Here's a daily list of recent activities drawing the attention of North Texas law enforcement. List compiled on Dec. 29, 2010.
INFANT'S BODY FOUND IN HOUSTON TRASH BIN
Houston police say the body of a baby girl with the umbilical cord still attached was found in a box near a trash bin at a gated apartment complex. Houston police Sgt. Will Gonzales says a maintenance worker found the box Tuesday morning near an overflowing trash bin. Gonzales says the worker didn't look in the box, but placed it in a golf cart to move it to another bin. When the box fell off the cart, the body fell out. Gonzales believes the child was born Monday night or early Tuesday. He tells the Houston Chronicle that police didn't see any visible signs of trauma to her body. Investigators at the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences will conduct an autopsy Wednesday.
SHERIFF SAYS 'LARGE CAT' KILLED GOATS
Authorities are warning residents in the eastern part of Carson County in the Texas Panhandle to be alert after a several goats in a pen were killed by what the sheriff suspects was some kind of "large cat." Carson County Sheriff Tam Terry says the tracks left behind after the Tuesday morning attack in Skellytown were larger than a bobcat. He tells the Amarillo Globe-News, "Everybody thinks it's a mountain lion, but we don't have a way to verify that. There are tracks, indications it was a cat larger than what we normally see." As a precaution, Terry said everyone on the east side of the county was notified of the attack using a reverse 911 calling system. Skellytown, population about 600, is about 60 miles northeast of Amarillo.
SUV DRIVER KILLED IN CRASH WITH SCHOOL BUS
Authorities say the driver of an SUV was killed in a collision with a South Texas school bus carrying a girls' basketball team. The Harris County Sheriff's Office says the accident happened Tuesday night outside Crosby. The bus was carrying the Crosby Independent School District ninth grade girls' basketball team. Sgt. Glen Wolverton told The Houston Chronicle that nine players, the coach, the coach's daughter and the 69-year-old bus driver were taken to a hospital. Their injuries are not considered life-threatening. The team was returning from a tournament in Liberty, about 20 miles away. Wolverton said the SUV was traveling north when a vehicle in front of it slowed down or stopped to turn left. The SUV then moved into oncoming traffic and struck the bus head-on.
TEXAS DRIVER JAILED IN PA FATAL ACCIDENT
A Texas man has been jailed on vehicular homicide charges after police say he ran a red light while driving a truck loaded with steel pipe, killing the driver of another truck near Pittsburgh. Allegheny County police have charged 42-year-old Ezekwesiri Arukwe, of Dallas, with homicide by vehicle, involuntary manslaughter and other charges in Tuesday's crash which killed 55-year-old Kenneth Feldman. Feldman, of New Kensington, was driving a box truck that was hit head-on while it was in an oncoming turn lane on Route 48 in North Versailles. That's about 10 miles east of Pittsburgh. Online court records do not list an attorney for Arukwe, who police say is a permanent U.S. resident from Nigeria. He was jailed without bond pending his preliminary hearing Jan. 7.
NO WORD IN CASE OF WYOMING PLANE CRASH
Federal investigators still have no word on what caused a plane crash in the mountains of western Wyoming that killed three members of a Texas family last week. Fremont County Coroner Ed McAuslan has identified the dead as pilot Ralph Day, 56; his wife Doris Day, 52; and Connor Day, 12, all of Jasper, Texas. McAuslan said they took off Dec. 22 in a single-engine plane from Loveland, Colo., headed to Jackson. A passing plane picked up a signal from the crashed plane's emergency locater on Thursday and the bodies were recovered from the Wind River Range southwest of Lander on Christmas Day. Mike Huhn is air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board in San Francisco. He encourages anyone with knowledge about the flight to contact the NTSB.
