SALEM - State police working for the district attorney's office are confiscating cash from some people seeking to bail individuals out of Middleton Jail, an act two local judges say is unconstitutional. Prosecutors defend the practice, saying that they have the right to investigate when they suspect the bail money comes from drug dealing. But lawyers for two men whose bail was seized earlier this month say police had no legal right to take the money - a view the judges shared in separate rulings last week. [continues 514 words]
SALEM - When Elena Sorrento died at 28 from a lethal overdose of heroin and cocaine, she wasn't the only victim. There's her mother, who is still in a deep depression three years later. There's her sister, Jennene, a single mother who suddenly found herself with another child to raise. And there's Nickolas, Elena's son. He was just 2 the morning of Aug. 25, 2001, when he woke up in bed next to his dead mother. He may have tried to wake her - no one knows for sure. At some point they do know Nickolas got out of bed and found his father sleeping on a sofa. They made breakfast, thinking they were letting Elena sleep in. But around 9:30, Jennene, who lived in the apartment downstairs, heard her sister's boyfriend yelling, "Jennene, come up here." "She was stiff and cold, and he's shaking," Jennene Sorrento recalled. "I didn't know what to think." The toll heroin takes on its users is only part of the story. [continues 583 words]
SALEM - When Elena Sorrento died at 8 from a lethal overdose of heroin and cocaine, she wasn't the only victim. There's her mother, who is still in a deep depression three years later. There's her sister, Jennene, a single mother who suddenly found herself with another child to raise. And there's Nickolas, Elena's son. He was just the morning of Aug. 5, 1, when he woke up in bed next to his dead mother. He may have tried to wake her - no one knows for sure. At some point they do know Nickolas got out of bed and found his father sleeping on a sofa. They made breakfast, thinking they were letting Elena sleep in. But around 9:3, Jennene, who lived in the apartment downstairs, heard her sister's boyfriend yelling, "Jennene, come up here." "She was stiff and cold, and he's shaking," Jennene Sorrento recalled. "I didn't know what to think." [continues 596 words]
