A local man with a violent criminal history was arrested on Wednesday after he let himself into a woman's home early in the morning, woke her up and told her he needed to use the bathroom, police said.

Pamela Bowen said in an interview that said the man, Heath Elliott Cain, 36, stayed for about 15 to 20 minutes but did not harm her. She said she prayed throughout the ordeal that she would be OK.

Police said that a short time after Cain left Bowen's Homestead Drive home, officers tracked him down with the help of a police dog.

Cain, of 135 Norton Lane, was arraigned Wednesday on several charges in Superior Court in Manchester. Court records from California show that he served time in prison after a conviction on assault charges in the late 1990s.

Bowen said on Wednesday afternoon that Cain did not seem to be drunk or under the influence of drugs. Some of the things he said were incoherent, and other times he seemed lucid, she said.

"He said to me, 'I'm not going to hurt you lady, I just want to use your bathroom,'." Bowen said.

After waking her up, he told her at various times that he wanted to purchase the home, that he used to live there with another family and that someone had dropped him off and he was looking for his car, Bowen said.

She said she repeatedly asked Cain to leave, and followed him downstairs to her kitchen, where he looked at photos on her refrigerator, then opened the refrigerator to get a drink.

At one point, Cain went into the bathroom, then came out with a towel, Bowen said.

"That's when I really got scared," she said. "I said, 'What are you doing with that towel?'?"

Cain responded that he had to wipe down the door knobs he had touched because he left his DNA on them. He tried to put the towel in the washing machine to get rid of his DNA, but Bowen said she told Cain she wasn't turning on the machine. He eventually left through a garage door.

Before he walked into Bowen's home, police said, Cain defecated on the walkway leading up to it. Police also found his underwear on the walk.

Cain later told police that he got into the house through the unlocked front door.

Bowen said it won't be unlocked ever again.

South Windsor police Lt. Richard Riggs said several people called the department earlier on the same night to report that someone had rang doorbells at their homes. In once instance, Riggs said, a man approached a home, rang the doorbell then told the person in the house that he was handcuffed and needed a ride to his house. The homeowner locked her door and called police.

Police charged Cain with second-degree criminal trespass, second-degree criminal mischief and disorderly conduct and held him in lieu of $50,000 bail for arraignment Wednesday in Superior Court in Manchester.

During that arraignment, prosecutors added a charge of first-degree burglary and a judge increased Cain's bail to $150,000. He is due back in court Aug. 9.

Cain served seven years in prison for California after he shot his then-girlfriend in the head and stabbed a hospital pharmacist in the late 1990s, according to California court records.

He was charged with attempted murder, kidnapping, assault with a firearm, robbery, assault with a knife and burglary. A jury acquitted him of attempted murder and kidnapping, apparently believing Cain's statement that was trying to shoot himself and not his girlfriend when he hugged her tight and fired the pistol. He said he intended to shoot himself in front of her, not shoot her.

After driving his girlfriend to the hospital, according to the court records, Cain forced his way into the hospital pharmacy, threatened to stab the pharmacist, then "slurped the contents of several medication bottles."

He was convicted on the assault charges.

Courant reporter Jesse Leavenworth and Senior Information Specialist Cristina Bachetti contributed to this report.

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Entry #4,999

July 8, 2011
7:28 am

Man steals Pablo Picasso art work

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/07/BAC41K7JHQ.DTL

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Entry #4,998

July 8, 2011
7:07 am

Woman's Accounts Frozen After $3M Overdraft

http://www.wesh.com/news/28468572/detail.html

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Entry #4,997

July 7, 2011
12:26 pm

Win a baby game draws fire

New "win a baby" game draws fire

Stefano Ambrogi

Thursday, 07 July 2011 09:48

LONDON (Reuters) – A controversial IVF lottery will launch in Britain this month giving prospective parents the chance to win thousands of pounds toward expensive fertility treatments in top clinics.

The scheme, which the media have dubbed "win a baby," has already run into trouble on ethical grounds with critics calling it inappropriate and demeaning to human reproduction.

Britain's Gambling Commission has granted a license to fertility charity, To Hatch, to run the game from July 30.

Every month, winners can scoop 25,000 pounds' ($40,175) worth of tailor-made treatments at one of the UK's top five fertility clinics for the price of a 20 pound ticket bought online. The tickets may eventually be sold in newsagents.

The lottery is open to single, gay and elderly players as well as heterosexual couples struggling to start a family.

If standard IVF fails, individuals can be offered reproductive surgery, donor eggs and sperm or a surrogate birth, the charity says, though the winner will only be able to choose one treatment.

Winners will be put up in a luxury hotel before being chauffeur-driven to a treatment center. They will also get a mobile phone and a personal assistant to help with queries.

Camille Strachan, founder and chair of the charity, who has had fertility treatment of her own, told Reuters she wanted to create the "ultimate wish list" for those struggling with the stress of being unable to conceive.

"The license couldn't have come at a better time with drastic (government health service) budget cuts ... where in most cases IVF is the first on the hit list, rendering most couples resorting to private treatment."

But some medical and ethical groups condemned the game and the Gambling Commission said the issues it had thrown up may need further scrutiny.

Britain's fertility regulator, The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority said using IVF as a prize was "wrong and entirely inappropriate."

"It trivializes what is for many people a central part of their lives," it added in a statement.

Josephine Quintavalle, from the campaign group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said "creation of human life should not be reduced to a public lottery ... this demeans the whole nature of human reproduction."

The Gambling Commission said it had noted reaction to the scheme but said it had no regulatory powers to intervene and that any decision to revoke a license would be a government one.

"This particular example, perhaps, has thrown up some questions which may need looking at and whether that is by us or the government I don't know," a spokesman said.

"There has been concern expressed about this, but from our perspective it's a pretty straightforward granting of a license application for a lottery operator.

Around one couple in seven suffers from fertility problems in the UK, according to the fertility regulator. Latest figures show 40,000 patients were treated with IVF in 2008 which led to 15,000 babies being born as a result of that treatment.

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Entry #4,996

July 7, 2011
7:50 am

Woman charged with putting antifreeze in smoothie

Woman charged with putting antifreeze in smoothie

AP – This image provided by the Lane County Jail shows Selena Irene York who faces a second-degree felony …

By LYNN DeBRUIN, Associated Press Lynn Debruin, Associated Press–Wed Jul 6, 7:33 pm ET

SALT LAKE CITY – A woman was being held on an attempted murder charge Wednesday after police say she spiked her roommate's peach smoothie with antifreeze three years ago.

Selena Irene York, 33, was arrested this week in Eugene, Ore., where she remained jailed pending extradition back to Utah.

Police say Ed Zurbuchen, now 78, nearly died when York bought him a smoothie at a nearby store, dumped out half of it and poured in antifreeze before he drank it.

The Sept. 29, 2008, case went cold until a jilted boyfriend of York's recently came forward with new information, authorities said.

Police in Vernal, Utah, received a letter in April from Joseph Dominic Ferraro, who was awaiting trial on an unrelated case in Oregon but had information about the crime, according to court documents. The documents say he provided specific details of where York bought the smoothie and the antifreeze.

The biological father of York's teenage daughter, Zack Elderkin, later told investigators that the girl told him at the time about the man they were living with and how they planned to "knock him off."

Ferraro said he came forward with the information after York drained his bank accounts and sold both of his cars while he was in jail. He said she told him back in 2008 she planned to obtain power of attorney over Zurbuchen's finances, then kill him.

Authorities say they questioned York again in late June after receiving the letter and she admitted poisoning Zurbuchen. She claimed she only did it because she wanted him to "stop being mean" to her children.

When Zurbuchen was taken to a hospital after drinking the smoothie, He suffered from dizziness, speech problems and numbness on his face, authorities said. Tests determined he ingested ethylene glycol, the main ingredient in antifreeze.

At the time, York acknowledged giving Zurbuchen the smoothie but denied putting antifreeze in it, and police didn't have enough evidence to charge her.

Vernal police declined to comment Wednesday.

It wasn't immediately clear if York had an attorney or when she would be brought back to Utah.

Zurbuchen, however, still lives in Vernal and says he hasn't had a peach smoothie since.

"Heavens no," he said Wednesday.

He said York was an acquaintance who fell on tough times and he allowed her and her daughter to stay with him for a while.

"I never thought she'd be sleeping upstairs in my room fabricating how to kill me," Zurbuchen said. "That just blew my mind. ... I'm just lucky I'm here."

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Entry #4,995

July 7, 2011
7:43 am