Thursday 7.26
WKOW-TV (Ch. 27) reports that unsealed court records reveal that Amos Mortier, an MATC student who has been missing since 2004, intended to confront someone about a drug debt shortly before his disappearance. The records say an unidentified man owed Mortier about $90,000 for marijuana.
Saturday 7.28
Kevin Cobbins, 26, of Waunakee is shot to death after a dispute at a home on Loreen Drive on Madison's west side. Police are looking for James Bohanan, 34, in connection with the shooting. Friends say Cobbins was dating Bohanan's ex-girlfriend.
A car crash near Midvale Boulevard and Mineral Point Road kills one person and injures three. Police later arrest the driver, Marco Antonio Romero Tozqui, 24, of Belleville on charges of homicide by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle.
Sunday 7.29
After a Madison Metro driver refuses to let him board a bus, Michael Cooper hangs on to the side-view mirror for half a mile between Verona Road and Seminole Highway. The bus reaches speeds of up to 35 miles per hour before finally stopping. Metro suspends the driver, Kris Burke, with pay. Police obtain a warrant for Burke's arrest, on charges of second-degree reckless endangerment.
Monday 7.30
A woman is sexually assaulted by a stranger, who forces his way into her home on Fordem Avenue. The man later takes the woman to an ATM and forces her to withdraw cash.
About 25 people rally at the state Capitol, asking the Legislature to approve a Democratic proposal for universal health care. They tell stories about being uninsured and having to rely on the emergency room, while racking up thousands of dollars in health-care bills.
Madison's Jim Gleeson, a computer technician, wins a national contest for bad writing sponsored by San Jose State. His winning entry: "Gerald began - but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him 10% of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them 'permanently' meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash - to pee."
Tuesday 7.31
State Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen closes the investigation into whether campaign contributions to Gov. Jim Doyle influenced the state's decision to approve the sale of a nuclear power plant. Doyle received $40,000 from utility executives as the state was selling the Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant in 2005. Van Hollen says there's no evidence the donations had any impact.
Aaron Smith, 28, is sentenced to two and a half years in prison for pouring liquid wart remover into the mouth of his then-girlfriend's 5-month-old baby.
Former M&I bank employee Scott Jensen, 37, is sentenced to nearly three years in prison for embezzling $212,000 from elderly customers.
Wednesday 8.1
Donna Sollenberger announces she is leaving as president and CEO of UW Hospital to take a job at Baylor Hospital in Houston. Sollenberger, who had been with the UW Hospital for eight years, will leave Sept. 30.
Compiled from local media