Week in Review 9-30 to 10-6

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USPS Informed Delivery allows customers to preview their mail

The United States Postal Service (USPS) is among many organizations utilizing new technology to provide a more secure service to its customers, specifically with a service known as Informed Delivery.

Informed Delivery by USPS is a free service allowing customers to preview their incoming mail before it arrives. Incoming mail is scanned to create greyscale images of the exterior, address side of the mail, which can then be viewed by the customer. Currently the scanning covers only letter-sized mailpieces.

Customers can choose to be notified of their scanned mail and can view the images from any smartphone, tablet or computer. Additionally, customers can also view their scanned mail, as well as the status of other parcels too big to be scanned, via an app created by the USPS. The app can be downloaded on mobile devices under the name “Informed Delivery.”

Other features of Informed Delivery include tracking updates for incoming packages and the ability to provide delivery instructions, manage notifications, schedule re-deliveries and report items that should have been delivered, but weren’t.

To create an account, go online to informeddelivery.usps.com and select sign-up for free.

Informed Delivery was first piloted to select zip codes in 2014 before being expanded to the majority of the US in 2017. Informed Delivery is offered at the post offices in the Twin Lakes Area.

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Sheid-Hopper Bypass accident results in multiple fatalities

A weekend accident in Baxter County has resulted in multiple fatalities and injuries. According to Baxter County Coroner Brad Hays, the accident occurred early last Sunday morning on the Sheid-Hopper Bypass. Hays says names of the deceased are being withheld pending notification of the families. The Arkansas State Police is investigating.

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Marion County man arrested after allegedly raping wife in front of their son

A Marion County man has been arrested after allegedly holding a knife to the throat of his wife, tying her with rope and raping her in front of their minor son. Being held on a quarter million dollar bond in the Marion County Jail is 26-year-old Eric Franklin Poslick, whose address is listed as Muskogee, Oklahoma. The incident happened at a mobile home the couple was living in  near Flippin.

According to the arrest affidavit in the case, the events started Friday morning when Poslick became upset because his wife put two tea bags in his cup instead of one. His wife said Poslick called her names and took her phone away. The wife said she was going to run away to get help but as she did, Poslick ran after her and threw her on the ground. As she got up, Poslick allegedly pushed her back down on the ground while yelling he was going to kill both her and her son.

The woman said her juvenile son was screaming and crying when Poslick told him to get away, calling him several names.

Poslick then allegedly tied the woman’s arms behind her back, sat on her back and lifted her head by her hair and put a large kitchen knife to her throat while continuing to call her names. Poslick then allegedly told his wife he was going to “bury her on his grandmother’s property and no one would know.”

The victim said at that time their juvenile son grabbed a pocket knife and tried to fight his dad but was pushed away.

Poslick then allegedly tore off his wife’s clothes, dragged her by the hair and ropes into the woods about 5 feet from their mobile home. Poslick then allegedly raped his wife while telling his son “this is what you do to stupid (people) who (tick) you off.”

The woman told authorities her son ran into the house at this point and Poslick allegedly raped her a second time. She said her husband told her if she took their child he would kill both of them and “no one would ever take his son.”

Poslick is charged with felony counts of rape, aggravated assault on a family/household member and false imprisonment in the first degree, along with a misdemeanor count of endangering the welfare of a minor in the second degree.

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State record cutthroat trout caught on North Fork River

A new Arkansas record was set for a cutthroat trout last weekend on the North Fork River. Mike Bowers of Abilene, Kansas, caught a fish weighing 10.02 pounds with a 26-inch length and a 19-inch girth.

Bowers was with a group fishing adjacent to Gene’s Trout Fishing Resort. He was using a Bass Pro Shop ultralight spinning rod with a four-pound ultralight green line, a No. 14 bait holder hook and salmon egg. The fish first appeared to be a brown trout, but once Bowers examined it, he realized it was a cutthroat trout.

Bowers knew the previous state record was 9.1 pounds, so he immediately brought the fish to the dock at Gene’s. The fish was weighed, and the scale rested at 10.25 pounds. Bowers put it in the hospital box for recovery, but the fish eventually died. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission was contacted, and Bowers and Gene’s owner Scott Sillence met with Wildlife Officer Corporal Doug Small and Chief Fish Biologist Christy Graham at the Mountain Home office. The trout was officially weighed on a certified digital scale at 10.02 pounds, and Graham declared the new state record.

The original cutthroat trout will be mounted for Bowers with two replicas being produced. One replica will be on display at Game and Fish’s corporate office in Little Rock, and the other replica will be displayed at Gene’s next to a five-pound state record brook trout.

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Harps sued over 2015 shooting deaths of Midway couple

Less than a day before an elderly Midway couple were shot to death, convicted murderer Nicholas Roos and Talmadge Pendergrass went to the Harps food store on Highway 62 East in Mountain Home and bought the 9-millimeter handgun used to kill 71-year-old LaDonna Rice and 75-year-old Donald Rice at their residence on County Road 508. The home was then ransacked and set ablaze. It took several days of sifting through the ashes of the large residence before the couple was identified.

A lawsuit has been filed by family members of the dead couple alleging Harps Food Stores did not detect a classic “straw man purchase,” meaning one person buys a weapon because the other could not make the purchase for a variety of reasons. The suit seeks unspecified damages.

Roos had told Pendergrass he could not buy the firearm because of a prior commitment for mental issues, and Pendergrass completed the required paperwork. Roos took the money for the weapon from a small sack and handed it to Pendergrass who then gave it to a Harps clerk. The clerk is identified in the lawsuit as a 17-year-old high school senior.

Scenes from Harps’ own video surveillance system shows the purchase as it unfolds including an image of Roos examining various firearms while Pendergrass stands by. The lawsuit states the Mountain Home location is one of three in the chain selling firearms.

Roos pleaded guilty to capital murder in May of 2016 and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, but he is appealing the conviction alleging ineffective assistance by the Public Defender’s Commission attorneys appointed to represent him. Zach Grayham pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and received a 25-year prison sentence. Mikayla Mink entered a guilty plea to aggravated robbery and three counts of theft and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Pendergrass was convicted in federal court in November of last year for making a false statement in acquiring the firearm. He was sentenced to 16 months in federal prison.

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