Oklahoma news in brief

An 18-year-old Bartlesville man has pleaded not guilty to a negligent homicide charge stemming from a traffic accident that left two Chouteau women dead.
Bail was set at $1,500 for James Dawson Eckhart.
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol says Eckhart’s 2002 Ford pickup failed to stop at a stop sign March 28 south of Bartlesville and collided with a 1998 Ford driven by James Ashley.
Ashley’s passengers, 61-year-old Betty Day Ashley and 54-year-old Joana Hannah, died at the scene.
Eckhart is set to return to Washington County District Court on June 16.
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WASHINGTON, Okla. (AP) — A motorcycle crash in McClain County has left a man dead and a woman critically injured.
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol says 50-year-old Ronald Dodson of Washington, Okla., died at the scene of the crash about 5:30 p.m. Saturday in Washington. A 54-year-old passenger, Sofia Capacite of Purcell, was medi-flighted to an Oklahoma City hospital in critical condition.
The patrol says Dodson was driving northbound on Santa Fe Avenue when he ran off the road, hit a barbed wire fence and then crashed into a utility pole.
The patrol says neither was wearing a helmet.
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TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Tulsa police are searching for a suspect in the shooting deaths of two men at a south Tulsa apartment complex.
Police say the men were among five people at an apartment at the Copper Mill Apartments when the shootings occurred about 7:15 p.m. Friday.
Capt. Rick Helberg on Saturday identified the victims as Casimiro Bustamante and Juan Carlos Castillo, both of whom were in their mid 20s.
Helberg says at least two men were inside the apartment when two other men kicked in the door of the apartment and assaulted those inside.
Shots were exchanged and one of the men inside the apartment and another who broke in were killed.
“It appears there was a shootout and one guy from each side is dead,” Heberg said.
A surviving victim inside the apartment was attacked with a stun gun.
Heberg says the shooting was connected to an ongoing fued and that robbery does not appear to be a motive.
Helberg says authorities are searching for one man who broke into the apartment and fled with an assault rifle in an older white van.
Police say both of the deceased men were shot in the abdomen.
The deaths brought Tulsa’s confirmed homicide total so far this year to 11.
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DUNCAN, Okla. (AP) — Police in Duncan are searching for a suspect in the slaying of a 26-year-old man.
Police Lt. Jimmy Williams says 33-year-old Dale Lee Jones is being sought in Friday’s killing of Jonathan Ball of Duncan. Ball was discovered early Friday morning in the driveway of a home with a knife wound to the throat.
Williams says Ball and another man walked to a Duncan residence and were having a discussion with some men when an altercation broke out. He says Jones used Ball’s own knife and slashed Ball in the kneck with it.
Ball then stumbled down the driveway toward the street and fell to the ground. He died at the scene.
Williams says investigators have not determined a motive or whether the stabbing may have been accidental.
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LAWTON, Okla. (AP) — A judge in Lawton has declared a mistrial in a rape case after a defense attorney asked an improper question about a polygraph test.
Judge C. Allen McCall declared a mistrial Friday and dismissed the jury in the first-degree rape case against Alvin Dempsey, Jr.
McCall made the ruling after defense attorney Armando Mata questioned a police detective about whether his client offered to take a polygraph test.
Mata acknowledge the question was improper, and the judge ordered the attorney to pay for two days of jury fees.
Dempsey is accused of raping a Cotton County woman in February 2007. His attorneys contend the sex was consensual.