2 Teens Shot Dead on National Park Camping Trip
Authorities in Arizona are in the middle of a mysterious case involving two teens who were found shot to death on a popular national park camping site.
According to multiple reports, 18-year-old Pandora Kjolsrud and an unidentified 17-year-old male were found dead on May 27 off State Route 87 at Tonto National Forest.
"At this time, the circumstances surrounding their deaths are being treated as suspicious," the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office said Friday in a statement.
As Fox 10 in Phoenix reported, the two teens left for a Memorial Day weekend camping trip, but they never returned. Friends and family have since set up a memorial overlooking a valley on the famed Camelback Mountain. It's reported that the two teens often visited the spot with friends to watch the sunset.At this moment the MCSO is asking anyone with information to call them at 602-876-TIPS.
At 2.9 million acres, Tonto National Forest is the largest of six national parks in Arizona. The park is famous for its hiking trails, Sonoran Desert Saguaro cacti, camp sites and expansive bike trails.
These national parks are popular, especially this time a year.
The teen's deaths come just days after authorities at another popular park, California's Sequoia National Park, continues searching for a woman who was swept away in a river following a trip with friends and family also on Memorial Day weekend.
2 Teens Shot Dead on National Park Camping Trip first appeared on Men's Journal on Jun 3, 2025
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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Remembrance service set for beloved mother killed in Franklin crash by accused drunk driver
Family and friends of a beloved mother killed in a crash by an accused drunk driver in Franklin over Memorial Day weekend are set to gather Thursday night for a remembrance service. The family of Minaben Patel has invited the community to honor her life at a service at the crash site at 72 Grove Street in Franklin at 6 p.m. 'Together, we remember and celebrate a life marked by love, kindness, and quiet strength,' an announcement on the Town of Medway's Facebook page read. Patel, 38, of Franklin, died days after the May 24 crash that killed her daughter, Krisha Patel, 5, according to the district attorney and a Facebook post by the SAFE Coalition on Tuesday afternoon. The Town of Medway also released a statement on Patel's passing and shared a photo of the late mother holding her daughter, Krisha Patel. 'With deep sadness, we share the heartbreaking news that Minaben Patel, beloved mother of Krisha Patel,' the statement read. 'Minaben was a devoted mother, a loving wife, and a dear friend to many.' 'The Norfolk District Attorney's Office and the Franklin Police Department are saddened by the loss to Minaben's family, and we extend our heartfelt condolences,' Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey and Franklin Police Chief Thomas Lynch said in a joint statement Tuesday. Another vigil was held for Krisha Patel at the crash site last Wednesday. 'We would like to share, through the family's wishes, that Minaben Patel, mother of sweet Krisha, has passed away,' the SAFE Coalition said in its post. 'Minaben's family is again deeply thankful for all the love and support shared over the last week,' the group said. 'They invite the community to honor this amazing Mother, Wife, Family Member, and friend this Thursday for a service of remembrance.' The driver accused in the fatal crash, James Blanchard, 21, of Franklin, was ordered held on $250,000 cash bail following his arraignment on May 27. A not guilty plea was entered on Blanchard's behalf. He is charged with motor vehicle homicide while driving negligently and under the influence of alcohol, three counts of driving under the influence of alcohol and causing serious bodily injury, negligent driving, driving a motor vehicle with an open container of alcohol, and marked lanes violation, according to Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey. It was immediately unclear Tuesday if Blanchard would face additional charges in the case. During his arraignment, prosecutor Christopher Meade said Blanchard told police he had two beers while at a landscaping job on Saturday, May 24 after working that morning at his job as a mechanic. When he left his landscaping job, he opened a 1.75 liter bottle of Tito's vodka. He began drinking straight out of the bottle and drove home in his truck, Meade said during the arraignment in Wrentham District Court. Investigators later found a second, empty 1.75 liter bottle of Tito's in his truck that Blanchard told police was 'from the night before,' Meade said. While driving home around 6:22 p.m. Saturday, May 24, Blanchard crashed into a Honda Accord carrying a family of four on Grove Street in Franklin, Meade said. They were going to Blackstone for a family birthday party. The 5-year-old girl died following the crash, Meade said. Her mother and brother were taken to a local hospital in critical condition. The brother's condition was not known on Tuesday. Her father, the driver of the Honda, was treated and released. Defense attorney Timothy Flaherty had asked the court during Blanchard's arraignment to impose a lesser amount of $10,000 cash bail, with conditions for his release to include electronic monitoring and that he enter an alcohol rehabilitation center. 'It's probably the right place for this young man at this time,' Flaherty said during the arraignment. 'It's a significant case but significant penalties. But I can tell the court that this young man is not a risk of flight.' An autopsy will be performed to determine a cause of Minaben Patel's death, the district attorney said. Meanwhile, services were held for Krisha Patel on May 31, according to the girl's obituary. 'Our hearts are broken as we say goodbye to such a precious little soul. In her short time with us, she filled the world with laughter, wonder, and love,' her obituary states. 'Her smile could brighten the darkest day, and her kind heart touched everyone she met.' 'Though her time here was far too brief, her spirit will forever live on in the hearts of all who loved her,' her obituary states. 'We will carry her memory with us always - like a beautiful, shining star in the sky. May she rest peacefully, wrapped in love and light.' The crash remains under investigation by Franklin Police, the Norfolk District Attorney's Office and the Massachusetts State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Section. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
Los Angeles Times
2 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Seeking solace, and finding hard truths, on California's Highway 395
As we drove north along Highway 395 — passing the salty remains of Owens Lake, the Museum of Western Film History, the geothermal plant outside Mammoth Lakes that supplies 24/7 clean energy to San Bernardino County — I felt certain we'd found the northernmost reaches of Southern California. It was Memorial Day weekend, and my wife and I were headed to a U.S. Forest Service campground in the White Mountains, 225 miles as the crow flies from downtown L.A.'s Union Station. If you drew a line on a map due west from our campsite, you'd cut through the Sierra Nevada and eventually hit San José. But to my mind, we were still in Southern California. For one thing, Southern California Edison supplied electricity here. For another, Los Angeles had sucked this place dry. In the early 1900s, agents secretly working for the city posed as farmers and ranchers, buying up land and water rights in the Owens Valley. Then Los Angeles built an aqueduct, diverting water from the Owens River to feed the city's growth. Owens Lake largely dried up. The city later extended the aqueduct north to Mono Lake. As a lifelong Angeleno, I felt compelled to see some of the results for myself. I had spent time in the Owens Valley, but never the Mono Basin. So we took a dirt road branching off the gorgeous June Lake Loop to stand atop an earthen dam built by L.A. in the 1930s. It impounds Rush Creek, the largest tributary bringing Sierra snowmelt to Mono Lake. As I looked out at Grant Lake Reservoir — beautiful in its own way, if totally unnatural — I realized I had been drinking this water my whole life. My feelings were similarly muddled when we arrived at Mono Lake. On the one hand, this was one of the coolest and weirdest places I'd ever seen. As we padded along a boardwalk toward the sandy southern shore, I was blown by the gleaming blue water, the snow-capped Sierra peaks and the tufa — my gosh, the tufa. Bizarre-looking rock towers made of calcium carbonate, like something from a dream. At the same time, much of the boardwalk ideally would have been underwater. Under a 1994 ruling by state officials, L.A. is supposed to try to limit its withdrawals from Mono Lake's tributaries, with a goal of restoring the lake to an elevation of 6,392 feet — healthier for the millions of migratory and nesting birds that depend on it for sustenance, and better for keeping down dust that degrades local air quality. Three decades later, the lake has never gotten close to its target level. L.A. continues to withdraw too much water, and the Mono Basin continues to suffer. Mayor Karen Bass said last year that the city would take less, but officials ultimately reneged, citing a dry winter. As we walked past a sign on the way to the southern shore marking 6,392 feet, I felt a little pang of guilt. Responsibility is a funny thing. When we got back from our camping trip, I read about a woman suing oil and gas companies over the tragic death of her mom, who died of overheating at age 65 during a historic heat wave that roasted the Pacific Northwest in 2021. The first-of-its-kind lawsuit claims wrongful death, alleging — accurately — that the companies spent years working to hide the climate crisis from the public. I'm neither a psychic nor a psychologist. But I'm guessing, based on more than a decade reporting on energy and climate change, that executives at the fossil fuel companies in question — including Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Phillips 66 and Shell — aren't suddenly feeling guilty for their role in boiling the planet. Same goes for the Trump administration — impossible to guilt. The World Meteorological Organization reported last week that Earth is highly likely to keep shattering temperature records in the next few years, driving deadlier heat waves, more destructive fires and fiercer droughts. That hasn't stopped President Trump and congressional Republicans from pressing forward with a budget bill that would obliterate support for renewable energy. So why was I, a climate journalist, feeling guilty over something I really had nothing to do with? Was it silly for me to bother taking responsibility when the people wrecking the planet were never going to do the same? I think the answers have something to do with the importance of honesty. As we sat at our campsite by a roaring fire — stoked by my wife, who's way better than me with open flames — I cracked open a book of speeches by President Theodore Roosevelt, delivered in 1903 on his first trip to California. He was on my mind because he'd originally established Inyo National Forest, where our spectacular campground was, to protect the lands and watershed where Los Angeles would build its Owens Valley aqueduct. 'You can pardon most anything in a man who will tell the truth,' Roosevelt said. 'If anyone lies, if he has the habit of untruthfulness, you cannot deal with him, because there is nothing to depend on.' 'The businessman or politician who does not tell the truth cheats; and for the cheat we should have no use in any walk of life,' he said. Naturally, I thought of Trump, whose political success is built on outrageous lies, from climate and election denial to insisting that Haitian immigrants eat their neighbors' cats. I also recalled a recent order from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum discouraging 'negative' depictions of U.S. history on signs at national parks and other public lands — a directive with the Orwellian title, 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.' Did that mean educational materials at Manzanar National Historic Site — which sits just off Highway 395 and is managed by the National Park Service — would soon be revamped, to avoid explaining how the U.S. government cruelly and needlessly imprisoned more than 10,000 Japanese Americans there during World War II? If a similar order were issued covering the Forest Service, which is overseen by a different federal agency, would the Mono Lake visitor center take down its thoughtful signs explaining the history of the Los Angeles water grab? Would the Forest Service alter a sign at the nearby Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest detailing the possible impacts of global warming, considering that the U.S. is the largest historical emitter of heat-trapping pollution? Only time will tell. But Teddy Roosevelt was right. So long as Trump and his allies keep lying — pretending that oil and gas aren't cooking the planet, that we don't need sound science, that Americans have only ever done good — they'll feel no guilt, no responsibility. Because they'll have nothing to take responsibility for. Accepting the facts means owning up to the hard ones. It's not just politicians who have trouble. Highway 395's Museum of Western Film History is mostly hagiography, a collection of props and artifacts that fails to unpack the settler colonialism behind the western films it glorifies. But I did learn that the original 'Star Wars' was one of many films to shoot footage in the Owens Valley. And the 'Star Wars' universe, as it happens, is all about fighting an empire that seeks to control people's homelands and histories — a message central to Season 2 of 'Andor,' now streaming on Disney+. 'I believe we are in crisis,' says Galactic Senator Mon Mothma, a leader of the brewing Rebellion. 'The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil.' Here's the truth: There's not enough water in Mono or Owens lake. It's hotter than it used to be. The sky is dark with wildfire smoke more often. The Sierra Nevada peaks frequently aren't as snowy. Again, the senator: 'When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest.' In America, monsters are screaming. Find harbor in honesty, and perhaps the mountains. This is the latest edition of Boiling Point, a newsletter about climate change and the environment in the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. And listen to our 'Boiling Point' podcast here. For more climate and environment news, follow @Sammy_Roth on X and @ on Bluesky.
Newsweek
2 hours ago
- Newsweek
Florida Woman Uses Bear Mace on 3-Year-Old Over Blowing Bubbles: Police
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. An 81-year-old Florida woman has been arrested and accused of using bear mace against her 3- and 6-year-old neighbor's children after they were blowing bubbles in their own driveway. Ada Anderson was taken into custody following the incident on May 30, 2025, in Ocala in northern Florida, according to the Marion County Sheriff's Office's (MCSO) probable cause arrest affidavit. Anderson is also accused of spraying bear mace at the girls' mother, April Morant, who told authorities that Anderson, who is white, also yelled racial slurs at the children, who are Black, during the incident. The MCSO has been contacted via email for comment. Ada Anderson at Marion County Jail. Ada Anderson at Marion County Jail. Marion County Sheriff's Office Why It Matters According to physicians, the use of pepper spray on children—which is weaker than bear mace can lead to lasting physical, neurological, and psychological damage. The chemical irritants can impact a child's developing lungs causing asthma, and can lead to nerve damage if it enters the brain. Being pepper sprayed can also lead to lasting psychological trauma. What To Know According to Anderson's arrest report, the children were blowing bubbles in their driveway when the suspect walked over to the fence separating their two properties. She then pulled out the bear mace and sprayed the children and their mother, per police. Anderson used the n-word while spraying the family, Morant told police. Morant also told police this is not the first time they have been subjected to racial slurs from Anderson. She provided video evidence of this to the MCSO. Morant told the MCSO that she and her children were hit with the spray and that her lungs were in pain. The 6-year-old child told police her nose hurt from the spray, and the 3-year-old was not interviewed by police. Officer Wesley Kenny, who filed the affidavit, said he observed an orange/brown substance on the fence, and that deputies on the scene experienced irritation when smelling the substance. He identified the substance to be pepper spray based on his experience in the field. The terms pepper spray and bear mace are used interchangeably in the affidavit, despite them being two different substances. It is unclear at this time which was used. The affidavit also states that Anderson told police the girls were yelling at her from their fence, so she sprayed the substance at the girls. She said they were not hit by it. What People Are Saying April Morant told WSAZ: "Bubbles. Literally, the bubbles put [Anderson] in a whole other arena, whatever was going on with her mind. What went through my head is I thought she had a gun, so I literally kind of jumped, like it startled me…I didn't know what was in her hand…and then she sprayed it." What Happens Next Anderson is being charged with three counts of battery in the second degree. The second-degree aspect of the charge is because the alleged attack was racially motivated. She has posted bond for her charges after initially being held at the Marion County Jail. Morant is attempting to get a restraining order against her, according to WSAZ.
