Remains in Colorado car identified as man missing since 1987

Published May 14, 2013

Associated Press

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. –  Authorities in western Colorado say a human skeleton found in a partially buried car belongs to a man who was reported missing 26 years ago.

The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reports the Mesa County Coroner's Office identified the man on Monday as 65-year-old Ronald Vasey. He went missing in 1987.

The sheriff's department says someone hiking near John Brown Canyon Road, near Gateway, called 911 at about 6 p.m. Thursday to report a crashed vehicle below a cliff. The old station wagon was roughly 100 feet off the roadway, and it was partially obscured by rocks and sediment that presumably washed down over the years.

Deputies found personal items in the car, including clothing and credit cards.

The coroner's office says it appears Vasey committed suicide.

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Two new reports show gun homicides down since 1990s

Gun homicides have dropped steeply in the United States since their peak in 1993, a pair of reports released Tuesday showed, adding fuel to Congress' battle over whether to tighten restrictions on firearms.

A study released Tuesday by the government's Bureau of Justice Statistics found that gun-related homicides dropped from 18,253 in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011. That's a 39 percent reduction.

Another report by the private Pew Research Center found a similar decline by looking at the rate of gun homicides, which compares the number of killings to the size of the country's population. It found that the number of gun homicides per 100,000 people fell from 7 in 1993 to 3.6 in 2010, a drop of 49 percent.

Both reports also found the rate of non-fatal crimes involving guns was also down by around 70 percent over that period.

But perhaps because of the intense publicity generated by recent mass shootings such as the December massacre of 20 school children and six educators in Newtown, Conn., the public seems to have largely not noticed the reductions in gun violence, the Pew study shows.

The non-partisan group said a poll it conducted in March showed that 56 percent of people believe the number of gun crimes is higher than it was two decades ago. Only 12 percent said they think the number of gun crimes is lower, while the rest said they think it remained the same or didn't know.

The trend in firearm-related homicides is part of a broad nationwide decline in violent crime over past two decades, including incidents not involving firearms.

But handguns play a major role in violent crime. The Justice study said that in 2011, about 70 percent of all homicides were committed with a firearm, mainly a handgun.

The data was released three weeks after the Senate rejected an effort by gun control supporters to broaden the requirement for federal background checks for more firearms purchases. Senate Democratic leaders have pledged to hold that vote again, and gun control advocates have been raising public pressure on senators who voted "no" in hopes they will change their minds.

Gun rights advocates have argued that people are safer when they are allowed to own and carry guns. Those supporting gun control say that with more background checks, gun violence would drop because more criminals and mentally unstable people would be prevented from getting weapons.

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Remains ID'd as 13-year-old Hailey Dunn, Texas cheerleader missing since 2010

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  Hailey Dunn, a student and cheerleader at Colorado City Middle School in Colorado City, Texas, was reported missing on Dec. 28, 2010. (Colorado City Police Department).

The remains of a 13-year-old Texas cheerleader Hailey Dunn have been found more than two years after she was reported missing.

Hailey's remains were found in a remote West Texas location last month, and the Texas Department of Public Safety informed her mother, Billie Jean Dunn on Friday that the remains are her daughter's, attorney John Young said.

"She's trying to process the entirety of this," Young said. "She has to process that Hailey isn't coming home."

Scurry County Sheriff Trey Wilson said later Friday at a news conference that the remains were found near Lake J.B. Thomas in Scurry County on March 16. The girl's disappearance and cause of death remain under investigation.

Officials are expected to hold a news conference Friday afternoon.

Hailey had been the subject of months of intensive searches in and around her hometown of Colorado City and surrounding fields and landfills.

More than 100 billboards featuring her picture and information about the case have been set up along interstates in West Texas and other states.

Hailey was last seen walking to a friend's house and was reported missing Dec. 28, 2010, when her mother discovered the girl had never arrived.

Billie Jean Dunn told officials she had gotten into a fight with her daughter the night she disappeared. She was arrested a few months later for lying to police about the whereabouts of Adkins, her live-in boyfriend.

Dunn was given a year's probation and reportedly moved to Austin. Adkins had been named a person of interest in the case but was never charged.

Police records revealed Adkins had made troubling statements before Hailey disappeared. According to a police affidavit filed in the investigation, Adkins had remarked to a relative that hurting a teenager would be "like killing a deer." The affidavit also noted that Dunn and Adkins had an apparent fixation on slasher movies and serial killers -- something Dunn called a "hobby."

The affidavit mentioned that in February 2010, police responded to a domestic violence call at the house. Adkins allegedly threatened to kill Billie and Hailey Dunn during a heated argument. After telling police he never issued these threats, he later allegedly confessed to police that he threatened the two. However, both Adkins and Dunn denied having any involvement in the girl's disappearance.

Adkins told The Associated Press that he would "never ever do anything to harm Hailey."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Romney relays disappointment over loss, admits mistakes, in first sitdown since 2012 election

Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, gave an unflinching review Sunday of his unsuccessful campaign, admitting his shortcomings and disappointments but vowing to remain a force in American politics.

“It kills me not to be there, not to be in the White House doing what needs to be done,” Romney told “Fox News Sunday” in his first interview with wife Ann after the election. “It’s hard.”

In the wide-ranging interview, Romney and his wife also talked about everything from campaign missteps to heartbreaking Election night results to how President Obama has led the country so far in his second term.

“The president is out campaigning to the American people, doing rallies around the country, flying around the country and berating Republicans and blaming and pointing,” Romney said. “That causes the Republicans to retrench and to put up a wall and to fight back.”

Romney told Fox that Obama appears to be failing in his handling of the $85 billion in spending cuts this year that automatically kicked in this weekend, in part because he failed to broker a less drastic option between Democrats and Republicans.

“No one can think that that's been a success for the president,” he said. 

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, spoke in detail about remarks he made during a private event, regarding not being able to reach 47 percent of voters, which critics exploited late in the campaign.

“It was a very unfortunate statement,” Romney told Fox. “It's not what I meant. I didn't express myself as I wished I would have. You know, when you speak in private, uh, you don't spend as much time thinking about how something could be twisted and distorted. And it could come out wrong. … There's no question that hurt and did real damage to my campaign.

He also acknowledges he and his campaign failed to reach out to minorities as well as the Obama campaign.

“We weren't effective in my message primarily to minority voters, to Hispanic-Americans, African-Americans, other minorities,” Romney said. “That was a real mistake.”

In the interview, which was taped Thursday and aired Sunday, Romney also his campaign also underestimated the appeal of Obama's new health care law to low-income voters.

Romney said he is finished will elected office, but will continue to try to help the Republican Party, despite having a less powerful voice.

“I lost and so I'm not going to be telling the Republican Party, ‘Come listen to me, the guy who lost,’ ” Romney said. “I'm not going to disappear. … I care about America. I care about the people that can't find jobs. I care about the fact that we're racking up larger deficits and putting the peril of the future generation very much in play.”

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