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Iowa early News Headlines: Monday, Aug. 10 2020

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August 10th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:35 a.m. CDT

MUSCATINE, Iowa (AP) — Two Iowa men are facing several charges after authorities say they tried to crash a vehicle into the Muscatine police headquarters. Muscatine Police said the two Muscatine men were arrested early Sunday after their vehicle became stuck on a brick planter outside the Muscatine Public Safety Building. The crash happened shortly before 5 a.m. Sunday. No one was injured. Police said 24-year-old Gilberto Daniel Castillo III and 21-year-old Marc Anthony Castillo were both arrested on suspicion of terrorism second-degree criminal mischief. The 24-year-old was also charged with drunken driving, and the 21-year-old was charged with public intoxication.

FORT DODGE, Iowa (AP) — Iowa authorities have identified the Fort Dodge woman who was shot and killed by police last week. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation said 39-year-old Melissa Halda was fatally shot by a Webster County Sheriff’s deputy during the incident on Tuesday night. Halda was reported to be acting erratically while wielding knives before the shooting happened. Halda was shot and killed after deputies from the Webster County Sheriff’s Office and a Fort Dodge police officer responded. No other details were released about the shooting. The sheriff’s deputy who shot Halda has been placed on administrative leave while the shooting is investigated.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The mother of an 18-year-old University of Iowa student who froze to death on the university’s campus is suing the school for negligence. The lawsuit contends Gerald Michael Belz, of Cedar Rapids, was unable to get into his residence hall on the night of Jan. 29, 2019, when wind chills were 51 degrees below zero. The lawsuit says the university locked all exterior doors to Burge Hall to prevent pipes from freezing but did not alert residents to the change in normal procedures. Belz was found unresponsive the next day. His death was ruled an accident. The university declined to comment on the lawsuit.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa man has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole in the 1979 murder of an 18-year-old high school student. Jerry Burns was arrested in Dec. 19 2018, 39 years to the day after Michelle Martinko was found dead in her parents’ car outside a shopping mall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She had been stabbed to death. Burns was convicted of first-degree murder in February and was sentenced on Friday. Cedar Rapids police have said they arrested Burns after DNA taken from a restaurant straw he had used matched DNA from the crime scene.