Man charged with slaying of girlfriend

BROCKTON
A 29-year-old Brockton man has been charged with the fatal shooting of his girlfriend early yesterday morning, Plymouth County prosecutors said. Brockton police discovered the body of Carlita Chaney, 27, sometime after 1 a.m. yesterday at the home of the parents of Amaral Montrond after responding to a report of shots being fired, said Bridget Norton Middleton, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office. Montrond, who had two children with Chaney, was arraigned on murder and several other charges yesterday afternoon, Middleton said. He was ordered held without bail and sent to Bridgewater State Hospital for a competency evaluation.

REGION

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health announced yesterday the discovery of mosquitoes carrying Eastern equine encephalitis and West Nile virus in three Massachusetts counties. EEE was found in pools in Kingston and Halifax, in Plymouth County, and in Raynham, in Bristol County. West Nile virus was found in three pools of mosquitoes in Easton, in Plymouth County, and in one pool in Foxborough, in Norfolk County. No human cases of Eastern equine encephalitis or West Nile have been reported in the state this year. In response to the reports, the Bristol County Mosquito Control Project is increasing surveillance and spraying by 50 percent.

HULL

The attorney general's office said yesterday that a Hull couple faces up to $50,000 in fines for paving over sand dunes for a driveway and building two storage sheds in protected wetlands. Their 2005 construction project was four times larger than approved, the office said. Earlier, Ellen and Michael Hartman had altered those dunes and were ordered to restore them by the state Department of Environmental Protection, authorities said. The house on Beach Avenue sits just west of a 2-mile-long dune along Nantasket Beach that is the town's first defense against rough storms. "Hull's a low-lying peninsula, and the dunes provide significant storm protection from waves," said Anne Herbest, the town's conservation administrator. "If you didn't have a dune there, they would roll right through town."

NEWBURYPORT

Days after great white sharks were suspected of attack seals off Cape Cod, Chris Santarelli says he saw the largest shark he has seen in his 30 years of fishing Wednesday, about a half-mile off Newburyport at the mouth of the Merrimack River. Santarelli, 43, of Rowley, estimated that the shark was 15 feet long and that its fin stuck 2 feet out of the water. State shark specialist Greg Skomal said it was likely that the fish was a basking shark, which bears a close resemblance to a great white and is much more common in Massachusetts waters. The basking sharks can get to be more than 30 feet long. Fortunately, it's a fairly docile, easily approachable animal that feeds on plankton, Skomal said.

CONCORD

A 35-year-old woman contracted a rare flesh-eating, bacterial infection after giving birth by Caesarean section at Emerson Hospital, the hospital reported yesterday. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health said the case does not pose a public health threat. Necrotizing fasciitis afflicts fewer than two-dozen people in Massachusetts each year, according to the Health Department, half of whom die. It can cause fever and boils and is usually brought on by a combination of genetic factors and contact with the common microbe streptococcus. Emerson officials said the woman, whose name they did not release, was transferred to Massachusetts General Hospital for treatment Sunday.

HARTFORD

A Bloomfield man became the state's eighth death row inmate yesterday when he was sentenced to die for killing two women. The sentence, formally imposed on Jessie Campbell III by Hartford Superior Court Judge Edward J. Mullarkey, was recommended by a jury last October. Campbell was convicted of killing his estranged girlfriend, LaTaysha Logan, 20, the mother of his son. He also killed Desiree Privette, 18, and shot her aunt, Carolyn Privette, in the head. Mullarkey denied a motion by Campbell's public defenders to impose a sentence of life in prison. The death sentence will automatically be reviewed by the state Supreme Court. (AP)