COLUMBIA, S.C. — Authorities in South Carolina say a Belk Department Store employee died in the store's public bathroom, but her body wasn't discovered for four days.

According to Columbia Police, the Associated Press and CBS affiliate WLTX reported that the store's janitor Bessie Durham was last seen Thursday at work.

On Monday, Durham's body was found by another store employee in a bathroom stall around 8 p.m., the Lexington County Coroner's Office told WLTX.

Deputy Police Chief Melron Kelly told WIS-TV her cleaning cart was sitting out of the bathroom.

The news outlets reported that Durham's body was found shortly after her family reported her missing.

According to the news outlets, foul play is not suspected.

WLTX reported an autopsy is scheduled for Thursday.

Kelly said the store was open during normal business hours those four days, so police will investigate if anyone was negligent, the news outlets reported.

“We’re still working with the store to find out what their process is to closing down the store, inspecting the store and things of that nature,” Kelly told the news station.

SAN FRANCISCO —

A baby girl, her parents and uncle who were kidnapped at gunpoint from their central California business two days ago were found dead Wednesday, the sheriff of Merced County said.

"Our worst fears have been confirmed," Sheriff Vern Warnke told reporters Wednesday night.

Watch the surveillance video in the player above.

A farmworker found the bodies close together in a Merced County orchard, he said.

The announcement came after authorities released surveillance video of a man kidnapping 8-month-old Aroohi Dheri; her mother Jasleen Kaur, 27; father Jasdeep Singh, 36; and uncle Amandeep Singh, 39, on Monday.

Authorities said they were taken by a convicted robber who tried to kill himself a day after the kidnappings.

"There's no words right now to describe the anger I feel and the senselessness of this incident," Warnke said. "I said it earlier: There's a special place in hell for this guy."

Investigators, including crime lab technicians from the California Department of Justice, would be processing the crime scene through the night, Warnke said. He didn't immediately supply other details.

The family members were taken from their business in Merced, a city of 86,000 people about 125 miles (200 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco in the San Joaquin Valley, California's agricultural heartland.

Relatives of Jesus Salgado, 48, contacted authorities reporting that he had admitted to them he was involved with the kidnapping, Warnke told KFSN-TV on Tuesday. Salgado tried to take his own life before police arrived at a home in nearby Atwater, and he has since been hospitalized.

Efforts to reach Salgado's family were unsuccessful Wednesday.

The video released earlier Wednesday showed the suspect first walking by the property before talking to one of the men. Later, it shows him leading the men, who had their hands zip-tied behind their backs, into the back seat of Amandeep Singh's pickup truck. The suspect then went back to the trailer that served as the business office and led Jasdeep Singh, who was carrying her baby in her arms, out and into the truck before the suspect then drove away.

Family members said nothing was stolen from the trucking company but that their relatives were all wearing jewelry. Warnke had said that after the kidnappings, an ATM card belonging to one of the victims was used in Atwater, about 9 miles (14 kilometers) north of Merced.

Warnke said the kidnapper made no ransom demands in what he believes was a financially motivated crime.

Relatives of the victims had earlier asked anyone who owns a convenience store or gas station in the area to check their surveillance cameras for images of the suspect or the family. They said they were worried the baby wasn't being fed because the family didn't have any baby food with them at the time of the kidnapping.

"Please help us out, come forward, so my family comes home safe," Sukhdeep Singh, a brother of the victims, said, his voice breaking.

At the earlier news conference, Warnke said detectives had not been able to speak to Salgado, who has been under medical sedation in the hospital, but they were hoping to do so Wednesday with the help of doctors.

"I can tell you that every time he has even come near consciousness he has been violent," Warnke said.

Salgado was previously convicted of first-degree robbery with the use of a firearm in Merced County, as well as attempted false imprisonment and an attempt to prevent or dissuade a victim or witness. He was sentenced to 11 years in state prison in that case, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

He was released from prison in 2015 and discharged from parole three years later. He also has a conviction for possession of a controlled substance, the corrections agency said.

Investigators have not found a link between Salgado and the family to show they knew each other before the kidnapping.

"As of right now, we believe it was random," Deputy Alexandra Britton said. "We don't have evidence to prove otherwise."

Family members told KXTV-TV that the office for Unison Trucking Inc., the family's business, had only opened about a week earlier.

"My husband is very peaceful and calm person. We don't have any clue why they kidnapped them," said Jaspreet Caur, wife of the kidnapped uncle.

The sheriff said detectives believe the kidnapper destroyed unspecified evidence in an attempt to cover his tracks.

The sheriff's office said that firefighters on Monday found Amandeep Singh's truck on fire. Merced Police Department officers went to Amandeep Singh's home, where a family member tried to reach him and the couple. When they were not able to reach their family members, they called the Merced County Sheriff's office to report them missing, the office said.

Merced County Undersheriff Corey Gibson said a farmer found a phone belonging to one of the victims on a street in Dos Palos, a town 30 miles (48 kilometers) southwest of Merced, and answered it when the family called it.

Warnke said that while detectives have not established any motive or determined whether Salgado worked with any accomplices, he believes the suspect was driven by money and colluded with someone else.

A woman in Ecuador who was previously discovered to be alive in a coffin at her own wake has now actually passed away.

Bella Montoya, 76, died Friday afternoon after spending a week hospitalized in critical care in the coastal city of Babahoyo, according to Gilbert Barberán, the woman’s son.

Montoya was quickly transported to the Martin Icaza General Hospital when she was found alive after banging on her own coffin at the wake in Babahoyo.

“During her hospital stay, she received comprehensive medical care and periodic evaluation by hospital specialists. Likewise, the respective medical audit was carried out for this case,” Ecuador’s Ministry of Public Health said in a statement.

Montoya initially entered the hospital for a stroke and was reported dead once before.

Barberán told CNN that he has to register his mother’s death on the civil registry for a second time.

Montoya’s daughter, Zeneida Leal, said her mother’s condition had been worsening.

“The doctor said that my mom was sick, that she was very delicate, that she was suffering from kidney failure, that she couldn’t be saved because everything was getting complicated and she went into respiratory arrest,” Leal told CNN.

The Ministry of Public Health has said an investigation is underway into the events leading up to her presumed death.

Ted Kaczynski, the man known as the “Unabomber,” was found dead in his prison cell Saturday morning, according to a Bureau of Prisons spokesperson. Kaczynski was found dead around 8 a.m. at a federal prison in North Carolina. A cause of death was not immediately known.He was 81. Kaczynski was arrested in 1996 after building and mailing bombs for 17 years. He first came to the attention of law enforcement in 1978 when his first bomb exploded in Chicago at a university. His bombs were untraceable, according to the FBI, and were delivered to random targets. The bombs he created killed three Americans and injured nearly two dozen more, according to the FBI.He lived in the mountains of Montana in a cabin. When he was arrested, authorities found bomb components, 40,000 journal pages that talked about the bombs and one live bomb, which was ready to be mailed. He pleaded guilty in January 1998. He spent two decades in a federal Supermax prison in Colorado then was moved to the federal prison medical facility in North Carolina.

PARIS —

French modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, a longtime associate of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, has been found dead in his prison cell, a spokesperson for the Paris prosecutor's office said.

Brunel was found alone, hanged with bedsheets, in his jail cell at the Santé prison in the French capital at around 1:30 a.m. local time on Saturday, the prosecutor's office told CNN. It would not comment on whether Brunel killed himself, adding an investigation into the cause of death has been opened, "as it is systematically done in these cases," entrusted to the French judicial police.

Brunel's French lawyers told CNN their client's "decision was not guided by guilt, but by a sense of injustice."

"Jean-Luc Brunel has never stopped claiming his innocence. He has multiplied his efforts to prove it. A judge had released him a few months ago, and then he was re-incarcerated in undignified conditions," a statement sent to CNN by his lawyers Mathias Chichportich, Marianne Abgrall and Christophe Ingrain read.

Accused of rape by several former top models, which he denied, the 75-year-old was put under formal investigation in France in late June 2021 for "rape of a minor over 15," the prosecutor's office confirmed.

Brunel was arrested at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport in December 2020 on counts of "rape and sexual assault, rape and sexual assault on a minor under 15, rape and sexual assault on a minor over 15, sexual harassment, criminal associations and human trafficking to the detriment of minor victims for the purposes of sexual exploitation."

He was released under judicial supervision for a few days in November 2021, before being returned to prison by decision of the Paris Court of Appeals. He appealed the decision as the prosecution prepared its case.

Brunel's arrest was part of a probe launched in 2019 by French prosecutors, targeting "acts of sexual nature likely to have been committed by Jeffrey Epstein and possible accomplices," based on checks and cross-checks carried out on information provided to the Paris public prosecutor's office and exchanges with U.S. authorities.

Epstein was found dead in his prison cell in the United States on Aug. 10, 2019. He was awaiting trial at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, after pleaded not guilty to federal charges accusing him of operating a sex trafficking ring from 2002 to 2005 at his Manhattan mansion and his Palm Beach estate, and allegedly paying girls as young as 14 for sex.

A medical examiner ruled his death was suicide by hanging.

Nearly six months after a California family and their dog died of extreme heat exhaustion and dehydration while hiking, phone data was released on Thursday that shows a text message and several phone calls did not go through due to poor cellphone reception.

John Gerrish, his wife, Ellen Chung, their 1-year-old daughter, Miju, and their dog were walking in extreme heat in a remote area close to the Merced River in the Sierra National Forest last August before they died.

Jonathan Gerrish's phone showed the family took multiple photos throughout their hike from 7:44 to 10:29 a.m., according to the release. At 12:25 p.m, they took a screenshot of their location on the trail map.

A single text message at 11:56 a.m. saying, "Can you help us. On savage lundy trail heading back to Hites cove trail. No water or ver (over) heating with baby" did not go through due to not having cell service in the area, the release said.

Five calls were also found to have been attempted but were not successful due to the same reason. The first was at 12:09 p.m. and the last four were attempted within one minute of each other at 12:36 p.m.

They were found dead on Aug. 17 just 1.6 miles from their vehicle after a family friend reported them missing. In October, the cause of death for all three family members was determined to be hyperthermia and dehydration.

Temperatures ranged from 107 to 109 degrees Fahrenheit and their water container was empty, authorities said.

The details found on the phone support the findings of a heat-related incident, authorities said.

"The cellphone data results were the last thing both the family and detectives were waiting on. The extracted information confirms our initial findings. I am very proud of my team and our partner agencies for all the work they put in. Their dedication has allowed us to close this case and answer lingering questions the family had, bringing them a little peace," Mariposa County Sheriff Jeremy Briese said.

Montana police said Tuesday morning that investigators believe a disturbance occurred inside a vehicle prior to it crashing in the city of Billings.

Lt. Brandon Wooley said officers were dispatched at 3:11 a.m. local time to a vehicle crash in the 300 block of South 27th Street. When officers arrived they said they found two men inside a vehicle unresponsive and not breathing. The men, both estimated to be in their 20s, had suffered apparent gunshot wounds and died at the scene, Wooley said.

Their names have not yet been released. A third person inside the vehicle was taken by ambulance to a medical facility. He was identified as a 22-year-old man from Billings, but his name was not released.

Casey Conlon/MTN News

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"Initial information indicates that a disturbance occurred in the vehicle prior to crashing into a tree on the side of the road," Wooley said in a statement. "Detectives with the Investigations Divisions are on-scene investigating. At this time, the BPD is not looking for any other persons involved. There have been no arrests."

Raw Video: Billings Shooting Crime Scene

Earlier a vehicle crash was reported on South 37th Street in Billings, which quickly became a murder investigation as first responders discovered the two bodies in the car, each with bullet wounds.

When police were called out they found the two men shot dead, and a third with severe trauma to his neck and he was taken to a hospital.

This story was originally published by Zack Schellin of KTVQ.

NEW YORK — Tanya Roberts, who captivated James Bond in “A View to a Kill” and appeared in the sitcom “That ’70s Show,” died Monday, several hours after she was mistakenly declared dead by her publicist and her partner.

Roberts' partner Lance O'Brien confirmed her death Tuesday after picking up her personal effects at a Los Angeles hospital. Her publicist shared the news with media outlets, who prematurely published Roberts obituary.

Roberts reportedly collapsed on December 24 after walking her dogs and was put on a ventilator at the hospital, according to the New York Times. The publicist did not give a cause of death, only that it was not related to COVID-19.

One of Roberts' highest-profile roles was playing geologist Stacey Sutton opposite Roger Moore in 1985′s “A View to a Kill.” Roberts appeared in the final season of “Charlie’s Angels” and later played Midge Pinciotti in the sitcom “That ’70s Show.”

Her fellow "angel" during that final season, Jaclyn Smith, shared a photo of the three of them Tuesday after news of Roberts' passing.

"She brought joy to so many people and had a career spanning decades. Good bye angel, Rest In Peace," Smith shared on Instagram.

LINCOLN HEIGHTS, Ohio — A woman was arrested in connection with a suspicious death in Lincoln Heights last spring, according to a news release from the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office released in a statement Friday afternoon.

Shana Nicole Jackson, 35, was arrested and charged with aggravated vehicular homicide in the death of 41-year-old Kerwin Heard, of Wyoming.

Heard’s body was found laying on the south side of Van Buren Street near Douglas Avenue at approximately 1 a.m. on April 10, 2020.

Police said their investigation showed Jackson and Heard were acquaintances and involved in an argument before she "intentionally struck" and killed him.

Jackson is currently in the Hamilton County Jail.

Christopher Plummer has died at the age of 91, according to multiple reports.

Plummer spent nearly 75 years acting on stage and screen, appearing in more than 100 films. He is probably best known for his role as Captain Georg Von Trapp in “The Sound of Music” in 1965. He won an Oscar for his role in “Beginners” in 2010.

On stage, he won two Tony Awards, in addition to other recognition and accolades.

“Chris was an extraordinary man who deeply loved and respected his profession with great old fashion manners, self deprecating humor and the music of words," reads a statement from his friend and manager Lou Pitt, reports Deadline.

He was born in Toronto, and grew up in Montreal. He made his stage debut in 1948 at the Canadian Repertory Theater in Ottawa, reports Variety.

Plummer was married to Elaine Taylor, his third wife, for 53 years. Deadline reports Taylor was by his side when he passed away at their home in Connecticut.

MILLCREEK, Utah — Four skiers are dead after an avalanche in Millcreek Canyon, which is in the Salt Lake City area.

The Unified Police Department of Greater Salt Lake said it received a "faint" distress call around 11:40 a.m. Saturday. Despite poor cell phone reception in the area, officers were able to determine that the slide happened in the Wilson Glade area of Wilson Fork. It is also near Alexander Basin and Gobblers Knob.

UPD later confirmed that four of the skiers were dead and four others were alive. All eight had avalanche beacons.

The medical status of the survivors was not immediately available, but officials say they were able to dig themselves out. The surviving skiers were also able to locate and dig out the other four, but they had already died.

Search and rescue teams from several agencies are working to recover the bodies in a way that will not further endanger crews from getting caught in another avalanche.

“We are heartbroken over the tragic news of four fatalities as the result of an avalanche in the Millcreek Canyon area this afternoon," Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson wrote in a statement. "We deeply mourn the loss of life due to this devastating incident.”

The incident is the first deadly avalanche in Salt Lake County this winter season. There were two others last month in the Park City backcountry: a skier in the Square Top area and a snowboarder in Dutch Draw, respectively.

Gov. Spencer Cox also issued a statement, writing on Twitter:

The Utah Avalanche Center reports that an avalanche was remotely triggered in the same general area just one day prior. Nobody was caught in it.

UPD says Millcreek Canyon is closed to recreation at least through Sunday, but restaurants and businesses in the canyon will still be open.

The victims' names have not yet been released, and the survivors' medical status is not known at this time.

This story was originally published by Jonah Napoli, Spencer Burt and Spencer Joseph at KSTU.

IMPERIAL COUNTY, Calif. —

An SUV packed with people crashed into a semitruck in Imperial County, California, on Tuesday morning, leaving 15 dead, hospital officials said.

A vehicle was traveling westbound on Norrish Road near State Route 115 when it traveled "in the direct path" of a semitruck traveling northbound on the 115, California Highway Patrol officer Arturo Platero said. The cause of the crash is under investigation.

There were 27 passengers in the SUV that struck a semitruck full of gravel, said Judy Cruz, the managing director of the Emergency Room Department at El Centro Regional Medical Center.

She said 14 people were dead on the scene, and another person died shortly after arriving at the hospital.

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The Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs is caring for four patients from the crash, hospital director of communications Todd Burke told CNN. Three of the four patients are in the intensive care unit, and all four were flown in directly from the scene to the trauma center.

"Patients are going through a difficult time as you can imagine," El Centro Regional Medical Center CEO Adolphe Edward said. "This was a major accident and we are taking care of them in the emergency room department."

Multiple patients were flown or transferred to hospitals for their injuries.

Imperial County Fire officials said multiple agencies were responding to the crash, which is being treated as a mass casualty event.

The site of the crash is in southeastern California about 10 miles east of El Centro and about 10 miles north of the Mexican border.

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The Associated Press contributed.

WEST CHESTER TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Three people died Tuesday morning after they were trapped in a mobile home that caught fire, according to a West Chester Township fire chief.

Around midnight, a police officer saw smoke coming from the Princeton Crossing mobile home park. When they investigated the cause of the smoke, they found a trailer on fire. Firefighters were then called to the park.

When responders arrived, they found three people trapped inside the mobile home and pulled them from the structure. Firefighters performed CPR on all three victims before taking two of them to West Chester Hospital and the other to Mercy Health-Fairfield Hospital.

Despite responders' efforts, all three people died from their injuries.

The names of the victims were not immediately released.

A firefighter was also taken to the hospital for heat exhaustion, fire officials said.

Officials added that most of the fire was in the back bedroom of the home, and the roof partially collapsed. A wall also collapsed, but most of the home is intact.

The cause of the fire was still under investigation Tuesday morning.

CINCINNATI — Many of the Brood X cicadas across Cincinnati are dead, but before they go, they are giving the Tri-State one last gift.

Cicada carcasses are full of nutrients that are beneficial to plants, especially trees. Their bodies act as a natural fertilizer and will help nourish vegetation across the Tri-State. The plants won't bloom more or look greener, but they will be properly nourished.

"All those nutrients in the millions of cicadas that we saw will go into the soil," said Dr. Gene Kritsky, the dean of behavioral and natural sciences at Mount St. Joseph University. "Especially for those trees where they’ve clustered at the base of a tree and you just see mounds of these things."

However, cicada carcasses don't decompose easily, so they will stick around for a while, and they can smell.

Kritsky has a solution for that, though.

"If you don’t like the looks of them," he said, "one thing you can do is literally rake them away from the tree -- not far away -- and then when you mow, provided you have a mulching mower, that will hasten the decline and the smell right away.”

Kritsky said the cicada life-cycle has already started over.

Female cicadas laid their eggs in tree branches, and soon some leaves will turn brown and fall from trees. Then, cicada nymphs will hatch and fall into the soil, looking like dust falling from a tree.

COLUMBUS, Ohio —

At 4:32 p.m. on Tuesday, someone called 911 to report a disturbance on Legion Lane in Columbus.

"We got these... grown girls trying to fight us. Trying to stab us. Trying to put our hands on our grandma. Get here now," the unidentified caller said.

Neighbors said 16-year-old Ma'khia Bryant made that call. Columbus police have yet to identify the caller. Chief Michael Woods said he didn't know if Bryant was the caller.

"We do not know that. Again, that will be (the Bureau of Criminal Investigation) interviewing all the witnesses to determine who made those phone calls," Woods said.

The caller's phone number was redacted in a computer-aided dispatch report obtained by WLWT.

Footage from Officer Nicholas Reardon's body camera paints a picture of what happened once he arrived at 4:44 p.m. — 12 minutes after the 911 call.

As Reardon stepped out of his car, people can be heard yelling. Reardon yells, "Hey."

As he approaches a group of at least seven people, a female is seen falling to the ground during a scuffle with another person. That other person, who was later identified as Bryant, had a knife in her right hand.

Reardon draws his gun as Bryant starts to run at a girl wearing all pink.

At the same time, an unidentified man kicks the girl who is already on the ground.

At that point, Reardon is focused on Bryant who still has the knife in her right hand.

Bryant is seen drawing her hand back and then up, over the girl in pink who is pinned against a car.

That is when Reardon fired his weapon four times.

Bryant fell to the ground and the girl in pink took off running.

After the shooting, the knife can be seen laying on the ground.

Officers performed chest compressions on Bryant while others rushed to separate witnesses.

Bryant died a short time later at an area hospital.

Investigators have not yet identified the girl in pink, the man who kicked the other female or any other witnesses.

"Those are witnesses, so they were referred to (the Bureau of Criminal Investigation). So, (the Bureau of Criminal Investigation) would have that investigation. But again, that's part of their investigation," Woods said.

A spokesperson for Ohio's Bureau of Criminal Investigation said he did not know how long it would take the division to complete its investigation.