News from around Wisconsin at 6:58 p.m. CDT

MARINETTE, Wis. - A Michigan man accused in a shooting rampage that killed three teenage swimmers at a river on the Wisconsin-Michigan border pleaded insanity to 10 felonies Friday, including new counts that he tried to kill six other teens.

Scott J. Johnson, 38, of Kingsford, Mich., had been charged with three counts of first-degree intentional homicide. The criminal complaint was amended Thursday to also charge him with six counts of attempted first-degree intentional homicide and one count of second-degree sexual assault.

With the insanity pleas, Johnson would have to prove to a jury through medical experts that he didn't know right from wrong in the crimes because he suffered a mental disease or defect and cannot be held responsible for his behavior.

If found insane, he would be sent to a mental hospital until doctors determined he was safe to be released back into society. If found sane and guilty of the charges, he would be sent to prison for life.

"In this serious of a case, you can't leave any stone unturned," Leonard Kachinsky, Johnson's attorney, said about the rare insanity pleas. "We want to get a psychiatric exam to see if there was a basis for that defense."

Prosecutors say Johnson went to the Menominee River on July 31 and opened fire on a group of swimmers, killing Tiffany Pohlson, 17, Anthony Spigarelli, 18, and Bryan Mort, 19, all from Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Investigators say Johnson fired about 17 shots from a rifle and is now accused of trying to kill Katrina Coates, Derek Barnes, Daniel Gordon, Kevin Johnson, Jonathan McClure and Christopher Martinson, who were also at the river, according to an amended criminal complaint filed in Marinette County Circuit Court.

------ Chicago man gets 15 years for fatal hit-and-run

RHINELANDER, Wis. (AP) -- A 47-year-old Chicago man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for a hit-and-run accident in Wisconsin that left his fiancee's brother dead.

Raul Valdez pleaded no contest to homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle in June. A charge of hit-and-run involving death was dismissed.

Emergency crews found 43-year-old Richard Thompson of Lac du Flambeau dead in February after receiving a cell phone call reporting a man laying on the shoulder of state Highway 47.

Vilas County deputies identified the car that hit Thompson a short time later and arrested Valdez.

Judge Neal Nielsen also sentenced Valdez on Thursday to 10 years of extended supervision and ordered him to complete an alcohol treatment program.

------ Review panel criticizes Great Lakes health study

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) -- Substandard science has hurt a federal agency's seven-year effort to document possible links between industrial pollution and health problems in the Great Lakes region, an independent review panel said Friday.

The Institute of Medicine said drafts of a report still under development by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were deeply flawed. Shortcomings included use of questionable data and conclusions that were overstated or not backed by sufficient evidence, the institute said.

"The problems we found in the drafts would limit the ability of officials and others to draw conclusions from them about whether any health risks are associated with living in or near certain places around the Great Lakes," said Robert Wallace, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Iowa and chairman of the 11-member committee that conducted the review.

The CDC asked the institute, a scientific advisory organization and part of the National Academies, to evaluate the report's quality after drawing accusations of a cover-up from some members of Congress for delaying its release.

Versions made public earlier this year noted elevated levels of cancer, premature births and infant mortality in some of the U.S. counties where 26 "areas of concern" are located. Those sites are heavily tainted with toxins such as PCBs, mercury and dioxins. About 9 million people live near the sites in cities such as Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland and Milwaukee.

The CDC last March released drafts of its report from 2004 and 2007 after a nonprofit group posted an unauthorized copy on its Web site. But administrators acknowledged they were acting under pressure from Congress and that some of the science was weak.

The institute's report echoed those concerns, and Wallace said in a telephone interview he believed CDC bosses were right to delay its release.

------ Man killed in NV ID'd as ND fugitive

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) -- A man shot and killed by sheriff's deputies in Hawthorne, Nev., has been positively identified as a federal fugitive from North Dakota.

An FBI fingerprint analysis identified the man as Kelly Stenstrum, 31, of Grand Forks, a Nevada state investigator said Friday.

Authorities on Thursday had stopped short of officially confirming that Stenstrum was the man shot by two Mineral County sheriff's deputies on Tuesday following a chase in vehicles and on foot.

Drew Wrigley, the U.S. attorney for North Dakota, said Stenstrum had died in Hawthorne but did not explicitly link the death to the shooting involving the two deputies. Nevada officials declined to confirm the identity until the fingerprint comparison was done and Stenstrum's family was notified.

"It was, in fact, Kelly (Stenstrum) that was involved in the fatal shooting," said Lt. David Jones of the Nevada Department of Public Safety's Investigation Division.

Stenstrum was wanted for not reporting to prison in Fort Dix, N.J., in late August, after leaving a Fargo halfway house where he had been staying since March. The U.S. Marshals Service had put out a warrant for his arrest and warned that he was armed and dangerous. He had been sentenced in July to nearly three years behind bars for stealing weapons in the Grand Forks area, some of which he sold in Wisconsin.

Stenstrum was a burglary and stolen vehicles suspect in Nevada. Authorities said he was shot and killed after failing to obey deputies' orders to surrender and put down the handgun he held. Authorities have not released any more details.

Related topic galleries: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Vehicles, Punishment, National Government, University of Iowa, David Jones, Murder

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