Wink 106 | radioNOVO News WV News Roundup for July 08, 2026

 Good morning. Turning to news from across the Mountain State.A Walker man is facing a life sentence this morning after being ordered to serve eighty years in state prison for a brutal double homicide. Wood County Circuit Judge J.D. Beane handed down consecutive forty-year maximum sentences to forty-three-year-old Bradley Cantwell following his felony Alford pleas to two counts of second-degree murder. Investigators proved Cantwell fatally shot his friends, James Bailey and Felicia Goff, inside their Walker residence before setting fire to the home in a desperate attempt to completely cover up the crime scene.Meanwhile, a precautionary shelter-in-place order remains active within a quarter-mile radius of Staunton Avenue as industrial crews suppress persistent hotspots at the destroyed Peoples Cartage warehouse near Parkersburg. State environmental records just revealed the logistics company's sister facility near the regional airport was heavily fined forty-six thousand dollars last year for multiple hazardous waste violations and failing to prevent sudden chemical fires. Emergency officials emphasize that the active Camden Avenue fire zone remains completely secured, and the nearby Erickson All-Sports Facility has escaped any structural damage.In federal legal news, former West Virginia University basketball player Kerr Kriisa is expected to appear in federal court this week after being hit with five counts of wire fraud. Federal prosecutors accuse the twenty-three-year-old of executing a sophisticated two-million-dollar scheme that operated partly out of Monongalia County. Investigators allege Kriisa repeatedly posed as various family members and invented fictional contacts to manipulate victims into sending him large sums of money for fabricated emergencies.Further south, the Kanawha County Board of Education has officially voted to transfer the former Herbert Hoover High School property over to the town of Clendenin. The regional site, which was severely damaged during the historic two-thousand-sixteen floods, will be completely transformed into a public community recreation space featuring athletic fields and walking paths. School Superintendent Paula Potter states the district is finalized required paperwork with federal emergency officials before the deed is officially handed over to municipal leaders.And the Roman Catholic Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston is celebrating the official installation of its tenth bishop. The Most Reverend Evelio Menjivar-Ayala was formally installed during a weekend liturgy that drew prominent clergy from across the entire United States to the Ohio Valley. Menjivar becomes the nation's very first Salvadoran-born bishop to lead an American diocese, explicitly pledging to support regional working families and marginalized local communities.For more news from across the state, download the radioNOVO app. I’m Codi Gaboff, radioNOVO News.