Police arrest man suspected of killing Eddy Curry’s ex-girlfriend

By Calvin Palmer

Chicago police have arrested a suspect in the killing of the former girlfriend of New York Knicks’ player Eddy Curry and her infant daughter.

Police spokeswoman Laura Kubiak confirmed today that one person was in custody. She said charges were pending.

Kubiak said police believe the person under arrest killed Nova Henry, 24, and her 9-month-old daughter, Ava, who were found dead of multiple gunshot wounds in their South Loop townhouse on January 24.

Henry was the mother of ex-Chicago Bulls player Curry’s 3-year-old son. The boy was found unharmed at the scene.

Henry’s mother, Yolan Henry that a detective called her after midnight to tell her that her daughter Nova Henry’s ex-boyfriend, a Chicago man, was in police custody and authorities intend to charge him with two counts of murder.

“I always had a feeling it was him,” Henry said. “He told me that was what he was going to do. I never thought he would.”

According to court records, the ex-boyfriend appeared in court as a lawyer for Henry in a paternity suit as recently as September against Curry.

In April 2007, Henry obtained an order of protection against him that prohibited him from having contact with her and her son after he was alleged to have threatened them, according to court documents.

The man was charged with domestic battery for allegedly trying to push Henry down the stairs and with phone harassment. The charge was eventually dismissed and the order of protection was dropped.

The man has also been arrested in other domestic batteries.

A week before she was killed, Henry installed a Brinks home security system at the home she moved to just after Christmas to escape the ex-boyfriend, whom she believed was stalking her.

Yolan Henry said she was glad the man was in police custody.

“I feel relieved that I don’t have to walk outside and wonder if he going to hurt my grandson,” she said. “I’m sad that it took my daughter’s murder to get him off the streets.”

[Based on reports by the Associated Press and Chicago Tribune.]

12 killed in collision between train and tourist bus

By Calvin Palmer

A collision this morning between a train and a tourist bus in central Slovakia claimed the lives of 12 people and injured 20 others.

The collision occurred at a rail crossing near the town of Brezno, Health Ministry official Anton Pencer said.

The victims were all passengers aboard the bus, which was carrying 35 people from the town of Banovce nad Bebravou to the nearby ski resort of Polomka Bucnik, he said.

The cause of the crash is under investigation, police said.

 According to local media, the coach was stuck at the level crossing, with the driver unable to change gears, when the oncoming train slammed into it.

The two-carriage train with 15 people aboard derailed and two of its passengers sustained minor injuries, Health Ministry spokeswoman Zuzana Cizmarikova said.

Three helicopters and a dozen ambulances took the injured to several regional hospitals.

Slovakia’s President Ivan Gasparovic expressed his sympathy for the relatives of the victims. The government planned to declare tomorrow a national day of mourning.

[Based on reports by the Associated Press and AFP news agency.]

Boy, 11, charged with killing pregnant woman

By Calvin Palmer

State police in Pennsylvania have charged an 11-year-old boy with the death of a pregnant woman and her unborn child.

Kenzie Marie Houk, 26, who was eight months pregnant, was yesterday found shot in the bedroom of her farmhouse on the Wampum-New Galilee Road, in New Beaver, by her four-year-old daughter.

Houk was due to give birth to her third child, a boy, in two weeks.

Police arrested Jordan Anthony Brown and charged him as an adult with criminal homicide and criminal homicide of an unborn child.

Lawrence County District Attorney John Bongivengo said that Jordan used a .20-gauge youth shotgun to shoot Kenzie Marie Houk while she lay in bed.

He then met the school bus with Houk’s eight-year-old daughter, and they went to school. It is not clear if the girl knew what happened to her mother.

The boy has been arraigned and sent to the county jail, Lawrence County police said in a statement. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Thursday at 9:30 a.m.

Houk, lived at the property in New Beaver with her two daughters, aged four and eight, her boyfriend Chris Brown and his 11-year-old son, according to family members.

[Based on reports by the Beaver County Times and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.]

Brown sauce leaves police with red faces

By Calvin Palmer

It took police quite some time to “ketchup” with the fact that the bottle of a mystery brown fluid thrown through the window of a parked car on a residential street in north London was HP Sauce.

A British delicacy -- HP Sauce. Picture courtesy of the BBC.

The perfect finishing touch to a bacon sandwich saw police wearing protective suits and breathing apparatus respond to the incident in the early hours of Friday morning.

They examined the inside of the 4×4 vehicle, parked in Enfield, where the potential hazard had leaked.

A female officer was even taken to hospital as a precaution after getting some of it on her suit.

It was only later that tests showed the substance was HP Sauce – one of Britain’s favorite condiments.

An eyewitness said: “It was hilarious. What an overreaction — they certainly had egg on their faces by the time they’d finished.

“Maybe they thought the E numbers were a particular hazard.”

He added: “The whole street woke up as there were a number of fire engines and ambulances with their lights flashing. The road was sealed off and we all thought we’d have to be evacuated.”

A Metropolitan Police spokesman, and it is worth bringing to mind the voice of the late Graham Chapman of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, said: ‘We were called to the scene just after 3:00 a.m. to reports of something thrown into a car, with the car alarm going off.

“With any unidentified chemical spillages we have to treat all incidents equally seriously.

“The substance was eventually identified as a harmless food substance.”

Somehow that explanation does not quite cut the mustard but the world over can relish the story. It has all the ingredients of a sketch from The Goon Show or Round The Horne, radio predecessors to Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

No arrests have been made over the incident.

[Based on reports by The Daily Telegraph and BBC News.]