Court papers filed Tuesday indicate a 29-year-old Anchorage man has acknowledged that he killed his neighbor and another woman for whose murder he was acquitted.

The plea agreement is between federal prosecutors and Joshua Alan Wade, who is charged with the 2007 torture killing of his neighbor, Mindy Schloss.

In the filing, Wade also said he killed another Anchorage woman, Della Brown, in 2000. A jury acquitted Wade of that crime.

Prosecutors were seeking the death penalty in the Schloss killing, which would make it the first capital punishment case in Alaska since before statehood. But the plea agreement calls for a 99-year sentence without parole.

Wade is expected to change his plea Wednesday in federal court and be sentenced.

The man accused of strangling his ex-girlfriend - defense attorney Margaret Allen - and killing a witness in the case will make his first court appearance at 2 p.m. today in Butler County Common Pleas Court.

Calvin McKelton, 32, will be arraigned on an 11-count indictment charging him with aggravated murder, murder, two counts of felonious assault, abuse of a corpse, intimidation of a witness, tampering with evidence, aggravated robbery, aggravated arson and two charges of domestic violence.
Allen’s body was found at Schmidt Field in Cincinnati’s East End in July 2008.

Prosecutors are expected to release more details about the case today, including information about the dead witness.

McKelton was arrested Friday afternoon near Lexington Avenue and Reading Road in Avondale by the U.S. Marshals’ Southern Ohio Fugitive Apprehension Strike Team. He faces the death penalty if convicted.

The Supreme Court has again reinstated the conviction of a California woman for shaking her 7-week-old grandson in a case that has become a tug-of-war with the federal appeals court in San Francisco.

Shirley Ree Smith was convicted in December 1997 and was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.

After California appeals courts ruled against Smith, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the conviction in 2006. The appellate judges said they found "no demonstrable support" for the prosecution's theory of the case. Prosecutors said that Smith lost her temper when Etzel Dean Glass III began to cry and shook him to death.

In 2007, the high court ordered the 9th Circuit to reconsider its decision based on a recent Supreme Court ruling. In that case, the justices overturned another ruling by the appeals court that was favorable to a convicted killer.

The Massachusetts parents accused of killing their 4-year-old daughter by overdosing her with prescription drugs will be tried separately.

Assistant District Attorney Frank Middleton said in court Wednesday that prosecutors decided to hold separate trials for Carolyn and Michael Riley after the judge ruled certain statements each of the Rileys made might incriminate the other and could not be heard. Those statements could be used in separate trials.

The judge on Monday denied a defense motion to dismiss murder charges against the Rileys. Their lawyers argued that the murder indictment should be thrown out because a new medical report from a prosecution expert acknowledges that the girl had pneumonia. The defense claims that caused her death.

A 25-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to setting a fire at a western Massachusetts home that killed two of his neighbors. It was one of nine fires set within hours of one another in the community of Northampton.

Anthony P. Baye was ordered held without bail Tuesday at his arraignment on two counts of murder, arson and armed burglary in Northampton District Court. He has not been charged with the other fires.

Prosecutors said in court that Baye was caught on surveillance video in the area the night of the fires. They said that proves his alibi — that he was visiting his girlfriend — was a lie.

The Dec. 27 blaze killed 81-year-old Paul Yeskie Sr. and his 39-year-old son, Paul Yeskie Jr.

Baye lives in the Yeskies' neighborhood. A woman who answered the phone at the Baye home Tuesday declined to comment.