FOXNews.com: Snow plow driver charged in death of Vermont teacher wanted 'to get a girl,' police say

FOXNews.com FOX News Network - We Report. You Decide. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Snow plow driver charged in death of Vermont teacher wanted 'to get a girl,' police say Mar 29th 2012, 12:02 A snowplow driver and his wife went to great lengths to dispose of the body of a popular teacher they had just beaten and strangled, putting her nude body on a tarp, pouring bleach on it, weighing the corpse down with concrete blocks and tossing it into the Connecticut River, court documents allege. Allen Prue, 30, and his wife, 33-year-old Patricia Prue, were riding around when he got the idea "to get a girl," a police affidavit said. They are accused of luring single mother Melissa Jenkins from her home by pretending their vehicle had broken down. Her vehicle was found idling Sunday with her unharmed 2-year-old son inside. The couple pleaded not guilty Wednesday to second-degree murder in the death of Jenkins, a 33-year-old science teacher at the prestigious St. Johnsbury Academy, and unauthorized burial or removal of a dead body. More charges are possible, police said. People in the close-knit communities of northeastern Vermont had been speculating about the crime and who was responsible. "But they didn't expect the gruesome" details, said a tearful Marion Beattie Cairns, the owner of The Creamery Restaurant, where Jenkins had worked part-time as a waitress and people had gathered since her disappearance to console each other. Vermont State Police Maj. Ed Ledo said he hoped the arrests would bring closure for Jenkins' family and friends. "We can now turn our full attention to healing from this tragic loss, celebrating Melissa's life and mourning her death," said Joe Healy, a spokesman for St. Johnsbury Academy, which will hold a memorial service for her on Friday. The school counts President Calvin Coolidge among its alumni. Police said the Prues hadn't planned a use of force. But they gave few details on a possible motive in Jenkins' death. The Prues were ordered held without bail. "They knew Miss Jenkins and had snowplowed her driveway a couple of years ago," Vermont State Police Maj. Ed Ledo said at a news conference announcing the arrests. A friend told police that Allen Prue had asked Jenkins out a couple of times and that she felt uncomfortable around him, according to the documents. She stopped having him plow, and in autumn 2011 he showed up drunk at her home asking if he could plow her driveway the following year. After the court appearance, Allen Prue's mother, Donna Prue, said that her son has never been in trouble with the law before and that she has faith he didn't commit the crime. "I do not believe he would ever do this, because he didn't have it in him. I have nothing against her (Patricia); I don't have nothing bad to say about either one," said Donna Prue, who lives with the couple and her daughter. She said she did not know Jenkins. Police were called Sunday night after Jenkins' son was found alone in her vehicle. Her former boyfriend told police she called him saying that she had gotten a weird call from a couple who used to plow her driveway and that she was going to help them. She wanted someone to know what she was doing, the documents say. When he couldn't reach her two hours later, he went to check on her. He told police he found her vehicle, with her son sleeping in it, and one of her shoes nearby. Allen Pr flight that began in New York and was diverted to Amarillo, Texas. He was still being held at a hospital there Wednesday and being medically evaluated. Under federal law, a conviction for interference with a flight crew or attendants can bring up to 20 years in prison. The offense is defined as assaulting or intimidating the crew, interfering with its duties or diminishing its ability to operate the plane. One aviation expert said he couldn't remember a pilot being prosecuted on the charge, which reads as though it was written with passengers in mind. "I've been doing this for more than 50 years, and I can't recall anything like this," said Denny Kelly, a private investigator in Dallas and former Braniff Airlines pilot. A pilot with JetBlue since 2000, Osbon acted oddly and became increasingly erratic on the flight, worrying his fellow crew members so much that they locked him out of cockpit after he abruptly left for the cabin, according to a federal affidavit. He then started yelling about Jesus, al-Qaida and a possible bomb on board, forcing passengers to tackle him and tie him up with seat belt extenders for about 20 minutes until the planed landed. "The (first officer) became really worried when Osbon said `we need to take a leap of faith,"' according to the sworn affidavit given by an FBI agent John Whitworth. "Osbon started trying to correlate completely unrelated numbers like different radio frequencies, and he talked about sins in Las Vegas." Investigators said they were told that Osbon scolded air traffic controllers to quiet down, then turned off the radios altogether, and dimmed the monitors in the cockpit. He allegedly said aloud that "things just don't matter" and encouraged his co-pilot that they take a leap of faith. "We're not going to Vegas," Osbon told his co-pilot in midflight, according to the affidhe cockpit when he was 6 or 7 and had ambitions of becoming a motivational speaker. His father and another man died after the engines in their plane failed over Daytona Beach while en route to look for treasure in Fort Lauderdale, according to 1995 story in the Washington Island Observer, a newspaper in the small Wisconsin community where Osbon's parents had a home. Osbon's LinkedIn profile states that he received a degree from aeronautical physics from Hawthorne College and a physics degree from Carnegie Mellon University. However, Carnegie Mellon spokeswoman Teresa Thomas said Osbon attended the school for three years never obtain his degree. "On a Sunday morning he'd call me up and say, `Let's go for a flight,"' neighbor Erich Thorp said. "Even with that little Piper Cub, before he would take it off the ground he would spend 15 minutes checking everything out. He had a whole list he would check. He was as careful a pilot as you could imagine."

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions