The DEA, the Franklin County Narcotics Enforcement Unit, and the police departments of Kirkwood and Pacific conducted a joint operation early Wednesday morning to break up a methamphetamine manufacturing and distribution ring. Twenty-one suspected meth cooks from Franklin and Jefferson counties are now in custody.
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Expect your payment in four to six business days.

St. Louis County Councilwoman Hazel Erby may have drafted the solution for stopping the rampant theft of copper from the County's air conditioners, cell phone towers and pipes. Her bill, which received first-round approval Tuesday, would require scrap metal dealers to keep a registry of sellers, sellers would have to provide photo identification and -- this is the elegant part -- scrap metal dealers will pay sellers with a check that's sent by mail.More >>

Every week writers for Riverfront Times and our parent company, Village Voice Media, produce elegant magazine-style feature writing--a gritty portion of which comes in the form of true-crime stories. Now VVM has collected some of its best recent true-crime yarns into an ebook: Seven Sins: A True Crime Anthology from Village Voice Media.More >>

Shermell Crockett

[UPDATE: Shermell Crockett has now been charged with second-degree murder, two counts of armed criminal action and one count of first-degree robbery. Police are still seeing two other suspects. Original post follows.]

Shermell A. Crockett, 20, was arrested early this morning in connection to the robbery and murder of pizza delivery driver Daniil Maksimenko. He was wanted by the police for questioning, and has not been charged with any crimes.
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George Allen sits in prison, eight years after DNA test cleared him.

He's been incarcerated for three decades for the brutal murder of Mary Bell, a St. Louis court reporter whose nude body was found stabbed to death in her LaSalle Park apartment in 1982. And again today attorneys with the Innocence Project will argue that George Allen be released.

After the jury deadlocked in his initial trial, Allen was tried again and convicted of murdering and raping Bell. At the time of that trial, prosecutors stated that seminal fluid found on Bell's clothes suggested that Allen committed the deed. But that was before DNA testing. In 2004 the Riverfront Times obtained through a Sunshine Law request a then-recent test of the evidence from the St. Louis police department. Those results found that, per the report, "George Allen could not be a contributor to this mixture."
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Edward Maher as he appears today, at the age of 56.

English fugitive Edward Maher, 56, has officially been deported from America back to his home country to answer for a heist he allegedly committed 19 years ago. The so-called "Fast Eddie" was arrested in rural Nixa, Missouri, where he'd been living for the past four-and-a-half years.
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Noah Bledsoe

Former St. Louis paramedic Noah Seth Bledsoe, 33, was sentenced in federal court to 15 years and supervised release for life for engaging in sexual activities with three minor males. Bledsoe had pleaded guilty to one count each of attempting to persuade a minor to engage in sexual activity, persuading a minor to engage in sexual activity and transporting a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.  More >>

It's lasted longer as the "in" vegetable than rocket did.

Corey L. Billups, 42, understands the first law of running a business in a crowded marketplace: Sell what the guy next door doesn't. In Billups' case, the next door neighbor is Belleville's Farmers' Market store. Displaying his shrewd acumen, he allegedly opted to get in the produce business by peddling marijuana. It's gotta make more money than heirloom tomatoes, right?More >>

Alice H. Gregory, 27, the Department of Revenue clerk who was charged in February with accepting cash in return for processing new vehicle registrations and titles, yesterday pleaded guilty to those charges.
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Richard Ambler

Florissant man Richard Ambler, 49, a substitute teacher in the Parkway school district, has been indicted on one charge of possessing child pornography. According to the affidavit, Ambler told investigators he believes he has more than 1,000 images and videos.
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