Death row inmate gets third life term

A convicted killer already sentenced to death row has been handed a third life sentence.

Fourth District Judge Thomas Neville handed down the punishment Thursday for Erick Hall, a Boise man convicted in the slayings of Lynn Henneman in 2000 and Cheryl Ann Hanlon in 2003.

The life sentence is for Hall’s conviction for raping Hanlon. All are without the possibility of parole.

Hall was convicted in October of raping and killing Hanlon in the foothills north of Boise. Prosecutors say she was beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled.

In 2005, Hall was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2000 murder of Henneman, a New York flight attendant on an overnight in Boise.

Yellowstone National Park, Wyo.

Park breaks visitors record

Yellowstone National Park set a record in 2007 for the number of visitors in a calendar year as 3.15 million people visited the park last year.

Park officials said Thursday the figure represents an increase of 9.8 percent over the 2006 total.

The previous record was set in 1992 at 3.14 million visitors.

The bulk of the park’s visits occur in May through September. Recreational visits during those months in 2007 totaled 2.9 million with an average of 15,690 visitors a day.

The average number of visitors per day in July was 26,542.

Portland

Man pleads guilty to luring attempt

A former Boy Scout leader pleaded guilty Thursday to accusations that he tried to persuade a 15-year-old girl to visit Oregon to have sex with him.

Prosecutors said James V. Reyes, 47, arranged to fly the girl to Portland from Massachusetts in late 2006, and booked a motel room in Tillamook. The two are distant relatives.

The girl, whose father spotted explicit messages between the two on a computer, never boarded the flight and police arrested Reyes at Portland International Airport, where he had arrived with the room key in his pocket.

“Fortunately, because of a parent’s vigilance and the fine work of federal and local law enforcement officers, this predator was apprehended before he had the chance to sexually abuse a 15-year-old girl,” U.S. Attorney Karin Immergut said.

U.S. District Judge Anna Brown is scheduled to sentence Reyes in April.

Everett

Rumble strips slated for highway

The state Transportation Department plans to add a rumble strip on the center line of Highway 2 from Monroe to Stevens Pass.

The $3.6 million project is the only work to be funded out of 56 improvements recommended in November by a safety study of the highway in Snohomish County.

Since 1999, 47 people have died in crashes on Highway 2 between Snohomish and the pass. The latest was Monroe High School junior Thomas Turner who died Friday in a head-on collision east of Gold Bar – a stretch of highway where the rumble strips will be added.

From wire reports