AROUND ARIZONA
Prosecutors urge trial date in girl’s ’14 murder
KINGMAN — A Mohave County prosecutor is asking a judge to set a trial date for a man charged with killing a Bullhead City girl in 2014.
Justin James Rector is charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping, child abuse and abandonment of a body in the September 2014 death of Isabella Grogan-Cannella. She was strangled, and her partially clothed body was found in a shallow grave near her home.
Prosecutor Gregory McPhillips says he’s provided a list of about 100 witnesses to the defense but it has refused to set up interviews.
McPhillips says the interviews should be considered waived and a trial date set to ensure the rights of the victim.
Defense attorney Julia Cassels says she already had given McPhillips possible dates for interviews. She says he’s misrepresenting the facts.
Navajo Nation official denies $6 million theft
WINDOW ROCK — A Navajo Nation official has been accused of unlawfully transferring $6 million of Ramah Navajo Chapter funds to different investing companies without proper authorization.
Tribal officials say Ramah Navajo Chapter President David Jose was arraigned Monday on three counts of theft. He pleaded not guilty.
A pretrial conference is set for Sept. 10. Prosecutors say one of the investment companies filed for bankruptcy less than a year after Jose made a $1 million transfer to the company.
The Navajo Nation Department of Justice is seeking to recover the funds in a bankruptcy proceeding.
The Ramah Chapter is in New Mexico and is part of the Navajo Nation.
Border Patrol seizes 174 pounds of marijuana
TUCSON — The U.S. Border Patrol says its agents in Nogales have seized nearly 174 pounds of marijuana from the trunk of a car.
The agency said Wednesday that officers conducting a second inspection at the Interstate 19 immigration checkpoint on Tuesday night and found the drugs in a car trunk. The 34-year-old man from Apache Junction driving the car was arrested.
Agents estimated the marijuana was worth more than $86,000.
3 kids left along State Route 87; mom naked
PAYSON — Authorities say a woman is undergoing a medical evaluation after they say she abandoned her three young children along a north-central Arizona highway and was later being found wandering naked.
The Arizona Department of Public Safety officials didn’t immediately release the name of the 27-yearold woman Wednesday.
They reported receiving a call about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday about a woman and her children stranded on State Route 87 south of Payson after their vehicle ran out of gas.
DPS troopers arrived and found the girls — ages 1, 3 and 4 — alone inside the car but unharmed.
A passer-by reported seeing a naked woman wandering in the lanes of State Route 87 around 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, about 2 miles from where the girls were abandoned.
Human remains found in desert in NW Arizona
DOLAN SPRINGS — Mohave County authorities say human remains have been found in the northwestern Arizona desert.
County sheriff ’s officials say they received information Monday from an out-of-state law-enforcement agency about the possibility of human remains outside Dolan Springs.
They say the remains are related to an ongoing homicide investigation and are not believed to be anyone from the Dolan Springs area.
The unidentified out-of-state agency is awaiting positive identification of the remains for their investigation.
County sheriff ’s officials say they can’t release any more information in the case at this time.
Fire officials rescue man stuck in storm drain
FLAGSTAFF — Fire officials say a special-operations team was needed to rescue a man who got himself trapped in a storm drain.
The reports that crews found the man Saturday afternoon about 30 feet below the ground. Officials believe that the man crawled into a storm drain on the east side of Flagstaff and fell through a series of drainage tubes.
Flagstaff Fire Department Captain Todd George says the man had serious injuries and couldn’t move.
He says the man been in 6-8 inches of standing water left by heavy monsoon rains.
The man told rescuers that he had been there for two days.
Arizona Daily Sun — Associated Press