Woman accused of killing ill husband seeks release from jail

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – A 76-yearold woman accused of fatally shooting her terminally ill husband in a Florida hospital is asking to be released from jail.

Ellen Gilland was initially charged with first-degree murder in January after police said she shot Jerry Gilland, 77, in a suicide pact that she claimed had been in the works for weeks. However, she could not carry through with turning the gun on herself after shooting her husband in his 11th-floor Adventhealth Daytona Beach, Florida, hospital room, Daytona Beach Police Chief Jakari Young said at a news conference after the Jan. 21 incident.

On Wednesday, Gilland was indicted on lesser charges of assisting self-murder/manslaughter and aggravated assault of a law enforcement officer. Now her lawyers are seeking a bond hearing.

Her next scheduled court appearance is a pretrial hearing March 22.

Illinois mother run over as SUV stolen with her child still inside

LIBERTYVILLE, Ill. – A suburban Chicago woman was run over and her 2year-old son was temporarily abducted by a man who forcibly stole her SUV on Thursday, police said.

The woman had returned home Thursday afternoon to Libertyville with her two children and had taken one child inside when another vehicle drove up and a man hopped out and commandeered her SUV, battering the woman as she tried to get to her 2-year-old son, who was still in her vehicle, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office said.

As the two vehicles fled, one of the drivers ran her over, causing serious injuries to her extremities, the office said in a news release. She was hospitalized in serious condition.

A short time later, someone working at a Waukegan business called 911 to report that two vehicles entered its parking lot and the driver of one of the vehicles abandoned a small child, the sheriff’s office said. The caller brought the child in from the parking lot. The stolen SUV was located shortly afterward in another parking lot, the sheriff ’s office said.