Gazette Daily News Podcast, July 12

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This is John McGlothlen with The Gazette digital news desk and I'm here with your update for Monday, July 12th.

Today, we’ll have a slight chance of showers, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms after 1 p.m. It will be mostly cloudy, with a high near 77. Winds from 5 to 10 mph are expected from the northeast. The chance of precipitation is 30%. Then tonight, we’re expecting a 10% chance of showers and thunderstorms before 7 p.m. and a low around 63.

A mixed martial arts fighter hanged himself in the Linn County Jail shortly after he had agreed to plead guilty to federal child pornography charges, according to authorities and court records. Travis Jon Fulton of Parkersburg, who went by “The Ironman” on the MMA fighting circuit, was identified Sunday as the inmate who about 4 a.m. Saturday was found unresponsive in a cell at the Linn County Jail, where he had been held on federal charges since Feb. 19th. Court records show initially he was indicted on charges he enticed a girl under age 18 to engage in sexual behavior that he photographed over the span of several years. In March, a federal grand jury expanded the indictment to add another victim, also a girl under 18. Besides the felony sexual exploitation charges, records show Fulton also faced charges of receiving and possessing child porn.

A driver died Sunday afternoon in a single-vehicle crash on Highway 151 near Stone Road in Linn County. Linn County sheriff’s deputies and the Marion Fire Department responded around 3:35 p.m. Deputies discovered a white 2006 Mercury Mountaineer upside-down in water under a bridge that is under construction. Witnesses reported seeing the vehicle, which was eastbound on Highway 151, leave the roadway and crash into the water. The driver was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver’s name is being withheld until next of kin can be notified.

An Ohio woman is charged with sexual abuse after police say she established an online relationship with a 15-year-old Marion boy and had sexual relations with him on two occasions. 23-year-old Lena McGill, of Toledo, Ohio, traveled to meet the teenager in Marion twice in April, according to Marion Police. McGill helped him run away from home and they traveled to Missouri together, according to police. McGill dropped the boy off at a Walmart in Festus, Mo., and he was returned to Marion. Investigators recovered text messages, phone numbers and written correspondence that corroborated the teen’s account of events.