible anguish. Our hearts go out to all of you who -- like us -- are reeling with shock and grief."

An uproar had followed the revelation that Powell's family was trying to buy a cemetery plot that would allow him to be buried near sons Charles, 7, and Braden, 5. The city of Puyallup put any such purchase on hold after the maternal grandparents, Chuck and Judy Cox, said they would take legal action to keep that from happening.

Then, Crime Stoppers of Tacoma-Pierce County, a nonprofit group dedicated to helping law enforcement fight crime, purchased the plotsaround the single grave shared by Charles and Braden Powell. Until Terrica Powell's announcement Thursday, it still remained a possibility that the family would try to bury Powell someplace else inside the cemetery.

Even if Powell's family managed to purchase the plot, his grave would not see any peace: Threats of vandalism and worse were already being rumored amid the outraged public. Still to be determined, however, is where Josh Powell will ultimately be laid to rest.

Powell remains the chief person of interest in the disappearance of Susan Powell, who vanished under mysterious circumstances back in December 2009, when the family was still living in Utah.

After his wife's disappearance, Powell took the kids and moved in with his father, Steve, in Washington state. Steve Powell was later arrested and charged with possession of child pornography and voyeurism, which led the state to hand over custody of the boys to the Coxes. Josh Powell had been fighting ever since to regain custody but had recently been told he first had to submit to a psychosexual evaluation and a polygraph after authorities said they had discovered "incestuous" porn on his computer.

This dire legal scenario provided the backdrop for what happened next, some say: Powell took an axe to the children and then triggered an explosion that killed them all on Feb. 5.

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Photo: The gravesite of Charles and Braden Powell is shown still covered by a cemetery canopy as of Wednesday at Woodbine Cemetery in Puyallup, Wash. Credit: Ted S. Warren / Associated Press

'Underwear bomber,' seeming unrepentant, to be sentenced today

The man dubbed the "underwear bomber" faces a sentence of life in prison Thursday in U.S. District Court in Detroit for trying to blow up an international flight on Christmas Day 2009 using a bomb hidden in his underwear.

Prosecutors are seeking the harshest penalty possible, arguing that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab remains unrepentant and defiant and would attack the United States again if given the chance.

A court-appointed criminologist who interviewed the defendant said he actually was encouraged by his failure to blow up the jetliner on Christmas Day.

"The failed martyrdom mission, in his mind, is no more than a possible test of patience imposed on him by God," Israeli criminologist Simon Perry, who has studied Islamic suicide bombers, said in a court report quoted by the Christian Science Monitor. "One can interpret this rhetoric as meaning that he has not given up on aspirations to martyrdom."

On paper, the sentencing appears routine. After all, Abdulmutallab pleaded guilty to eight felonies in October and knew that a life prison term was to be expected.

But little about this case has been routine. Abdulmutallab's guilty plea was an abrupt disruption to the trial and came against the wishes of his defense team.

The Nigerian defendant and admitted Al Qaeda operative accepted responsibility but continued to justify his failed attack on the United States. The federal court case has been marked by Abdulmutallab's repeated outbursts, and he has repeatedly mocked the United States and warned the country that its judgment day was near.

"The United States should be warned that if they continue to persist and promote the blasphemy of Muhammad and the prophets," Abdulmutallab said as he entered his guilty plea, "the United States should await a great calamity that will befall them through the hands of the mujahedin soon."

The jetliner that Abdulmutallab tried to blow up was carrying 279 passengers and 11 crew members. The incident became fodder for late-night talk-show jokes even as the government was embarrassed at the obvious lapses in airline security. The incident directly led to much of the heightened security seen at airports today.

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Photo: The so-called underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is scheduled to be sentenced today in a federal courtroom in Detroit. Credit: U.S. Marshals Service

Josh Powell won't be buried next to sons; officers buy plots

To keep Josh Powell from being buried near the sons he killed, Crime Stoppers of Tacoma-Pierce County purchased the plots around Charles and Braden Powell's grave.

Josh Powell's family reportedly wanted him interred in the same cemetery on a hill overlooking his sons, whom he attacked with a hatchet before killing them and himself in a gas-fueled explosive fire Feb. 5. 

Det. Ed Troyer of the Pierce County sheriff's office, who is also director of the nonprofit Crime Stoppers, said he and Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor placed a down payment on the plots surrounding the boys' grave. 

"We might not be able to keep Josh Powell from being buried in the cemetery, but we can keep him away from the boys," he said in a phone interview with The Times. "Bottom line is, it's not fair for murder victims to have the murder suspect laid to rest next to them. It's hurtful to the community and dishonors the boys."

Crime Stoppers, a nonprofit that tries to help solve and prevent crimes, announced the news prominently on its website and asked for donations to help cover the cost of the plots, which is expected to be about $5,000. Troyer says he's hoping the community will step up.

The news that Josh Powell's relatives were looking at nearby plots caused a uproar among Washington authorities and the family of the boys' missing mother. An attorney for the boys' maternal grandparents said she would stop at nothing to derail the Powell family's plan.

"For him to be buried near those kids is just unthinkable," Seattle attorney Anne Bremner told the Associated Press. She represents Charles and Judith Cox of Puyallup, Wash., whose daughter is Powell's missing wife, Susan.

Adding to the outrage, of course, is that Susan Powell disappeared under mysterious circumstances from the Powells' Utah home in December 2009, and Josh Powell was the chief person of interest. He told authorities he'd taken his young sons for a camping trip to the desert in the middle of the night during a snowstorm, and when he returned, she was gone. He moved to Washington state soon after, moving in with his father, Steve Powell -- who was arrested last fall on child pornography and voyeurism charges.

Josh Powell lost custody of his sons after his father's arrest. He rented a house in nearby Graham, which he set on fire after a caseworker brought the boys over for what was to have been a supervised visit. He locked her out of the house, attacked his children with a hatchet and set the house ablaze.

Troyer said they would let the Cox family decide what to do with the plots.

"Susan Cox is still missing," he said, adding that the family can have the option to bury her next to her boys if she is found. Authorities presume she is dead, but the Utah investigation continues. 

Powell's relatives had selected a plot at Woodbine Cemetery 80 to 100 feet from the plot where Charles, 7, and Braden, 5, were interred Monday, the AP reported. More than 1,000 people attended the boys' funeral on Saturday. 

Puyallup City Manager Ralph Dannenberg told The Times on Wednesday that the sale to the Powells was on hold while Bremner pursued plans to seek a restraining order.

The city doesn't have guidelines for handling such a thorny situation, Dannenberg said.

"We are a municipal cemetery. We don't have anything in our codes or procedures about denying anyone" a plot to purchase, he said. "But with legal action pending, it's in the best interest of both parties to hold off."

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Photo: Family members hug Saturday after the funeral for Charlie and Braden Powell in Tacoma, Wash. Credit: Ravell Call / Deseret News

Bury Josh Powell near sons? 'Unthinkable,' family attorney says

Josh Powell's family members want him buried in a Washington state cemetery just a few strides  from his two sons, the same boys that he chopped with an ax before killing them and himself in a fiery explosion more than a week ago.

But an attorney for the boys' maternal grandparents says she will stop at nothing to ensure that the plan isn't carried out.

"For him to be buried near those kids is just unthinkable," Seattle attorney Anne Bremner told the Associated Press. She represents the boys' maternal grandparents, Charles and Judy Cox. Adding to the outrage, of course, is that the Coxes' daughter, Susan Powell, disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 2009, with Josh Powell being the chief person of interest.

"For God's sake, for them to lose Susan first, and then the boys, and now this? Just give these people a break," Bremner told the news service.

Powell's relatives selected a plot at Woodbine Cemetery that's  about 25 feet from the plot where Charles, 7, and Braden, 5, were laid to rest Saturday. Their funeral was attended by more than 1,000 people.

Puyallup City Manager Ralph Dannenberg told The Times on Wednesday that the sale is now on hold while Bremner follows through on her plans to seek a restraining order.

The city doesn't have any guidelines for proceeding in such a thorny situation, Dannenberg said.

"We are a municipal cemetery, we don't have anything in our codes or procedures about denying anyone" a plot to purchase, he said. "But with legal action pending, it's in the best interest of both parties to hold off."

The cemetery fight is the latest twist in a case that began in 2009, when Susan Powell vanished in the middle of the night while the family was still living in Utah. At the time, Josh Powell told the authorities that he decided to take the boys on a last-minute camping trip even though it was the middle of winter. When he returned, he said, his wife was gone.

Powell's family members have contended that Josh Powell is the victim in this saga, wrongly accused of killing his wife and then subjected to a  witch hunt by law enforcement.

As for the boys, they'd been at the center of a custody battle between Josh Powell and the Coxes --  complete with allegations that Powell was an unstable figure in their lives and newly discovered evidence that he possessed incestuous pornography. Days before Powell killed himself and his sons, he was told that he couldn't have his children back until he submitted to a psychosexual exam and a polygraph.

Some surmise that the court decision triggered Powell's murder-suicide plan. On Feb. 5, during what was supposed to be a supervised visit, he locked out the social worker accompanying his sons, took an ax to the two boys, then killed them and himself in a gasoline-fueled explosion.

The deaths have triggered an outpouring of support for the Coxes, with people holding "love" signs lining the funeral route on Sunday. The tragedy has also led to outrage aimed at the Powell family, which continues to maintain a low profile.

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Photo: People line the street as the hearse passes bearing Charlie and Braden Powell on Saturday in Tacoma. Credit: Alan Berner / The Seattle Times / Associated Press

Josh Powell used house to fool social workers, didn't live there

In a meeting with residents of the neighborhood where Josh Powell blew up a rented home, killing himself and his two sons, authorities said Powell never lived in the home. In fact, they said, he used it to deceive social workers. 

Pierce County sheriff's detectives told residents that the home was set up for Powell's scheduled supervised visits with his sons, reported the News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash. Powell had lost custody of his sons last year after police found child pornography on his father's computer; Powell was living with his father at the time.

"He set it up like a rental place, with pictures of the family," Sgt. Denny Wood said at the meeting Monday attended by about 50 people. 

In reality, the News Tribune reported, investigators believed Powell was still living with his father, Steven Powell.

Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer told KIRO-FM: "There was no furniture. There were some kids toys, a little bit of clothing, some pictures of Susan [Powell] on the wall, and that was about it. It was very, very sparse, not like it was set up for anybody to actually live in."

Sheriff's officials didn't respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

The meeting Monday was called so residents in the Graham, Wash., neighborhood could ask questions related to the investigation of the explosion in which Powell killed himself and his sons. Chaplains were available to residents who are still coping with the tragedy, the News Tribune said. 

Police have been working to piece together Powell's last days. A weekend search of a Graham recycling center turned up papers and other items Powell had dropped off. Police also were testing a blood-stained mattress they retrieved from a storage locker Powell rented. 

On Feb. 5, Powell set the home ablaze. Minutes before, a state Child Protective Services worker had dropped off the boys for what was to have been a supervised court-ordered visit. She was about to follow the children into the house when Powell blocked her entrance and locked the door.

Minutes later, the house exploded in a gasoline-fueled inferno. Police said Tuesday they believe Powell had been researching the explosive properties of gasoline, The News Tribune said. 

Investigators are still looking for the body of Powell's wife, Susan, who went missing in December 2009 in West Valley City, Utah.

Powell had been considered a person of interest in his wife's disappearance, and police believe he may have killed his sons because they were recently beginning to recall details from the night their mother disappeared. 

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Photo: An investigator collects evidence from the charred rubble of the home where Josh Powell killed himself and his two sons Feb. 5 in Graham, Wash. Credit: Ted S. Warren / Associated Press

Bound, naked in a Subaru: Valentine's Day role-playing ends badly

It was Valentine's Day in Portlandia -- should anyone have been upset about a little friendly bondage action in the back of a Subaru?

Well, yes. The Portland Police Bureau was plenty upset, and the lovers, identified as Nikolas Harbar, 31, and Stephanie Pelzner, 26, are under arrest on charges of disorderly conduct in the second degree.

Portland may be a city that has always prided itself on its eccentricities, but police said the red alert that went out when Pelzner was glimpsed bound and naked in the back of the car was a Valentine too far.

It began shortly after noon on Tuesday, when someone at the New Seasons Market in north Portland reported that they had seen a naked female with duct tape on her mouth tied up in the back of a blue Subaru Legacy.

The man driving the car had told the witness they "were just having some fun," police said in their report, but the woman in the back of the car "seemed hazy."

The witness phoned in the license plate to the car, and the search was on.

Authorities in Washington state were alerted, in case the car traveled north across the state line on Interstate 5. Portland police began combing the city's streets, while a patrol car zeroed in on the address where the car was registered.

By 12:56 p.m., the Subaru drove up, and when officers closed in, Harbar told them the couple was "doing some Valentine's Day role-playing," the police report said. Police confirmed from Pelzner "that she was voluntarily bound and nude in the back of the Subaru," it said.

Not feeling in a loving mood -- especially since at least nine police cars were tied up for 20 minutes during the search -- authorities booked both of them into the Multnomah County Jail.

Since then, the Portland Police Bureau's Facebook page has been flooded with comments, most from citizens wondering why people can't be left to their own devices in the backs of their cars.

"Nothing wrong with that, they were just trying to have some fun, you monsters," one man wrote.

"Keep Portland weird, man," urged another.

Others offered helpful suggestions for pursuing the case: "She should be booked for not wearing her safety belt."

Police say they had no way of knowing they weren't looking for a potential murder victim.

"The concern is their actions created a pretty substantial public alarm, to the point where you have a 911 caller saying she's concerned about this person tied up naked in the back of a car," Lt. Robert King, bureau spokesman, told the Los Angeles Times.

"Why would the officers think it was a Valentine's Day thing?" he said. "This kind of stuff, whether it's being naked in the back of a car tied up, or running down the street with an airsoft gun pretending to shoot at people, it's not OK, because it creates a lot of concern from the public."

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Photo: Nikolas Alexander Harbar, left, and Stephanie Morgan Pelzner. Credit: Portland Police Bureau

Texas man accused of kidnapping, torturing former neighbor

Prosecutors say a North Texas woman's former neighbor kidnapped her, burned down her house, chained her to a bed and tortured her with a deer-skinning device.

Jeffrey Allan Maxwell's trial began Tuesday in Weatherford, about 30 miles west of Fort Worth. Maxwell, 59, of Corsicana faces a possible life sentence if convicted of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault.

Apparently the woman, who lives in Whitt, about 50 miles west of Fort Worth, had refused Maxwell's advances when they were neighbors, KWTX reported.

Prosecutor Kathleen Catania told jurors the woman's DNA was found in Maxwell's car and house after he was arrested, according to the Associated Press. Catania said Maxwell kidnapped the woman from her home at gunpoint March 1 and drove her to his house, about 100 miles away and 75 miles southeast of Fort Worth, where he held her for 12 days.

Maxwell told an investigator that after he took the woman back to his house, he "strung her up" in his garage on a homemade rack used for skinning deer, according to court records cited by the Associated Press.

When Maxwell would leave to do errands, he would store the woman in a box, Catania told the court.

Strangely, the woman initially said family members were trying to kill her, but later told investigators Maxwell hit her with a rolling pin and pulled a gun on her while taking her from her house, according to court testimony reported by the Weatherford Democrat.

“He forced me in the house so he could tie me up and put me in his vehicle,” the woman said after Sgt. Ricky Montgomery of the Parker County Sheriff’s Office pressed her about what happened.

The woman said she found out her house had burned down while watching the news with Maxwell, who told her the house needed to be burned to get rid of his fingerprints, according to the Weatherford Democrat.

Maxwell has also been investigated on suspicion of involvement in the disappearance of his ex-wife, Martha Martinez Maxwell, missing since 1992. Maxwell first went missing in 1987 and was later found beaten with her throat cut near Ardmore, Okla. She survived and Jeffrey Maxwell was charged with aggravated kidnapping, but a grand jury declined to indict him, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

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Photo: Jeffrey Allan Maxwell enters Judge Trey Loftin's Weatherford, Texas, courtroom on Tuesday. Maxwell, 59, is charged with aggravated kidnapping and two counts of aggravated sexual assault. Credit: Ron T. Ennis / Fort Worth Star-Telegram.