RSS Feed
May 18th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — After more than a week of fear that an impostor police officer was pulling over motorists and killing them, police in northwestern Mississippi said Friday that a suspect in two roadside slayings was arrested.
James D. Willie, 28, was arrested on Tuesday in Tunica by police responding to a domestic disturbance. Police said ballistics tests of a pistol in his possession confirmed it was the same weapon used in both killings.
Willie was being held on charges of kidnapping, aggravated assault and rape and was expected to be formally charged with two counts of capital murder.
Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesman Warren Strain told The Associated Press that the suspect had not been posing as a police officer and it was too early in the investigation to say why both slain motorists were on the side of the road. He declined to give a possible motive.
News of the arrest brought relief in the Tunica area, which stretches along the Mississippi River south of Memphis, Tenn., and is known for its casinos.
Lottie Hubbard, 58, is a blackjack dealer at Hollywood Casino and usually travels to work at 4 a.m. She hoped she and others could get back to their normal routines.
“I’ve been taking the long way around the world instead of the back roads,” she said. “I try not to get out at night if I don’t have to.”
Thomas Schlender, 74, of Raymond, Neb., was found dead in his car on Interstate 55 in Panola County on May 8 around 1:30 a.m. Lori Anne Carswell, 48, of Hernando was found dead near her car on Mississippi Highway 713 in nearby Tunica County about 2:15 a.m. on May 11.
Carswell had just left work from Fitzgerald’s Casino in Tunica County when she was killed, authorities have said. Schlender’s was driving from Nebraska to Florida to pick up his grandson.
Authorities developed several theories during the investigation and one was that someone could be posing as an officer to pull people over because there was no apparent reason for the victims to pull over.
“If we’re going to err, we’re going to err on the side of public safety,” Strain said. “The fact is that we got him off the street and people can go back to a level of comfort.”
Fears that a fake cop may have been behind the shootings prompted authorities to urge drivers to use caution when approached by any vehicle with flashing blue lights, even telling people they could call 911 if they were being pulled over.
Anita Shaffer arrived in Tunica on Thursday with her mother, Cheryl Ross, from Ann Arbor, Mich., to try their luck at the casinos, but first they prepared themselves.
One of the first things they did was to locate the police station in case someone tried to pull them over. They breathed easier Friday morning after learning a suspect had been arrested.
“It was scary,” Shaffer said. “I was freaking out.”
Gov. Phil Bryant and Mississippi Public Safety Commissioner Albert Santa Cruz said in a statement early Friday that investigators spent hundreds of hours working the case and the state Bureau of Investigation and state crime lab used all the resources it had available.
“Our citizens have been terrorized by these murders and we worked tirelessly to resolve them,” Santa Cruz said.
Willie was arrested Tuesday morning when authorities responded to a disturbance at an apartment. Tunica police found Willie with a woman who claimed he had raped her. Ballistic testing later found that his 9mm Ruger pistol was the same gun used in the two highway shootings, authorities said.
Strain said Willie is a convicted felon, but he did not have details about his previous arrests.
___
Follow Mohr on Twitter at http://twitter.com/holbrookmohr
Related posts:
Views: 0
Posted in 
Tags: 
