By KERA News & Wire Services
Dallas, TX – A capital murder suspect and convicted sex offender who was on the Texas Department of Public Safety Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list has been caught in New York City.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's office on Tuesday announced the arrest of 48-year-old Joel Burt Thompkins.
Investigators say Thompkins was sought over the June 4 killing of a woman at an apartment complex in Houston during an apparent robbery. Police identified the victim as 46-year-old Bridget Renee Jones. A capital murder warrant for Thompkins was issued June 7.
Thompkins was wanted in Dallas County for failing to register as a convicted sex offender.
IPhone app: Dallas man in Conn. sees home burglary
An iPhone application helped a Dallas man, while visiting relatives hundreds of miles away in suburban Hartford, Conn., watch as two burglars broke into his home.
Vincent Hunter told WFAA-TV that he called 911 at the same time his home security system also contacted authorities. Hunter says "we could see it unfolding."
Hunter says an iCam app, which he bought for less than $5, sent him a text message Friday afternoon alerting him that motion detectors sensed movement in his supposedly empty residence.
Hunter, who has webcams in his home, watched as two men are seen trying to break into the place. They eventually throw a brick through a glass door. The webcams, minutes later, show two police officers entering the house.
Both suspects remain at large.
State AGs: Craigslist should drop adult services
State attorneys general nationwide are demanding that Craigslist remove its adult services section because they say the website cannot adequately block potentially illegal ads.
Several attorneys general, including Texas announced Tuesday that they have sent a joint letter calling on the classified advertising website to get rid of its adult services category. A total of 17 states are involved.
The attorneys general say Craigslist is not completely screening out ads that promote prostitution and child trafficking. The site creators pledged in 2008 to improve their policing efforts.
San Francisco-based Craigslist did not immediately return a call.
Money laundering case against DeLay moving forward
The judge in the money laundering case of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay says he wants the ex-congressman from the Houston area to be tried first, before two co-defendants.
Senior Judge Pat Priest said, in a pre-trial hearing Tuesday in Austin, that DeLay has been demanding a trial for five years.
Now that prosecutors are suggesting they'll press different charges of election code violations against co-defendants John Colyandro and Jim Ellis - essentially severing their cases from DeLay's - Priest says he won't give them a trial before Delay.
DeLay and his co-defendants were indicted in 2005 in connection with efforts to fund and elect Republican state legislative candidates in 2002. The defendants contend they've nothing wrong. No trial dates have been set.