NATIONAL BRIEFS

TENNESSEE: 'Defriending' blamed in slaying,/H4>

A couple who "defriended" a woman on Facebook were murdered in their home by the jilted woman's father and another man, police said. Johnson County Sheriff Mike Reece said Billy Clay Payne Jr. and Billie Jean Hayworth were killed last month after they deleted Jenelle Potter, the daughter of one of the suspects, from their "friends" list. They were shot in the head and the man had his throat cut. The couple's 8-month-old baby was in the mother's arms, unharmed, when the bodies were found. Marvin Enoch "Buddy" Potter Jr., 60, and Jamie Lynn Curd, 38, were each charged on Wednesday in Mountain City with first-degree murder.

MISSOURI: Fugitive found in Ozarks

A British armored car guard suspected of driving off with a fortune worth $1.5 million back in 1993 has been captured in rural Missouri, where he had been working as a cable guy and raising a son who apparently knew nothing of his father's past. Edward John Maher, now 56, dubbed "Fast Eddie" in news reports after the heist in England, quickly vanished. He was arrested Wednesday in the tiny town of Ozark, 160 miles southeast of Kansas City, where he had been living under a brother's name, Michael Maher. Property records suggest he lived in at least four states in New England, the South and the upper Midwest. an FBI spokeswoman said. What happened to the money is not known.

ILLINOIS: Award for war protesters

Lawyers for the city of Chicago told a federal judge Thursday They ad reached a $6.2 million settlement with more than 800 plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit stemming from the mass arrests of protesters during a 2003 demonstration against the Iraq war. Appellate Justice Richard Posner had ruled the arrests were unjustified.