Emergency responders are investigating a partial building collapse in downtown Montgomery. City of Montgomery spokesman Griffith Walker says a partial collapse of the historic Webber Department Store building Thursday afternoon prompted street closures in the nearby area. Montgomery Fire Department Chief Ronnie H. Bozeman Jr. says no injuries have been reported. The building was a theater before it was repurposed into a department, it is being renovated into a mix-use retail, residential and office complex.
Cold Case
Alabama's Attorney General says a man serving a sentence in a military prison has been indicted in cold case sex crimes involving three young girls in east Alabama. Luther Strange said in a statement 45-year-old Billy Wayne Cooper, formerly of Calhoun County, was served with the indictments at the detention barracks of a military base in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Cooper is being held there for sex crimes that happened at U.S. Army posts in Washington state and Germany. The cold case sex crimes happened between 1999 and 2004 throughout Calhoun County.
Former Survivor Dies
Caleb Bankston, a former contestant on the "Survivor" reality show, has died in a railway accident in Alabama. A Jefferson County Deputy Coroner says Bankston, who was working at the Alabama Warrior Railway in Birmingham, was thrown from a train in a partial derailment on Tuesday. Bankston, of Collinsville, Alabama, appeared on "Survivor" in 2012 and 2013 according to the show's website. Bankston was 27 year old.