The families of three Manheim-area teens killed in a Lebanon County wreck last year are seeking to compel the Lebanon County district attorney to turn over photos of the crash scene.On Jan. 12, the Lancaster law firm of Haggerty & Silverman filed a writ of summons on behalf of Jame...

 
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal in the case of a retired county judge whose late son left his million-dollar estate to Lancaster Public Library instead of his family.Without comment, the court Jan. 12 denied the petition by former Lancaster County Judge Wi...

 
City of Lancaster property violation notices could rack up frequent flyer mileage.In August alone, the city sent notices to property owners in Tampa and Hollywood, Fla.; St. Marys, Kan.; Fort Mill, S.C.; Hempstead, N.Y.; and Clovis, Calif.Director of Economic Development and Neighborho...

 
An alliance between an Ephrata-based breast cancer group and a Marcellus Shale gas-drilling company has some environmentalists seeing pink.As in a lighter shade of red.It all started two summers ago when Chesapeake Energy Corp. employees went to bat for the Pennsylvania Breast Cancer C...

 
Most Lancaster County public school districts boosted their Pennsylvania System of School Assessment scores in 2011, but the gains were not enough for many of them to meet increasingly tougher state academic standards.And next year, the bar will be raised even higher.According to stati...

 
A bitter and tragic family feud involving a prominent former judge may be headed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.Steven R. Blair, attorney for former Lancaster County Court of Common Pleas Judge Wilson Bucher — and Bucher's son-in-law — last week asked the Supreme Court t...

 
A civil lawsuit has been filed in the case of a salesman behind the wheel of a sports car in a harrowing high-speed test drive that killed a father and injured his teenage son.
Jon Christian "Chris" Jensen, of Leola, died in the December crash in East Hempfield Township. Car sal...

 
The Pennsylvania Superior Court has rejected an appeal from a former Lancaster County judge who claimed his late son's decision to leave his $1.25 million estate to the Lancaster Public Library, instead of his family, was a product of an "insane delusion."In its June 6 ruling, the cour...

Two nearby haunted attractions called Field of Screams.Two claims to the same name.It's been a legal frightmare.And, based on a federal court decision handed down last month in Greenbelt, Md., the trademark infringement case is likely to continue many months.On March 14, U.S. District Court Judge De...

Ralph Berticelli eagerly attended a StoresOnline Internet marketing conference March 7 at the Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square.He anticipated returning to his Marietta Avenue home with vital information about opportunities to earn money online.But now Berticelli believes the presentation he heard w...

 
A Florida-based law firm that has made hundreds of millions of dollars suing nursing homes has begun a major advertising campaign in Pennsylvania, targeting long-term care homes cited for "multiple deficiencies" by federal and state inspectors.Three of those nursing homes are in Lancas...

 
James "Jay" Hodapp Jr. was mild-mannered and good-natured. He had a sly sense of humor.One day he "planted" plastic flowers in the garden of his Manor Township home to tease his wife, who was allergic to the blooms.But Hodapp also was an alcoholic who suffered from clinical depression....

 
Physical abuse and sexual assault by correctional officers. Medical neglect. Mishandling of suicide threats. Illegal strip searches. Indifference of prison management.Those are complaints brought by county prison inmates or survivors in eight lawsuits settled with Lancaster County and ...

 
At least seven lawsuits charging serious abuse by correctional officers or neglect by medical and other personnel at Lancaster County Prison are in the federal court system now.They include two cases in which prison inmates committed suicide and one in which an inmate died because of a...

Up to 20 farms in the Muddy Run area of Lancaster County could be inspected by the EPA as the agency ramps up its efforts pertaining to the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load or TMDL.Don McNutt, administrator of the Lancaster County Conservation District, said "a couple" of farms have been insp...

Jim Schopf gestured while holding a horribly deformed, toxic human head and said, "I grew up farming here with my dad."He casually tossed the head away.A nearby sign said "Head MUST fall completely through the hole in barrel top."Schopf wasn't slam-dunking an actual severed cranium, of course.He and...

 
This article is a follow-up to last Sunday's investigative report, "Buried under an avalanche of warrants." The reporter rode along last week with constables trying to serve warrants.
Hard knocks on a front door shattered the 5 a.m. silence."Open the door," Constable J. Freeland...

Jehu Young?Lancaster County constables are looking for you on seven warrants for unpaid parking ticket and traffic violations.And Maria Perez? The warrant you were issued in 2002, because you didn't make sure your child got to school?It hasn't gone away.Jehu and Maria are just two of the people who ...

 
When Rick Gray campaigned against incumbent Mayor Charlie Smithgall in 2005, he criticized the Smithgall administration for its inability to reduce outstanding warrants —22,000 at the time — in the city and Lancaster Township.Five years later, according to information obtai...

The Lancaster County Sheriff's Office faces some of the same problems other law enforcement agencies encounter when trying to serve arrest warrants.People move and cannot be found, but arrest warrants — in some cases almost 50 years old — stay on the their books.But connections w...