HOUSTON — Authorities say three suspects have been arrested in the investigation of at least seven drugstore armed robberies this month in the Houston area.

The Harris County Texas Sheriff’s office on Wednesday announced the arrests in a joint operation with the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Officials say the suspects face aggravated robbery charges after being nabbed Tuesday night following a reported holdup of a Walgreens. A law enforcement statement says the suspects had guns, masks, gloves and more than $3,000 in stolen cash.

Investigators say six other robberies, allegedly linked to the suspects, also involved Walgreens stores in crimes that began May 2.

State and federal prosecutors are reviewing the cases. Further details weren’t immediately available.

 

Windows of Baptist leader removed from chapel

FORT WORTH — Stained-glass windows honoring some religious leaders who helped shift the Southern Baptist Convention to a more conservative stance have been removed from a Texas chapel.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported Wednesday that the windows featured dismissed Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President Paige Patterson. He was fired last May amid criticism of his responses to rape allegations made years apart by two students.

The MacGorman Chapel windows were unveiled several years ago and funded by contributions.

Seminary board officials criticized Patterson for his email to campus security in 2015 saying he wanted to meet alone with a student who said she’d been raped, to “break her down.”

Patterson also was criticized for contradictory responses about his review of a student’s rape allegation in 2003 at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in North Carolina.

 

Former military trainer, retired dog reunited

SAN ANTONIO — A former military dog trainer and his now-retired canine partner have been reunited in an emotional encounter in Texas.

Aaron Stice was a corporal in the Marines when he last saw the Belgian Malinois named Kkeaton in October at Camp Pendleton in California.

Stice is now a civilian trainer at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland and wanted to adopt the explosive-detecting dog that he’d worked with for several years. The nonprofit group American Humane made Tuesday’s reunion possible in San Antonio.

Kkeaton’s name has special meaning. Stice served in Afghanistan with Cpl. Keaton Coffey of Oregon, who was killed on May 24, 2012. The dog was born days later in a breeding program at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland and named for the late Marine.

 

Texas woman pleads guilty in fair vendors’ deaths

GREAT BEND, Kan. — A Texas woman has admitted to her role in the deaths of a couple who were killed at a Kansas fair after one suspect ordered the killings as part of a “carnival mafia” initiation.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said 39-year-old Christine Tenney, of La Marque, Texas, pleaded guilty Tuesday to aggravated robbery and obstruction of justice.

Tenney was charged after the July 2018 deaths of Alfred “Sonny” Carpenter and Pauline Carpenter, both of Wichita, at the Barton County Fair in Kansas, where they were vendors. Their bodies were discovered in a national forest near Van Buren, Arkansas.

Three other people were charged with murder in their deaths. Fifty-four-year-old Michael Fowler Jr., of Sarasota, Florida, pleaded guilty in March to first-degree murder. Another man is charged with obstructing apprehension.

Investigators say there is no “carnival mafia.”