Latest news with #JulieMitchell
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Daily Mail
Murder suspect shoots himself live on video call during police interview
A suspect in a 14-year-old cold case murder suddenly shot himself dead during a video interview with police. Michael Wayne Thomas, 54, has been a person of interest since Julie Mitchell was beaten to death in her home, aged 34, on November 2, 2010. Julie was found stuffed in the closet of the master bedroom in her house in Oklahoma City with $30,000 missing from the nearby safe. Her one-year-old daughter was sitting next to her body when police arrived. Thomas was an associate of Julie's husband Teddy Mitchell, who was on a plane to California at the time of the murder. He was interviewed by police and the FBI five or six times, denying any involvement in the murder despite his company checkbook being found in her house. Oklahoma City Police, for reasons they refused to explain, negotiated setting up another interview with Thomas on Saturday. After initially agreeing, he changed his mind and negotiated a virtual interview with his lawyer Ed Blau also on the video call. 'Beggars can't always be choosers, and this is somebody we wanted to talk to, we needed to talk to. There were questions we needed to have answered by him,' Master Sergeant Gary Knight said. 'He chose to pull out a pistol and shoot himself, ending his life.' From the moment the call started at 10am, Thomas wouldn't let the police get a word in, constantly rambling about nothing helpful. 'He didn't give me an opportunity to ask him any questions. He controlled the conversation from start to finish,' Detective Bryn Carter told KWTV-9. 'At about 40 minutes through the interview, he produced a firearm and took his own life. 'In 31 years on the police department doing hundreds of hundreds of interviews, I've never had anyone commit suicide in front of me.' The shocked detectives and lawyer watched Thomas shoot himself, then collapse and his phone clatter to the ground. 'The phone landed right by his head so we got to hear him die, hear the death rattle. It was as shocking and horrific as you can imagine,' Blau told The Oklahoman. Blau said Thomas told them 'I'm just worried about my daughter's safety' just before he shot himself, and 'I really hope you solve the case'. Police refused to release any part of the interview, or any officer's reports pertaining to it or why Thomas was being interviewed yet again. Thomas' body was found in woods outside the Kansas Star Casino in Mulvane, near Witchita, Kansas, where Blau didn't know he was until after his death. Thomas, then an insurance salesman, was intimately involved in Mitchell's life due to their mutual interest in gambling. Julie's murder exposed the illegal underground high-stakes poker games Mitchell was running out of their home, along with unlawful sport betting. Thomas told the FBI in 2011 he played in Mitchell's games and placed bets with him, racking up debts so big he let Mitchell become a partner in his insurance business as a means of settling them. He also provided the insurance to Mitchell's properties and vehicles. 'Him taking his own life without answering the questions that I needed answered to eliminate him as a person interest,' Carter said. 'It speaks volumes that maybe he couldn't answer those questions.' Thomas is still considered a suspect in the case after his death. Mitchell was never publicly accused of involvement in his wife's murder, but he was jailed for 27 months in 2014 for federal conspiracy to commit money laundering, and forced to turn over $1 million in property to the government.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Person of Interest in Unsolved Murder Case Dies by Suicide While on Zoom Call with Authorities: Reports
A person of interest in an unsolved 2010 Oklahoma murder case shot himself in the head as he was questioned about the killing during a video call with authorities, according to reports Michael Wayne Thomas, 54, had insisted he had no involvement in the November 2010 death of Julie Mitchell, 34, per The Oklahoman "It was as shocking and horrific as you can imagine," Thomas' attorney, Ed Blau, told the outlet of his client's death on Saturday, May 31A person of interest in a 2010 Oklahoma murder case shot himself dead while being questioned about the killing on a Zoom call with authorities, according to reports. On Saturday, May 31, Michael Wayne Thomas, 54, died by suicide in a wooded area outside a casino in Kansas, per The Oklahoman, citing his attorney, Ed Blau. The Oklahoma City Police Department (OCPD) had been asking the man about Julie Mitchell, who was found beaten to death in her home in November 2010, as her 13-month-old baby laid untouched by her side, local ABC-affiliated station KOCO reported. The case remains unsolved. Blau had been representing Thomas since 2012, with the attorney telling KOCO 5 News that his client had previously been interviewed five or six times by police. Thomas had reportedly refused to be interviewed in person this time, instead opting for a video call. Blau said that his client — who had denied any involvement in 34-year-old Mitchell's murder — had been talking for around 45 minutes before his death, per The Oklahoman. "The phone landed right by his head so we got to hear him die, hear the death rattle," the attorney told the outlet on Tuesday, June 3. "It was as shocking and horrific as you can imagine." The OCPD's Master Sergeant, Gary Knight, said of Thomas, "He had agreed to be interviewed by detectives, but only on the stipulation that he wasn't going to be at the same location. He wanted to be in a manner like a Zoom call," per KOCO. "Beggars can't always be choosers, and this is somebody we wanted to talk to, we needed to talk to. There were questions we needed to have answered by him," Knight continued, telling the outlet that the questions remained unanswered around 40 minutes into the call. "He chose to pull out a pistol and shoot himself, ending his life," Knight said, per the station, adding, "I don't remember in my time here, 35 years here, someone killing themselves during an interview." According to The Oklahoman, Julie Mitchell was the wife of Teddy Mitchell, who had been accused in Oklahoma City federal court of reportedly hosting "illegal high-stakes poker games at his home and taking illegal bets on sporting events." Per an FBI Oklahoma City Division release, in January 2014, Teddy Mitchell was sentenced to serve 27 months in federal prison for running an illegal gambling operation. Mitchell had been traveling to California at the time of his wife's death, The Oklahoman noted. Julie Mitchell's body had been found in the master bedroom closet of their home and $30,000 was reportedly missing from a closet safe, The Oklahoman reported. Thomas' company checkbook had previously been found at the Mitchells' property after the murder, but he's always denied any involvement in the killing, the outlet stated. He told The Oklahoman in 2012, "I — 100% — did not. That's for sure.' Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. Thomas, who previously sold insurance in an office in Edmond, reportedly told the FBI that he'd played poker at Teddy Mitchell's house, as well as placing bets with him, per the outlet, which cited a 2011 report. He also told authorities he'd let Teddy Mitchell become a partner in his business to help pay off his gambling debt, after providing him with vehicles and real estate insurance. "I really hope you solve the case," Thomas told OCPD's Knight, The Oklahoman reported. The officer added that Thomas was still considered a person of interest amid the unsolved investigation. The OCPD and Blau's law firm didn't immediately respond when contacted by PEOPLE for additional information. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 or go to Read the original article on People
Business Insider
02-06-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
I visited Amazon's robot factories and got an inside look at how it builds and trains them
I started the day at the North Reading office. A lineup of Amazon's robots past and present greets visitors at the entrance. The green one at the front is Amazon's latest mobile drive unit, Proteus, which can sense objects and humans in its path and move around them. The robots get older the further along the line you go. The facility is huge, stretching 209,000 square feet. From my view on the mezzanine, I could see mobile drive units that had just been built on the assembly line. The blue robots, called Hercules, move pods of items around a fenced area of a fulfillment center. Each Hercules robot can lift a pod that weighs up to 1,250 pounds. The green robots, called Proteus, do similar tasks but move autonomously. The North Reading facility was previously home to Kiva Robotics before Amazon acquired the company in 2012. Julie Mitchell, director of robotic sortation technology at Amazon Robotics, told me how the company approaches robot design. She said that Amazon works with teams in its fulfillment centers to understand which areas could be made more efficient with automation. Robots go through early alpha testing and then beta testing before they are ready for mass production. "We work backwards from our customer needs and think about which systems will help enable better delivery and faster speeds to our customers," she said. "We look to try to develop systems that will add value within one to two years in our fulfillment network." Looking to the left, I could also see other robots being tested. On the middle floor are Pegasus robots, which transport packages around sortation centers. The yellow robotic arm below is Robin, which uses suction to pick up packages. I got a closer look at the Pegasus robots as we made our way down to the manufacturing floor. They zoomed around the floor, testing out new software updates. The Pegasus robot is an evolution of the Hercules robot, using the same base but with a conveyor belt on top. The orange robots are older, from before Amazon rebranded its Prime services to blue. I also got my first up-close look at Proteus. The eyes indicate he's spotted me. Proteus is designed to work alongside employees on a shipping dock. Those workers don't get specific training to work with robots. "It was really important to us to make Proteus intuitive to understand so the human-robot interaction is seamless," Mitchell said. "We used the eyes as a way to communicate." When we got down to the manufacturing floor, I saw this poster that had been signed by Jeff Bezos. Amazon has now built more than 750,000 mobile robots, in addition to its robotic arms and sortation systems. Erica McClosky, director of manufacturing and technical operations at Amazon Robotics, leads teams that build and test robots before they are sent to fulfillment centers. About 300 people work on the physical side of building and maintaining Amazon's robotic fleet. The majority of those employees are on the assembly line, while others receive and ship materials and test and repair robots. "We're in a very controlled, stable environment here, so we're able to, for all of our new products, continuously look at how we optimize the entire flow," McClosky said. Here, workers put together subassemblies that will be incorporated into Proteus' design. Amazon's manufacturing stations have built-in automation, too, including torque tools. "If you're supposed to install, let's say, four fasteners, it'll make sure that you only store four fasteners and that it has the right rotation," McClosky said. Employees receive parts to be installed on the robots. The parts are scanned so that they can be traced as they travel through Amazon's ecosystem. "If there were ever to be a problem, we could trace back and understand what's happening," McClosky said. Amazon sources its robotic parts globally as well as from some local suppliers. I saw one assembly line building Hercules robots and another building Proteus. Lights above each station signal green when everything is in place and red when something is wrong. The North Reading facility has four assembly lines with 10 stations each. Employees at each station complete their assembly tasks in about seven and a half minutes, using a lift assist for heavy items. The last step of the assembly process for Hercules is putting the blue cover on top. Amazon asked that I not take close-up photos of the robots without their covers on due to the sensitivity of the technology. The assembly process for Hercules takes about an hour from start to finish. When the robots are complete, they're picked up from the assembly line by this lift and placed onto the floor. Lift assists are in place in various parts of the manufacturing process so that workers don't strain to pick up heavy objects. After the robots come off the line, they take a few minutes to get their batteries charged. They then line up to be tested in these blue-fenced structures. McClosky said Amazon's testing technology is one of the biggest and most helpful innovations it's rolled out in recent years. She said that Amazon used to test its robots by filling big pods with bricks and having them drive around the factory floor for hours. "What used to take us hours for testing here on the production floor is now done in minutes," McClosky said. "It's looking at environments that it would see in the fulfillment center, so under different loads, making sure that it is fully, fully functional." Proteus has its own diagnostic center where it calibrates its cameras and sensors to maintain "clear vision," Mitchell said. Proteus uses AI to "see" the space it's navigating and decide whether it can safely navigate around an object or needs to stop moving forward. Hercules is the robot Amazon has made the most units of over the years. "It's kind of our workhorse in the fulfillment centers," McClosky said. After the robots have been charged and tested, they line up for "robot graduation." The robots actually drive themselves to the loading dock and put themselves on an individual pallet. Since Hercules can't detect humans the same way that Proteus can, this is a restricted area. They're now ready to be shipped out to fulfillment centers and be put to work. Next up, I watched a robotic arm called Robin pick up packages from a conveyor belt. Robin works in conjunction with Pegasus, the mobile robot with a conveyor belt we saw earlier. The packages I saw Robin pick up were all Amazon-branded, but the robot also frequently encounters packaging from third-party brands using Amazon's fulfillment centers. "We're constantly using AI to train Robin to see different package types, different surfaces, different types of materials that it has to grasp," Mitchell said. "We can change the way we grasp it by changing which actuator we send down to pick up the package. That helps cover the gamut of different shapes." I also saw Proteus in action, practicing transporting carts around the floor. This robotic arm, Cardinal, scans packages' labels, determines which cart to place them into, and tightly packs them in like Tetris. Cardinal works in conjunction with Proteus. "When Cardinal finishes the stacking and creates a complete container, it will signal to Proteus to come and take that container and replenish that container," Mitchell said. "The two robotic systems working together has created an end-to-end automated path from sorting to loading that container onto our trailers and our ship dock." It's a powerful machine. After the tour wrapped up, we traveled to the other Amazon Robotics facility in the Boston area. Both this facility and the one in North Reading also have corporate offices and research and development labs located directly off the manufacturing floor. Amazon views this as a competitive advantage in that it allows for a more direct feedback loop. McClosky said that engineers and manufacturing staff work "shoulder to shoulder." This facility is even bigger than the one in North Reading. Looking out from the mezzanine, it felt like the factory floor stretched on forever. Madeline Stone It covers about 350,000 square feet of space. Tye Brady, the chief technologist for Amazon Robotics, spoke about the work Amazon is doing in physical AI. Madeline Stone He compared the way Amazon is thinking about robotics and physical AI to the way people thought about the computer in the 1950s. "I think if you were to roll ahead in time, you're going to see more and more physical AI agents used as tools to help people be more human, to help people be more capable of who they are, to allow people to connect to one another more readily," he said. I got a good look at Amazon's storage and sortation robot, Sequoia, from above. Madeline Stone Sequoia is a containerized storage system that brings pods over to a station where employees pick items out of totes so that they can be shipped to customers. On the left is a traditional fabric pod that can be moved by Amazon's mobile robots and brought to employees for picking. Madeline Stone Brady said the items stored in each pod are somewhat random and chosen more so to fill the space. This is how Amazon has traditionally stored items, and it's actually what the original Kiva system did even before it was part of Amazon. Amazon's newest robot, Vulcan, can pick from these pods using a sense of touch. However, Sequoia uses plastic containers to store items instead of the yellow fabric pods. Brady pointed to a screen that displays what the robot is doing at each moment. Madeline Stone The totes have all kinds of goods, from water bottles to toys to Amazon Basics cables. "This is where automation really helps us because we can take just about any object that fits inside one of these totes and place it in there," Brady said. A unique code on each tote helps keep track of what's inside. The robotic system brings the totes to an employee work station. The conveyor belt is positioned at the optimal height for picking in order to reduce injuries. Madeline Stone Brady explained how Sequoia helps workers in fulfillment centers to pick customers' orders. "When a customer goes on and they make an order, we look at the entirety of the Amazon network, we figure out which building has the goods closest to the customer, how we can make a meaningful delivery route for that customer, and then at the right time, we'll call the right pod to a station where we can now have the goods that the customer has ordered inside this tote," he said. Sequoia can also be used to process and stow items that are just arriving at a fulfillment center. Madeline Stone "I just pick the item out and then place it into another container to be packed and processed downstream," he said. Our last stop on the tour was to see the Sparrow robotic arm. Madeline Stone Unlike the other robotic arms I saw earlier, Sparrow handles individual items rather than packages. Sparrow is responsible for consolidating items into totes. Hercules robots bring pods to the Sparrow station. Madeline Stone "The robotic system extracts the tote, presents it to the Sparrow arm," Brady said. "That arm has its own end effector on it, and what it's going to do is pick up objects and try to create a more full tote." Sparrow can pick up more than 200 million different items. Madeline Stone It uses an AI system that looks down from above to differentiate between objects, look for damage, and determine the best path to place it into a bin. "That's really the holy grail when it comes to manipulation: being able to successfully identify and manipulate a huge variety of goods," Brady said.
Otago Daily Times
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Country music festival offers a week of activities
On the lineup for the Tussock Country Music Festival includes the NZ Highwaymen. PHOTO: SUPPLIED Singing in the street and designing and eating "Southland sushi" — the Tussock Country Music Festival has it all. The festival will start tonight with late-night shopping in Gore, a children's disco and then a glitzy country music honours night at the St James Theatre. From then, it will be all systems go through to the Gold Guitar Awards next weekend, with record entries in what is its 50th year. The awards celebrate all that is good with country music — a genre which has been enjoying a renaissance. Gore Country Music Club president Julie Mitchell previously told the Otago Daily Times the awards had come a long way from the 33 entries when they first started. This year, there were 829 entries, up 100 on last year. She also acknowledged the boom in the genre worldwide as a catalyst for a rapidly increasing appetite for the festival. NZ Gold Guitar Awards committee convener Phillip Geary said gradually over the past 10 years, and particularly in the last three or four, country music had skyrocketed — to the competition's benefit. In particular, he had noticed a "big increase" in the intermediate section, which covers the 13-18 age range. The awards had changed their image over the years, he said. "Originally it was 'country and western', and we deliberately keep the word 'western' out of it now," he said. "Western just goes back to the cowboy image, I think." The top award at tonight's country music honours will be the Apra Best Country Music Song award. The finalists are: 5432 written and performed by Mel Parsons; Blue Dreams written and performed by Holly Arrowsmith; and Borrow My Boots written and performed by Tami Neilson, Ashley McBryde and Shelly Fairchild, featuring Grace Bowers. Parsons won the MLT Songwriting Award last year with Hardest Thing. Neilson will perform tonight. The big show tonight will start 10 days of entertainment. There will be a bit of everything on offer, including a cheese roll workshop, line dancing for beginners and busking for all ages.
