Category: Court News

KINGMAN – A Texas-based laboratory has identified a homicide victim whose remains were discovered outside Kingman more than 27 years ago. Previous investigation determined the remains were those of an unidentified black male adult who was shot in the head. Two men hunting for rocks while walking their dogs came upon the shallow gravesite on Jan. 22, 1996, according to Mohave County Sheriff’s office public information assistant Jody Schanaman. She said the remains were recovered near a large rock formation and under a juniper tree north of Stockton Hill Road about three miles outside the city limits. Local authorities engaged…

BULLHEAD CITY – Bullhead City police report the arrest of a man wanted for abducting and assaulting a female earlier this month. Investigation began Sept. 3 when police responded to a report that Christian Hernandez, 42, was firing shots inside a home in the 1000 block of Holly Street where he was searching for a female while angry about a debt. “He found her hiding in a closet and proceeded to beat her,” said police department spokeswoman Emily Fromelt. “He reportedly took her to two other residences in Bullhead City where he continued to beat her and rendered her unconscious….

PRESCOTT, Ariz. (AP) – A young college student who was brutally killed on a Prescott hiking trail decades ago was the victim of a serial predator who took his own life years later, authorities said Friday. Yavapai County Sheriff David Rhodes announced at a news conference that DNA evidence indicates Bryan Scott Bennett was the man responsible for 23-year-old Catherine “Cathy” Sposito’s 1987 death. In November 2022, authorities had the body of Bennett, who killed himself in 1994, exhumed. It wasn’t until March that investigators confirmed DNA on a wrench used in the slaying belonged to him. By releasing this…

PRESCOTT, Ariz. (AP) – A young college student who was brutally killed on a Prescott hiking trail decades ago was the victim of a serial predator who took his own life years later, authorities said Friday. Yavapai County Sheriff David Rhodes announced at a news conference that DNA evidence indicates Bryan Scott Bennett was the man responsible for 23-year-old Catherine “Cathy” Sposito’s 1987 death. In November 2022, authorities had the body of Bennett, who killed himself in 1994, exhumed. It wasn’t until March that investigators confirmed DNA on a wrench used in the slaying belonged to him. By releasing this…

BULLHEAD CITY – Imposition of a 25-year prison term came as no surprise for the man who was shot by police in Bullhead City during a prolonged standoff early this year. The punishment prescribed for Kyle Schafer, 41, was mandated in a plea agreement convicting him of six aggravated assault related counts. Authorities said officers were uninjured during the Jan. 27 gunfire exchange with Bullhead City police but that Schafer was wounded during the 7-plus hour long standoff at his home in the 1600 block of Silver Creek Rd. Police spokeswoman Emily Fromelt said a civilian was also wounded when…

KINGMAN – Trial has opened in Kingman for a Mohave Valley man accused of sexual activity with his former girlfriend’s daughter when she was 11 years old. Dennis McDaniel, 67, is charged with two counts of sexual conduct with a minor. Deputy Mohave County Attorney Amanda Claerhout told the Mohave County Superior Court jury that the victim and her mother, Priscilla Murphy, 50, moved in with McDaniel in his Mohave Valley home in 2017 after Murphy broke her leg and had trouble using stairs to reach her apartment unit. Claerhout said the first illegal sexual encounter occurred in the victim’s…