Washoe County Sheriff via AP

Joseph Naso, seen in an undated booking photo, insists he is "not the monster" who responsible for the so-called "alphabet murders."

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. -- An elderly California photographer charged with the slayings of four prostitutes dating back to the 1970s opened his own defense at his serial-murder trial on Monday, declaring to jurors, "I'm not the monster that killed these women."

Joseph Naso, 79, who has admitted a penchant for taking erotic pictures of women and displayed dozens of such photos in court on Monday, stood stoop-shouldered in a blue suit and tie, his hands crossed behind his back, as he politely greeted the 12 men and women who will decide his fate.

"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen of the jury. You're a welcome sight. I've been waiting two years and two months for this day to tell my side," Naso said.

He went on to discount the government's case as little more than "theories and opinions," saying, "They don't even have circumstantial evidence."

Naso is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of four northern California women, all of them prostitutes, whose slayings were dubbed the "alphabet murders" because the first and last name of each victim starts with the same letter in the alphabet.

Two victims, Roxene Roggasch, 18, and Carmen Colon, 22, were killed in the 1970s. Two others, Pamela Parson, 38, and Tracy Tafoya, 31, were slain in the 1990s.

Prosecutors contend that Naso drugged his victims before raping or trying to rape them, then killed the women and discarded their naked or scantily clad bodies in remote locations.

During prosecutors' opening statement on Monday morning, jurors were shown graphic photos of the victims as they appeared when their remains were found.

"The defendant is a serial rapist and murderer," said Marin County Deputy District Attorney Rosemary Slote told the jury.

Although he has no legal training, the defendant has insisted upon representing himself in the proceedings against him, for which he could face the death penalty if convicted of more than one more murder.

'I dated, I dance, I took pictures'
"I'm not the monster that killed these women. I don't do that," he said at one point during a rambling, two-hour, 10-minute opening statement. "I dated, I danced, I took pictures, but I don't kill people, and there's no evidence of that."

He acknowledged knowing one of his alleged victims, Parson, who by his account he picked up as a hitchhiker and brought to his house. There, he said, she offered to have sex with him. But he said he declined and took photos of her instead.

Naso was arrested in 2010 after authorities searching his home in Nevada found what prosecutors have described as diaries of sexual assaults and a list of victim dumping grounds, along with hundreds of photographs of naked women, many of whom appeared to be dead or unconscious.

It was only then that investigators began to put a serial murder case together against Naso, who was at the time on probation for shoplifting.

Naso insisted on Monday that "not one picture of a deceased person" was found at his home. Naso showed the jury a collection of roughly 50 photographs he had taken over the years, mostly of female subjects, many of them topless or in various stages of undress, interspersed with photos from weddings, a college sorority gathering, a nursing school graduation and a church group.

Of prosecutors' assertions that Naso's DNA was found on nylons from his ex-wife that he allegedly used to strangle one of his victims, he said such evidence was inconclusive.

As to journal notations attributed to him by prosecutors that refer to him having "raped" a woman, he told jurors, "That's the way I talk. It's just loose talk that I used. 'I pick up a nice broad and I raped her.' It's got nothing to do with forcible rape in the way we usually think."

He concluded by saying, "When this trial is over, I'd like you to find me not guilty so I can go home and see my children."

Related:

• Eerie similarites noted in NY, Calif. cold cases
• Serial killing suspect kept photos, list of women

US Marshals Service via Reuters; AP

James 'Whitey' Bulger in a 2011 booking photo, left, and John Martorano in 2008.

James “Whitey” Bulger, already charged with killing 19 people, was accused Monday of emotionally wounding a Boston hitman.

John “The Executioner” Martorano –  a star witness at Bulger’s racketeering and murder trial – told the jury that it “sort of broke my heart” when he learned his pal was an FBI informant.

He said Bulger and Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi had been his “partners in crime,” his best friends and godfather to his children, the Associated Press reported.

But the news that Bulger and Flemmi were working with the feds “broke all the trust that we had, all loyalty,” Martorano said, according to the Boston Globe.

So he hit them where it hurt: He decided to become a government snitch, too.

As a result of his cooperation agreement, Martorano served just a dozen years in prison even though he admitted to 20 murders, some of which he matter-of-factly recounted in his first hours on the stand.

“I shot him … in the heart,” Martorano said of the 1973 slaying of Joseph Notarangeli. He said he dressed as a butcher for the rubout at a Medford, Mass., restaurant called the Pewter Pot.

Martorano also described a 1974 hit on Notarangeli’s brother, Alfred, and claimed Bulger watched from a second car – the first time in the week-old trial that a witness has directly tied the 83-year-old ex-fugitive to a killing.

The confessed hitman said he botched the initial attempt on Alfred Notarangeli’s life, mistakenly killing bartender Michael Milano who drove a similar car.

“Wrong guy,” he told the prosecutor, according to the Globe.

Milano wasn’t the only unintended victim of Martorano’s bloody membership in the Winter Hill Gang. Innocent bystanders Elizabeth Dickson, 19, and Douglas Barrett, 17, were caught in the crossfire and killed when Martorano opened fire on associate Herbert Smith in 1968.

Smith’s capital crime? He laughed at Flemmi, Martorano said.

The witness admitted he felt bad about Dickson and Barrett.

“I wanted to kill myself,” he said, according to the Globe.

Martorano – who has reportedly sold his life story to a movie producer for $250,000 – is one of three former Bulger cronies testifying for the prosecution. In opening statements, the defense argued the trio only squealed to save themselves and have no credibility.

Bulger, who spent 16 years on the lam before being nabbed with his girlfriend in Santa Monica, Calif., in 2011, is charged with taking part in 19 murders, extortion, money-laundering, drugs and weapons.

He has pleaded not guilty, and in opening statements, his lawyer described him as a small-time drug-dealer and loanshark – not the notorious gang kingpin who prosecutors say kept a stranglehold on South Boston for decades and inspired Jack Nicholson’s character in “The Departed.”

Bulger also has denied he was an informant for the FBI, even though he wanted to put on a defense that argued he had immunity from the feds to commit crimes.

This story was originally published on Mon Jun 17, 2013 5:33 PM EDT

Ogden Police Dept.

Charles Richard Jennings is accused of shooting a man who was attending church in Utah on Sunday.

A Utah man was critically injured Sunday after he was shot in the back of the head while attending Mass.

Police in Ogden, Utah, about 40 miles north of Salt Lake City, say Charles Richard Jennings, 35, entered  St. James Catholic Church and confronted the victim before shooting him. 

Authorities believe Jennings then pulled out a gun in the church and fired at the man, whose name has not yet been released. The victim was transported to a nearby hospital where he remained in critical condition Sunday evening.

Ogden police said in a statement that, "The suspect was specific in the desired target and action," and no one else was hurt during the altercation.

Jennings was at large earlier in the day before he was captured, following a search operation that involved authorities throughout the state.

NBC's Salt Lake City affiliate KSL-TV reported that parishioners dove under pews when they heard the gunshot.  

Police said the alleged shooter is related to the victim through marriage, according to KSL.

Metro Nashville Police

Police were seeking Earnest Woodley, also known as Earnest Moore, 39, a convicted murderer with a long criminal record.

A woman and her three teenage daughters who were wounded when the woman's barefoot boyfriend shot them Friday in Nashville, Tenn., were listed as stable at a Nashville hospital Friday night, police said.

Police were seeking Earnest Woodley, 39, also known as Earnest Moore, a convicted murderer with a long criminal record. Police said Woodley, who was charged late Friday with four counts each of attempted homicide and aggravated assault, fled wearing a gray T-shirt, blue shorts and no shoes.

Nicole Luke, 34, her twin 14-year-old daughters, Deona and Keona Luke, and their 15-year-old sister, Kierra Smith, were all shot Friday afternoon at an apartment complex in the Madison neighborhood of northeast Nashville.

Luke, Woodley and the three girls were in two vehicles driving to Memphis, where they were all moving, when they stopped at the complex to visit a cousin of Woodley's, police said. All but Kierra went inside.

Woodley's cousin told police that Luke and Woodley began arguing before Woodley shot Luke, Deona and Keona. He then went outside and shot Kierra, police said.

Three other children who were at the scene weren't injured: Woodley's and Luke's 3-year-old daughter and the cousin's two sons, ages 7 and 13, police said.

A witness, Courtney Hiles, told NBC station WSMV in an on-air interview that she first heard two gunshots and then four more.

"We went outside and saw the man running past our house, so we went over here to see what had happened and we saw the car," Hiles said. "There was a lady in the front seat, and she had been shot, and all of the windows in the car had been shot out."

Woodley remained at large Friday night and should be considered armed and extremely dangerous, police said.

Woodley, sometimes using the name Moore, has a long criminal record, state corrections records show. He was convicted of second-degree murder in 1991 and finished parole in 2010. His other convictions include aggravated assault and cocaine possession.

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This story was originally published on Fri Jun 14, 2013 7:17 PM EDT

Bell County Sheriff's Office via Reuters

Maj. Nidal Hasan, charged with killing 13 people in a November 2009 shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas, in an undated Bell County Sheriff's Office photo.

A military judge barred Army Maj. Nidal Hasan on Friday from arguing at his court-martial that he was legally acting to protect Taliban leaders when he killed 13 people and injured 32 others in a shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009.

Hasan, who's representing himself, has said the shootings were a premeditated "defense of others" to safeguard Mullah Mohammed Omar and other Taliban leaders in Afghanistan from attacks by the U.S. military.

Hasan, 42, a Muslim-American Army psychiatrist, faces the death penalty if he is convicted in the Nov. 5, 2009, shootings.

The judge, Col. Tara Osborn, said Friday that Hasan's argument "fails as a matter of law" and barred him from alluding to it in any way because the legitimacy of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan is "a non-justiciable political question not before the court," the Killeen Daily Record reported.

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"None of (the victims) in Fort Hood, Texas, posed an immediate imminent threat to those in Afghanistan," she said.

Hasan is seeking a three-month delay in his court-martial, which would be held at the same base he shot up 3½ years ago. Although he fired his three defense attorneys, Osborn has ordered them to assist him anyway — an order they've objected to.

Rulings on those two matters were still pending Friday afternoon. Hasan's next hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.

Related:

Judge rules Fort Hood suspect can represent himself

KSDK-TV

Police respond to a fatal shooting Thursday, June 13, on Cherokee Street in St. Louis.

Four employees of a home health care business were killed in a murder-suicide Thursday in St. Louis, police said.

The gunman, a second man and two women were found shortly after 1:30 p.m. in the office of A K Home Health Care on the first floor of the Cherokee Place Business Incubator, which renovates buildings on the street and leases them as work spaces, police said. 

Police identified the gunman late Thursday as Ahmed Dirir, 59. State and federal licensing records list a man with that name as the company's director.

His three victims were identified as Khadra Muse, 44; Seaeed Abdulla, 29; and Bernice Solomon-Redd, 54.

Police Capt. Michael Sack told reporters that video from a surveillance camera showed the gunman having an argument with the three others before opening fire. 

"It appeared to be brief," he said. "We don't know if this was a thing that carried over into today or was initiated today."

The weapon, a semi-automatic handgun, was recovered at the scene, he said.

Abdisalam Elmi, a Somali immigrant who drives a cab, told NBC station KSDK of St. Louis that he knew all four victims. 

"They are very hard workers," he said in an on-camera interview. "They're friendly. They always smile for me."

"This is the worst day in my life," he said, adding: "I pray for peace, for love, no hate."

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This story was originally published on Thu Jun 13, 2013 4:25 PM EDT

Sabah Arar / AP file

Former Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., during a visit to Baghdad in 2007. Renzi was convicted of 17 of 32 federal corruption charges Tuesday, June 11, in Tucson, Ariz.

Former Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., was convicted Tuesday of federal corruption charges involving land deals and his family insurance business.

Renzi, 55, was convicted of 17 of 32 counts in U.S. District Court in Tucson.  His defense team said in a statement that while Renzi was acquitted of 15 counts, "we are disappointed by every guilty verdict."

Renzi, who served on the House Intelligence Committee during his three terms in Congress from 2003 to 2009, was released pending sentencing, which was scheduled for Aug. 19, and had no comment, according to the Arizona Republic.

"Former Congressman Renzi's streak of criminal activity was a betrayal of the public trust and abuse of the political process," Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of the Justice Department's Criminal Division said in a statement. "After years of misconduct as a businessman, political candidate and member of Congress, Mr. Renzi now faces the consequences for breaking the laws that he took an oath to support and defend."

Most of the counts carry maximum sentences of 20 years in prison.

Renzi  was indicted in February 2008 on federal charges of racketeering, conspiracy, money laundering, extortion, making criminal transactions and making illegal campaign contributions  — insurance fraud was added to the list in 2009.

According to a superseding indictment, Renzi concealed his involvement in land deals involving two companies and exploited his position on the House Natural Resources Committee to speed things along.

He was also accused of stealing clients' premiums from his insurance business to help pay for his 2002 congressional campaign.

James W. Sandlin, a real estate investor and business associate of Renzi's, was also convicted. The indictment said he repaid loans to Renzi using proceeds from the illegal deals, some of which Renzi didn't report and used in his 2002 campaign.

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An Ohio man crashed a Jeep into a security perimeter and then jumped the fence at the White House because he wanted to spray-paint the Revolutionary War-era "Don't Tread on Me" snake on the grounds, authorities said in court documents Tuesday.

The man, identified in federal charging documents as Joseph Reel, 32, of Kettering, Ohio, near Dayton, was charged with destruction of government property after the incident in the predawn hours of Sunday.

Encyclopaedia Britannica / UIG via Getty Images

File photo: Charging documents said the suspect wanted to paint an image like this one somewhere on the White House grounds.

The Secret Service said Reel, who Ohio records indicate is a registered Republican who voted in the November general election, went to elaborate lengths in his quest to breach White House security so he could leave behind his political message.

According to the charging document, Reel told officers that he conducted "surveillance" of the White House complex on Saturday "looking for a way in." 

Sunday, about 3 a.m. ET, he returned in a Jeep Patriot, according to the charges. He attached a wood block to the accelerator and set the vehicle on its way — unoccupied — ramming into a light post, a bicycle rack and a steel security bollard at 17th Street NW and Pennsylvania Avenue, which is the northwest corner of the White House complex.

A short time later, according to the report, Reel rode up on a bicycle and climbed over a fence at the north courtyard of the Old Executive Office Building, just west of the White House itself. 

He was carrying a can of spray paint, which he dropped as he fled Secret Service agents, the court records allege.

The documents say Reel wasn't armed when he jumped the fence. But they say investigators found 200 rounds of ammunition, eight knives and two machetes in the Jeep, which caused about $1,000 in damage.

Pete Williams of NBC News contributed to this report.

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Houston Police Department

Ana Lilia Trujillo, 44, is accused of fatally stabbing her boyfriend repeatedly in the head with a stiletto heel at a luxury high-rise condo in Houston on Sunday, according to police. She has been charged with murder, they said.

A Texas woman faces a charge of murder after allegedly fatally stabbing a man with a stiletto heel at a luxury condominium early Sunday, Houston police said.

Ana Lilia Trujillo, 44, is accused of gouging a 59-year-old man with a stiletto multiple times, leaving puncture wounds all over his head, according to a Houston Police Department news release issued Monday.

Trujillo has been charged with murder in the 338th State District Court, the release said.

Police responded to a report of an assault at The Parklane high-rise condominium complex in Houston’s Theater District shortly before 4 a.m. Sunday. Trujillo opened the door to the unit for police, who discovered the man’s body on the floor, according to a statement from HPD patrol officers.

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The slain man has not been identified by officials, but police described him as Trujillo’s “boyfriend” in the news release. He was pronounced dead at the scene of the stabbing shortly after responders showed up, the patrol officers said.

The man accused of gunning down four people and injuring five others on Friday during a shooting rampage in Santa Monica, Calif., had as much as 1,300 rounds of ammunition on him and planned the attack that only ended when he was shot and killed by responders, the city’s police chief said Saturday.

Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks said the shooter carried a semi-automatic rifle and a duffle bag stuffed with ammunition magazines as he cut a violent path through a mile-long stretch of the coastal city.

“Any time someone puts on a vest of some sort, comes out with a bag full of loaded magazines, has an extra receiver, has a handgun and has a semi-automatic rifle, carjacks folks, goes to a college, kills more people, and has to be neutralized at the hands of the police, I would say that that’s premeditated,” Seabrooks said.

The police chief said law enforcement officials had unspecified “contact” with the man seven years ago, but Seabrooks did not comment on the 2006 incident because he was a juvenile at the time.

Police are working to confirm the gunman’s relationship with the two people found dead in a burning house blocks away from the Santa Monica College campus where the shooting spree came to a bloody climax.

Seabrooks did not identify the suspect but described him as a “cowardly murderer.” He was due to turn 24 on Saturday, she said.

County officials earlier Saturday identified one of the four people killed during the bloodshed Friday. Carlos Navarro Franco, 68, was fatally struck by a bullet behind the wheel of his SUV, which spun out of control and careened into a wall, according to Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office investigator Joyce Kato.

In a statement, Santa Monica Community College President Chui Tsang described Franco, a groundskeeper at the college, as a dedicated worker for 22 years who would be sorely missed.

“He tried to make people happy and make sure he did the best job he could," Franco's supervisor, Tom Corpus said. "He was just a great asset to the college. Everything Carlos did was for the college and for his family.”

Franco's youngest daughter, Marcela, 26, who was a student at CSU Dominguez Hills, was also one of the victims of Friday's shootings, the statement said. She was in critical condition at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and not expected to survive.

Authorities had pieced together a chronology of events by Saturday that draws a westward line from the burning home nestled near the Santa Monica Freeway to the beachside campus of Santa Monica College.

Tami Abdollah / AP

Weapons and other evidence recovered from the gunman in Friday's deadly shooting rampage that left four people dead, in Santa Monica, Calif are displayed Saturday June 8, 2013, in Santa Monica.

Police said the carnage began around 11:52 a.m. on Friday, when officials responded to reports of gunfire and a growing blaze at a private residence fewer than 20 blocks away from the campus. Responding officers found two people believed to have been fatally shot by the gunman inside the flame-engulfed home, Seabrooks said. Officials are still working to identify the cause of the blaze, Santa Monica Fire Chief Scott Ferguson said.

Shortly before noon, the gunman is reported to have fled on foot, firing randomly at passing vehicles, wounding one woman. He then carjacked a vehicle being driven by an adult woman and threatened to murder her if she didn’t drive him to the nearby college campus, Seabrooks said.

The gunman demanded the woman stop at various points along the mile-long ride to the campus so he could fire erratically at passing cars, police said. He sprayed bullets at a public bus, shattering glass and injuring three people, and then fired at Franco in his SUV, killing him and seriously wounding his daughter, police said.

With police officers in pursuit, the gunman abandoned the shaken motorist and darted toward the library, shooting indiscriminately. One bullet struck and killed an adult woman in her 50s outside the library building, police said.

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Amid the hail of gunfire, students scattered and took shelter in a provisional safe room, barricading the door with any available objects to keep the gunman away. Officers arrived at the library shortly after noon and exchanging a volley of bullets with the suspect before wounding him. The injured suspect was then taken outside, where he was pronounced dead around 12:05 p.m.

Seabrooks said five people were hurt in the shooting – the woman driving by the carjacking, the three people on the bus, and Franco's daughter.

The gunman was described by authorities as a male Caucasian between the ages of 25 and 30. He was dressed head to toe in black and sported what authorities said appeared to be a bullet-proof vest.

Friday’s violence unfolded as President Barack Obama prepared to attend a Democratic National Committee fundraiser at a private home at 2 p.m. local time.

Richard Esposito, M. Alex Johnson and Niven McCall-Mazza of NBC News contributed to this report.

Joe Klamar / AFP - Getty Images

Santa Monica police search the grounds of Santa Monica College after multiple shootings were reported on the campus in Santa Monica, California.

This story was originally published on Sun Jun 9, 2013 1:37 AM EDT