Soldier who shot commander dies
Soldier who shot commander dies
FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — A soldier who shot and killed his superior officer Thursday at Fort Bragg and then turned the gun on himself is also dead, military officials said Sunday.
The Army said that 27-year-old Spc. Ricky G. Elder of Hutchinson, Kan., died Friday after undergoing treatment at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center in Fayetteville, N.C.
The Army said Elder, an infantryman, had been charged recently with larceny of a toolkit valued at $1,700 and had been awaiting court martial at the time of the shootings. His trial had not been scheduled.
Meanwhile, Elder was also facing legal troubles in his home town at the time of his death. Elder had been scheduled to appear before a Reno County district judge on Friday to be sentenced for aggravated battery. The charge stemmed from a 2010 incident in which a woman was punched in the face at a local sports bar. Elder pleaded guilty to reckless aggravated battery in November 2011.
The military said Lt. Col. Roy Tisdale of Alvin, Texas, was fatally wounded Thursday during a safety briefing. A third soldier, 22-year-old Spc. Michael E. Latham of Vacaville, Calif., also was wounded and has been released from the hospital.
Elder enlisted in the Army in 2004. He deployed to Iraq from October 2006 to November 2007 and to Afghanistan from September 2010 to July 2011.
Woman must end Cuba-Fla. swim
KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) — A 49-year-old grandmother and veteran endurance swimmer scuttled her quest early Sunday to become the first woman to swim unaided from Cuba to the Florida Keys, unable to close the gap on the last 26 miles of a more than 100-mile ocean odyssey.
Penny Palfrey had fended off painful jellyfish stings while keeping an eye on hammerhead sharks as she attempted the crossing without a shark cage.
But her support team said the tricky currents of the Florida Straits proved to be her biggest obstacle, pushing her east so that she ended up losing ground just as she was achingly close to her goal, her husband Chris Palfrey said.
All told, the British-born Australian athlete had been swimming nearly 41 hours since plunging into balmy waters near Havana, Cuba, on Friday to start out. She was about three-quarters of the way into her swim when she gave up the effort about midnight, just 26 miles south of Florida’s Key West.