Friday News Brief

The man who is a suspect in a Jamestown homicide has escaped from the Warren County Jail. Jamestown Police report 34-year old Michael Burham was last seen at approximately 11:20 p.m. last night wearing a blue denim jacket. Police urge all citizens across the region to lock their doors and stay vigilant. A Pennsylvania State Police helicopter is searching in the Warren area with roadblocks set up between Pennsylvania and New York. Burham is the prime suspect in the killing of 34-year old Kala Hodgkin of Jamestown and a related arson committed on May 11 in the City. Following those incidents, Burham fled New York with police saying he abducted an elderly couple in Pennsylvania who he forced to take him to South Carolina. Police captured him there on May 24th. Burham was being held in the Warren County Jail so he could be tried first on the kidnapping charges filed by Pennsylvania State Police and Warren County District Attorney Rob Greene’s office. The Chautauqua County District Attorney’s Office still has yet to level any charges against Burham in regards to the death of Hodgkin.

 

22-year-old Raymond Leach, III of Batavia has been arrested by the Genesee County Sheriffs. He faces charges of sexual abuse, criminal sexual act and rape, stemming from an incident that occurred in August 2022. It’s alleged he engaged in sexual activity with another person who was incapable of giving consent due to being physically helpless. Leach is a former Batavia High School football star that was stabbed by a friend and teammate five years ago. Leach is scheduled to appear in Genesee County Court on July 18. The felonies he faces are punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

 

 

The Hilton Central School District is responding to accusations of retaliation made by a former employee in the fallout from former Northwood Elementary School Principal Kirk Ashton’s child sex abuse conviction. Kelley O’Connell-Byrne, who was Ashton’s assistant principal at Northwood when he was arrested, was placed on administrative leave following her testimony in Ashton’s trial last fall. In a lawsuit, O’Connell-Byrne suggests she has been unfairly penalized. The district said O’Connell-Byrne was placed on leave due to testimony that she “saw Kirk Ashton engage in highly inappropriate behavior” but did not report him because she was worried about losing her job. Ashton was convicted last fall of sexually abusing 21 boys who were all students at Northwood. O’Connell-Byrne’s attorney argues that several other district employees testified to the same allegation as his client and remain employed with the district. “This is all part of an effort on the part of the school to deflect attention from their own behavior and to scapegoat my client,” said New York Assemblyman, Phil Steck. “There is nothing that my client testified to at the criminal case that the superintendent and other school administrators didn’t already know about.” O’Connell-Byrne testified at Ashton’s trial that she thought his boundaries were very skewed and not appropriate. Steck said his client was afraid to report her concerns because the district seemed to tout some of Ashton’s conduct. “They called him a student-centered principal and posted pictures on the school district official social media of children sitting in his lap,” said Steck. He also said his client was reprimanded after she raised concerns about a substitute teacher’s inappropriate behavior one month after Ashton’s arrest. “When my client did report a substitute teacher for improperly touching a student, she was reprimanded by the superintendent for making the report and only when it was corroborated by another sourced did that teacher get dismissed,” said Steck.

 

The New York State Police today announced that nearly 13,000 tickets (12,991) were issued statewide during the 4th of July STOP-DWI enforcement campaign. During the campaign, which was funded by the Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee, State Police utilized sobriety checkpoints, additional DWI patrols, and ticketed distracted drivers who used handheld electronic devices. Troopers arrested 193 people for DWI and investigated 949 crashes, including 158 personal injury crashes and five fatalities. As part of the enforcement, Troopers also targeted speeding and aggressive drivers across the state. Here is a sampling of the total tickets that were issued:

Speeding 4,671; Distracted Driving 322; Seatbelt violations 1,030; Move Over Law 162

During last year’s 4th of July enforcement campaign, which ran from Friday, July 1, 2022, through Tuesday, July 5, 2022, one day less than this year’s campaign, the State Police issued 12,160 total tickets and arrested 197 people for DWI.

 

The cause of a fire that took the life of a member of the Buffalo Fire Department has been ruled an accident. Erie County District Attorney John Flynn said yesterday the March blaze on Main Street that killed Jason Arno was sparked by a blowtorch that accidentally ignited combustibles inside a building. The flames quickly engulfed the building and it took firefighters several hours to get things under control. It’s believed Arno died after being struck by collapsing debris.

 

 

 

The extremely popular Taste of Buffalo event is set for downtown this weekend. It runs tomorrow from 11 a.m. until 9 p.m. and on Sunday from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. along Delaware Avenue. Admission is free, and tickets for food and beverages can be purchased at three tents that are located at the festival. For more information, including a list of participating businesses, go to tasteofbuffalo.com.

 

 

The longtime radio voice of the Buffalo Bills won’t be calling any of the team’s games at the start of the upcoming season. John Murphy suffered a stroke before Buffalo’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals in January and is continuing to recover. Murphy will be replaced by Chris Brown, who is going to hold the position on an interim basis. The Bills begin their regular season on the road against the New York Jets September 11th.

 

The Batavia Muckdogs shutout the Red Wings last night; final score was 5-0 and they did it in dramatic fashion, with all five runs scored in the 9th inning. They’re back home tonight to host the Syracuse Salt Cats and then tomorrow evening, the Elmira Pioneers. The players take the field both nights at 6:35.

 

 

ELSEWHERE:

 

Millennials are apparently the worst offenders when it comes to lying on social media and in the workplace. A new survey from online casino PlayStar looked at more than 1300 people to ask them how much they lie. More than 1 in 10 millennials said they lie at least once a day. On the other hand, only two percent of Baby Boomers admitted the same. Some of the biggest areas of deception included fabricating something on a resume and lying on social media to impress others.

 

 

 

Twitter is threatening to sue Meta over the new Threads app. Meta’s Threads is a new text-based app similar to Twitter. A lawyer for Twitter reportedly sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg’s company claiming that Meta is engaging “in systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.”

 

 

No one won Wednesday’s grand prize of $546 million, so the jackpot rolls over to Saturday’s drawing and will be worth an estimated $590 million. The Mega Millions jackpot is also reaching astronomical heights, and will be worth about $427 million when those numbers are drawn this Friday. Please play responsibly.

 

 

Today is Friday, July 7th, the 188th day of the year.

 

July 7 in history…

…In 1802, “The Wasp” was published in Hudson, New York. It was the first comic book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

…In 1865, four people were executed by hanging for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln.

 

 

 

 

 

 

…In 1920, the radio compass was used for the first time on a United States Navy airplane.

 

 

 

 

…In 1998, a California jury convicted Mikail Markhasev of killing Bill Cosby’s son Ennis, during a roadside robbery.