[naviga:h3]Football player dies in crash after trip[/naviga:h3]

PENN HILLS, Pa. — Officials say a high school football player died in a car crash near his Western Pennsylvania home following a recruiting visit to a West Virginia college.

The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office says 17-year-old Donovan Baynes was in a car that crashed into a utility pole on Saturday night in Penn Hills, near Pittsburgh. He died at a hospital.

Baynes was a starting defensive end for the Penn Hills High School football team.

Officials with the Penn Hills Quarterback Club say he had just returned from West Virginia Wesleyan College with his mother and girlfriend. His girlfriend was also hurt in the crash. She’s recovering in the hospital.

A GoFundMe page aims to raise $75,000 to cover Baynes’ funeral expenses and create a scholarship fund in his name.

[naviga:h3]Man gets life in prison for murder[/naviga:h3]

PITTSBURGH — A Pennsylvania man has been convicted of first-degree murder in the death of a man whose body was later found in a West Virginia river.

Common Pleas Judge Joseph Williams III called 31-year-old Hubert Wingate of Pittsburgh “a plague on the community” in issuing his decision Friday in the non-jury trial in Allegheny County.

Thirty-four-year-old Andre Gray disappeared in October 2014. His body was found in March 2015 by a towboat captain in the Ohio River near Follansbee, W.Va. An autopsy concluded that he had been stabbed 10 times but died from a gunshot to the head.

Wingate took the stand and blamed a man accused of having helped him get rid of the body.

He faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole.