Mass. dad shoots his kids, kills self Mass. dad shoots his kids, kills self ADVERTISING WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — A man who had recently separated from his wife shot his two children, killing his 7-year-old daughter, before committing suicide, prosecutors
Mass. dad shoots his kids, kills self
WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — A man who had recently separated from his wife shot his two children, killing his 7-year-old daughter, before committing suicide, prosecutors said.
A family member called police Saturday night after finding the bodies of 41-year-old Daryl Benway and his daughter, Abigail, in the master bedroom of their two-story Oxford home, Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early Jr. said.
Benway’s 9-year-old son, Owen, was found shot in the head in the kitchen and was taken to UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center in serious condition.
Owen has been in pediatric intensive care, a spokesman for Early said Sunday. He said he had no additional information about Owen Benway’s condition, and a hospital spokeswoman would not comment.
Benway’s wife, Kelleen, returned home after the shootings, unaware of what had happened, and found a swarm of police cruisers and television crews, Early said.
She was taken to the children’s hospital, where authorities told her the fates of her children and husband.
Neighbors told the Telegram & Gazette that Daryl Benway’s brother Shawn lived on the first floor of the home with his wife and mother. Shawn Benway called 911 to report the shootings, Early said.
Man suspected of killing parents
Associated Press
An Arkansas man suspected of killing his parents and abducting his 12-year-old sister claimed to be mentally ill or deficient in 2007 before he eventually pleaded guilty to assaulting a female relative or household member.
Antonio Whitlow, 33, was arrested Saturday in Memphis, Tenn., hours after his parents were found slain in their home in Little Rock, about 135 miles away. His sister was with him and seemed unharmed, Little Rock Police Sgt. Cassandra Davis said Sunday.
“Physically she has not been harmed. Mentally, (she’s doing) as well as a 12-year-old could do. I don’t know that she fully understands what happened,” Davis told The Associated Press.
The girl is now in the custody of the Arkansas Department of Human Services.
Davis declined to say whether investigators believe the child witnessed her 65-year-old parents, Bobby and Annette Whitlow, get killed. She said she didn’t know whether the girl and her brother, who was much older, ever lived with their parents at the same time.
Investigators, in a police report, listed a knife or some other sharp object as the weapon used to kill the couple. Davis said detectives hadn’t determined a motive for the slayings.
All-seeing system to track crime
ASPEN, Colo. (AP) — The New York Police Department will soon launch an all-seeing “Domain Awareness System” that combines several streams of information to track both criminals and potential terrorists.
New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly says the city developed the software with Microsoft.
Kelly says the program combines city-wide video surveillance with law enforcement databases.
He says it will be officially unveiled by New York’s mayor as soon as next week.
Kelly spoke Saturday before an audience at the Aspen Security Forum.
The NYPD has been under fire for surveillance of Muslim communities and partnering with the CIA to track potential terror suspects. Muslim groups have sued to shut down the NYPD programs. Kelly defended the policies as key to thwarting 14 terror plots against the city since the attacks of Sept. 11th.
‘Dark Knight’ on top at theaters
LOS ANGELES (AP) — “The Dark Knight Rises” stayed atop the box office for the second straight weekend, making just over $64 million. But it’s lagging behind the staggering numbers of its predecessor, 2008’s “The Dark Knight.”
The final piece in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy has now grossed more than $289 million in its first 10 days in theaters. It dropped 60 percent from its opening weekend of $160.9 million.
By comparison, “The Dark Knight” took a 53 percent drop in its second weekend with a gross of nearly $75.2 million and a 10-day cumulative gross of $313.8 million.
Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros., declined to comment on the Sunday estimates again out of respect for the victims of the Aurora, Colo., shooting that left 12 people dead and another 58 injured at a midnight showing of the film on opening night.
But people are still going to the movies, and they did so even last weekend, said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian. If anything hurt the numbers for all movies this weekend, he said, it was Friday night’s opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, which drew a record-setting 40.7 million viewers in the United States.
“For a film that opened as big as this did, considering the situation and what happened last weekend and all that, I would say this is a very strong showing,” Dergarabedian said. “It’s made almost $300 million in North America and its mid-week (attendance) is very strong. It made $19 million last Monday.”
In second place this weekend was the animated family film “Ice Age: Continental Drift,” which is still going strong in its third week. It made $13.3 million for a domestic total of nearly $114.9 million. The fourth movie in the 20th Century Fox franchise features the voices of Ray Romano, Denis Leary and Queen Latifah.
