EAST

CLUES SOUGHT IN PROSECUTOR’S DISAPPEARANCE

LEWISBURG, Pa. – Police searched the car belonging to a Pennsylvania prosecutor who has been missing since he failed to return from a drive Friday, but would not say yesterday if they found any clues. Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar’s red and white Mini Cooper was spotted Saturday in a parking lot across from an antiques market in this quaint borough that is home to Bucknell University. The police chief, Duane Dixon, declined to say whether investigators found anything inside the car, which police turned over to Mr. Gricar’s longtime girlfriend. He also was tightlipped about what police were doing to search for the missing prosecutor.

“There’s nothing else at this point,” he said.

Mr. Gricar’s last known contact with friends or relatives was at 11:30 a.m. Friday. The prosecutor had taken the day off from work. He said in a cell phone call that he was making the 45-mile drive to Lewisburg from his home in Bellefonte.

Workers didn’t report seeing anything unusual at the antiques market Friday, when Mr. Gricar is believed to have arrived, or on Saturday before his car was found. Police have said they hadn’t found anything to suggest foul play. No recent threats had been made against Mr. Gricar and none of his cases appeared likely to be involved, officials said. They also said they did not know if Mr. Gricar had any medical issues, although he had been working hard lately.

– Associated Press

SOUTH

SEX OFFENDER CHARGED IN DEATH OF SLAIN GIRL

RUSKIN, Fla. – A registered sex offender confessed to killing a 13-year-old girl who disappeared a week ago, saying he got into an argument with her and he choked her to death in her home, the sheriff said yesterday.

David Onstott, 36, was charged with first-degree murder yesterday, a day after investigators found Sarah Lunde’s partially clothed body in an abandoned fish pond, the Hillsborough County sheriff, David Gee, said.

Sarah was last seen April 9, shortly after returning home from a church trip. Early the next morning, Mr. Onstott paid an unexpected visit to the family’s home to look for Sarah’s mother, Kelly May Lunde, whom he once dated, Mr. Gee said.

After Sarah let Mr. Onstott into the house, they got into an argument and Mr. Onstott put her in a choke hold and killed her, Mr. Gee said.

“You are talking about a person who would murder a child. Who knows what’s in his mind,” said Mr. Gee, who didn’t give further details of the confession.

Sarah’s 17-year-old brother came home later and found the front door wide open and his sister gone, but the family initially assumed Sarah had gone to a friend’s house. She was not reported missing until April 11.

– Associated Press

MASSIVE WAVE FORCES CRUISE SHIP TO DOCK EARLY

CHARLESTON, S.C. – A seven-story wave damaged a cruise ship returning from the Bahamas over the weekend, smashing windows, flooding more than 60 cabins and injuring four passengers. The Norwegian Dawn was diverted from its route when the ship ran into rough weather on the way back to New York on Saturday. The 965-foot-long vessel docked in the Charleston harbor for repairs, and departed for New York early yesterday after a Coast Guard inspection, officials said. It was expected back in New York by noon today.

“The ship was hit by a freak wave that caused two windows to break in two different cabins,” Norwegian Cruise Line said in a statement. It said 62 cabins flooded and four passengers had cuts and bruises. The wave reached as high as deck 10 on the ship, company spokeswoman Susan Robison said yesterday.

James Fraley, who was taking a honeymoon cruise with his wife, said they called their loved ones as the wave pounded the boat because they thought the ship was going down.

“It was pure hell. We’re talking 47-foot waves hitting the 10th floor, knocking Jacuzzis on the 12th floor overboard – people sleeping in hallways in life jackets,” Mr. Fraley told WCBD-TV in Charleston. “Just pure pandemonium.”

– Associated Press

MIDWEST

PROSECUTORS TO DISCLOSE EVIDENCE IN BTK CASE

WICHITA, Kan. – The man accused of terrorizing Wichita for years, the alleged BTK serial killer, has a preliminary trial this week that may provide the public with a fuller glimpse at the state’s case against him. Dennis Rader, a former city ordinance enforcement officer for Park City, will be brought into a courtroom under tight security beginning Tuesday for his preliminary hearing on 10 counts of first-degree murder.

The BTK strangler, whose nickname stands for “Bind, Torture, Kill,” had been suspected of eight deaths beginning in 1974, but since Mr. Rader’s arrest authorities have linked two more victims to the serial killer. Prosecutors can’t seek the death penalty because all the crimes Mr. Rader is charged with were committed before 1994, when Kansas passed its capital punishment law.

The preliminary hearing is expected to take three to 10 days, said Georgia Cole, spokeswoman for the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office. “We have to present evidence on each crime,” she said.

The court has sealed almost every order and motion filed in the case. Still, at least some evidence likely to be presented at the hearing has likely already been disclosed in the press.

– Associated Press