Nation briefs

INDIANACops: Newlywed murder-suicide

Only hours after they were married, a couple was found dead in an apparent murder-suicide, authorities say. An after-party at the home of George Samson, 54, and Kelly Ecker Samson, 50, followed a wedding reception Saturday night at a Terre Haute banquet center, the Vigo County Sheriff's Department said. Witnesses told police George Samson left the reception without his wife, and some guests said they weren't talking with each other during the party. Only Kelly Samson's young son and George Samson's parents were at the house when she made the first of four 911 calls starting about 1:20 a.m. Sunday, officials said. She told a dispatcher her husband had threatened to kill her. Deputies arrived to find Kelly Samson dead in a bedroom from gunshots. The others there were safely removed from the house. Later, a SWAT team found George Samson dead in the basement, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head.

PENNSYLVANIAHunted man kept journal

A journal left by ambush suspect Eric Frein provides a "cold-blooded and absolutely chilling account" of the night he allegedly opened fire outside a Pennsylvania State Police barracks, killing one trooper and injuring a second, authorities say. Frein wrote that he saw his shot and took it, watching from a distance as his victim, Cpl. Bryon Dickson, dropped to the ground. "I was surprised at how quick," he wrote, according to police. The journal was found in a bag of trash at a wooded campsite authorities believe was used by Frein, 31. It describes his fleeing the scene in a Jeep, inadvertently running into a retention pond and taking off on foot, a botched getaway he termed a "disaster," said a police affidavit filed Wednesday. Frein is charged with first-degree murder and other counts in the killing of Dickson and wounding of Trooper Alex Douglass on Sept 12.

CALIFORNIASparks blamed in wildfire

Sparks from an unidentified vehicle caused a wildfire at the edge of Yosemite National Park that led to the death of a firefighting air-tanker pilot this week, officials said yesterday. Investigators found that the blaze broke out Tuesday because of hot metal fragments from a vehicle creating sparks, Yosemite said in a statement.