PEORIA — Police on Thursday released a composite sketch of a man they a looking for in connection with the fatal shooting of an East Bluff store owner.
Abdallah H. Kattoum, 31, was shot shortly before 8:30 p.m. Tuesday while working at the store he recently bought, Peoria Food Stop, 728 E. Frye Ave. He was pronounced dead at the store about 9:30 p.m.
Two men were seen running from the store on foot toward the 700 block of East Republic Street. The first is described as a 6-foot-tall black male in his late teens to early 20s with a light complexion. The second is described as a black man in his late teens to early 20s with a very dark complexion.
According to a cousin, Kattoum bought Peoria Food Stop and began operating it in January while his wife, Inar, and their three daughters remained in Rock Island. In the Quad Cities, Kattoum had operated a gas station since 2004 - two years after he arrived in the United States.
The family had planned to move to Peoria, said cousin Mohamed Quttoum recently. Now, they are finalizing arrangements to have Kattoum's body shipped back to Jordan.
The large Palestinian family, which uses spellings of Kattoum, Kattom and Quttoum, owns and operates a large number of gas stations and convenience stores in the Peoria area and throughout the state. The relatives hail from the West Bank and Jordan in the Middle East.
The homicide was the third of the year in the city.
Peoria police are urging anyone with knowledge of the crime to call 673-4521 or CrimeStoppers at 673-9000.---
http://www.pjstar.com/
JOLIET — A guard at the Will County jail allegedly paid an inmate to arrange the murder of the man dating his ex-girlfriend.
Keith A. Smith, 29, of the 900 block of Prescott Drive was arrested by FBI agents Wednesday afternoon in Hammond, Ind., and booked into the facility he has worked at for nearly three years on a charge of solicitation of murder for hire. If convicted, he faces 20 to 40 years in prison.
It was March 25 when Smith "approached an inmate and indicated he would give him $300 for the names of two individuals who would murder the boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend for $1,500," Assistant Will County State's Attorney Robert Lorz said at Smith's bond hearing.
Keith A. Smith, 29, of Joliet, a guard at the Will County jail for three years, has been charged with soliciting an imate to arrange for the murder of an ex-girlfriend's boyfriend.
On Friday, Smith reportedly deposited cash into the inmate's commissary account at the jail and was given a name and phone number the next day.
Smith did not know he would actually be speaking to an undercover FBI agent, who had been brought into the case at the request of State's Attorney James Glasgow and Sheriff Paul Kaupas.
Glasgow said once the case was brought to his attention, investigators reviewed Smith's activities and interactions with this inmate at the adult detention facility.
"The sheriff has a system of checks and balances in place at the jail. Some of (a correctional officer's) procedures are documented on video and supervisors track irregularities, (such as) if a correctional officer was in a pod they aren't assigned to," he said.
The undercover FBI agent was used so there was no chance he'd be recognized as a law enforcement officer by the jail guard.
Smith reportedly spoke to the undercover agent "several" times and those conversations were recorded under an eavesdropping order, Lorz said in court.
On Wednesday, Smith drove to Indiana and gave the agent "$800, (the intended victim's) name, a photo of him, a Google map to his house and a schedule of when he and the ex-girlfriend were expected to be coming and going before he was arrested," Lorz said.READ MORE AT:
http://www.surburbanchicagonews.com/
Eight years have passed since authorities first charged Newberg with sexually assaulting two Las Vegas prostitutes. One of them, Genia Polischuk, died in 2003. The second testified against Newberg on Wednesday at the start of his District Court trial.
The 45-year-old man faces multiple felony counts, including sexual assault, kidnapping and robbery.
Prosecutors showed jurors a video of the woman who testified engaging in sex acts with Newberg.
During her tearful testimony, she said she was a crack-addicted prostitute and former Glitter Gulch dancer when she met Newberg outside the El Cid hotel in November 2001.
The former prostitute testified that she thought Newberg was interested only in photographing her, but when they arrived at a construction site, he pulled a knife and tied her hands behind her back with black plastic zip ties.
Newberg then proceeded to videotape them engaging in different sexual acts, the woman said.
As the video was played for the jury, the woman hung her head, letting her shoulder-length brown hair cover her eyes.
She said she did not wish to perform the acts that were seen in the video, but she did not fight Newberg because she feared for her life. "I had to be nice to him. It was the only way of getting out of there without getting hurt," she said.
The woman was whimpering in the video.
She said she did not report the rape to police because she was just "a crack-smoking hooker."
She was first contacted about the encounter by Newberg's ex-girlfriend, who found the woman's number in his wallet. During her testimony, the woman denied giving Newberg her phone number.READ FULL STORY AT:
http://www.lvrj.com/
With my abusive husband safely locked up in jail I was now free to go and visit my best friend.We were able to get caught up on everything that had happened in between the last time we really talked.She was now dating a guy she had known since childhood.She had two sons and a daughter now and she had named her daughter in honor of her murdered boyfriend.She said before his tragic death,he had predicted that she was pregnant and would give birth to a girl.By this time the downstairs neighbor and I had started talking and were getting to know each other.He told me that he could hear my abusive husband and I arguing and fighting upstairs.I was very embarrassed and humiliated by the things he admitted to me that he heard.But he told me that my abusive husband was a fool and asked my how did someone like me get with such a loser.I didn't know the answer to that question myself.All I knew was I had wanted so desperately to get out of my parent's house that I made some very poor judgements.If only I could have known what I knew then,I would have happily remained in my parent's home.He opened up to me and told me how he lost his eyesight in his left eye.He said he was visiting his birth mother of whom did not raise him as a kid.He had given her some money but she wanted all of his money and he refused to give it to her so she revealed this to his step dad,his step dad hit him in the left eye with the barrel of a shotgun,leaving him blind in that eye.I thought was really an extreme case of greed.He hated his mother with a passion and of course I overlooked this very important clue.I still had not learned how very important it is to pay attention to how a guy feels about his mother.THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT CLUE IN ABUSIVE MEN!!!.Anyway my best friend and I were happy for each other.Neither of us had a clue as to what we were in for.My abusive 1st husband was about to be released from jail after being locked up for two weeks and what happened to me after his release was about to happen to my best friend also........
A Brownsburg man accused of stabbing his 73-year-old mother with a pocketknife was held Tuesday on a preliminary charge of attempted murder.
Bart Bellows, 49, also faces preliminary charges of aggravated battery, battery with a deadly weapon, criminal confinement and interference. He was held at the Hendricks County Jail on $100,000 bond.
Bellows is suspected of stabbing Marjorie Bellows Sunday night at her home in the 500 block of Douglas Drive. Her injuries were discovered about 3:45 p.m. Monday after another son had gone to check on her.
Marjorie Bellows was taken to Indiana University Hospital in Indianapolis with multiple stab wounds to her head and arms.
Bart Bellows told officers he had acted in self-defense, believing his mother was going to shoot him with a shotgun. Police did not find another weapon in the residence other than the bloody pocketknife in Bart's front pocket, the report said.---
http://www.indystar.com/
Cambridge —
On March 27 at 7:05 p.m., a Cambridge cab driver reported being assaulted by a man in his cab.
Police responded to Columbia Terrace and spoke with the victim, a Cambridge cabbie, who said he picked up the suspect in Harvard Square and was told to drive to Columbia Street. When they arrived, the suspect gave the money for the fare, and then became enraged and wanted the money back. When the driver refused to return the money, the man allegedly punched him in the face several times from the back of the cab, yelling “I’m going to kill you, you motherf--r.”
A woman approached the cab and the man fled with her into Columbia Terrace. The victim had a bleeding nose and a swollen lip, but refused medical attention. Police found blood on both outside doors of the cab, the ground and clothing, according to the report.---
http://www.cambridgechronicle.com/
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