Local, State briefs
BY Staff Reports
Friday, December 21, 2012
12/21/12 at 2:30 AM
Felon handed 12-year term in assault on EMSA driver
A previously convicted felon was sentenced Thursday to 12 years in prison for a knife assault on an emergency medical worker in Tulsa.
Smokey Don Pipes, 36, pleaded guilty to a charge of assault with a dangerous weapon.
Pipes grabbed an EMSA driver through an ambulance window at SouthCrest Hospital - now known as Hillcrest Hospital South - about 1 a.m. Nov. 5, 2011, police reported.
Pipes pulled a knife and attempted to stab or cut the ambulance driver, who evaded the attack, according to police.
The defendant's girlfriend had been taken by ambulance to the hospital from a bar after having a medical problem, an arrest report says.
Pipes has a felony record in Tulsa County for firearm-related offenses, eluding police and running a roadblock.
Tulsa County District Judge James Caputo sentenced him to 12 years in prison for the assault.
- BILL BRAUN, World Staff Writer
High winds cause power outages in Tulsa area
Wind gusts up to 52 mph knocked out power to thousands of people in the Tulsa area Thursday morning.
AEP-PSO spokesman Ed Bettinger said power outages were caused by tree limbs that fell on power lines, as well as by power lines slapping together during the high winds.
Outages peaked early Thursday with about 2,000 customers without power. However, by 4 p.m., fewer than a dozen area customers were still without power, Bettinger said.
Tulsa temperatures are forecast to be about 8 degrees above normal on Friday, which is the winter solstice, with dry weather forecast for the weekend, said Brad McGavock, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Tulsa.
"Temperatures will continue to stay warm through the weekend ... relative to the normal for this time of the year," McGavock said.
The potential for snow in Tulsa around Christmas is still unknown, he said.
"It has been changing a lot," McGavock said. "We've had to look at the data every day. There's been no strong signal."
- From Staff Reports
Stillwater man killed when hit while clearing highway
A Stillwater man was killed in a vehicle-pedestrian crash early Thursday.
Kenneth Lee Snead, 74, was attempting to remove debris from the roadway on Oklahoma 51 at Prairie Road when he was hit by a car just before 6 a.m., the Oklahoma Highway Patrol reported. He died at the scene.
David Karlin, 62, of Cushing was driving west in a Buick sedan when he hit Snead, troopers said, adding in their report that it was dark at the time.
Karlin reportedly was not injured.
- Susan Hylton, World Staff Writer
Woman is found guilty of killing boyfriend's son
MIAMI - An Ottawa County jury deliberated for about an hour Thursday morning before convicting a Quapaw woman of killing a toddler and recommending a life prison sentence.
Skye Reece, 20, was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of 17-month-old Lanceton Hollenbeck, the son of a man with whom Reece was living.
District Attorney Eddie Wyant said Reece will have to serve at least 38 years before she becomes eligible for parole.
The state Medical Examiner's Office ruled the child's death a homicide and said the cause was craniocerebral injuries caused by blunt trauma. The autopsy report shows a nearly 4 1/2-inch skull fracture on the left side of Lanceton's head, with two smaller fractures that branch off from it.
Lanceton died Feb. 12.
Reece and Ryan Nowlin, the toddler's father, were living together at the time the boy was injured. Nowlin testified that he and Reece had a son who was about 4 months old at the time. He said he has custody of that child.
Lanceton did not live with Nowlin and Reece, but on the day he was injured, he was at his father's house for a weekend visit.
Reece did not testify during her trial, but according to an arrest affidavit, she told police that she was the only adult in the home when Lanceton was injured and that he had been playing in his bedroom. She said she heard a loud noise but no crying, the affidavit states.
- Sheila Stogsdill, World Correspondent
Two children, woman die in southern Oklahoma fire
WILSON - Two young children and their mother died early Thursday in a fire in south-central Oklahoma.
The bodies of a 7-year-old girl, her 4-year-old brother and a woman were discovered after a house fire was reported about 4:25 a.m. near Wilson, a small Carter County town west of Ardmore, said JoAnne Sellars, a spokeswoman with the state Fire Marshal's Office.
The children's father, Benjamin Hickman, was able to get out of the house unharmed, Sellars said.
Dental records will be needed to confirm the identities of the victims, she said.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Three space heaters - two in the room where the children were sleeping and one next to the parents' bed in the living room - were in use when the blaze broke out, Sellars said.
Hickman told authorities that the mother awoke screaming, saying the house was on fire. He went outside to get a garden hose, but it couldn't reach the house, Sellars said.
He also went to the children's bedroom window but couldn't enter because of the intense flames that were fed by high winds, she said.
By the time Wilson firefighters reached the home, the structure was destroyed, according to Sellars.
- Rhett Morgan, World Staff Writer
