Body Found On Bank Of Chicago River. Could It Be Stacy Peterson or Lisa Stebic?

(CBS/The Early Show)
Lisa Stebic
CHICAGO(AP) A badly decomposed body found on the banks of the Des Plaines River in Illinois could be that of Stacy Peterson or missing mother Lisa Stebic. A cleaning crew in suburban Chicago found the body.
Illinois State Police Sgt. Tom Burek confirmed the remains were human, but declined to say if the body was male or female. The Will County coroner will perform an autopsy on Thursday morning.
Burek said he would not speculate about whether the remains belong to Stacy Peterson or Lisa Stebic, two missing women who disappeared in 2007 and whose cases have garnered national attention.
Peterson's husband, Drew Peterson, is scheduled to appear in court Thursday on charges he killed his third wife, Kathleen Savio, in 2004.
Continue »
Former Federal Prosecutor and Lawyer To Stars Charged With Murder

(AP Photo/Mike Derer)
NEWARK, N.J. (CBS/AP) A defense attorney and former federal prosecutor whose clients have included rap stars and a soldier at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was charged Wednesday with arranging the killing of one witness and trying to hire a hit man to kill another.
Paul Bergrin is accused of murder and conspiracy to commit murder in a 14-count federal indictment. Four others also are named in the indictment, including Bergrin's fellow attorney, Thomas Moran.
The others face charges including racketeering, wire fraud and conspiracy in what prosecutors characterized as a criminal enterprise that also engaged in witness tampering, money laundering and drug trafficking.
"He employed every illegal tool available to keep murderers and drug dealers on our streets," acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra said of Bergrin. "His mantra was, 'No witness, no case."'
Bergrin, who lives in Nutley, about 12 miles west of New York City, is a former Essex County Assistant Prosecutor who also worked as an assistant U.S. Attorney in Newark between 1985 and 1990.
This is not Bergrin's first tangle with the wrong side of the law. In May, he pled guilty to conspiracy to promote prostitution for his involvement with an exclusive Manhattan call girl service that allegedly launched the careers of Ashley Dupre

(AP Photo/ABC, Heidi Gutman)
Courtesy of ABC
Continue »
Clark 'Rockefeller' Ex To Testify In Upcoming Trial

(AP Photo/Essdras Suarez)
Clark Rockefeller during his arraignment at a Boston municipal court, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2008.
BOSTON (CBS/AP) A Wisconsin woman who married the man who calls himself "Clark Rockefeller" is expected to testify at his upcoming kidnapping trial.
Rockefeller's real name is Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter - a German national - who authorities say has used a string of aliases since the 1970s to work his way into wealthy circles in New York, Los Angeles and Boston.
Continue »
Prosecutors Seek 19 Years To Life for Phil Spector

(AP Photo/Al Seib, Pool)
Music producer Phil Spector, center, listens to the verdict in Los Angeles County Superior Court last April. Spector was convicted of second-degree murder.
LOS ANGELES (AP) A prosecutor asked a judge Tuesday to sentence music producer Phil Spector to 19 years to life in prison for his second-degree murder conviction in the shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson.
Although the mandatory sentence is 15 years to life, Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson said in his motion that four years should be added for personal use of a gun — a circumstance that can draw an extra three, four or 10 years.
Continue »
Chris Coleman Charged With Strangling Wife, Two Kids

(AP Photo/Belleville News-Democrat)
COLUMBIA, Ill.(CBS/AP) Chris Coleman, 32, was arrested last night and is charged with three counts of first-degree murder. He is accused of using a ligature to kill his wife Sheri Coleman, 31, and her two sons, Garett, 11, and 9-year-old Gavin, earlier this month, and is expected to plead not guilty to the charges in a court hearing later today.
Their bodies were found May 5 at the family's home in Columbia, just south of St. Louis.
Continue »
Pastor Who Delivered Eulogy At Millionaire's Funeral Killed Him

(AP)
Former pastor Doug Porter's 2006 booking photo
MODESTO, Calif. (CBS/AP) The first time Frank E. Craig was laid to rest, nobody knew his murderer was the pastor delivering the eulogy. Now his family plans a new funeral for the millionaire rancher who drowned in a California irrigation canal.
Family members thought it was strange when Hickman Community Church pastor Doug Porter eulogized that Craig, a nonbeliever, had found peace with God in the days before he died. They wondered how he could have known his days were numbered.
Continue »
Sex Bondage and Murder?
COLUMBIA, Tenn. (CBS/AP) It was a sex bondage game that resulted in murder: that is the heart of the prosecution's case in a second-degree murder trial that began this week. 26-year-old Rebecca Bargy has been charged with tying up her husband, James, for 20 hours and leaving him for dead in April 2008. He was asphyxiated. Bargy's attorney has said it was accidental strangulation and that 29-year-old James was a consenting participant in the sexual games.
According to the prosecution, Rebecca strapped her husband's arms and legs behind him after she gagged and bound him with duct tape. She then left him alone for almost an entire day while she visited a boyfriend met on a social networking website.
A jury was seated Monday and the trial is expected to last three to four days.
Continue »
According to the prosecution, Rebecca strapped her husband's arms and legs behind him after she gagged and bound him with duct tape. She then left him alone for almost an entire day while she visited a boyfriend met on a social networking website.
A jury was seated Monday and the trial is expected to last three to four days.
Continue »
"Craigslist Killer" Set To Appear In Boston Court This Week

(AP Photo/Mark Garfinkel)
BOSTON/AP Dubbed the "Craigslist Killer," a Boston University medical student accused of killing a New York City masseuse he met through the online service, will be back in court this week. This time for a pretrial hearing.
Philip Markoff is scheduled to appear in Boston Municipal Court on Thursday in connection with the fatal shooting of 25-year-old Julissa Brisman and the armed robbery of another woman four days earlier, both at posh Boston hotels.
Continue »
Mother Used Prayer To Treat Daughter's Diabetes; Now She's On Trial For Homicide

(AP Photo/Wausau Daily Herald )
Madeline Kara Neumann, of Weston, Wis., is shown working on chalk art last summer during downtown Wausau's Chalk Fest. Neumann died Sunday, March 23, 2008, after her parents prayed for healing rather than getting medical help for a treatable form of diabetes.
WAUSAU, WI. (AP) Her daughter couldn't talk or walk in her last days, and even fell into a coma at home, but, according to prosecutors, Leilani Neumann sought no medical attention to aide her daughter before she died. Instead, Neumann relied on the power of "emergency prayer" to save her little girl from a common, medically-treatable illness.
Neumann, 41, who is on trial this week for homicide, told a friend that "she sensed the spirit or Angel of Death present at her home" shortly before the diabetic 11-year-old Madeline died, Marathon County Assistant District Attorney LaMont Jacobson said in opening statements.
Continue »
Accused Nazi Back To Germany

(AP Photo/Tony Dejak)
John Demjanjuk is helped into a wheelchair before boarding a plane Monday, May 11, 2009, at Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland.
Federal agents carrying John Demjanjuk in a wheelchair put him on a small jet Monday to be deported to Germany, where the retired autoworker is accused of being a Nazi death camp guard in World War II.
Demjanjuk, 89, arrived in an ambulance at Cleveland Burke Lakefront Airport after spending several hours with U.S. immigration officials at a downtown federal building.
Continue »


