California IN BRIEF : SANTA ROSA : Suspect Arrested in Nicholas Slaying

The alleged slayer of a millionaire matriarch was a lifetime acquaintance of the 74-year-old victim, authorities said. The body of Eleen Nicholas, who helped her husband build a business that grew to 36 turkey farms in California and one in Scotland, was found on the floor of her home at her 950-acre sheep ranch near Santa Rosa. Pierre Creager, 24, son of a 30-year employee of Nicholas Turkey Breeding Farms, was arrested in Clovis. The suspect and victim had “experienced some difficulities in the past,” a Sonoma County sheriff’s investigator said. He declined to elaborate. Nicholas and her husband, George, started their turkey business in 1939, transforming a Future Farmers of America project into a conglomerate that sold in 1978 for $10 million.