The Massachusetts parents accused of killing their 4-year-old daughter by overdosing her with prescription drugs will be tried separately.

Assistant District Attorney Frank Middleton said in court Wednesday that prosecutors decided to hold separate trials for Carolyn and Michael Riley after the judge ruled certain statements each of the Rileys made might incriminate the other and could not be heard. Those statements could be used in separate trials.

The judge on Monday denied a defense motion to dismiss murder charges against the Rileys. Their lawyers argued that the murder indictment should be thrown out because a new medical report from a prosecution expert acknowledges that the girl had pneumonia. The defense claims that caused her death.

A 25-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to setting a fire at a western Massachusetts home that killed two of his neighbors. It was one of nine fires set within hours of one another in the community of Northampton.

Anthony P. Baye was ordered held without bail Tuesday at his arraignment on two counts of murder, arson and armed burglary in Northampton District Court. He has not been charged with the other fires.

Prosecutors said in court that Baye was caught on surveillance video in the area the night of the fires. They said that proves his alibi — that he was visiting his girlfriend — was a lie.

The Dec. 27 blaze killed 81-year-old Paul Yeskie Sr. and his 39-year-old son, Paul Yeskie Jr.

Baye lives in the Yeskies' neighborhood. A woman who answered the phone at the Baye home Tuesday declined to comment.

A man unhappy with a judge's ruling in his divorce case returned to the court house on Wednesday and shot and killed one of its employees, authorities said.

The alleged killer — a 57-year-old Austrian male — was arrested after gunning down a 42-year-old court employee who is the mother of two young children, police said. No other injuries have been reported at the district courthouse in Hollabrunn, a town about 30 miles (50 kilometers) northwest of Vienna, Austria's capital, said Leopold Etz of the Lower Austrian criminal police force.

Etz could not immediately confirm local media reports that the woman had been shot in the head. He said the motive of the unidentified attacker was not immediately clear but that he apparently had come to the courthouse for a divorce-related matter.

Wilhelm Tschugguel, president of a court in the town of Korneuburg that oversees the Hollabrunn court, said the alleged killer was unhappy with the outcome of his divorce proceedings and had entered the court in Hollabrunn to find the judge who had handled the case.

Two Riverside County men have been found guilty of murdering an 18-year-old girl, putting her body in a 55-gallon drum and leaving it in a field in Southern California.

Two separate Riverside Superior Court juries on Monday convicted Jeffree Buettner of Menifee and Glen Jones of Wildomar of the 2002 murder.

Prosecutors say Buettner and Jones beat and strangled Stephanie Benton because they thought she was talking to law enforcement about other crimes the men had committed.

Her decomposed body was found in a drum in a Lake Elsinore field with a leather belt around her neck and duct tape wrapped around her head.

The juries also found special circumstances that make the men eligible for the death penalty.

A Florida judge has ruled that the state must pay for a costmetologist to cover up neo-Nazi tattoos on a man on trial in a murder case.

Judge Michael Andrews, acting on a request by the man's lawyer, ruled that the tattoos are potentially offensive and could influence a jury's opinion. He ruled that the state must pay a cosmetologist up to $150 a day during John Allen Ditullio's trial on murder and attempted murder charges and apply makeup to cover up the black ink.

The 23-year-old faces the death penalty if convicted of donning a gas mask, breaking into a neighbor's home and stabbing two people, killing one of them.

On an Internet site, 15-year-old Alyssa Bustamante listed her hobbies as "killing people" and "cutting." It may have sounded like a teenage exaggeration, but authorities say she fulfilled her words.

Even as new details emerge about the teenager charged with killing 9-year-old Elizabeth Olten, many facts about the crime continued to be kept secret Thursday — and may never be released by authorities unless Bustamante goes to trial for murder.

Bustamante, who had been in juvenile custody since leading police to Elizabeth's body Oct. 23, was certified Wednesday as an adult and indicted on charges of first-degree murder and armed criminal action. She is accused of strangling Elizabeth, cutting her throat and stabbing her.

Online court records showed Thursday that a public defender assigned to represent Bustamante filed a motion seeking to have her placed in a state hospital for immediate mental health treatment.