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The Gottis are back in town — and the bloodshed could just be beginning. Police are taking a serious look at whether Gambino crime family boss Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali was whacked in an internal war for control — with one of John Gotti’s brothers and a key associate fresh out of prison and possibly looking to seize power, law enforcement sources told The Post on Thursday. While the motive for the Wednesday hit on Cali outside his Staten Island home remains under investigation, cops were probing whether it was part of a brewing American-vs.-Sicilian power struggle — with Gene...

STARKE, FLA. A Florida inmate convicted of raping and killing a college student decades ago screamed and yelled "murderers!" three times, thrashing on a gurney as he was being put to death Thursday. The governor's office said Eric Scott Branch, 47, was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. Thursday after receiving a lethal injection at Florida State Prison. Branch was convicted of the 1993 rape and fatal beating of University of West Florida student Susan Morris, 21, whose naked body was found buried in a shallow grave near a nature trail.

The two men belonged to rival Boston gangs, but told their supervisors it would not be a problem, prosecutors said. They were ready to move on with their lives, and leave the old ways behind. But soon after Donte Henley, 24, heard he had been assigned to the same snow-shoveling crew as Kenny Lamour, 21, this February, he decided “it’s him or me,” prosecutors said in court Monday.

A veteran Florida police officer was shot and killed while on duty early Sunday. Officer Charles Kondek, 45, was gunned down in Tarpon Springs, about 30 miles northwest of Tampa, after responding to a call for service around 2 am., local police said. He was at Glen's Eureka Apartments responding to a noise complaint involving a suspect banging on residential doors — when the man allegedly shot him and fled in a car, WTSP reported.

It was late on a June night when an intruder awoke 19-year-old Nicole Franco as she lay beneath the covers in her bed. The burglar stabbed the aspiring chef with one of her own knives and watched her call 911 before fleeing with her wallet.. Those are some of the details Broward Sheriff's detectives described Monday as part of their five-month investigation into the killing of Franco, who had worked at the Boca Raton Resort & Club.

<p>A Humboldt County man was arrested Thursday afternoon in connection with the New Year's Day slaying of a popular Roman Catholic priest in the small Northern California town of Eureka.</p> <p>Gary Lee Bullock, 43, was arrested in southern Humboldt County...</p>

Eureka, California (CNN) -- Police had a man who is suspected of killing a Catholic priest in his California rectory, but they let him go. It was mere hours before the slaying of the Rev. Eric Freed that an odd-acting Gary Lee Bullock had been in custody for public intoxication. On New Year's Eve, Humboldt County sheriff's deputies had responded to reports that a person was "acting strangely" and arrested Bullock, taking him to jail. But Bullock, police said, was "rejected" from the facility "due to his erratic behavior." Bullock, 43, was then moved to a nearby hospital, "where he...

A double shooting that killed one man Saturday night took place along a CPS Safe Passage route on the South Side. Ralph McNeal, 54, and a 26-year-old man were shot in the 2900 block of South State Street around 6:15 p.m. They were taken to the hospital and McNeal was pronounced dead around 7 p.m. Parents of children who will attend Chicago’s Drake Elementary School are on edge because of its location on a designated CPS Safe Passage route. The routes were set up to make the transition to new schools go more smoothly for the students affected by school...

Attorney General Eric Holder blasted "stand-your-ground laws" in the wake of the acquittal of George Zimmerman for fatally shooting Trayvon Martin—saying such laws cause more violence than they prevent. Mr. Holder, speaking to the NAACP Annual Convention in Orlando, Fla., not far from where Mr. Zimmerman was acquitted last week, took direct aim at stand-your-ground laws, which say a person can use force in self-defense without first attempting to retreat from the situation. "Separate and apart from the case that has drawn the nation´s attention, it´s time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense and sow

<p>GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) - The government won't seek the death penalty for a group of men charged in the 2010 death of a Lansing woman.</p> <p>The Grand Rapids Press reported Friday (http://bit.ly/WxWIie ) that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder notified West Michigan federal prosecutors of the government's decision.</p>

A Montgomery County jury on Wednesday evening found Brittany Norwood guilty of first-degree murder in the horrific slaying of her co-worker at the Lululemon Athletica store in Bethesda. The six-day trial, which detailed a vicious killing and the dramatic twists and turns of an investigation into an elaborate cover story and a morbidly staged crime scene, ended with the jury presenting its verdict close to 7 p.m. after a little more than an hour of deliberation. As the verdict was read Wednesday night, an audible “yes” could be heard from the family of the victim, Jayna Murray. “I want no...

The search for the people who killed an 80-year-old woman found beaten under a church pew has gone nationwide. Cross County Sheriff J.R. Smith said possibly two "people of interest" fled the area after the church pastor discovered Lillian Wilson's lifeless body Sunday. Sheriff Smith said investigators know who they're looking for and where they are from, but would not confirm details of the ongoing investigation. The Central United Methodist Church sits along Highway 64 in the small community of Hamlin, west of Wynne, Arkansas. It's where Wilson grew up and where she held her 50th wedding anniversary. The church...

CLEARWATER - Martin Grossman is scheduled to enter the death chamber at Florida State Prison just before 6 p.m. today and utter his final words to a gathering that includes relatives of the woman he killed. The family of wildlife officer Peggy Park has waited more than 25 years for this. "We need to see that it's finally finished, it's over and we can move on," said Betsy Park, the victim's younger siste

FORT STEWART, Ga. (AP) - An Army sergeant accused of killing his squad leader and another soldier shouted "my career's over, just kill me" as soldiers pinned him to the ground after he shot the men in Iraq, members of their unit told a military judge Monday. The two slain soldiers had been critiquing Sgt. Joseph Bozicevich for poor performance before he fatally shot them Sept. 14 at a small patrol base south of Baghdad, witnesses said in a Fort Stewart courtroom. 1st Sgt. Xaver Perdue sobbed as he told the court that as another soldier was wrestling with Bozicevich...

2 Charged in UNC Student Leader Slaying Published: 3/12/08, 6:05 PM EDT By ERIN GARTNER and MIKE BAKER HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. (AP) - Two suspects were charged Wednesday with first-degree murder in the killing of the University of North Carolina's student body president. Demario James Atwater, 21, of Durham, was arrested and ordered held without bond. Police said they are still searching for the second suspect, 17-year-old Lawrence Alvin Lovett Jr. Chapel Hill Police Chief Brian Curran declined to say whether Lovett was the subject of an intense police standoff Wednesday afternoon in nearby Durham. City Councilman Eugene Brown said it...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States on Wednesday brushed aside calls for a UN investigation into the slaying of Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, saying Britain's Scotland Yard now leads the probe and will get "the answers" Pakistan's people deserve. "Scotland Yard being in the lead of this investigation is appropriate and necessary and we don't see a need for an investigation beyond that at this time," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters. "What's most important is that they proceed quickly and in a transparent and comprehensive way, so that the people of Pakistan can get the answers they...

ALAMEDA — Three Oakland teenagers arrested in connection with the slaying of a 15-year-old girl at an Alameda park on Halloween will each face a murder charge, police said. The boys were taken into custody Tuesday morning after investigators served arrest and search warrants in at least two locations in Oakland, including a residence in the city's Laurel district. Weapons and ammunition were also seized during the searches, including a .22-caliber handgun that police said may have been the one used to kill Ichinkhorloo Bayarsaikhan. "We are still early into it, but we are confident that we have recovered the...

Alameda police have arrested three male juveniles in connection with the slaying of a 15-year-old girl on Halloween as she gathered with friends at the city's Washington Park. But it was not immeditaley clear whether one of the boys was the actual shooter. Ichinkhorloo Bayarsaikhan, who was a junior at Alameda High School, suffered a single gunshot wound to the back in what police said was an attempted robbery. She was pronounced dead a short time later at Highland Hospital in Oakland. The shooter was among a group of about six boys who confronted Bayarsaikhan and her friends, police said....

Police said they recovered firearms linked to the slaying of an Oakland journalist during a series of early morning raids Friday targeting members of a Black Muslim splinter group that operates a chain of bakeries. Colleagues said Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey, 57, had been working on a story about Your Black Muslim Bakery before he was ambushed and slain Thursday morning near the Alameda County courthouse in downtown Oakland. Before dawn, officers raided the Muslim group's headquarters at the original bakery on San Pablo Avenue, as well as three houses in Oakland. They arrested seven people on charges including...

A Mexican man was arrested on suspicion of murdering four people who were bound with duct tape, shot and left in a Jeep parked in a Fresno neighborhood last summer, police Chief Jerry Dyer said. Leopaldo Omar Diaz, 21, of Mexico was arrested in East Palo Alto on Wednesday and accused of murdering Monica Rivera, 26, Onesimo Sauceda, 26, Leobardo Ortiz, 33, and Jose Cervantes, 38. Evidence at the crime scene linked him to the killings that are believed to be drug-related. The four Southern California residents were likely killed elsewhere and their bodies were driven to Fresno, where they...