Nation in brief
Police arrest man in killing of seven
Police hunted on Friday for the killers who barged into a home and shot seven family members to death in the worst mass murder in Indianapolis in at least 25 years.
A search of a home for one of the suspected gunmen turned up empty after police officers fired tear gas in and broke down a door Friday night.
Police said 28-year-old ex-convict Desmond Turner was believed to have been inside. He had grown up in the area and returned last fall after getting out of prison on drug and weapons charges.
Deputy Police Chief Tim Foley said Turner might have planned the shooting deaths.
Police also arrested one man in connection with the shooting after a traffic stop Friday afternoon, but did not elaborate on his role.
The bodies of three boys, ages 5 to 11, were found on a bed, and four adult relatives were discovered elsewhere in the house after the Thursday night robbery and massacre that rocked the working-class neighborhood.
San Bernardino County, Calif.
Lobbyist’s records subpoenaed
A federal grand jury conducting a criminal investigation has subpoenaed San Bernardino County, Calif., records related to a Washington lobbying firm with close ties to Rep. Jerry Lewis, chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, according to federal documents.
Federal investigators are looking into the relationship between Lewis, R-Calif., and a Washington lobbyist linked to disgraced former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif., three people familiar with the investigation told the Los Angeles Times last month.
Investigators are said to be particularly interested in whether intermingling between Lewis’ aides and lobbyist Bill Lowery’s staff led to favorable treatment for Lowery’s clients, sources told the Times. Lewis and Lowery have denied any wrongdoing.
In a statement Friday, Lewis said the Justice Department had not contacted him regarding an investigation. “Throughout my career, I have also made every effort to meet the highest ethical standards, and I am absolutely certain that any review of my work will confirm this,” he said.
NASHVILLE, Tenn.
Home search finds pipe bombs, ricin
FBI hazardous material experts searched a home where police found pipe bombs and a jar containing the potentially deadly poison ricin, federal agents said Friday.
The ricin was found in a sealed baby food jar in a shed of the home owned by William Micheal Matthews, 55, who went to jail last week for violating protection orders taken out by his estranged wife, according to local and federal officials.
The jar was sealed, and officials don’t believe the middle-class neighborhood in east Nashville was threatened, although the one-story brick house and part of the street remained cordoned off Friday morning.
Matthews had not been charged Friday.