Wilder won't seek mayoral reelection

RICHMOND - L. Douglas Wilder, the nation's first elected black governor, announced yesterday that he would not seek reelection as Richmond's mayor, likely bringing his storied political career to a close. The 77-year-old grandson of slaves didn't disclose his future plans. Wilder was elected mayor in 2004, the first popularly elected mayor of Richmond since the 1940s - and a decade after he left the governor's office. (AP)

FRESNO - A central California biochemist convicted of killing her estranged husband by knocking him out and stuffing him into a vat of acid has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Larissa Schuster, 47, of Clovis was convicted in December of murdering Timothy Schuster with the special circumstance that the murder was committed for financial gain. His half-dissolved body was found a few days after his 2003 death, in a barrel inside a storage unit his wife rented. (AP)

LOS ANGELES - A Los Angeles County grand jury has indicted the former head of the University of California, Los Angeles's cadaver program on eight felony counts for allegedly trafficking in parts of bodies donated to the university. The indictment accuses Henry Reid of selling parts from UCLA's willed-body program to Ernest Nelson, who operated a business that transported body parts. Nelson is also indicted on the same eight counts. They include conspiring to commit a crime, grand theft, and filing false income tax returns. Attorneys for both men deny the allegations. (AP)

CLEVELAND - A man who wrote hundreds of hateful letters to black and mixed-race men seen with white women apparently was motivated by a girlfriend who left him for a black man, the FBI said yesterday. David Tuason, who is of Filipino descent, admitted his motive when he was captured two months ago, said Frank Figliuzzi, the head of the FBI in Cleveland. The FBI was surprised that a jilted man was behind the hundreds of letters that went to, among others, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter. (AP)

RALEIGH - An ailing 81-year-old North Carolina man who escaped from a Maryland prison 43 years ago was taken into custody yesterday to face extradition, a move his attorneys decried as a waste of time because he is ill and aging. Willie Parker served only about a quarter of his sentence for robbery with a deadly weapon before escaping in 1965. He was tracked down in February as part of a Maryland effort to clear outstanding warrants. (AP)