The Crime Ledger: September 3, 2026

Daily Breaking True Crime Briefing
As of: September 3, 2026, evening ET
Scope: Last day, worldwide. Minneapolis, Plymouth, Valletta, Sheffield, Las Vegas, Montgomery, Flomaton, Grangetown, Perth, Pawleys Island. No tabloid-only facts.

Downtown Minneapolis took the day. A custody handoff outside Shoreline Plaza turned into a ninth-floor gunfight that left two residents and the suspected shooter dead, three officers hit, and an eviction file full of prior gun threats looking like a missed red flag. In Plymouth, the Clancy jury finished a sixth day still stuck — the foreperson named a holdout who, defense counsel says, won’t follow the reasonable-doubt instruction — and Judge Sullivan refused to kick that juror. A Valletta jury cleared Yorgen Fenech of commissioning Daphne Caruana Galizia’s 2017 car-bomb murder, eight to one. Sheffield’s Baby S case got an April 2027 Crown Court date. Las Vegas held Juan Carlos Orona without bail after he allegedly walked into a substation and said he’d killed his girlfriend and her two kids. Montgomery filings put a protection-order history and a 10-month-old in the room on Tarus Giles’s four capital counts. Flomaton parents picked up attempted-murder charges after a 15-year-old landed critical in Pensacola. Grangetown’s fire deaths got a calendar. Lanark OPP upgraded two Ottawa men to first-degree in the Christo Richards killing. In Tennessee, the parents of five-year-old Saylor Hayes waived extradition back to South Carolina.

Minneapolis Custody Swap Turns Mass Shooting

At about 4:36 p.m. Wednesday outside Shoreline Plaza (15 E. Grant St., formerly Loring Towers), Minnesota BCA says Carlton Neal Johnson II, 35, opened fire during what looked like a custody exchange with his child’s mother. She was shot in the leg. The child ran clear. Johnson then walked inside, shot two employees on the first floor — one woman critically — rode the elevator to his ninth-floor unit, and killed Dale Henry Spry, 63, and Muse Abdi Afrah, 61. Officers were inside in under two minutes. In a haze-choked hallway they traded gunfire; Johnson died there. Officer Joseph Michnowski was shot in the abdomen and remained hospitalized Thursday. Officer Yahye Ahmed was shot in the leg and released. Officer Liban Mohamed Ibrahim also fired.

Johnson had a valid permit to carry. Hennepin County court records show he was fighting eviction after months of alleged gun displays and threats to staff and residents; an Extreme Risk Protection Order review after a June 25 call never stuck. Formal ID of the shooter was still pending as of BCA’s Thursday briefings, but investigators and local reporting name him. BCA Superintendent Drew Evans called it the domestic-violence-to-mass-casualty pattern out loud. It happened eight days before an eviction trial that might have put him out of the building.

Sources:

• BNO News — Police name gunman in Minneapolis apartment building shooting; 2 victims identified
• KSTP — Deadly downtown Minneapolis shooting started as a custody exchange
• Minneapolis Patch — Minneapolis mass shooter was being evicted over gun threats, court records show
• FOX 9 — Downtown Minneapolis mass shooting: What we know so far

Clancy Jury: Day Six, One Holdout Named

Plymouth Superior Court sent the Clancy panel home without a verdict Thursday — day six of deliberations, after Tuesday and Wednesday deadlock notes and a Tuey-Rodriguez “dynamite” charge. New tonight: the foreperson’s note, as read into the fight by defense lawyer Kevin Reddington, says one juror will not follow Judge William Sullivan’s instructions on reasonable doubt. Reddington asked that juror removed. Sullivan refused. “I don’t feel it’s appropriate to say I agree with one juror or 11,” he said. Individual inquiry is set for 9 a.m. Friday. Outside court, Reddington said he does not want a mistrial and believes the holdout is the problem.

Lindsay Clancy, 36, doesn’t deny strangling Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, in their Duxbury basement in January 2023. Defense: postpartum psychosis erased criminal responsibility. Prosecution: she planned it. Options still run from first-degree to not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility. A third deadlock note can force a mistrial under Massachusetts practice after the two prior keep-going pushes.

Sources:

• AP — Defense in Lindsay Clancy trial seeks juror’s removal
• NBC News — Lindsay Clancy defense wants juror removed amid deadlock
• CBS Boston — Jury leaves without verdict; defense says juror “spurned the instructions”
• CNN — Live updates: tensions over holdout juror

Valletta Jury Clears Fenech in Caruana Galizia Murder

Nearly nine years after Daphne Caruana Galizia died in an October 2017 car bombing near her home, a Maltese jury of six women and three men cleared businessman Yorgen Fenech, 44, on Wednesday of complicity in voluntary homicide and of association with intent to commit a crime — eight to one after about eight hours. Judge Edwina Grima ordered him released on the spot. He left through the front door without comment while hecklers waited outside.

Prosecutors had argued Fenech paid about €150,000 through middleman Melvin Theuma to have the journalist killed as she closed in on his businesses and political ties. The defence pointed up the chain toward former prime minister Joseph Muscat’s then-chief of staff Keith Schembri, who denied any role. Three men have already been convicted of carrying out the killing; two others of supplying the bomb. Fenech was the last of the charged plot figures to face a jury. Caruana Galizia’s sister Corinne Vella called the verdict a signal that “you can kill journalists with impunity.” Her son wrote that jurors “washed their hands” of justice. A prosecution appeal is expected.

Sources:

• Reuters — Malta court clears businessman over murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia
• The Guardian — Maltese tycoon found not guilty of involvement in Daphne Caruana Galizia murder
• Al Jazeera — Malta businessman acquitted of plotting journalist Caruana Galizia murder
• NPR — Malta’s Yorgen Fenech acquitted in case of Daphne Caruana Galizia killing

Sheffield Baby S Case Set for April Trial

Four Slovakian nationals — Andrea Skopova, 20; Peter Horvath Jr, 19; Peter Horvath Sr, 38; and Nina Horvathova, 37 — appeared at Sheffield Crown Court Thursday charged with murdering a newborn known only as Baby S. A 15-year-old girl faces a charge of perverting the course of justice. Judge Sarah Wright fixed a trial for 12 April 2027, expected to run six to seven weeks. All five were remanded; the adults next appear 2 October.

South Yorkshire Police were called to Holywell Heights in Wincobank on Sunday after concern for an infant. A post-mortem found 33 wounds from 15 stabbings. On Wednesday at magistrates’ court, prosecutor Luke Hopkinson said the body was found wrapped in a towel in a blue bag on top of a washing machine in an outhouse. The adults also face causing or allowing the death of a child and perverting justice by cleaning the scene. Two other women, 26 and 37, arrested on suspicion of murder remain on bail. DCI Tom Woodward asked the public not to speculate online while the case is live.

Sources:

• BBC — Four to face trial accused of murdering baby in Sheffield
• The Guardian — Baby stabbed to death in Sheffield was found on top of a washing machine, court told
• BBC — Four people in court charged over Wincobank newborn baby death

Las Vegas Triple Killing: Held Without Bail

Juan Carlos Orona, 29, made his first appearance Thursday at the Regional Justice Center and is held without bail for now, Justice of the Peace Suzan Baucum finding probable cause. He faces three counts of open murder plus discharging a firearm into an occupied structure. Public defender Marissa Pensabene asked to postpone the bail fight; he’s due back Sept. 9.

Metro Lt. Robert Price has said Orona drove to the Southeast Area Command substation around 7 p.m. Tuesday with a superficial gunshot wound to the stomach and reported that he’d killed his girlfriend and her two children. Officers found a woman in her 40s, a teenage girl, and a boy under 10 dead from gunshots in an apartment on the 5100 block of O’Bannon Drive near West Sahara and Decatur. Victim names still aren’t public. Family members sat tearful in the gallery and declined comment. Price called domestic violence one of the city’s top homicide drivers. Orona is presumed innocent.

Sources:

• Las Vegas Review-Journal — Man who reportedly confessed to killing girlfriend and her children held without bail
• News 3 LV — Man accused of killing girlfriend, her 2 children appears in court
• FOX5 Vegas — Man accused in triple homicide of Las Vegas mother, kids due to court

Montgomery Filings Detail Gibbs Village Capitals

Court papers obtained Thursday fill in why Tarus Giles, 20, faces four capital murder counts in the Aug. 31 shooting deaths of Undrea Willis, 25, and Nalyn Reeves, 19, in the 1800 block of Gibbs Circle at Gibbs Village. Filings allege he came through a living-room window after the door was locked; Reeves’s 10-month-old son — Giles’s child, per records — was in a bedroom. Charge stack, per WAKA and WSFA: capital murder of two or more people, capital murder in the presence of a child under 14, and capital murder during a burglary. Reeves had filed a protection-from-abuse petition against Giles in December 2025. He was out on bond on a January third-degree burglary when the shootings happened. Booked Wednesday into Montgomery County Detention; both women died at the scene and are the city’s 36th and 37th homicides of 2026. He is presumed innocent.

Sources:

• WAKA — Court documents have new information on killings of two women in Montgomery
• WSFA — Filings reveal motive, more in Montgomery double homicide

Flomaton Parents Face Attempted Murder

Flomaton Police say Eric McClure, 41, and Cynthia Tedder, 36, are each charged with attempted murder plus torture and willful abuse of a child after their 15-year-old was admitted in critical condition to Ascension Sacred Heart in Pensacola. Florida authorities flagged the case to Flomaton around 5:13 a.m. Sept. 1. Officers executed a search warrant at the Titi Street residence where the juvenile lived, then obtained arrest warrants. Both were taken into custody in Pensacola Tuesday; Chief Justin Hetrick said the district attorney added attempted-murder counts the same day based on newly obtained evidence. They’re held without bond in Florida’s Escambia County Jail pending extradition to Alabama’s Escambia County Jail in Brewton. Further details are being withheld to protect the child. Both are presumed innocent.

Sources:

• Law & Crime — Parents tortured, tried to kill teen daughter: Cops
• WEAR — Flomaton parents charged with attempted murder, torture, willful abuse of 15-year-old
• Atmore Advance — Flomaton couple arrested; attempted murder added

Grangetown Fire Deaths Reach Crown Court

Jaden Wright, 23, appeared at Teesside Crown Court Thursday charged with two counts of murder, two of GBH with intent, and two of attempted GBH with intent after the Aug. 26 house fire on Birchington Avenue in Grangetown that killed seven-year-old Valentina Foster and her aunt Natalie McDonald, 34. Two adults and two teenagers were injured. He entered no pleas. Judge Jonathan Carroll set a three-week trial to start April 14; plea hearing Sept. 23. Remanded in custody. Valentina’s family released a statement earlier this week mourning a daughter “missed beyond words.” Wright is presumed innocent.

Sources:

• Teesside Live / PA — Man charged with murders following Grangetown house fire appears at crown court

Perth Warrants Upgraded to First-Degree

Lanark County OPP said Thursday that arrest warrants for Joseph Madore, 34, and Brayton Kennedy, 28, both of Ottawa, have been upgraded from second-degree to first-degree murder in the April 12 killing of Christo Allison Richards, 34, of Ottawa, found with life-threatening injuries at Last Duel Park in Perth around 3:15 p.m. and later pronounced dead. Michael Lewis, 46, of Perth, was charged in May with conspiracy to commit murder; Lyna Du, 32, of Ottawa, was charged in June as an accessory after the fact. Police believe Madore may be in remote British Columbia backcountry; Kennedy may be in New Brunswick. Do not approach — call 911. None of the allegations have been proven in court.

Sources:

• The Lanarkist — OPP upgrade warrants to first-degree murder in Perth homicide investigation

Saylor Hayes Parents Waive Extradition

John Herb Hayes III, 70, and Geordyn Nichole Hayes, 31, of Bristol, Virginia, appeared Thursday in Carter County General Sessions Court in Tennessee and waived extradition to South Carolina in the death of their nonverbal five-year-old daughter, Saylor. Her body was recovered Monday near Hagley Landing on the Waccamaw River in Pawleys Island after her mother reported her missing Sunday from a Hagley Estates rental, last seen in a swimsuit. Arrest affidavits accuse the parents of diverting searchers toward a Project Lifesaver tracker they allegedly knew she wasn’t wearing. Charged so far with unlawfully placing a child at risk or willfully abandoning a child; held without bond in Tennessee pending transfer within about 10 days. Georgetown County Sheriff Carter Weaver said Saylor “deserved to be safe.” John Hayes had a 2023 child-abuse case that ended in a deferred disposition later dismissed. Both are presumed innocent.

Sources:

• NBC News — Parents arrested after death of 5-year-old nonverbal daughter to be extradited to South Carolina