Bucks County

The unsolved 1977 killing of 20-year-old Shaun Ritterson, which Bucks County prosecutors say they are close to solving, may take at least a few more months to resolve. Laboratory evidence from the case, including the main suspect's DNA, is expected to slow investigators' workload as they conduct an internal audit, according to Assistant District Attorney Matthew Weintraub. The audit, combined with the difficulty of testing decades-old evidence alongside the recently collected DNA, is likely to delay test results until summer, Weintraub said.

A person was struck and killed by an Amtrak train Tuesday night in Bucks County, an agency spokeswoman said. The person, whose gender and age were unavailable, was hit by a southbound Acela train 2175 around 10 p.m. in the area of SEPTA's Croydon Station, said Amtrak spokeswoman Vernae Graham. Service remained disrupted between Trenton and Philadelphia at 11:30 p.m., Graham said. Police and the Bucks County coroner were investigating the death. - Robert Moran

Francesca Ruscio, 19, of Jamison, Bucks County, a student at Temple University, was named Miss Philadelphia during a pageant Saturday night at the Prince Music Theater in Center City. After auditions, she was selected from a field of 17 contestants. - Bonnie Cook Check back for a full profile of Ruscio later today

A worker died after he fell into a sugar hopper Monday afternoon at an industrial plant in Bucks County, authorities said. Janio Salinas Valerda, 50, of Edgewater, N.J., was pronounced dead at the CSC Sugar plant at 80 Roebling Rd. in Falls Township, said Joseph Campbell, the Bucks County coroner. The sugar hopper was not functioning correctly, and Valerda apparently was trying to unclog it with a large pole from a catwalk when he fell in, Campbell said. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration was investigating.

An 89-year-old woman killed in a shootout between police and a Bucks County man has been identified as Marie Zienkewicz. Warminster police said Zienkewicz was in her apartment Tuesday night when she was hit by cross fire. Zienkewicz lived in the apartment below the man who was shooting at police, authorities said Wednesday. Police and the Bucks County District Attorney's Office did not say who shot Zienkewicz; the District Attorney's Office is still investigating. On Tuesday afternoon, Andrew G. Cairns, 49, began fighting with his girlfriend, authorities said.

There is no heat, gas, or running water in Brian Schuster's Long Beach Island summer house. Hurricane Sandy devastated his property, which sustained about $100,000 in structural damage. But he's going to rebuild and raise the house to comply with federal standards that Gov. Christie announced in January the state would adopt. Just raising the house could cost $30,000. But the alternative would be much worse. Christie said homeowners who don't meet the Federal Emergency Management Agency's floodplain map standards in two years could pay flood-insurance premiums nearly 10 times what they pay now. Schuster, 65, can afford the cost of rebuilding his home.

About 24 hours after their bus smashed into a Boston overpass, a group of students and chaperones from Bucks County stepped onto another bus to head home. But at least four of the original 42 passengers remained hospitalized with serious injuries they suffered when the top of their charter bus slammed into the bottom of the overpass. The students, from a Bucks-area community group, had spent Saturday afternoon touring Harvard University, meeting students, and exploring the historic college town of Cambridge.

She had an exterminator coming. Mice in the basement. Melissa Ketunuti hurried home through the morning cold, walking quickly the short distance from a parking garage to her Graduate Hospital-area rowhouse. A busy morning already. A work meeting at the hospital, errands. She clutched a CVS bag. Pooch, her black pit-bull/Lab mix of six years, would have greeted her at the door. Moments later, a tall, thin man wearing a NorthFace jacket and work gloves, carrying a work bag, walked onto the street, heading toward Ketunuti's home, out of camera view.

The two armed men who robbed an upscale house in a remote section of Hilltown Township, Bucks County on Friday entered through a first-floor bedroom window around 6 a.m., according to local authorities, providing new information about the crime that left one man dead and two suspects on the loose. After climbing in, the men located Joseph Canazaro, 48, his girlfriend (whose name has not been released), and his 12-year old son, tied the three of them up, held them at gunpoint, and scoured the house for valuables, according to Bucks County District Attorney David Heckler and Hilltown Township police chief Christopher Engelhart.