Latest news with #FordFestiva
1News
18-05-2025
- 1News
Masterton church fires: Man charged with seven counts of arson
Police have arrested and charged a man after fires were set at six churches and a business in Masterton earlier this year. Emergency services responded to a series of suspicious fires on February 22 believed to have been started between 4.25am and 4.35am. The Anglican Church of the Epiphany, St Patrick's Catholic Church, Masterton Baptist Church, and Equippers Church Masterton all suffered damage ranging from "moderate to significant". Crews responded from across the Wairarapa region and from as far away as Avalon Station in Lower Hutt. Police said officers had carried out checks at other churches in the town on Saturday morning — and located evidence to suggest three further churches were targeted but did not catch alight. "It does look as if they've used petrol bombs [for at least some of the churches]," a police spokesperson said. "The great thing about this is no one's been injured." Police earlier said they were following "strong lines of inquiry" and sought information about a green Ford Festiva seen leaving one of the fires. "Police are working to establish the movements of the vehicle in the early hours of Saturday morning when the arsons were reported, and the day or days beforehand," a spokesperson said. The vehicle was located abandoned on Sunday on Mikimiki Rd, north of Masterton, leading armed police to cordon off the road as they worked to locate the occupant. "A significant search was deployed into the area, however no occupants of the vehicle were located," the spokesperson added. Today, however, Police executed a search warrant in Masterton and arrested a 44-year-old man without incident. The blazes were believed to have started between 4.25am and 4.35am. (Source: 1News) Wairarapa Area Commander Inspector Nick Thom thanked the community for its support during the investigation. "The fires were unsettling and upsetting for many people, and I hope today's arrest brings some comfort. "Information from the public has played a pivotal role in this investigation and I want to thank everyone who has helped us, including the dedicated investigators who have spent months following leads and making inquiries." The man was expected to appear in Masterton District Court tomorrow on seven charges of arson.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Yahoo
Hillsborough killer Glen Rogers to be executed Thursday evening
Glen Rogers, who almost 30 years ago stabbed a woman to death in a Tampa motel room, is set to be executed Thursday evening at Florida State Prison. Barring a last-minute stay, he will be put to death by lethal injection at 6 p.m. for the 1995 murder of Tina Marie Cribbs. Rogers, 62, a former carnival worker dubbed by media as the 'Casanova Killer' and the 'Cross-Country Killer,' is believed to have committed other murders. Cribbs' slaying occurred the same day he arrived in Tampa in November 1995. He rented a room at the Tampa 8 Inn off Columbus Drive, near Interstate 4, telling a motel clerk he was a truck driver whose vehicle had broken down. He later went to the Showtown USA bar and restaurant on U.S. 41 in Gibsonton. Patrons there remembered the long-haired, bearded stranger dancing to songs from a juke box and buying a round of drinks for a group of women. Cribbs, 34, was with them. A native New Yorker, she'd moved to Gibsonton from Oklahoma a couple of years earlier. She lived three houses away from her mother, who gave her a pager so they could always stay in touch. She had two sons. She worked as a waitress at Steak 'n Shake and as a housekeeper at the Ramada Inn-Apollo Beach. As she chatted with Rogers, Cribbs agreed to give him a ride to a nearby carnival lot. She left a cold can of beer on the bar and said she'd return. She never did. Her mother paged her more than 30 times that night, but got no response. Two days later, a maid at the Tampa 8 Inn found Cribbs dead in the bathtub of Room 119. She'd been stabbed twice with a long knife. The room had been rented to Rogers. He'd paid for an extra day, telling a clerk not to clean it and placing a handwritten 'do not disturb' sign on the door. Police in California, Louisiana and Mississippi investigated Rogers for similar slayings of women he met in those states during a six-week period that year. He was also suspected, but never charged, in the death of a man in Kentucky. In a jailhouse phone call with a Kentucky newspaper, Rogers asserted he had not killed anyone. Physical and circumstantial evidence in the Cribbs case said otherwise. Investigators found her wallet discarded at a North Florida highway rest stop. His fingerprints were on it. When Kentucky state troopers found Rogers days after the crime, he led them on a high-speed chase in Cribbs' stolen Ford Festiva. Blood marked a pair of his shorts, which investigators determined contained DNA that matched Cribbs. At trial, a jury heard about the criminal history of a man who was described as charming and sociable but prone to bursts of anger, especially when he drank. His defense presented evidence of an abusive childhood and an alcoholic father. But it couldn't overcome the brutality of the murder. A medical examiner testified that the stab wounds Cribbs suffered formed an L-shape, indicating that the killer twisted the knife after plunging it into her. A jury convicted him and unanimously recommended the death penalty. Rogers was also later sentenced to death in California for the murder of Sandra Gallagher, who was strangled and left in her burning pickup truck a few weeks before Cribbs' murder. His appeals, as is typical, wound through courts for years. Cribbs' mother, Mary Dicke, told the Tampa Tribune in 2011 she feared she wouldn't live long enough to see her daughter's killer executed. 'My life stopped in 1995,' she said. 'My daughter was everything to me.' The Tampa Bay Times was unable to reach Cribbs' family this week for comment. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Rogers' death warrant last month, the fifth execution he has ordered this year after a period in which the state conducted relatively few. Florida only had one execution in 2024. Before that, in 2023, DeSantis carried out six executions, which occurred as he was running for president. The reason for the current uptick in executions is unclear. The governor's office did not respond to an email for comment. Rogers' final appeals included requests for a court to hear new evidence about extensive abuse he suffered as a child. From the age of 10 through his teen years, he was repeatedly raped by women and men, traded for drug money and exploited by the staff at an Ohio juvenile correctional facility, according to court records. Lawyers argued that a new jury might favor a life sentence if they heard those details, but courts declined to give him a new penalty hearing. Ahead of the execution, Rogers' brother drove from Kentucky to see him for the last time. On Wednesday, Claude Rogers told the Tampa Bay Times the visit was less personal — occurring with a glass barrier between them — than their past meetings in the prison visitor room. He decided to head home, unsettled by the isolated atmosphere. 'I said my goodbyes to him,' Claude Rogers said. 'He's my brother and I love him. I asked God to guide him on this next journey.'
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Yahoo
Florida governor signs death warrant for man who killed woman in 1995
April 16 (UPI) -- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed the death warrant for a man convicted of killing a 34-year-old mother of two in 1995 in a southern Hillsborough County motel room. The Republican governor signed the death warrant for 62-year-old Glen Rogers on Tuesday, setting his execution for 6 p.m. EDT on May 15. It is the fifth death warrant DeSantis has signed so far this year. Rogers, a so-called drifter suspected of being responsible for several killings around the country, was convicted of first-degree murder in May 1997 for the stabbing death of Tina Marie Cribbs. He was sentenced to death in the case that July. According to court records, Cribbs was with friends at a bar in Gibsonton, located about 15 miles south of Tampa, on Nov. 5, 1995, when she met Rogers, who was staying at a nearby motel. Witnesses reported them leaving the bar together. Her body was found two days later in the motel's bathtub. Cribbs had been stabbed to death. Police were then on the lookout for Cribbs' white Ford Festiva, which Rogers was believed to have stolen. On Nov. 13, the vehicle was spotted by police in Kentucky. When they attempted to pull it over, Rogers led them on a high-speed chase that gained national attention when his arrest was captured by a television crew. Rogers received a second death sentence in 1999, this time in California. He was convicted of strangling Sandra Gallagher to death a month before killing Cribbs. He similarly met Gallagher at a bar -- this one in Los Angeles -- and they left together after she offered him a ride. Her body was later found in a burning truck behind the bar where Gallagher and Rogers had met. Rogers has been accused of killing several others. During the criminal trial of O.J. Simpson, Rogers was presented by the attorneys for the disgraced football star as a potential suspect in the killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman, in June 1994. The 2012 TV documentary My Brother the Serial Killer about Rogers alleges that he admitted to killing Brown and Goldman and was paid $20,000 for the crime by Simpson. Florida has already killed three death row inmates this year with a fourth -- Jeffrey Hutchinson -- scheduled for May 1. There have been a total of 12 executions so far this year across the United States, with 32 scheduled in 2025 across nine states, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
US Police Officer Creates Bizarre Upside-Down Camaro Racer for 24 Hours of LeMons
⚡️ Read the full article on Motorious A U.S. police officer has taken car modification to new heights—or perhaps depths—by building a racing car unlike any other: an upside-down Camaro designed specifically for the irreverent "24 Hours of LeMons" race. Dubbed a Frankenstein creation by automotive enthusiasts, the unconventional vehicle merges two very different cars: a 1999 Chevrolet Camaro body and a humble 1990 Ford Festiva chassis. However, what makes it truly unusual is the Camaro body has been inverted, making the vehicle appear to defy gravity as it hurtles around the track. In this extraordinary creation, the Camaro's roof has become the car's base, while the Festiva's original chassis has become the cockpit—turning automotive design quite literally on its head. From a distance, the vehicle looks like a genuine Camaro flipped upside-down, creating a surreal illusion that has captured attention from race fans and casual onlookers alike. The officer behind the project is no stranger to crafting outlandish vehicles for the 24 Hours of LeMons—a comedic twist on the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race, where creativity often overshadows performance. Previous builds by the policeman-turned-creator include a road-worthy car constructed from a discarded 1956 Cessna airplane. This upside-down Camaro racer has already proven itself more than a novelty. It successfully completed its test runs and showed impressive stability despite its visually disorienting design. Building the car was no simple task; with a $1,775 entry fee for each team, plus vehicle expenses, the project required significant dedication and resources. Though unlikely to challenge the status quo of professional motorsports anytime soon, the upside-down Camaro highlights the playful ingenuity and engineering humor embraced by the LeMons racing community. As this officer continues pushing automotive boundaries, fans eagerly await his next gravity-defying creation.
