Heart attack kills death row inmate
Boise A 61-year-old convicted killer died after suffering a heart attack in his death row cell, an Idaho prisons spokeswoman said Friday.
Jimmie Vurel Thomas was found Thursday afternoon on the floor of his cell at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution near here, complaining of chest pains. He suffered another heart attack during an ambulance ride and was declared dead at a local hospital, prisons spokeswoman Teresa Jones said in a statement.
“The Ada County coroner’s office performed an autopsy and confirmed the death was natural,” Jones added.
His death leaves 20 people on Idaho’s death row.
Thomas was sentenced to die for breaking into a home in southern Idaho near the city of Eden on Nov. 14, 1997, and shooting 38-year-old Steven Louder. Louder was sharing the home with Thomas’ former spouse, according to court documents.
Birth of camel surprises zoo workers
Idaho Falls Nobody had noticed any extra humps in the camel pen of a small southern Idaho zoo, so it was a surprise when caretakers discovered a new baby camel.
No one had realized the camel was pregnant. Bactrian camels are supposed to breed only once every two years, and the female camel had just given birth the year before, Tautphaus Park Zoo workers say.
The unnamed mother has rejected the calf since it was born April 2. Zoo staff have tried to reunite the two, but the mother seems scared of her baby, said superintendent Bill Gersonde.
“I don’t know why they’re such bad moms,” Gersonde said. “It’s strange for an animal that only has six offspring per lifetime to care so little for their young.”
Ex-Corrections employee gets prison term
St. Anthony, Idaho A former employee of the Idaho Department of Juvenile Corrections has been sentenced to as many as 15 years behind bars for child sexual abuse.
Wayne Potter, 47, who worked as a rehabilitation specialist at the state Juvenile Correction Center in St. Anthony at the time of his arrest, must spend at least three years in prison before he’s eligible for probation. He was sentenced Thursday in Sixth District Court.
Potter pleaded guilty in February to a felony charge of sexual abuse of a minor and to a misdemeanor charge of enticing children.
He originally faced a felony charge of lewd conduct with a minor, which would have carried a maximum sentence of life in prison. He’d also been charged with felony sexual abuse of a minor under 16.
He was arrested last July after two St. Anthony girls, ages 5 and 10, accused him of molesting them. Officials have said the girls were not in the juvenile corrections system.