Gazette Daily News Briefing, June 6
This Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette Digital News Desk, and I’m here with your update for Tuesday, June 6.
There will be a chance for rain Tuesday, but it will again be a low chance. According to the National Weather Service there will be a 20 percent of showers and thunderstorms after 3 p.m. in the Cedar Rapids area, growing slightly more likely Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. Besides that it will be mostly sunny, with a high near 89 degrees. On Tuesday night there will be mostly cloudy skies and a low of around 61 degrees.
A Cedar Rapids teen who killed his parents with two knives and an ax on Oct. 14, 2021, will have to serve a mandatory minimum of 50 years of a life sentence before being eligible for parole.
Ethan Orton, who attacked his mother, Misty Scott-Slade, 41, after she fell asleep in a chair and his father, Casey Arthur Orton, 42, who was asleep on a sofa, told a psychologist they emotionally and verbally abused him all his life. And when his mother sent him an email the day before, saying he had to move out when he turned 18 — in five months — it pushed him to attack.
Sixth Judicial District Judge Ian Thornhill considered the factors for a youthful offender facing a life sentence to determine the appropriate sentence. The Iowa Supreme Court banned life sentences without a chance for parole for juveniles in 2016, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s same decision in 2012.
Thornhill sentenced Orton to two life sentences but ran them concurrently, and found a mandatory 50-year minimum isn’t equal to a life sentence because he would be eligible for parole at 67, which is retirement age for many people.
An Iowa National Guard soldier who was three weeks away from retirement from the Guard has died after being struck by a vehicle May 22 in Iowa City.
The Iowa City Police Department confirmed Monday that Corey J. Hite, 45, of Cedar Rapids, died Sunday morning nearly two weeks after the crash. The department had not previously identified the pedestrian hit in the crash, which happened just after 4 p.m. that day at the intersection of Melrose Avenue and Kennedy Parkway.
The police department also hasn’t released information about the driver of the vehicle that struck the soldier, or whether any charges related to the crash are being contemplated. The Gazette requested a recording of the 911 call related to the crash, but the request was denied because police said the crash remained under investigation.
Hite was out for a jog when he was hit. He had spent the last couple of weeks in the hospital with serious injuries, including a pelvis fracture, multiple skull fractures, holes in his lung and kidney and brain swelling, according to a GoFundMe page started on behalf of the family. The fundraising page had raised over $4,600 by Monday afternoon.
According to reporting from the Associated Press, the remains of all three men caught inside the Davenport apartment building that partially collapsed last week have been recovered, the city’s police chief said Monday, as survivors began filing lawsuits asserting that negligence led to the structural failure.
The police chief said Branden Colvin Sr., 42, was recovered Saturday. Ryan Hitchcock, 51, was recovered Sunday and Daniel Prien, 60, was recovered early Monday. He did not say if they died immediately after the May 28 collapse, but autopsies will be performed on all three.
