WJPA News

A Pennsylvania man who authorities say killed his girlfriend in a Nevada desert has been convicted.  A jury in U.S. District Court in Nevada on Wednesday found John Matthew Chapman, 44, guilty of one count of kidnapping resulting in death, for the death of 33-year-old Jaime Feden of Bethel Park. He faces life in prison at a sentencing hearing scheduled for August 2nd.  They say that after killing Feden in September 2019, Chapman pretended to be her on her Facebook messenger account and lived at her residence.  The woman’s neighbors in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, became suspicious when they hadn’t seen her or her vehicle for months but saw Chapman around the house, prosecutors said. Police conducted a welfare check and found identification cards with Chapman’s name and photo, the victim’s cellphone, zip ties and a roll of duct tape, they said.  (Photo:  WPXI)

Washington County Commissioners met Thursday and what began as a very run of the mill meeting, took a sudden turn during public comment. Washington County Controller April Sloane took the microphone and announced results of her audit of county spending for the first quarter of this year. Sloane indicated troubling results from last year and the beginning of this year. According to Sloane, the county jail was just over $1 million over budget in 2023. The county is already exceeding its 2024 budget by approximately $1 million. Sloane alleges that the ransom paid to rectify a cyber attack earlier this year was illegally funded by funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). She further questioned some payroll usage of ARPA funds. She also stated that nearly $46,000 in hotel taxes were not collected in 2022. Most recently Sloane stated that a salary request from Chief of Staff Daryl Price was sent back for review before being presented to the salary board. That review of numbers saved taxpayers $12,000 in annual salary for one position. Commissioner Chairman Nick Sherman says that Sloane’s statement is inaccurate. Spending is up because of the use of the $98 million the county received through ARPA and that all expenditures are legal under the act. He further stated that if anyone has a dispute with the spending of those funds, they can file a complaint with the District Attorney. Sherman says that he and his colleagues will do everything in their power to keep that ARPA money in Washington County.

A Natrona Heights woman and former nurse pleaded guilty Thursday to harming and killing patients she was supposed to care for. It comes nearly a year after Heather Pressdee, 41, was first arrested and charged with harming and killing patients. As the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General continued to investigate, it found more victims going back to late 2020. Pressdee, who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, received life in prison with no possibility for parole. Investigators said Pressdee admitted to unnecessarily injecting her patients with insulin, killing them or attempting to kill them and even injecting some patients on more than one occasion if they did not die. The incidents happened at nursing home facilities in Allegheny, Armstrong, Butler and Westmoreland counties. Her alleged victims range in age from 43 to 104 years old.

Police have filed charges against a Chartiers Township woman who was involved in a deadly “chain reaction” crash on Interstate 79 South in Washington County last August.  The crash left a man dead, shut down the interstate and sent multiple victims to the hospital.  Authorities say 35-year-old Rachel Ann Phillips faces a felony charge of homicide by vehicle and misdemeanor charges of recklessly endangering another person along with driving under the influence.  The accident happened around ten in the morning near the Canonsburg interchange.  Authorities say witnesses saw Phillips vehicle swerve from the right lane of northbound 79 and cross over the median into opposing traffic.  Killed in the crash was 58-year-old Gary Reinhardt of Lancaster, New York.  Two other vehicles were also involved.  Phillips was flown to Allegheny General Hospital where a blood test came back positive for cocaine and marijuana.

A big weekend is on tap in the city of Washington (rain or shine).  On Saturday, the Main Street Pavilion will feature agricultural exhibits, educational displays, a children’s area, and craft vendors. The day will also showcase local downtown businesses with a breakfast crawl and a kitchen clash, and will culminate with the Running of the Wools. where champion sheep will take on Main Street.  Running of the Wools is a relatively new event in downtown Washington that highlights the close relationship the city and region has had with the farming and sheep industry and is a way want to show appreciation for the county’s farmers and all they do for us!  The weekend kicks of with First Friday on May 3rd at the Main Street Pavilion and continues through Sunday when the weekend events wrap-up with a community blessing service at the pavilion.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Police have arrested more than 2,000 people during pro-Palestinian protests at college campuses across the United States in recent weeks. That’s according to a tally by The Associated Press. Demonstrations — and arrests — have occurred in almost every corner of the nation. But in the last 24 hours, they’ve drawn the most attention at the University of California, Los Angeles, where chaotic scenes played out early Thursday as officers in riot gear surged against a crowd of demonstrators. The California Highway Patrol has said at least 200 people were arrested in the crackdown at UCLA.

JERUSALEM (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has met with Israeli leaders in his push for a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas to impress on them that “the time is now” for an agreement that would free hostages and bring a pause in the nearly seven months of war. The current round of talks appears to be serious, with Hamas considering a new proposal. But the sides remain far apart on the key issue of whether the war should end as part of an emerging deal. In talks with Blinken, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his determination to carry out an offensive on the southern Gaza town of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians are sheltering.

PHOENIX (AP) — Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs is following through on promises to undo a long-dormant law that bans all abortions except those done to save a patient’s life. A signing ceremony was scheduled for Thursday on a bill to repeal the state’s near-total abortion ban. There may be a monthslong period during which nearly all abortions would still be outlawed. The repeal may not take effect until 90 days after the end of the legislative session, in June or July. The effort to repeal the ban won final approval on Wednesday at the Arizona Legislature.

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump faces the prospect of additional sanctions in his hush money trial as he returns to court for another contempt hearing followed by testimony from a lawyer who represented two women who have said they had sexual encounters with the former president. Prosecutors are seeking $1,000 fines for each of four comments by Trump that they say violated a judge’s gag order barring him from attacking witnesses, jurors and others closely connected to the case. Such a penalty would be on top of a $9,000 fine that Judge Juan M. Merchan imposed on Tuesday related to nine separate gag order violations that he found.

NEW DELHI (AP) — Misinformation about India’s election is surging online as the world’s most populous country votes. Researchers who track disinformation in India say the country is particularly vulnerable to misinformation and hate speech because of its linguistic and cultural diversity as well as weak enforcement of anti-misinformation policies by social media companies. The country has a huge online ecosystem, with the largest number of WhatsApp and YouTube users in the world. Nearly 1 billion people are eligible to vote in the multiphase election that ends next month.

NEW YORK (AP) — Duane Eddy, a pioneering guitar hero whose reverberating electric sound on instrumentals such as “Rebel Rouser,” “Forty Miles of Bad Road” and “Cannonball” helped put the twang in early rock ‘n’ roll and influenced George Harrison, Bruce Springsteen and countless other musicians, has died at age 86. With his raucous rhythms, and backing hollers and hand claps, Eddy sold more than 100 million records worldwide, and mastered a distinctive sound based on the premise that a guitar’s bass strings sounded better on tape than the high ones.