Pring-Wilson jury is deadlocked

A Middlesex jury told a judge yesterday that it was deadlocked in the manslaughter case against former Harvard graduate student Alexander Pring-Wilson. Jurors started deliberating Dec. 3 in the 29-year-old's second trial in the fatal stabbing of Michael Colono, 18, during a Cambridge street fight in April 2003. Pring-Wilson, of Colorado, said he acted in self-defense when Colono and his cousin attacked him after Colono badgered him as Pring-Wilson was walking home from a night of drinking. In 2004, a jury convicted him of manslaughter, but a judge ordered a new trial after a Supreme Judicial Court ruling on admissible evidence. Yesterday, Judge Christopher Muse said he would issue new instructions to the jury this morning. If the jurors remain deadlocked, the judge may declare a mistrial.

The Coast Guard has rejected an appeal of its decision to advise against a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal in Fall River. The Coast Guard wrote a letter yesterday to Weaver's Cove Energy LLC executives to reaffirm its position that the river approaching the project is unsafe for navigation by massive LNG tankers. The latest decision follows a review of an appeal by the company, which said the Coast Guard did not fairly evaluate all supporting information before ruling. Weaver's Cove spokesman Jim Grasso says that the company will appeal again. (AP)

A Chelsea man is to be arraigned today in the stabbing death last month of a Quincy man in Dorchester, police said. Ruben L. Najera, 27, was fatally stabbed Nov. 21 on Geneva Avenue. An investigation by Boston Police and the Suffolk district attorney's office led to the arrest on murder charges yesterday of Emiliano Galicia, 42, of Chelsea, police said. Authorities did not comment on a possible motive.

A North Carolina truck driver is changing his plea to guilty in an attack on a 15-year-old girl in her Chelmsford home. Adam Leroy Lane, 43, is scheduled to enter the plea today in Lowell Superior Court, accused of 10 charges, including home invasion and attempted rape of a child. It was unclear whether he would plead guilty to all charges. Lane also is charged in a fatal stabbing in New Jersey on July 30. Lane was arrested that night after he allegedly broke into the girl's room. Authorities say the girl's father heard her scream and held Lane in a headlock until police arrived. (AP)

Keene State College is considering random drug testing for athletes after eight of 20 athletes in a pilot program recently tested positive for marijuana. Keene State was one of 80 Division III schools that volunteered to be part of the tests. Athletic director John Ratliff said the number of positive tests was alarming and eye-opening. The college did not disclose the teams and students are not identified. But Ratliff said the college is considering putting its own random drug-testing program into place next year until a possible NCAA program starts. (AP)

A former drug dealer who ordered the killings of an 8-year-old boy and the boy's mother in 1999 was sentenced to death at a hearing yesterday. Russell Peeler Jr. was convicted in 2000 of ordering his younger brother to kill Karen Clarke and her son, Leroy "B.J." Brown Jr., in their Bridgeport duplex. The boy had been expected to be the key witness against Peeler in the fatal shooting of Clarke's boyfriend. A jury of six men and six women decided in October that he should die for his crime. Superior Court Judge Robert Devlin Jr. imposed the death penalty, making Peeler the ninth person on Connecticut's death row. (AP)

A Springfield man, Alex A. Morales, 28, was charged yesterday with murder in the killing of a pizza delivery driver, Corey Lind, 20, of Chicopee, police said last night. Lind was last seen about 3 a.m. Sunday as he left a Domino's shop to make a delivery, the Springfield Republican reported.