Four fishermen were missing Saturday after their boat sank off the Texas Gulf Coast, said the Coast Guard, which was searching an area about the size of Delaware for the missing men. One other crewmember was rescued a day earlier when searchers found him floating in a life raft.

The Coast Guard continued its search overnight on Saturday and into Sunday but the rest of the crew remained missing.

Trouble started aboard the Nite Owl, a 50-foot commercial fishing boat, at around 3:30 a.m. on Friday, when the Coast Guard received a distress signal from the vessel, Petty Officer Richard Brahm said. About five hours after launching a search by air and by sea for the boat -- which started to sink about 115 miles from its home port, Galveston, Texas -- a Coast Guard search team spotted crew member John Reynolds waving his arms aboard his orange raft.

"They saw a life raft floating. They launched a helicopter, went up there, and there was one guy in the life raft," Brahm said. Reynolds was in good condition, but worried about his fellow fishermen, Brahm added.

"We dropped him off on our oil rig, and our helicopter kept searching," Brahm said. "They took him back to Houston and continued searching the rest of the night and this morning we started searching again."

Reynolds was later returned to Galveston, a coastal city about 50 miles from Houston.

The search, which has covered about 2,000 square miles -- "a little smaller than the state of Delaware," Brahm said -- involved jets and other aircraft as well as boats. The Coast Guard continued its search overnight on Saturday and into Sunday, but the rest of the crew remained missing.

"When it comes to canceling a search and rescue case, that's really up to our search and rescue coordinators," he said. "They base a lot of factors into calling off a search," including water temperature, wind speed, and the number of people missing. 

The four missing fishermen were not identified. It's not clear what caused the boat to sink early Friday.

"The guy that we rescued just said the boat started sinking. He wasn't sure what caused it. That will be part of the Coast Guard investigation," Brahm said.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this article misidentified the rescued fisherman.

This story was originally published on Sat Apr 20, 2013 2:07 PM EDT

AP

This combo of photos released by the FBI Friday April 19 shows what the FBI is calling suspects number 1, left, and suspect number 2, right, walking through the crowd in Boston on Monday, April 15, 2013, before the explosions at the Boston Marathon.

As authorities closed in on the Boston Marathon bombing suspects -- one of whom was killed during a violent shootout in Boston's Watertown suburb early Friday -- Twitter and other social media outlets lit up with outtakes from police scanner reports, including a moment when eavesdropping tweeters heard the name of a missing Brown University student come over the airwaves in conjunction with the Monday attacks.

"Police on scanner identify the names of #BostonMarathon suspects in gunfight, Suspect 1: Mike Mulugeta. Suspect 2: Sunil Tripathi," read the most retweeted of the tweets, from the hacker group Anonymous. The post was retweeted nearly 3200 times.

But on Friday morning, it was certain: Tripathi was not involved with the bombings at all. Neither was the other named referenced. Authorities had identified the suspects as brothers with the last name Tsarnaev. Dzhokar, 19, was still wanted; his 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan, was dead after a night of violence that included the shooting to death of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer, robbing a 7-Eleven, car-jacking a Mercedes SUV and injuring a Boston transit police officer.

In the age of live streaming audio and fast tweets, amateur sleuths can spread police scanner chatter -- which is just that, chatter -- more quickly than ever. But the dissemination of information comes with a risk: endangering law enforcement or the public.

"The last thing we want to become are reporters for the fugitive,"  Clint Van Zandt, former FBI profiler and NBC criminal analyst, said. "That's what I think people who tweet and post have to be careful of in the extreme and worst-case scenario. Are they giving information that would give aid and comfort to a killer? If you ask yourself that question and the answer is no, then go ahead and post it." 

Boston police mentioned Tripathi and the other less-known name on their scanner just before 1 a.m. Friday morning, about two hours after law enforcement officials first encountered the suspects they had been hunting since Monday's attack.

Missing student's family 'staggered' by false accusation

AP

This undated photo released by Brown University shows Brown University student Sunil Tripathi, who was last seen in the Brown campus area on Saturday morning, March 16, 2013 in Providence, R.I. For a few hours, social media lit up with reports that Tripathi was mistakenly identified as one of the Boston Marathon suspects.

Prior to the bombings, Tripathi's disappearance was reported to be a possible suicide. It's unclear why his name and Mulugeta's came up on the police scanner, but some on Twitter posted side-by-side photos of Tripathi and one of the Boston marathon suspects who had been seen on surveillance wearing a white hat. 

"Is there any doubt that Suspect #2 on the run is Sunil Tripathi?" wrote one, @HonestyInGov, comparing Tripathi's dark curly hair and thin frame to that of the suspect's.

Misinformation is not the only danger. As of Friday morning, nearly 83,000 were simultaneously streaming a live audio of Boston's police scanner from a single website, broadcastify.com. Listening to unfiltered feeds of Boston's police, fire, and emergency personnel comes with a responsibility for those people, says Van Zandt, the former FBI profiler.

Because the Boston suspects are believed to have been in the U.S. since 2002 or 2003, "they may well be subscribing to these blogs and tweets, and that gives them inside information," he said.

He added, though, that even broadcasting a live raid on television or cable can give away information to suspects, who could be watching their own search play out live.

"I've seen situations where the bad guys sit inside of a house or building, see which way the cops are coming, then start shooting from inside the door," he said. "Every time I talk on TV, I think the bad guy is listening. I think, what do I want him to hear? I keep trying to get a guy to surrender."

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Photos from Bostonians locked down amid terror hunt 

An amateur photographer who works in a downtown Boston office captured grim photos of the moment when the bombs went off as the marathon was finishing on Monday.

"I went to the window and I was looking in the direction of the finish line. I saw simultaneously a runner go down, a huge explosion, and then a deafening roar," Benjamin Thorndike said. "I had my camera in my hand, and I just pushed the rapid-shutter button down and just took 25 pictures over the course of what felt like a long time, but I think it was only 15 or 20 seconds."

None of the people in Thorndike's photos have been identified.

Courtesy Ben Thorndike

Courtesy Ben Thorndike

Courtesy Ben Thorndike

Courtesy Ben Thorndike

Courtesy Ben Thorndike

Courtesy Ben Thorndike

Courtesy Ben Thorndike

Courtesy Ben Thorndike

Hear Thorndike describe the experience in his own words, and watch the pictures in a video sequence, here.

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A stranger who swept in with comforting words. Another who carried a woman to safety. 

Amid the tragedy of Monday's attack in Boston, there were incredible acts of bravery, courage and kindness -- many done anonymously. Days later, victims and their families are trying to find the people behind those acts to thank them.

A woman who suffered serious shrapnel wounds from the Boston Marathon bombings wants to thank the Army vet who calmed her down in the aftermath of the attack, and she got some help from a prominent figure on Tuesday: the Massachusetts governor.

“His name is Tyler. That’s all we know,” Gov. Deval Patrick, D-Mass, said at a press briefing. “And one of things he said to her to calm her down was to show her his own shrapnel wound from when he was in Afghanistan.”

The woman, identified by the governor only as Victoria, was terrified and "hysterical" after she got struck. Patrick said she was carried to a medical tent near the finish line by Tyler, a firefighter who introduced himself to her as an Army sergeant and Afghanistan vet.

"I don't know whether he was assigned to medical tent or, like so many people there and elsewhere in the commonwealth, just jumped in to help," Patrick said.

John Tlumacki/Boston Globe via Getty Images

Bystanders come to the aid of 17-year-old Sydney Corcoran at the scene of the first explosion on Boylston Street near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

Victoria, who is a student at Northeastern University in Boston, was transported to Tufts Medical Center with a lower leg wound, hospital spokeswoman Brooke Hynes confirmed to NBC News. 

"If Tyler is out there and listening, or reading the reports, we would love to hear from Tyler, so that we can connect him to Victoria. Tyler can get in touch with us by dialing 617-725-4000. If you could just get that word out, I’d appreciate the favor, and -- more to the point -- Victoria would.”

As of Wednesday morning, neither the governor's office nor Tufts Medical had heard from him.

Sydney Corcoran, a 17-year-old Lowell, Mass., girl, woke up from surgery on the ruptured femoral artery in her leg with one request, according to The Boston Globe: "Find Matt." He was one of the two strangers who put a makeshift tourniquet around her leg as she lay on a bloodied sidewalk.

Corcoran had been at the marathon to cheer on her aunt, Carmen Acabbo, who was running the race for the first time. Her mother, Celeste, was also gravely wounded by shrapnel; she had to have both legs amputated below the knee. 

Of Matt, the stranger who saved her niece, Acabbo said, "We would all like to thank him," according to The Globe.

One hero who has been identified but not yet reached by family members of the wounded man he helped is Carlos Arredondo. Arredondo, 52, was photographed in his cowboy hat, applying pressure to the bleeding thigh of Jeff Bauman, Jr., who was being rushed from the scene after his legs were blown apart. Bauman had to have his legs amputated but is expected to survive.

Charles Krupa / AP

Carlos Arredondo, seen in the cowboy hat on the left, attends to Jeff Bauman, Jr., after a twin bombing at the end of Monday's Boston Marathon.

“The man in the cowboy hat — he saved Jeff’s life,” Jeff Bauman, Sr., told The New York Times. “There’s a video where he goes right to Jeff, picks him right up and puts him on the wheelchair and starts putting the tourniquet on him and pushing him out. I got to talk to this guy!”

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Elise Amendola / AP

FBI Special Agent in Charge Richard DesLauriers, far right, speaks as Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, left, and Mass. Gov. Deval Patrick, center, listen during a news conference in Boston on Tuesday, April 16 regarding two bombs which exploded in the street near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday, killing at least three people.

Authorities have yet to name any suspects in the pair of bombings that killed three people and injured more than 170 at the finish line of Monday's Boston Marathon. But having Richard DesLauriers, special agent-in-charge of the FBI's Boston field office, at the helm means whoever is behind the attack is up against someone with decades of experience in espionage, violent crime, and other security issues.

On Tuesday, DesLauriers vowed at a news conference, "We will go to the ends of the earth to find the suspects responsible for this despicable crime."

Leading the Boston Marathon bombing investigation may be one of the most tragic cases that DesLauriers' has handled. But the 26-year FBI veteran is no stranger to manhunts; not long ago he helped apprehend long-wanted gangster James "Whitey" Bulger.

DesLauriers has been with the FBI since 1987; his first assignment was working on cases related to violent crime and fugitives in the bureau's Birmingham, Ala., division. Before joining the FBI, he graduated magna cum laude from Assumption College in Worcester, Mass., in 1982, and got his law degree from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., 1986. He's a Massachusetts native. 

Current FBI agents declined to comment about DesLauriers. But retired special agent Rick Hahn said DesLauriers must have proven himself exceptionally capable to have achieved his position in Boston.

"Boston is considered to be a preferred assignment," he said. "There's a lot of dynamics there in Boston that don't exist in places like Little Rock, Arkansas, example. A lot of government contracts, a lot of espionage, as well as their fair share of bread-and-butter type criminal activity."

DesLauriers spent 1990 to 1995 in the FBI's New York division working on counterintelligence matters, and then was promoted to supervisory special agent within the Eurasian Section of the National Security Branch at FBI Headquarters in Washington. Throughout the years, he advanced in the ranks and relocated to Boston. His title, "special agent," actually limits him in his abilities as a law enforcement officer, explained Hahn.

"It's a legal term," Hahn said. "A special agent means that you're only allowed to do certain things that are specifically outlined in your contract. The credentials of an FBI agent say that you're allowed to investigate crimes under federal statutes, you're able to collect evidence, preserve evidence, make arrests in federal cases. Those are the only things you can do. We can't collect taxes. There are other things that fall far outside our purview."

The special-agent-in-charge, of course, is a senior officer that can deploy staff to do just about anything he can't do himself.

In addition to closing the Bulger case in June 2011, when Top Ten Fugitive Whitey Bulger and his companion Catherine Greig were arrested in Santa Monica, Calif. -- 16 years after the search for the gangster-turned-FBI informant began -- DesLauriers's other high-profile assignment has been working the infamous 1990 art heist at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in which two thieves posed as Boston police officers. While the $500 million theft happened before DesLauriers worked in the Boston office, the masterpieces -- which included work by Rembrandt and Degas -- still have yet to be recovered.

"We are totally focused right now on recovering the paintings and returning them to the Gardner Art Museum. There is a $5 million reward outstanding right now for return of the paintings," DesLauriers announced last month.

While the FBI now believes it has identified the criminals responsible, they still haven't been caught.

DesLauriers is married and has a son, according to the FBI.

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• Pressure cooker bombs’ long, bloody history
• FBI studying before-and-after pics of bags
• Boston braces for economic impact
• Blast amputees confront uncertain road ahead
• Tears, flowers at vigil for Boston boy, 8
• Third bomb victim was Chinese student

Faculty members at his college said he got good grades. His co-workers at the local library had kind words to say about him. Neighbors remembered him as a friendly kid growing up.

When Dylan Quick, the suspect in Tuesday’s stabbing spree at Lone Star College in Texas, was arrested, it came as a shock to seemingly everybody who knew him – or thought that they knew him.

“He has shared with us that he has had fantasies about stabbing people since the age of 8,” Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia told reporters at a news conference on Wednesday about Quick. “He has been planning this event for some time.”

The stabbings at Lone Star, located in the Houston suburb of Cyprus, occurred Tuesday morning just after 11 a.m. Garcia said investigators believe the victims were randomly selected, and said a “razor utility knife” made by X-acto was used in the attacks.

It’s unclear what caused Quick to allegedly plan and execute the attack that led to 14 of his classmates being wounded.

"There are no signs that he was a problem student," Dr. Audre Levy, president of Lone Star College's CyFair campus, said at Wednesday's news conference. "I do know that he worked in the library, and the library staff had very fond things to say about him."

His next-door neighbor in Houston, Michael Lincoln, told The Houston Chronicle that Quick always struck him as a “very friendly kid.” But he said that he is “real quiet and keeps to himself.”

He told the paper that just last week, Quick helped him pull down a branch that had fallen on his roof. Other neighbors also described him as polite and helpful.

According to The Chronicle, Quick was born hearing-impaired, and went to a mainstream school in Houston until 2004, and then was home-schooled.

Handout / Harris County Sheriff's Office via Reuters

Dylan Quick, 20.

Garcia said on Wednesday that authorities hadn’t found any evidence that Quick had been bullied. He had worked in the town’s public library for a year and was just featured in his school’s “student spotlight” blog on April 1, which said Quick was also in a book club. The blog has since been taken down, but screenshots captured by KPRC.com, NBC’s affiliate in Houston, show that Quick had big plans for his future, according to the profile: to transfer to the University of Houston after getting his associate’s degree from Lone Star, and eventually pursuing a career in accounting.

Authorities apprehended Quick – a 20-year-old with curly, red-hair – shortly after the stabbings were reported from inside the health science building at the school’s CyFair campus.

The entire incident only lasted "a couple of minutes. That's how fast it happened," Garcia said.

Inside Quick’s backpack, investigators found another precision knife that wasn’t used in the attack, he said.

Investigators described Quick as matter-of-fact during their questioning.

"He has been very forthcoming," Garcia said.

Quick has been charged with three counts of aggravated assault. He was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation on Wednesday. A spokesperson for the Harris County district attorney told NBC News his family had hired an attorney for him. Investigators executed a search warrant on Quick's house, confiscating his computer and other items to try to get an idea of what may have prompted him to allegedly plan the attack.

All of the victims in the attack are expected to recover.

Related content:

• Student: I tackled Lone Star stabbing suspect 
• Student charged with assault in stabbing spree at Texas college

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 10, 2013 11:42 AM EDT

Casey Anthony’s life story is worth a decent chunk of change, and the trustee in charge of resolving her bankruptcy wants to sell the rights to it to help settle the nearly $800,000 she owes creditors.

The big catch is that Anthony doesn’t want to sell. Nonetheless, one bidder has already offered $10,000 – to bury her life story, he says – and more are waiting in the wings, according to her bankruptcy trustee.

On Tuesday afternoon, Anthony's trustee and her attorneys brought the issue before federal bankruptcy Judge K. Rodney May in Tampa, Fla., who decided he would make a decision 30 days from now on whether the worldwide exclusive rights to her life story can be auctioned off for cash -- a proposal May said he was "skeptical" of, reported NBC affiliate WESH.com. 

Most of the hundreds of thousands that Anthony, the Orlando, Fla., mother who was acquitted in 2011 in the murder of her two-year-old daughter Caylee, owes is to her defense attorney. She owns less than $1,100 in assets, according to a Chapter 7 petition filed for bankruptcy in January.

Her most valuable asset does not even exist yet, Stephen Meininger, her Tampa-based bankruptcy trustee, told the court on Tuesday, arguing that her best bet for paying back the approximately $792,000 she owes is to put the rights to her life story up for auction -- an unprecedented legal move Anthony's attorneys vehemently disagree with.

"The Trustee does not cite any law to support his contention that he can sell 'property' that has not yet been created," Anthony's attorneys, David Schrader and Debra Ferwarda, wrote in an April 4 court filing. "The Trustee’s Motion also creates a slippery slope that would have dangerous repercussions far beyond the scope of this case."

In the life story of Anthony, 27, there is a lot to tell: allegations of childhood sexual abuse by her father, George, one of the many bombshells that came up during her trial; what was going through her mind in the 31 days between when Caylee went missing and when her disappearance was reported to police; being in jail the day Caylee's remains were found; being voted America's "most hated person"; and what her elusive life has been like in Florida since her acquittal.

Meininger said he's received at least two written offers from people interested in buying the exclusive rights, and others who have expressed interest.

"We haven't really discussed figures, which is one of the reasons why we wanted to set up auction procedures at the hearing," he said Tuesday morning ahead of the hearing. He did say one of the offers was for $12,000. NBC's Kerry Sanders reported on TODAY that an Austin, Texas, attorney, James Schober, put in an offer of $10,000, but that bid was made on condition of preventing the story from ever getting out so Anthony would never profit from it.

"As much as I would like to think otherwise, Casey Anthony's story has value," Schober said.

Schober testified in Tuesday's court hearing via phone, WESH.com reported, and issued a statement explaining the reasons why he wanted to buy the rights to Anthony's story.

""(First)... to demonstrate that the asset has present value; second, to ensure that the proceeds from the sale of the asset are applied to the payment of her existing debts (which is a basic premise of Chapter 7 bankruptcy); and third, to ensure that the sale of the asset takes place in the clear light of day," he said.

No specifics about the second offer were given in court on Tuesday, other than that it came from a New York man who was looking to tell the story for entertainment value.

If the judge approves the sale 30 days from now, the money from the winning bid for Anthony's life story will go toward her debt. But asking Anthony to put something up for auction that doesn't exist yet isn't fair, her attorneys argue. 

"By allowing property that can only be created by post-petition labor to be sold as part of the bankruptcy estate, a debtor would never be able to achieve a ‘fresh start,’" the filing says. "Perhaps more troubling, the Order sought by the Trustee would result in the judicial invasion and taking of thoughts and memories that have not been memorialized but are contained solely within the debtor’s mind. This is a terrifying Orwellian prospect that would destroy the long-standing protections guaranteed by the Bankruptcy Code."

Anthony's attorneys also worry that if Schober were to win, it would greatly affect their client's personal life.

“The Trustee’s Motion would literally bar Ms. Anthony from ever discussion her life experiences with anyone by use of ‘all forms of social media’ or ‘the internet.’ Therefore, the plain language of the requested Order would bar Ms. Anthony from even sending an e-mail to her mother related to her childhood experiencing because the rights to those thoughts and memories would belong toe someone else,” the court filing says.

A new hearing will be held in 30 days.

This story was originally published on Tue Apr 9, 2013 11:58 AM EDT

A 13-year-old Georgia boy who hanged himself after reportedly being bullied at school was remembered by family and friends as a hero at his funeral this week.

Devin Brown moved to Columbus, Ga., six months ago to live with his father, who says the bullying began shortly after Devin started at his new middle school, according to NBC affiliate WLTZ-TV in Georgia.

"He got jumped, or somebody beat him up," Ray Brown, Devin's father, told WLTZ. "He came home one time and had some peanut butter pies he had made for school. When he walked through the door he had some pie left, and he had it all over him. Someone had jumped on him and smeared it all over him."

Brown voiced his concerns to Rothschild Middle School, but officials told him they hadn't heard of any issues, he said.

"They just kind of let it go," Brown said. 

It wasn't until last Thursday night that Devin's family realized how far the bullying had gone.

"I hear [my stepmother yelling,] 'Oh my God, Ray, Ray, help me! I can't get him down, he hung himself,'" Cara Downs, Devin's older sister, told WLTZ. "I could see the black and blue around his neck and I tried to find a pulse, but couldn't find it."

Brown believes being called a "snitch" at school pushed Devin over the edge. He told WLTZ that the day Devin took his life, he saw another student carrying a knife and threatening a teacher. Brown said Devin told his teacher about the knife; the other student was given disciplinary action.

"He said, 'Everyone is calling me a snitch,'" Brown said. "He said, 'There's about 15-20 people who want to jump on me.'"

Rothschild Middle School Principal Reginald Williamson denied Brown's account of his son's school experiences.

"We have received no information on him being bullying whatsoever," he said. "We log all information as far as bullying is concerned."

He also said there was never any threat to a teacher. 

"We did have a knife incident that occurred. It happened before school started. The knife was retrieved," he said. But no threat was ever issued against a teacher during the incident, he said. 

Muscogee County School District's director of communications also confirmed the incident.

"It was discovered upon search in the student's locker. And of course any student discipline, while I can't talk about particular student discipline, was handled according to policy," Valerie Fuller said. 

At his funeral on Wednesday, a large wooden box with the word "hero" carved on it was set up. Devin's friends dropped notes into it, thanking him for speaking up about the threat he saw at school, reported WLTZ.

"I made this for him because he is my hero. He did the right thing and he knew he did the right thing," Brown told the affiliate.

On Devin's gravestone, the inscription read: "You left too soon, but forever wouldn't have been long enough. Our hero - Devin Brown."

This story was originally published on Fri Apr 5, 2013 12:49 PM EDT

NBC News

District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia were killed on Saturday in their home.

Hours before a memorial service for a Texas district attorney and his wife who were brutally gunned down in their home over the weekend, Gov. Rick Perry announced his office was doubling the reward for information leading to the arrest of their killer from $100,000 to $200,000.

The governor refused to comment on any leads investigators might be pursuing into the deaths of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia. Speculation has ranged from a lone gunman with a grudge to drug cartels to skinhead gangs; a federal source told NBC News, however, that no theory stands out.

"It is very premature to make any statements about who may or may not have been involved with this," Perry said. "We know we have a porous border. We know that the drug cartels, the gangs, both transnational and otherwise, in some cases, are operating together. So, all of that is obviously open for interpretation and investigation. We will leave no stone unturned."

The McLellands' slayings came three months after the death of Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse, who was killed by gunshot in broad daylight on Jan. 31 in the town square. Mike McLelland had publicly promised to find Hasse's killer, who still hasn't been caught.

Between those murders, Colorado's prison director, Tom Clements, was shot to death at his house.

A white supremacist parolee who was later killed in a Texas shootout was the main suspect in Clements' death. Kaufman County authorities have not named any suspects in the McLellands' killings. 

No apparent connection between the two incidents has been revealed. Bruce Wood, a Kaufman County Judge, said in Thursday's news conference that these are "trying times -- uncharted waters for Kaufman County."

Previous report:

• Texas DA was shot at 20 times, wife once, federal source says

   

NBC News' Pete Williams and Jeff Black contributed to this report.

Akron Beacon Journal Pool via AP

Richard Beasley, convicted of murdering three people and attempting to murder a fourth, addresses the court after his sentencing in his capital murder case on Thursday in Akron, Ohio.

An Ohio street-preacher who lured his murder victims with bogus Craigslist job offers has been sentenced to death by an Akron judge, following the jury’s recommendation.

Richard Beasley, 53, was convicted on March 12 of killing three men and wounding a fourth, all of whom had been given promises of farmhand jobs in southeast Ohio in 2011.

"Richard Beasley is a cold-blooded manipulator with zero regard for human life,” Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh said Thursday, according to The Akron Beacon Journal. "Beasley has shown no remorse and would likely still be preying on men who were seeking a better life. It is never a joyous occasion when someone is sentenced to die, but in this case, the death penalty is the most appropriate sentence."

Beasley made a brief statement before he was sentenced, reported Ohio NBC affiliate WKYC.

"To the families, I'm sorry," Beasley said. "I will continue to pray for you."

The men who were killed were Ralph Geiger, 56, of Akron; David Pauley, 51, of Norfolk, Va.; and Timothy Kern, 47, of Massillon. Beasley shot the men and buried them in shallow graves in the woods.

The man Beasley wounded, Scott Davis, 49, of South Carolina, managed to escape and was a key witness against him. He testified during the trial that when he went to meet Beasley at the alleged job site in Noble County, Ohio, he heard the click of a gun and was shot in the arm.

Davis knocked the weapon aside, ran into the woods, and tipped off authorities, according to The Associated Press.

Akron Beacon Journal Pool via AP

Ohio Attorney General Michael DeWine , left, sits with Ellen and Jack Kern, parents of victim Timothy Kern, as they listen to the sentencing in Richard Beasley's capital murder case.

All of the men that Beasley targeted were destitute and had few family ties. They were seeking fresh starts in their lives, prosecutors emphasized during the trial. 

A 16-year-old co-defendant in the killings, Brogan Rafferty, was sentenced last year to life without parole, ineligible for the death penalty because of his age.

On March 20, during the sentencing phase of his trial, Beasley's mother Carol pleaded with jurors to spare her son's life.

"I love Richard with all my heart," she said tearfully, describing the difficult childhood Beasley endured with his abusive stepfather and sexually abusive neighbors.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Sergeant Casey Mitchell / Lancaster County Corrections

For $30 a night, law-abiding Nebraska citizens can rest their heads here to help out corrections officers and benefit children's charities.

A couple square meals, brand new bedding on a four-inch-thick mattress, and the chance to benefit children's charities are attracting some law-abiding Nebraskans to spend a night in the unlikeliest of places: behind bars.

Starting Thursday night at 6 p.m., the 90-square-foot cells at the new Lancaster County Adult Detention Facility in Lincoln, Neb., will be filled with voluntary inmates -- 200 people from the community who signed up for a night in the pen. The cost for participants is $30.

The event also will function as a dry run for the facility.

"We want to use 'compliant' inmates," Lancaster County Corrections Director Michael Thurber said. "We'll use the intercoms, we'll see how the camera angles are, how the views from our control center are. We'll use the lights, we'll run the water, we'll see how everything drains." 

Participants will arrive at 6 p.m. and leave at 7 a.m. the following morning, starting Thursday night of this week and running through Saturday night. Their fee goes to The Child Advocacy Center, a nonprofit that helps victims of child abuse, and Operation Santa Claus, which gives toys to needy children.

The schedule for the overnight stay includes a tour of the jail at 8:30 p.m., lockdown at 10 p.m., lights out at 11 p.m., and a light breakfast at 6 a.m. the following morning. Participants will be fingerprinted and have their mugshot taken upon arrival. They will be invited to wear jail jumpsuits, but can wear street clothing if they want.

The deadline for signing up to stay the night in jail has passed, but Thurber said free tours of the jail -- which is scheduled to open in the summer -- will continue through April. Among the 200 people who are spending the night: criminal justice college students, book clubs, a local TV host, and a state senator.

Corrections staff will do a dry run of everything exactly as they would with real inmates.

"I want to see the cell doors working. I want to know they shut," Thurber said. "We want them to tell us what they're hearing in the cells. How's the sound echoing in here? We're just trying to break it in. That's the best way to see how our systems work." 

Dinner, however, might be a tad classier.

"There might be a chicken-fried steak," he said. "There's a vegetable, some bread, some type of a pudding or a dessert. There might be a chicken entree as well. I haven't seen the exact entree yet. But I know mashed potatoes, green beans, maybe a little salad. We're probably jazzing the meal up just a little bit."

The nearly 300,000-square-foot facility has 779 beds and will replace an overcrowded detention center in downtown Lincoln. Participants in the overnight stays must be 18 or older, but anyone can take a free tour of the jail. 

The event has raised $600 for charity so far; others have pledged to donate checks during their tours later in the month, which are free, Thurber said.

Lynn Ayers, the executive director of the Lincoln-based Children Advocacy Center, said Thurber contacted her four or five years ago, when the jail was still being built, about the idea of teaming up for the charity. 

"I was excited about it then and glad it came to happen. It's kind of a cool idea," she said, adding that as a nonprofit, her organization does special events all the time -- though this was one of the more unusual partnerships.

Unlike actual inmates, participants in the overnight stays are allowed to leave before their stay ends in the morning. 

New video of a sinkhole that swallowed a Florida man has been released -- nearly five weeks after the dark pit opened up and killed the man as he slept.

The video offers the first glimpse of the sinkhole that officials estimate eventually grew to be 60 feet deep, according to NBC affiliate WFLA.com in Tampa. Officials recorded it with a small camera that was slipped into the unstable home.

It shows a bedroom floor that's almost entirely collapsed into the earth, even though its walls and ceiling remain intact.

The bottom of the pit that swalled Seffner, Fla., resident Jeff Bush on the night of Feb. 28 is not visible.

"I've been a basketcase the whole day, ever since I've seen it," Janelle Wheeler, who lived in the house with Bush, said after viewing the video. "It's just like, like you ripped off that Band-aid."

Her family is staying in a rental for the next few weeks, paid for by insurance, WFLA.com reported on Tuesday. 

Bush's remains were never found, and he was presumed dead.

Hillsborough County has condemned two other houses next to Bush's home due to their instability, WFLA said.

Slideshow: Striking sinkholes: Earth opens up

Luis Echeverria / AP

A look at some of the most amazing sinkholes around the world.

Launch slideshow