By BEN GREENE, Associated Press Writer

BALTIMORE - A man who had argued with his estranged wife over the custody of their three children has confessed to drowning them in a hotel bathtub on the night they were to go back with their mother, police said Monday.

Mark A. Castillo will be charged after he is released from a hospital where he is being treated for self-inflicted cuts on his neck, Police Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld said at a news conference.

Police did not cite a motive.

But his wife wrote in court documents that her husband had threatened to make her suffer by killing the children. She sought a protective order Dec. 25, 2006 and asked that the court order Castillo to receive counseling.

“He has never actually hurt (the children), but did tell me that the worst thing he could do to me would be to kill the children and not me so I could live without them,” she wrote in the petition.

She also wrote that when her husband took the children for visits, he would not tell her where they were staying.

A temporary protective order was approved three days after the petition was filed, but Circuit Judge Joseph Dugan rejected a permanent order Jan. 10, 2007. In explaining his decision, Dugan wrote there was “no clear or convincing evidence that the alleged acts of abuse occurred.”

Police identified the children as Anthony, 6, Austin, 4, and Athena, 2.

Castillo, 41, of Rockville, and the children spent time Saturday afternoon at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, then checked into the Baltimore Marriott Inner Harbor. The children were drowned, one at a time, in the tub that night, Bealefeld said.

Police said Castillo called the hotel front desk Sunday afternoon, saying he’d killed the children and was going to commit suicide. Baltimore police and firefighters were sent to their 10th-floor room and discovered the bodies, Bealefeld said.

Castillo was supposed to have returned the children to their mother in Silver Spring at 8:30 p.m. Saturday. His wife called Montgomery County police shortly after that time to say that her husband had not returned the children, Bealefeld said.

Baltimore police did not know how Montgomery County police responded, but said the cases were not connected until after the children’s bodies were found.

Bealefeld wouldn’t discuss the crime scene in detail but said police seized a laptop from the hotel room and were searching Castillo’s home.

By TERRY KINNEY, Associated Press Writer

BATAVIA, Ohio - Sgt. Keith Matthew Maupin’s parents vowed to never let the U.S. Army forget about finding their son.

Their efforts included trips to the Pentagon and even meeting with President Bush, but they ended in disappointment Sunday: An Army general told them the remains of Maupin, a soldier who had been listed as missing-captured in Iraq since 2004, had been found.

“My heart sinks, but I know they can’t hurt him anymore,” Keith Maupin said after receiving word about the remains of his son, who went by Matt.

On Monday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed sympathy to Maupin’s family.

“This has been especially difficult for the Maupin family because of not knowing for almost exactly four years. So I want to extend my condolences,” Gates said, speaking to reporters aboard a flight to Denmark.

The Army didn’t say how or where in Iraq his son’s remains were discovered, only that the identification was made with DNA testing, Maupin said. A shirt similar to the one his son was wearing at the time of his disappearance was also found.

Lt. Col. Lee Packnett, an Army public affairs officer in Washington, said an official statement about the identification would be released Monday.

The Army was continuing its investigation, Maupin said.

Matt Maupin was a 20-year-old private first class when he was captured April 9, 2004, after his fuel convoy, part of the Bartonville, Ill.-based 724th Transportation Company, was ambushed west of Baghdad.

A week later, the Arab television network Al-Jazeera aired a videotape showing a stunned-looking Maupin wearing camouflage and a floppy desert hat, sitting on the floor surrounded by five masked men holding automatic rifles.

That June, Al-Jazeera aired another tape purporting to show a U.S. soldier being shot. But the dark and grainy tape showed only the back of the victim’s head and not the execution.

The Maupins refused to believe their son was dead. They lobbied hard for the Army to continue listing him as missing-captured, fearing that another designation would undermine efforts to find him.

The Pentagon agreed to give the Maupins regular briefings, and Bush met with them when he traveled to Cincinnati.

Keith Maupin said the Army told him soon after his son’s capture that there was only a 50 percent chance he would be found alive. He said he doesn’t hold the Army responsible for his son’s death, but that he did hold the Army responsible for bringing his son home.

“I told them when we’d go up to the Pentagon, whether he walks off a plane or is carried off, you’re not going to leave him in Iraq like you did those guys in Vietnam,” Maupin said.

Keith Maupin and his ex-wife, Carolyn, held a candlelight vigil Sunday night outside the Yellow Ribbon Support Center in Batavia, an office they used to package thousands of boxes of donated snacks and toiletries for shipment to soldiers in Iraq.

“It hurts,” Carolyn Maupin said. “After you go through almost four years of hope, and this is what happens, it’s like a letdown, so I’m trying to get through that right now.”

The Maupins said they would hold to their previous plans for Monday and appear in the baseball season opening day parade for the Reds in downtown Cincinnati.

Asked how they would suspend their grief and take part in the parade, Keith Maupin said, “Our mission continues.” They raise funds for the Yellow Ribbon center and for scholarships for children of veterans.

The Maupins were told by an Army official on Friday to expect an update on their son over the weekend, Keith Maupin said. The Army broke the news about their son’s remains at a somber meeting.

“When you look out there in the parking lot and see a three-star general get out of a car, you know it ain’t good news,” Keith Maupin said.

Four U.S. service members remain missing in Iraq: Capt. Michael Speicher, a Navy pilot, has been missing since the 1991 Persian Gulf War; Sgt. Ahmed al-Taie, a 41-year-old Iraqi-born reserve soldier from Ann Arbor, Mich., was abducted while visiting his Iraqi wife in October 2006 in Baghdad, and Pfc. Byron Fouty and Sgt. Alex Jimenez have been missing since May 12.

Matt Maupin graduated from Glen Este High School, just east of Cincinnati, in 2001 and attended the University of Cincinnati for a year before joining the Army Reserves.

Dan Simmons, the athletic director at Glen Este, remembered him as a quiet but hardworking backup player on the school’s football team.

“Matt was a selfless kid on the football field,” Simmons said. “He did whatever the coaches told him. He wasn’t a starter, but he made the other kids play harder.”

A month after his capture, Maupin was promoted to the rank of specialist. In April 2005, he was promoted to sergeant.

By RAY LILLEY, Associated Press Writer
WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Scientists who conducted the most comprehensive survey to date of New Zealand’s Antarctic waters were surprised by the size of some specimens found, including jellyfish with 12-foot tentacles and 2-foot-wide starfish.
A 2,000-mile journey through the Ross Sea that ended Thursday has also potentially turned up several new species, including as many as eight new mollusks.

It’s “exciting when you come across a new species,” said Chris Jones, a fisheries scientist at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “All the fish people go nuts about that — but you have to take it with a grain of salt.”

The finds must still be reviewed by experts to determine if they are in fact new, said Stu Hanchet, a fisheries scientist at New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research.

But beyond the discovery of new species, scientists said the survey, the most comprehensive to date in the Ross Sea, turned up other surprises.

Hanchet singled out the discovery of “fields” of sea lilies that stretched for hundreds of yards across the ocean floor.

“Some of these big meadows of sea lilies I don’t think anybody has seen before,” Hanchet said.

Previously only small-scale scientific samplings have been staged in the Ross Sea.

The survey was part of the International Polar Year program involving 23 countries in 11 voyages to survey marine life and habitats around Antarctica. The program hopes to set benchmarks for determining the effects of global warming on Antarctica, researchers said.

Large sea spiders, jellyfish with 12-foot tentacles, huge sea snails and starfish the size of big food platters were found during a 50-day voyage, marine scientist Don Robertson said.

Cold temperatures, a small number of predators, high levels of oxygen in the sea water and even longevity could explain the size of some specimens, said Robertson, a scientist with NIWA.

Robertson added that of the 30,000 specimens collected, hundreds might turn out to be new species.

Stefano Schiaparelli, a mollusk specialist at Italy’s National Antarctic Museum in Genoa, said he thought the find would yield at least eight new mollusks.

“This is a new brick in the wall of Antarctic knowledge,” Schiaparelli said.

By CIARAN GILES, Associated Press Writer
MADRID, Spain - A former drummer for the Swedish pop band ABBA was found dead with cuts to his neck in the garden of his house on the Spanish island of Mallorca. Police said Monday an autopsy showed it was an accident.
A neighbor found the body of 62-year-old Ola Brunkert on Sunday evening at his house in a coastal area outside the eastern town of Arta, a Civil Guard spokesman told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

He said an autopsy was carried out and confirmed initial investigations. “It was an accident,” he said.

The spokesman said Brunkert hit his head against a glass door in his dining room, shattering the glass and cutting himself in the neck. He managed to wrap a towel around his neck and left the house to seek help, but collapsed in the garden.

Brunkert lived in the coastal apartment complex of Betlem in the municipality of Arta, in the eastern part of Mallorca.

Brunkert had lived in Arta for around 20 years. His wife, Inger. died less than a year ago, an Arta municipal official told the AP. She spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to discuss the case.

ABBA band member Benny Anderson told Swedish daily Expressen he was sad to hear of the drummer’s death. “It is tragic,” he said.

Band member Bjorn Ulvaeus added that Brunkert had been “one of the best.”

“I remember him as a good friend when we worked together in the mid-1970s. He was a very creative musician who contributed a lot when we toured together and worked in the studio,” Ulvaeus told Expressen.

According to ABBA’s official Web site, Brunkert and bass player Rutger Gunnarsson were the only musicians to appear on all ABBA albums.

Brunkert first played with ABBA on the group’s first single, “People Need Love,” and toured with the band in 1977, 1979 and 1980.

He had been a jazz drummer and a member of the blues band Slim’s Blues Gang, before joining pop group Science Poption in the mid-1960s.

ABBA, with the four regular members Agnetha Faltskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Ulvaeus and Andersson, was one of the world’s most successful bands, with album sales of more than 370 million. The group has not performed together since 1982, but continues to sell nearly 3 million records a year.

DEWSBURY (AFP) - A nine-year-old schoolgirl who disappeared three weeks ago in a case which has gripped Britain was found alive Friday concealed in the base of a bed, police said.

Shannon Matthews went missing on February 19 after a school swimming trip in Dewsbury, near Leeds, northern England, triggering a huge police investigation amid growing fears she may have been killed.

The schoolgirl, whose picture has been plastered in the media for the last three weeks, was found in a flat in Batley Carr, a short distance from her home, said West Yorkshire police.

A 39-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of her abduction, with reports saying he was a member of her extended family.

The girl’s mother Karen was said to be “in shock” after being told her daughter was alive, while her father said he was “over the moon.”

“I did say on the news I wasn’t going to give up until she was found,” Leon Rose, who is separated from Shannon’s mother, told Sky News. “I’ve kept going, and every day I went out there as much as I could.”

Shannon’s mother said this week she believed someone known to her had snatched her daughter.

The girl was not immediately reunited with her mother, but placed in the care of police under an “emergency protection order”.

“This will remain in place until we have had time to establish the full facts of what happened in the time since her disappearance,” a police spokesman said.

She was found after police battered down the door of a house.

“During a search of the house, officers located Shannon Matthews who was found concealed in the base of a divan bed,” police said in a statement.

An impromptu party to celebrate the news, complete with fireworks and disco music, broke out outside the home of Shannon’s mother.

The news was welcomed by Gerry and Kate McCann, whose daughter Madeleine went missing in Portugal last May in a case covered heavily by the British and foreign media.

“Kate and Gerry are aware that she has been found alive. They feel that is excellent news, they are delighted that she is alive,” said their spokesman, Clarence Mitchell.

“It proves that children can go missing for whatever reason and still be found alive.”