One man died and a teenage boy was critically injured Sunday in a suspected arson fire at an abandoned house on the 100 block of West Longden Avenue in Arcadia.
A blaze that gutted a house at 78 W. Las Flores early Saturday morning appears to have started accidentally. The blaze left a man and a woman dead, and a 7 year old boy in critical condition.
25 year old Pomona man, Josh Connole, was arrested in connection with the vandalism and arson attacks on high priced SUVs and Hummers at several San Gabriel Valley dealerships.
38-year-old Jose Ruiz of San Gabriel was struck by a sport utility vehicle while crossing the street at Huntington Drive and Baldwin Avenue. He remains in critical condition.
William Cottrell's (aka Billy Cottrell), a former Caltech physics student who was in prison for participating in firebombing 100 vehicles in the San Gabriel Valley (Duarte, Arcadia, West Covina) in 2003, will be resentenced. The federal court has dropped arson charges against him but he remains convicted on a conspiracy charge. He could be released or face more prison time.
Firefighters rescued a 7-year old boy from an upstairs bedroom as fire engulfed the home at 70 W. Las Flores Ave. They were unable to save a man and woman inside the house, who were found dead.
The FBI will settle a lawsuit brought by Josh Connole for $100,000. He was wrongly jailed for the SUV (sport utility vehicle) arson attacks in the San Gabriel Valley, including a dealership in Arcadia, in August 2003.
A federal apeals court overturned William Cottrell's (aka Billy Cottrell), convictions on two counts of arson for his role in the 2003 torching of several sport utility vehicles (SUV) at San Gabriel Valley car dealers, attacks authorities blamed on a radical environmentalist group. The court ruled that the judge in his trial should have allowed testimony regarding Cottrell's Asperger's Syndrome, a disability that could have affected the jury's decision.
The United States Department of Justice made a formal apology in a letter to 27-year-old Joshua Connole for arresting him after sport utility vehicles (SUV) were vandalized at dealerships in West Covina, Monrovia, Duarte, and Arcadia. He is now no longer a suspect and lives in Oregon.
Eighth grade students at Foothills Middle School participate in Frontier Days, a celebration of how pioneers lived in the old west. Student Nick Board is shown in a photo.
Billy Cottrell, a Cal Tech graduate student who took part in a fire bombing spree that caused millions of dollars in damage to SUV dealerships in the San Gabriel Valley, was sentenced to more than 8 years in prison. See inset for chronology of ecoterror events.
An elderly couple in Arcadia was robbed outside their house on the 300 block of West Duarte Road by two teenagers. The robbers took the man's wallet and his wife's wedding ring and watch.
A chart shows the API scores for West San Gabriel Valley schools for 2004 on page A4. 85 percent of schools in the West San Gabriel Valley maintained or increased their Academic Performance Index ranking compared to schools across the state.
Former Caltech graduate student William "Billy" Cottrell was re-sentenced to serve at least 18 more months in prison for participating in a vandalism spree in the San Gabriel Valley in 2003.