Deputy among 6 dead in shootings

ALGER - A man fatally shot a sheriff's deputy responding to a call yesterday in northwestern Washington state, then led authorities on a car chase and killed five other people before turning himself in, officials said. Two others were wounded. A state trooper was among those injured in Skagit County, north of Seattle, authorities said. The dead were found at multiple scenes, Trooper Keith Leary said at a news conference. The dead were the deputy and another person killed at the same location; two construction workers who were found shot nearby; a person killed at another location; and a motorist shot on Interstate 5. (AP)

PHILADELPHIA - Two brothers who ran a funeral home and crematorium admitted yesterday that they sold corpses to a company that trafficked in stolen body parts, a macabre scheme that left families aghast and unclear about the fate of their loved ones. Louis and Gerald Garzone pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy, theft, abuse of corpse, and welfare fraud. The brothers allowed at least 244 corpses to be carved up without families' permission and without medical tests, prosecutors said. The mastermind of the scheme, Michael Mastromarino, pleaded guilty Friday to hundreds of charges that could send him to prison for life. (AP)

FBI agents taped more than 100 phone conversations involving Senator Ted Stevens as part of their public corruption investigation, Stevens's attorneys said yesterday. The FBI's trove of secretly recorded conversations has already been the highlight of trials in Alaska, but the size of its collection against Stevens has until now been unclear. The sometimes-graphic conversations between hard-drinking oil contractors and corrupt Alaska politicians helped the Justice Department send three state politicians to prison. The calls involving Stevens could be played in court later this month when the Senate's longest-serving Republican stands trial on charges of lying about hundreds of thousands of dollars in home renovations and other gifts he received from an oil contractor. The FBI did not tap Stevens's phone but did tap several phones belonging to contractors in the case. (AP)

MIAMI - The mother of a missing toddler did not respond yesterday to an offer that would have given her some protection from prosecution if she told investigators what she knows about her daughter's disappearance. Officials say 3-year-old Caylee Anthony is probably dead. Her mother, Casey Anthony, missed a 9 a.m. deadline to respond to an offer of limited immunity, a spokeswoman for the state's attorney's office said. (AP)