Kim Callahan

An attempted capital murder trial has been indefinitely delayed after a defense attorney made false representations to the court, leading to a sharp rebuke from the judge and a request from the defendant to get a new lawyer. The incident occurred Friday afternoon in the courtroom of Douglas County District Judge Stacey Donovan just three […]

The Lawrence school district is asking a judge to delay a civil lawsuit against it relating to alleged child sexual abuse by one of its former employees. In a motion filed late last week, the school district asked Douglas County Judge Catherine Theisen to stay the civil proceedings until a pending criminal case against speech […]

The Lawrence Community Shelter resident accused of fatally stabbing a Lawrence woman last month also reported her death but blamed others for the killing, according to his recently released arrest affidavit. Aaron Blake Wright, 63, is facing second-degree murder charges in the death of 35-year-old Jina Reyes-Woehler, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe […]

One city worker estimated on Wednesday morning that it would take 30 dumptruck loads to clear a single encampment at Burcham Park. The large area of makeshift dwellings had the day before been home to half a dozen people, some of whom had lived there for years in a grove of towering cottonwood trees and […]

At sunrise Tuesday the City of Lawrence began transforming Sandra J. Shaw Park, which has been a homeless camp for years now, back to its intended use as a recreational area. After months of notice that the area had to be vacated, only a handful of campers remained Tuesday, but vast piles of debris from […]

A panel discussion titled “Bringing Civility Back to Civic Discourse” is scheduled for next month at the Lawrence Public Library and will feature four public officials who’ve been aggressively targeted by public commenters. The event, sponsored by the League of Women Voters, will be from 6 to 7 p.m. on Oct. 6. It will include […]

A California songwriter has created a music video about one of Lawrence’s “Distinguished Citizens”: Leo Beuerman, a man who sold pencils from a cart in downtown Lawrence decades ago. Though Beuerman, who suffered from the rare genetic condition osteogenesis imperfecta, was only a little over 3 feet tall and couldn’t walk, he drove a specially […]

The dogs were noncommittal about the art Saturday, but the scents from the food trucks and the attention from the humans won their critical acclaim. Multiple blocks of Massachusetts Street were closed to traffic for Art in the Park during the day and the Brass on Mass Block Party in the evening, giving residents and […]

Painter Karen Heuton, of Clive, Iowa, has never sold her work at Art in the Park before, but she said Friday evening that she’s eager to give it a go this weekend. Heuton, who paints cityscapes and desertscapes and lots of scapes in between, was among dozens of artists setting up tents in Lawrence’s South […]

At 96, Celia Smith has had more time than most to look at the world. For nearly a century, she has lived a life of observation and creation — much of it in a home that from the street looks like a typical Lawrence split-level from the 1960s but from the inside feels like an […]

A man accused of stabbing a 35-year-old Lawrence woman to death in August appeared in court Wednesday to schedule a hearing for his multiple criminal cases, including second-degree murder. Aaron Blake Wright, 63, is facing charges of criminal threat, battery on a law enforcement officer and disorderly conduct from a March case, as well as […]

A convicted rapist who was supposed to be sentenced later this week is asking for a new trial, claiming that the judge and the man’s trial attorney erred in instructing the jury. The defendant, Reston Phillips, was convicted of rape in May after unsuccessfully putting on a “sexsomnia” defense, claiming that he was asleep during […]

“This case makes no sense,” a defense attorney told the jury Thursday in a case of a man accused of aggravated criminal sodomy against two teens, including his own brother. On Friday, the jury appeared to agree, at least partially, delivering not-guilty verdicts on the most serious charges against the defendant, Wyatt Farrow, and finding […]

Woman testifies that boyfriend was not responsible for sexual encounter between teens; vibrator was her idea, video was for ‘protection’

A special bench honoring the long history of women judges and attorneys in Douglas County will now sit outside the juvenile courtroom in the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center. The colorfully inviting bench, titled “Pioneers of the Bench,” by Van Go artist Langley Gottesburen, was unveiled Thursday afternoon by Judge Sally Pokorny. Pokorny said the […]

The Douglas County District Attorney’s Office is trying a young man this week for aggravated criminal sodomy of two teens, one of them his brother. The case is unusual in that the defendant, Wyatt Farrow, is never alleged to have inappropriately touched either teen, and one of the teens — the brother, 17 at the […]

Updated at 12:02 p.m. Friday, Aug. 29 A majority of the Kansas Supreme Court has found that former Douglas County District Attorney Suzanne Valdez did not violate a state rule of professional conduct and will not be disciplined. “A righteous decision was issued today by the Kansas Supreme Court,” Valdez told the Journal-World via text […]

Updated at 6:19 p.m. Friday, Aug. 29 Lawrence police on Friday arrested a 63-year-old Lawrence man in connection with a homicide after a 35-year-old woman’s body was found behind a vacant building in the 1800 block of Massachusetts Street. Sgt. Drew Fennelly said the victim, whose name was not provided, appeared to have been stabbed […]

The deputy district attorney is no longer employed in the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office, and indications are that it was not his choice to leave. The Journal-World first learned that Deputy District Attorney David Greenwald no longer works for DA Dakota Loomis from sources close to the office, although the circumstances of his departure […]

The Lawrence school district denies that it was negligent in hiring, retaining and supervising a speech pathologist who is accused of molesting multiple students at Prairie Park Elementary School. In the civil lawsuit filed in March on behalf of one of the children — a 6-year-old girl — the district had already denied that it […]