DURHAM, N.C.

Fire in leased space kills patient, hurts 3 at hospital

One patient was killed and three employees were injured in a fire Tuesday at a long-term care unit occupying leased space at a North Carolina hospital, authorities said.

Firefighters were called to a report of an explosion on the sixth floor of Durham Regional Hospital about 2:15 a.m. When they arrived, they found that there had been no explosion, and that the fire had been extinguished by the hospital sprinkler system.

The fire was limited to one room of Select Specialty Hospital. The patient who died was critically ill, and the medical examiner will determine the timing and cause of the patient’s death. Hospital officials were investigating exactly how and where the fire occurred.

NEW YORK

St. John’s dean facing trial commits suicide at home

A disgraced dean of St. John’s University who was accused of using students as personal servants was found hanging in her apartment Tuesday, dead of an apparent suicide, a law enforcement official said.

Cecilia Chang’s body was discovered hanging from a folding ladder that leads to the attic in her Queens home Tuesday morning, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

Chang, 59, was the former dean of the Institute of Asian Studies. She was charged in 2010 with stealing $1 million from the school and with forced labor for requiring students to run personal errands for her, answer her emails or do other mundane tasks or else they would be kicked out of school.

On Monday, Chang gave rambling, bizarre testimony at her criminal trial, admitting she lied to an FBI agent, expensed personal items and used her students, but denying she stole from the school.

CINCINNATI

Nurse given 10-year term in death of impaired child

An Ohio nurse has been sentenced to the maximum 10 years in prison after she unexpectedly pleaded guilty in the malnutrition death of a teen who had cerebral palsy and weighed 28 pounds when she died.

Mollie Parsons had been set to go to trial Wednesday. She pleaded guilty Tuesday to involuntary manslaughter, failing to provide for a functionally impaired child and tampering with records.

Prosecutors say it was Parsons’ job to administer care to 14-year-old Makayla Norman of Dayton six days a week. The girl died in March from malnutrition. Her mother is serving a nine-year sentence stemming from her death.

MORRISON, Ill.

Suspected killer of eight found guilty in second trial

An Illinois man accused of killing eight people from two states in 2008 was found guilty Tuesday in the death of a 93-year-old man.

Jurors deliberated for less than three hours in Whiteside County Court before finding Nicholas Sheley, 33, of Sterling, guilty of murder in the June 2008 death of Russell Reed at Reed’s home.

It was Sheley’s second trial. He already has been convicted of murder and is serving a life sentence for the killing of a Galesburg man in 2008. Sheley also faces trials in the other six killings.