Jury selection finished in trial of barracks ambush suspect

WEST CHESTER, PA. >> Jury selection is finished in the trial of a man accused of fatally shooting a state trooper and wounding another in an ambush outside their rural Pennsylvania barracks.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys picked the last two alternate jurors on Tuesday.

The jury will weigh murder charges against 33-year-old Eric Frein (freen). He’s charged with killing Cpl. Bryon Dickson II and critically wounding Trooper Alex Douglass in a late-night attack outside the Blooming Grove barracks in northeastern Pennsylvania in 2014. Frein led authorities on a 48-day manhunt in the Pocono Mountains before his capture by U.S. Marshals.

He could face a death sentence if he’s convicted.

Because of heavy pretrial publicity, jury selection took place in the Philadelphia suburbs. The trial now switches to Pike County for opening statements.

Man charged with involuntary manslaughter in teen’s death

JOHNSTOWN >> A western Pennsylvania man has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of a high school student found in a bulletriddled sport-utility vehicle almost two years ago.

Twenty-four-year-old Dajour Morris is also charged in Cambria County with aggravated assault, conspiracy and firearms crimes in the April 2015 death of 17-year-

old Makiah Jones in what police are calling a drive-by-turned-gunfight in Johnstown.

The (Johnstown) Tribune-Democrat reports that authorities allege Morris and Jones fired at people from the SUV, hitting several homes and vehicles, and someone returned fire. They said Morris then drove to Hornerstown and abandoned the SUV with the victim’s body inside. Police are still trying to determine who fired the shot that killed Jones.

An attorney representing Morris didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment Tuesday.

Death penalty mulled in alleged assault, death of boy, 4

BUTLER >> Prosecutors in western Pennsylvania are considering seeking the death penalty against a man accused of having raped and killed his girlfriend’S 4-yearold son at the motel where they had been staying.

Twenty-year-old Keith Lambing is charged in Butler County in the March 21 death of Bentley Miller. Authorities allege that he assaulted the boy earlier, and the child’s mother was rushing him to the

hospital but pulled over and called 911 after he stopped breathing. She was charged with endangerment and hindering apprehension after she and Lambing were found hiding in the attic of an abandoned home.

District Attorney Richard Goldinger called the case “horrific” and said “It would appear on its face it asks for the death penalty,” but a decision didn’t have to be made immediately.

Handyman accused of serial child rape hit with new charges

DOYLESTOWN >> A suburban Philadelphia handyman accused of serial child rape is facing additional charges involving a sixth child.

Bucks County authorities said Monday that 58-year-old William Charles Thomas has been charged with 26 additional counts. Falls Township police say Thomas raped the victim when she was a child in the 1990s. Police interviewed the woman in late January.

Thomas, of Morrisville, was already charged with dozens of crimes involving five children. Prosecutors have said he kept a “perverse shrine” in his trailer — 1,000 pairs of used girl’s underwear — and documented his crimes in hundreds of disturbing, graphic images and writings.

He has said he “never inflicted any pain on a child.”