Across the southeast

Woman hit with Taser dies in police custody

FORT MYERS, FLA. - A woman who was combative with deputies and shocked once with a Taser stun gun lost consciousness and later died, authorities said.

Tracy Rene Shippy, 35, entered a Hallmark Gold Crown store around 6:30 p.m. Saturday and asked employees to call 911 because she had been in a fight, Lee County sheriff's spokeswoman Ileana LiMarzi said.

Employees told deputies she then began knocking over and smashing the store's displays.

A deputy tackled Ms. Shippy and put her in handcuffs, then began moving her toward a squad car with another deputy, according to the sheriff's office.

Sgt. Joseph More shocked Ms. Shippy once on her left shoulder with a Taser after she began kicking both of the deputies, Ms. LiMarzi said.

More than 100 people have died in the United States and Canada since 2001 after being shocked with a Taser.

Clerk, 2 others shot, killed in motel robbery

BIRMINGHAM, ALA. - Police have made no arrests, but hoped a security video will help identify two men shown shooting three people to death on Thanksgiving in a motel lobby.

Jefferson County Deputy Coroner Jack Parker identified the dead as front-desk clerk Kim Olney, 28, of Birmingham; Dorothy Smith, 58, of Flushing, N.Y.; and 42-year-old truck driver John Franklin Aylesworth of Sulphur Springs, Texas.

Airport Inn Manager Rufus Carroll confirmed that Ms. Olney was the clerk, on the job only three weeks. He had no details about Ms. Smith, who might have arrived to check in.

Mr. Aylesworth had been a guest while waiting for his truck to be repaired. He had checked out Thursday and was in the lobby waiting for a ride when the shots were fired.

The video showed the men fleeing with a safe and a cash drawer containing about $300.

N. Carolina gives little to its western counties

ASHEVILLE, N.C. - Western North Carolina, hard-hit by plant closures and layoffs, is largely overlooked by the state when it hands out taxpayer-funded incentives aimed at attracting jobs, a newspaper's analysis found.

The Asheville Citizen-Times reviewed data from the One North Carolina Fund and the Job Development Investment Grants, two of the state's top industrial incentive programs promoted by Democratic Gov. Mike Easley.

It found that the One North Carolina Fund sent 93 percent of the $25.4 million given from 2001 through Oct. 3 to areas outside the 23 western counties.

Since early 2003, more than 6,700 industrial workers in the region have been hurt by shuttered plants and job cuts.