Disturbing and Tragic

DISTURBING & TRAGIC ARCHIVES:

8-year-old Raijon Daniels (above) died after allegedly being beaten, tortured and possibly 'forced' to drink household cleaner by his mother Teresa Marie Moses (pictured above). Police in Richmond, CA., say, this is one of the worst cases of child abuse they've ever seen. A few of the officers have already requested therapy.

Moses, 23, was arrested on suspicion of murder, torture, child endangerment and child abuse. Police said the boy was covered head to toe with injuries and he lived in horrible conditions, staying in a locked room (which resembled a jail cell) outfitted with a surveillance camera and handcuffed to a bed.

Moses fed him food that was mixed in a blender, mainly spaghetti and beans. Moses works for UPS as a supervisor and told police that she had disciplined him for what she perceived to be misbehavior. She thought he was playing mind games with her when he urinated on an uncovered mattress with no blanket.

In 2005, Raijon ran away by jumping out a second floor window and then stole toys at a store because he didn't have any at home. Authorities filed a report with Child Protective Services but he was returned to his mother.

Last Friday, police arrived to find Raijon non responsive with traces of vomit on his face. Raijon had whip marks, burns, cuts and scars that covered every inch of his body. His mother admitted to pouring household cleaners over his genitals to discourage him from urinating.

During the interrogation, Moses was strictly business and didn't appear remorseful and never once asked about how her son was doing. When police told her that he was dead, she tried to cry but no tears came out.

Ironically, Moses also has a three year old daughter who also lived in the apartment. Unlike her son, her daughter was unharmed and her room was filled with toys. She has been placed in Child Protection Services.

Moses is being held in lieu of $2.1 million dollar bail.

Source: Henry K. Lee, SF Chronicle

The SF Chronicle recently reported: Raymond Merrill (pictured above) bought a $5,000 engagement ring for Regina Rachild (pictured above). Merrill met Rachild online and thought he was in love. Instead, Rachild lured him to Brazil and masterminded a plot in which he was drugged for six days until he disclosed his bank account information, then he was strangled and burned alive. Rachid and an alleged accomplice are under arrest in Brazil.

Merrill met Rachid through an international dating site in 2005. At her request, Merrill gave her $10,000 to open a botox clinic (which never materialized) and Merrill bought her a sports utility vehicle for $20,000, she complained because she wanted an $50,000 SUV, they argued and she called him 'a stupid American,' and her daughter asked Merrill to send her $1,600 for wedding preparations.

Shortly after his murder, his bank accounts were looted for $170,000 and an additional $27,000 in charges appeared on his credit cards. Rachild is currently in prison, awaiting trial.

Source: John Cote, SF Chronicle.

A former Texas district attorney, Louis "Bill" Conradt, Jr. (pictured above) was targeted by "Dateline's" "To Catch A Predator" and apparently shot and killed himself on Monday as sheriff's deputies, accompanied by a "Dateline" camera crew attempted to arrest him. Reports say, Conradt had solicited sex from a "Perverted Justice" decoy posing as a 13-year old boy. In Conradt's case, although he had reportedly agreed to come to the sting house, he failed to show up. Nevertheless, authorities said they had sufficient evidence to charge him with soliciting sex from a minor and that they had obtained warrants to search his home and computer for additional evidence.

According to the SF Chronicle, Shavan Boone (pictured above) was a 22-year old single mother trying to balance her social life with raising a 4-year old son, Sirdon.

Earlier this month, the young mother arranged to meet a man on a Wednesday night, no one is sure if she met the man on the Internet, or not.

She dropped her son off with the babysitter, telling her, she was going out for an evening at a hot tub spa. Boone apparently went to the "Hot Tubs" in San Francisco on November 1st.

Three days later, Oakland police found her body stuffed in a gray recycling bin that had been dumped in a garbage stewn creekbed in East Oakland. She had been shot to death.

Boone's family became concerned when they couldn't reach her on her cell phone.

Boone's death has left her family stunned.

Her older sister, Regina McGee said, "No one in the family knows who Boone was seeing the night she went off to the spa. She never came back. That leaves a lot of questions for me. "She didn't talk about whom she dated."

McGee adds, the family has not told Boone's young son about what happened. "When he is asking for his mom, he thinks she's at work."

Police have yet to name a suspect and are still investigating.

Source: Jaxon Van Derbeken @ The SF Chronicle.

Closing statements were set for Monday in the retrial of Tyrone Williams (pictured above), charged with 58 counts of conspiracy, harboring and transporting illegal immigrants. He faces a possible death sentence if convicted. Authorities say Williams was part of a smuggling ring that tried to transport more than 70 illegal immigrants from Mexico, Central America and the Dominican Republic in his airtight tractor-trailer from South Texas to Houston in May 2003.

Williams abandoned the trailer at a truck stop near Victoria, about 100 miles southwest of Houston, after the immigrants succumbed to the heat inside. Nineteen of them died from dehydration, overheating and suffocation.

Prosecutors argued Williams ignored the immigrants cries for help during the four-hour trip and failed to turn on his trailer's air conditioning unit, which they said might have prevented the deaths. Several survivors called by Williams' attorneys testified the air conditioning unit was turned on during the trip.

During the journey, the immigrants' body temperatures rose as high as 113 degrees.

Survivors testified they couldn't understand how Williams didn't hear or feel as the immigrants desperately banged on the trailer's walls and shouted they were dying and needed to be released.

Update: Tyrone Williams was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Source: Juan A. Lozano @ ABC News.com

The “Nut Case” street gang terrorized the bay area as they went on a two-week crime and murder spree. A manhunt was underway for member DeMarcus Ralls (pictured above). His picture was posted all over the local news. At the tender age of 21, Ralls was accused of four murders and suspected in a fifth murder, he was also suspected in over a dozen robberies. He was finally apprehended and is currently on trial. Relatives of his crime victims are appalled at his lack of remorse and his nonchalance in describing the murders. Ralls is accused of killing Sunny Thach during a robbery. Thach was robbed of $31 dollars and shot in the head as he carried his toddler. Ralls blames his childhood on his criminal behavior. He was often beaten by a drug-addicted mother, grew up in group homes and was teased by classmates because he didn’t know who his father was but the prosecutors are not buying his story. They classify him as a cold-blooded killer who should be put to death.  Source: SF Chronicle

An Alameda County jury heard opening statements last week about a Oakland man accused of intentionally killing his 3-year old soon in 2003 by beating him to death because the boy made mistakes while identifying numbers and letters on flash cards.

Chazarus Hill, Sr. (pictured above) repeatedly used a belt, his fists and switches to assault his son, Chazarus "Cha Cha" Hill, Jr. who underwent a very painful and slow death after suffering contusions and internal bleeding.

Chazarus Hill, Sr. showed no visible emotion but two women on the jury panel dabbed at their eyes with tissues. The assaults occurred repeatedly in the weeks before doctors at San Leandro hospital pronounced Cha Cha dead on Sept. 20, 2003. An autopsy showed that the 40-pound toddler died of multiple injuries, including a cerebral hematoma, a blood clot in the brain brought on by the beating.

Hill's attorney told a jury, while his client had disciplined his son, he never intended to kill him and questioned whether some of the injuries could have been inflicted by Kymberly Ford, Cha Cha's stepmother. Ford was released from prison a month ago after serving part of a four-year sentence on a child abuse charge for allowing the assaults to occur. She married Hill four months before their arrests.

After Ford told Hill that she was done with their relationship, an enraged Hill said, "I don't want him. I want you. I don't give a f**k about him. Ford said that during one beating, she heard Hill tell his son, "Don't you understand? She's all I got. I'm nothing without her. I can't let you f**k it up." The little boy replied, 'It's OK, Daddy. I'm going to do better. I'm going to learn my numbers. I'm going to be a good boy.'

Hill continued to shake his son until he passed out. The little boy gave up and died right there on the kitchen floor, according to the prosecutor. 

Update: Chazarus Hill, Sr. was convicted and sentenced to 26 years in prison.

Source: Henry K. Lee @ The SF Chronicle

A 35-year old relative (Shorn Samuel, pictured above, center) was charged with the horrific murder of 21 year old Stacy Wilson of Vermont.  Stacy's mother said that Shorn is a distant relative who hounded Stacy for about a year and he kept referring to her as his "wife."  Reports say Samuel accosted Stacy at a bus terminal during rush hour with hundreds of people around. She brushed off his advances and boarded a mini-van.  He disappeared and came back later with a rope and a sword.  He pulled her from the van and started his attack, cutting off a wrist and striking her head. When her head did not fall, he allegedly held the neck and sawed off her head with the sword.  The killing sent shock waves throughout the Vicentian community and across the world.  Explicit photos and videos were in circulation on the Internet.  Police responded within minutes but it was too late to save Stacy but they apprehended Samuel and secured the crime scene.

Former Berkeley High School and Stanford University basketball player Tanda Rucker (pictured above) was sentenced today to one year at a minimum-security correctional facility near Los Angeles for having unlawful sex with girls she coached at an Alameda high school.

The parents of the three former Encinal High School players who were preyed upon by Rucker said they were outraged that Alameda County Superior Court Judge Thomas Reardon disregarded prosecutor Delia Trevino's request that Rucker be sentenced to three years in state prison for her conviction on 18 felony counts.

The charges, which are based on sexual conduct between 2000 and 2002, include penetration with a foreign object and oral copulation with a minor. The maximum sentence Rucker could have faced was 14 years and four months.

In addition to giving her the one-year term, Reardon placed Rucker on five years' probation and ordered her to register as a sex offender.

During her one-year sentence, Rucker, 32, will be allowed to work during the day with the likes of Oscar winner Jamie Foxx.

Rucker works for her sister, Jaime Rucker King, who was the executive producer of the award-winning film "Ray," and Rucker King and her husband are partnering with Foxx in a two-year production deal with MTV Films and Paramount Pictures, according to the Black Talent News Web site.

Rucker will spend her nights at the privately run Cornell Corrections Center in El Monte.

Rucker, who was a member of Stanford's 1992 college champion team and was named by USA Today as California's top high school player of the year in 1991 as a member of the Berkeley High School team, sat silently next to her attorney, Elizabeth Grossman, as the parents of her former players passionately asked Reardon to sentence her to state prison.

Rucker declined to speak when Reardon asked if she had anything to say before she was sentenced.

Her father, former Berkeley City Manager Weldon Rucker, sat in the first row of the courtroom.

The parents, who asked that their names not be used, said their daughters are suffering from long-term psychological damage.

Speaking in court, an Oakland Public Works Department employee who's the mother of one of the former players said of her daughter, "This incident has totally turned her life upside down."

The mother said she thought what she described as her daughter's "courage" in coming forward to provide evidence against Rucker "would be rewarded in some way," such as a state prison term for Rucker, and said a light sentence "is a slap in my face."

The mother said Rucker hasn't shown any remorse and has never apologized to her or her daughter.

Another mother described Rucker as "a highly intelligent young lady" who singled out the best basketball players on the team with a charm campaign that included taking them to lunch.

The mother said Rucker's victims "lost their innocence and lost their friends and were ridiculed and gossiped about" at school.

But Reardon said he didn't think it would be appropriate to send Rucker to state prison because he thinks she has the ability to make something of her life because she has a college education, a steady job and the support of her family.

However, after the hearing, the victims' parents questioned how helpful Rucker's parents have been to her, stating that most of the sexual activity charged in the case occurred at her parents' home in Berkeley, as Rucker lived with them at the time.

Michael Kinane, an attorney who represents the victims in a civil lawsuit, said that in addition to naming Rucker, the suit named Rucker's parents and the Alameda Unified School District as defendants for allegedly not doing enough to stop the sexual activity.

Kinane said the girls' lawsuit against Rucker's parents and the Alameda Unified School District has been resolved and the civil suit against Rucker is scheduled to go to trial on June 2.

Grossman said the sex between Rucker and her players was "consensual" and said Rucker is being unduly punished because of her gender.

She also said she thinks the players' parents are distorting the facts because they're pursuing a big monetary judgment in the civil case.

Grossman said if Rucker had been a man, she probably would have been charged with statutory rape, for which state law carries no registration requirement.

Because Rucker has to register as a sex offender, she won't be able to coach again, Grossman said.

But Kinane said he thinks Rucker is benefiting because of her gender because he believes a male coach who had engaged in multiple sex acts with either male or female players would have been sentenced to a lengthy state prison term.

The mother of one of the victims said, "Parents should beware of the fact that female-on-female pedophiles are becoming more common in society."

Source: ABC News

A federal appeals court tossed out the 10-year prison sentence of a St. Louis, Mo., woman who rented her 9-year-old daughter out to a pedophile more than 200 times at $20 a session.  The court said the woman's punishment was too lenient. But until a court decides otherwise, the woman still faces a 10-year prison term.  The woman, whose name is being withheld to protect her daughter's identity, often held the girl down in their home while Joe J. Champion of Granite City, Ill., molested her, according to court documents.  The daughter testified the molestation occurred about twice a week, either in the bathroom or her mother's bedroom.

The woman was typically paid $20 by Champion each time she allowed her daughter to be abused by him. The abuse began when the daughter was nine and continued for two years, both the daughter and Champion testified, according to court documents. The mother also often threatened to send her daughter to foster care if she didn't cooperate.

Champion pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Source: Fox News.com and the St. Louis-Post Dispatch.

Jeffrey Epstein (born 1953 in Coney Island, New York) is a billionaire financier and philanthropist. He began his career as a math teacher, before becoming a trader at Bear Stearns, and eventually founding his own financial management firm located on his 80 acre private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands. He reportedly will not take clients with assets less than $1 billion. Epstein has been known to befriend high profile scientists and politicians such as Leonard Susskind, Marvin Minsky and Bill Clinton. In addition to his private island in the Virgin Islands, he owns a 45,000 square foot five-story townhouse on East 71st Street in Manhattan called Villard House and a 41,000 square foot house on a 12,000 acre ranch near Santa Fe, New Mexico called Zorro Ranch. On July 27, 2006 Epstein was charged in Palm Beach, Florida with solicitation of prostitution, with female minors on several occasions, at his Palm Beach mansion. The Manhattan financier is currently accused of bringing underage girls as young as 14 to his Palm Beach mansion, where he allegedly paid them $200 to give him "sex-tinged" massages and engage in showy, girl-on-girl action with his supposed assistant/sex slave. Source: Gawker.

Clayton — Authorities in Washington, D.C., are holding a Clayton man for extradition to North Carolina to face charges that he killed his 4-year-old daughter in their home and then fled.

U.S. Marshals, working with information developed in the Triangle, arrested John Patrick Violette, 37, at a Capitol Hill motel in the dark hours of Saturday morning. He is charged with murder in the slaying of Katlin Violette.

"I just got home from work, and I walk in the door and my daughter is in the middle of the hallway," Katlin's mother, Amber Violette, told a 911 dispatcher.

Clayton police found the child "had been decapitated" when they got to 2020 McKinnon Drive late Friday afternoon.

During the seven-minute 911 phone call, Amber Violette tells the dispatcher her husband had been watching their daughter and that she saw them both at lunchtime. When she returned home, there was no sign of her husband, she said.

A little after 1 a.m. Saturday, Raleigh-Durham International Airport police found a station wagon belonging to Violette in a parking lot. Then investigators tracked Violette Washington.

The marshals took him into custody without incident at a hotel near Capitol Hill at 4:35 a.m. Clayton police Sgt. S. P. Lapsley said.

"We're all very relieved," he said. "This is devastating for the community as a whole, and it's the most horrific thing I've seen in 13 years of police work."

John Violette will remain in custody in Washington pending an extradition hearing. Lapsley said police don't expect to make any more arrests.

Authorities in Clayton said they have not been able to figure out any motive in the killing. John Violette does not have a criminal record, they said.

"When senseless violence occurs, it's tragic enough. But when it includes a child, it's even more tragic for the community," Clayton police Chief Glen Allen said.

John Violette worked at the Lowe's Home Improvement Store in Clayton until Thursday, when he terminated his employment, a store employee told WRAL. Neighbors said he lived at the residence with his wife and daughter.

The crime leaves Clayton trying to cope.

Counselors will be available next week for the first responders who were at the home Friday night, police officials said.

Neighbor Diana Narron said she's worried about what to tell her own 4-year-old daughter.

"I don't know how I will explain that to her," Narron said. "She knows something happened to that little girl."

Fiancee of Memphis Judge Accused of Paying Woman for Sex With Her 8-Year-Old Daughter:

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A sheriff's department employee is charged with paying a woman for sex with her 8-year-old daughter, and a special judge was called from out of town for a bond hearing Wednesday because the accused is engaged to a Memphis judge (pictured above).

Wayne Logan appeared in court Tuesday for a preliminary hearing on child rape charges, but all of the county's judges who preside over such matters recused themselves.

"The General Sessions judges have all agreed that it would be inappropriate for any of them to hear Mr. Logan's case based on Mr. Logan's relationship with a sitting General Sessions judge. His fiancee is a General Sessions judge," defense lawyer Leslie Ballin told WMC-TV.

Steve Daniel, a retired judge from Murfreesboro, conducted the rescheduled hearing and reduced Logan's bond from $150,000 to $75,000. Logan remained in jail without making bond and was scheduled for his next court appearance on Feb. 5th.

Logan, 60, is engaged to Judge Joyce Broffitt and records show he used her as a reference when he got his job in the sheriff's department's records and identification office about six years ago. He is on paid leave while the case is pending.
The rape charge was filed when the girl picked Logan out of a photo lineup, police spokesman Vince Higgins said.
Police began an assault investigation after the girl complained of pain while at school. She told the school staff she had sex with a man several times and watched him have sex with her mother, who also faces criminal charges.

In Tennessee, general sessions judges handle misdemeanor cases, arraignments and bond hearings and decide whether felony cases will be sent to the grand jury.

UPDATE:

Bond reduced; suspect lives with judge

Sheriff's office employee accused of raping girl

By Lawrence Buser

A special judge Wednesday reduced the bond for a Shelby County Sheriff's Office employee charged with raping an 8-year-old girl in her Whitehaven home.

Wayne Walter Logan, 60, was arrested Friday after the girl told teachers at Holmes Road Elementary School last Wednesday that he had had sex with her and had given money to her mother, who was present.

A retired Circuit Court judge from Murfreesboro, Tenn., was appointed to hear the case because Logan has lived with General Sessions Criminal Court Judge Joyce Broffitt in her Bartlett home for the past six years.

Defense attorney Leslie Ballin said Broffitt told him Logan "will continue to live with her if he can make bond." She could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Ballin said his client has a good employment record, is a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force and that he has no prior arrest record.

State prosecutor Marianne Bell argued against the bond reduction, citing the serious nature of the alleged offense that carries punishment of up to 25 years in prison with no parole. "We don't know if there are other victims out there," she told the judge.

An adult sex toy party on the city's southwest side turned violent Saturday night. Rochester police say 39-year-old Joanne Jones (pictured above) stabbed her 22-year-old daughter Lataseha Nobles. It happened late Saturday night on Columbia Avenue off South Plymouth Avenue. Police say Jones stabbed Nobles after finding out they had both been intimately involved with the same man. Nobles was taken to Strong Memorial Hospital. Nobles is listed in satisfactory condition. Jones is charged with first degree assault. Source: News 10 NBC-Rochester, NY

By all accounts Marcus McTear (pictured above with lawyer) was a nice young man with a sense of humor. At 14, he started dating a white classmate named Rae Ann Spence (2nd photo). Over time he became controlling and abusive. He often beat Spence and flung her down the stairs and he tried to forbid her from spending time with her parents because he wanted all of her attention. She finally broke up with him.

Over the next few years, McTear became a star football player on his high school team and began romancing black cheerleader OrTralla Mosley (3rd photo). She was 15 and he was 17.

After a few months, he began to control her. Forbidding her to hang out with her friends and dictating on what she should wear to school. She finally had enough and broke off the relationship. The next day, McTear ambushed her in the high school courtyard and stabbed her to death, leaving the knife in her back. When the police arrested him, he was covered in Mosley’s blood. He would plead guilty and the judge would sentence him to a 40-year term but because of his age he could be released in 3 years with good behavior.

Update: The young man who stabbed 15-year old Ortralla Mosley to death in the courtyard of Reagan High School nearly three years ago, will be transferred to an adult prison. Marcus McTear, 19, had been serving his sentence in Gardner-Betts Juvenile Detention Center. When he became an adult, Judge Jeanne Muerer had a choice of allowing McTear to either leave the penal system or transfer him to an adult prison. The defense asked that McTear stay at the juvenile facility so he could get counseling and education. The judge also heard testimony from detention officials who said McTear was consistently non-compliant and threatened to harm both staff and fellow inmates.

On Saturday, February 3, 2007, at 4:40 p.m., a 21-year old Albany mother brought her 18-month old son to the Albany Police Department to report child abuse. The mother reported that her husband, 23-year old Rian James Whittman (pictured above) had used a stun-gun device (pictured above) on their son causing injury. The investigation revealed that Whittman used a 100,000 volt stun-gun device multiple times on his 18-month old son over an approximately 3-week period.

The child was taken to Samaritan Albany General Hospital where he was examined and treated for injuries from the stun-gun. The child was later taken into protective custody by the Department of Human Services.

Albany Police arrested Rian Whittman later the same night at 10:20 p.m. in the 1900 block of SE Hill Street without incident. Wittman was lodged in the Linn County Jail on three counts of Assault in the Second Degree and Criminal Mistreatment in the First Degree.

BRADDOCK, Penn. (Crime Library)—Two nights ago, the Allegheny County Police arrested William Lorenzo Page, 22, (pictured above) in connection with the death of his daughter, 23-month-old Nyia Page (pictured above). Charges include, criminal homicide, filing a false police report, kidnapping and simple assault. Page was already in jail at the time of his arrest. He was being held on charges of simple and indecent assault of a child, endangering the welfare of children and corruption of minors. Those charges came after a six-year-old boy made allegations that Page had indecently assaulted him and struck him with a belt on previous occasions. On Wednesday, the Allegheny County medical examiner ruled Nyia's death a homicide. According to Dr. Karl Williams, Nyia died of exposure and hypothermia. Nyia's parents reported her missing on Saturday morning. Dozens of police officers from numerous county, municipal, and federal departments, along with citizen volunteers, braved 20-degree temperatures to search the toddler. The search continued into Sunday, when searchers discovered her body at an abandoned playground off Fleet Street. Investigators now believe it was Nyia's father who dropped her off at the secluded location and left her to die.

I’ve heard of serial killer tag teams but this is the first time I have ever heard of a ‘pedophile tag team.’

We have read numerous articles about pedophile Dean Schwartzmiller (1st photo). The cops arrested him at his home after it was discovered he was hoarding 100,000 images of child pornography. Schwartzmiller was convicted (152 years) of molesting countless boys but few people know about his roommate, Frederick Everts (2nd photo), who was also a serial molester. The two men often compared their crimes.

According to a prosecutor, “the men were poison, they would both kill you, but kill you in a different way.” Everts may have been less prolific that Schwartzmiller but he was more dangerous. He was convicted on multiple felony counts of molestation for abusing three boys, 11, 9, and 3 years old. Everts had been diagnosed as a sexual sadist and admitted molesting 36 victims over his lifetime. Among them was his stepson, whom he tied to a bed multiple times and molested when the boy was 3 to 5 years old.

“He admitted he chose his wife because he wanted to molest her son.” Everts was also convicted in Oregon in 1993 of sodomizing children and he molested his biological son when the boy was 3 months old. During his sentencing, he said, “I can’t imagine, with my compulsion, any therapy would stop me from doing it again.” Everts was sentenced to 800 years in prison.

Source: John Corte @ The SF Chronicle

DEPRAVED MURDER:

Leslie Jill May (pictured below) said her mother was a drunk, and when May was 12, she found her mother dead on the kitchen floor from alcohol poisoning. The girl was then raised in Pocatello, Idaho, by her father, but she ran away, she said, after he raped and impregnated her at age 16.

After a miscarriage, she became a prostitute and came to the Bay Area in 1976. She and Ricky Smith -- a onetime pimp known as "Slick Rick" (pictured below) who had 24 prostitutes working for him -- shared a life on and off the streets. They had three children together.

Back then, May was a stunner dubbed "Legs" who attracted business from men of all professions and income levels, according to people who knew her.

"She had legs like Tina Turner, you know?" Smith said on a recent afternoon.

"Jill was a classy hooker," agreed her longtime friend Anne Griffin. "She had that personality. She had that look. She was the glamorous girl -- she looked like she stepped out of a magazine."

In the 1990s, May and Smith struggled with parenthood and keeping a roof over their heads, eventually turning over their children to Smith's brother to raise.

The couple repeatedly had been arrested for drugs and prostitution but never entered into court-ordered rehabilitation programs. They ended up living on the streets, two blocks of the Tenderloin on Jones Street, between Geary and Ellis streets.

Addicted to heroin and crack, May lost her teeth and so much weight she was practically skin and bones. Her once-famous legs grew infected from dirty syringes, and she couldn't walk anymore so much as shuffle.

Last week, Mia Sagote, 30, and Leslie Siliga, 29, are believed to have selected the victim, Leslie "Jill" May, 49, after May told police on the day of her death that she had been robbed by Sagote on the street in the Tenderloin the day before.

"The victim was kidnapped off the street and taken to Candlestick Park, doused with gasoline and set on fire," said Assistant District Attorney George Butterworth. He said the crime was especially heinous and showed "exceptional depravity."

Authorities say May was first accosted in the Tenderloin the morning of Jan. 11 by Sagote, who was angry that May's boyfriend owed her $150 on a loan. When May said she had no money, Sagote allegedly slammed May to a wall, then threw her to the ground and punched her face, police said.

Later that morning, Sagote pulled May behind a trash container and stripped the victim of her clothing and cash, leaving her naked behind a garbage bin, authorities say. The incident was witnessed, according to police.

May went to authorities the next day and reported the crime. Authorities believe that at least one of the women involved had learned, apparently by word on the street, of May's police report naming Sagote. That afternoon, May was back in the Tenderloin when she was approached by two women, forced into the backseat of a car, and driven to the stadium parking lot at Candlestick Point and set on fire-burning her alive, authorities said.

Source: Jaxon Van Derbeken & Heather Knight @ The SF Chronicle.

May and Slick Rick (pictured above) down and out in San Francisco. Homeless and drug addicted. Three years before her murder.

Students at Fremont Elementary School knew Vincent Brothers (pictured above) as the tall vice principal who would sometimes join them on the basketball court. In this oil-rich city, he commanded respect as a mentor and Christian family man and often quoted scripture in a mild-mannered voice.

Or so it seemed. Behind closed doors he was a ticking time bomb who could erupt at any time.

His estranged wife, Joanie Harper, their three young children and his mother-in-law were found shot and stabbed to death in their home on July 8, 2003, in what Bakersfield police called it the most gruesome crime they'd ever seen. Brothers, the sole suspect in the vicious slayings, was arrested nine months later and charged with five counts of first-degree murder. Opening statements are scheduled for Wednesday in the 44-year-old former school administrator's trial in Kern County Superior Court; he faces a possible death penalty.

Brothers has pleaded not guilty and claims he was out of town when the bodies were found. But prosecutors say he staged a last-minute visit to his brother's home in Ohio to create an elaborate, far-fetched alibi.

Fresh out of California State University, Bakersfield, Brothers started out as a substitute teacher in the city's schools in 1987. He quickly rose through the ranks to become vice principal of the grammar school by 1995.

But Brothers appears to have had tumultuous relationships with women. Harper was his third wife — the first two having ended in divorce. In 1990, the year his first marriage ended, Brothers was convicted of spousal abuse, according to police. The second marriage lasted only a few months and was described in court filings as "turbulent."

Brothers and Harper married in January 2000, divorced, and then remarried in 2004. Their three children, Marques, Lyndsey and Marshall, were 4, 2, and 6 weeks old at the time of the murders. The fifth victim was Harper's 70-year-old mother, Ernestine Harper.

According to Deputy District Attorney Lisa Green, Brothers flew to Columbus, Ohio, then rented a car and drove back to Bakersfield to kill his family. The car's odometer showed he had driven 5,400 miles around the time of the murders, police said.

A criminal complaint also alleges that Brothers' brother, Melvin, used his credit card and forged Vincent Brother's signature in Ohio on the day of the killings to help cover up the crime.

Jury selection has dragged on for weeks, mainly due to the intense publicity surrounding the case, while a gag order has prevented attorneys from discussing the case with the media. The two sides have filed close to 150 motions in the case, according to court clerks, and the trial itself could last months.

The list of potential witnesses, filling 10, single-spaced pages, reads like a list of who's who of Bakersfield — from school administrators to local preachers and fire officials.

Defense Attorney Michael Gardina emphasized that point in a motion filed in late December seeking to move the trial to Los Angeles. "The death of the Harper Family was a Kern County experience," he wrote. "There is no chance of a fair trial here."

Judge Michael Bush denied that request, and a previous one from Gardina seeking a six-month delay.

For nearly three years, Brothers' home has been the Kern County jail, and he's made numerous court appearances as lawyers fought over how — and where — the trial would be heard.

On a recent afternoon, he sat inside the dimly lit courtroom, wearing a suit and glasses. He bit his lip a few times as Green sought to discredit a witness defense attorneys said could prove police forced Melvin Brothers to make false declarations.

If Brothers is convicted, the scene is likely to repeat itself. Death penalty cases are automatically reviewed by the California Supreme Court in a process that can take decades.

Update: Brothers was convicted and sentenced to death.

Source: Garance Burke, AP

Police say a man repeatedly stabbed his teenage wife, then gave the knife to his toddler son and told him: "Now you stab Mommy." Fermin Rodriguez, 21, attacked his 17-year-old wife Sunday night, after accusing her of cheating on him, police said. He slashed and stabbed her multiple times, then handed the knife to his 2-year-old son and told him to stab her, police said. The boy didn't stab her, police and prosecutors said Tuesday.

Rodriguez was charged with first-degree assault, first-degree reckless endangerment, first-degree unlawful restraint and threatening. He was being held on $350,000 bond. His wife, Keyschla Rodriguez, was slashed at least 20 times, but most of the wounds were superficial, according to Capt. Lynn Kirwin. Rodriguez also cut off her hair, Kirwin said.

The woman's father became worried because he had not heard from his daughter and arrived at the house while she was still being held against her will, police said. "Thank goodness her father showed up at the door," Kirwin said. The woman was treated for her injuries and later released. The boy was safe with relatives, Kirwin said.

Source: CBS News.com

GRETNA, La. -- Pawnshop manager Dan Reese said he never thought he'd see a diaper-clad 2-year-old holding an AK-47 (above). But that's exactly what happened inside BJ's Pawn Shop on the Westbank, Reese said.

The toddler's father gave him the gun and proceeded to show the child how to hold, load and operate it.

"He's telling the boy, 'This is how you hold it, like this. Anybody in front of you, you can mow them down. Kill everybody, soldier, because daddy's going to buy you this chopper,' repeating it over and over," Reese said. The store's surveillance video also shows the father and son marching around the store, showcasing the weapon. With an assault rifle slung over the toddler's shoulder, Reese said he drew the line, took away the weapon and shut the gun case.

According to Reese, the father got angry and wanted to fight, but he never got the man's name. Reese also said he'll sell AK-47s only to police officers now.

Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee said he was concerned about the incident but said that the father didn't break any laws.

GIRLS IMPERSONATING BOYS (DISTURBING, TRAGIC & BIZARRE STORIES)

Lorelei Corpuz (pictured above) was good at convincing everyone she was a young man, police said.

For the past 18 months, Corpuz made a teenage girl and the girl's family believe that she was 17-year-old Mark Villanueva.

Police and prosecutors say that Corpuz is really 30 and has looks that support her ruse.

But early Sunday morning, Corpuz's con came to an end when she was stopped by a rookie Everett police officer, according to court papers.

The officer approached Corpuz at a gas station because she was wanted out of Marysville on a warrant for driving with a suspended license.

He then asked the teenage girl in the car why she was with the woman, said Everett police Sgt. Robert Goetz.
"She gave us a curious look when he [the officer] said 'woman,' " Goetz said. "She said, 'That's my boyfriend.' "

Corpuz was arrested and taken to Marysville. Everett police then arrested her and booked her into the Snohomish County Jail for investigation of rape.

The Seattle Times is not naming the girl because she is a minor and an alleged sexual-assault victim.

She said she met "Villanueva" in September 2005 at the Everett Mall food court. She told police that they went on their first date two days later, according to court papers.

Court papers list the girl as 16 years old, but the girl and Everett police say she is 14.

In an interview Wednesday, the girl said "Villanueva" told her that he was an orphan, so the teen's mother let "him" move into their South Everett duplex. The girl said "Villanueva" was supposed to share a bedroom with the teen's younger brother, but said "Villanueva" would often sneak into her room to cuddle.

"It was a regular teenage girlfriend-boyfriend thing," the girl said. "Like holding hands, hugging, kissing."

The girl told police that the couple had a sexual relationship, but that she never saw her "boyfriend's" genitals, court papers said. The girl also said that her boyfriend was jealous and abusive, and she was bitten on the back twice and struck weekly.

She told The Times Corpuz interfered with her friendships with boys her own age.

"She made it like a serious relationship, like we're married," the girl said.

On Wednesday, Corpuz was charged in Everett District Court in Snohomish County with two counts of rape of a child in the third-degree and one count of child molestation in the third degree, all felonies. If convicted, Corpuz faces up to five years in prison.

Renton police arrested Corpuz in 2005 on suspicion of forgery for allegedly impersonating her sister while trying to make a purchase at a car dealership. The case was dropped by police when a witness didn't want to follow through with charges.

Sources: Seattle Times Reporters, Jennifer Sullivan, Diane Brooks, Natalie Singer and Christopher Schwarzen

BOCA RATON — The granddaughter of NASCAR cofounder Edgar Otto was arrested on a charge of impersonating a sheriff's deputy Tuesday after she pulled over a driver on Clint Moore Road, ordered him out of his car and handcuffed him, police said.

A Boca Raton police community service officer saw Rachel Lyndsee Otto, 21, (pictured above) stopped with two other cars in the 3000 block of Clint Moore Road at about 4 p.m. and, believing that a wreck had just occurred, pulled up, according to a police report.

Getting out of the car, he mistook Otto, who has close-cropped hair and was wearing military fatigues, for a man, and listened while Otto told him she was an off-duty deputy for the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.

Otto said she was making an arrest and asked the community service officer to call for "94," a police code for backup, while she waited for her unit to arrive.

The community service officer saw a handcuffed Michael Mellin leaning against the back of a black Ford Mustang.
Stopped nearby was another man in a silver Honda, who said he had helped the sheriff's deputy pull over Mellin by boxing him in on Clint Moore Road.

The community service officer asked Otto for identification, whereupon she took the cuffs off Mellin.

When a Boca Raton police officer showed up, he recognized Otto, who has been arrested at least nine times since 2004, and listened as she explained she was making a citizen's arrest for road rage.

The officer quizzed the man in the silver Honda, who said he was convinced he was helping a man from the sheriff's office make an arrest.

The officer then turned to a woman sitting in the passenger seat of Otto's gray BMW. The woman told the officer she had been living for the past week with Otto, whom she thought was a man, the report said.

She said Otto had gotten angry at Mellin after he had cut her off while driving on Clint Moore Road.

Just to be sure, the officer called a sheriff's office dispatcher, who assured him Otto wasn't a deputy.

He arrested her on impersonating an officer and false arrest charges and turned her over to the Palm Beach County Jail, where she was being held without bond.

*Warning, the following Disturbing & Tragic segment is the sickest, most vile, disgusting and disturbing segment to ever appear. If you have a weak stomach, please skip it.

I've heard of gambling rings, drug rings and prostitution rings but I have never heard of a bestiality ring until now.

DISTURBING & TRAGIC:

San Francisco - A man died of internal injuries from sex with a stallion at a ranch used by a bestiality ring, police in the northwestern United States state of Washington said on Monday.

The man suffered fatal trauma while being sodomized by a stallion at a stud farm that catered to men who wanted sex with animals, Enumclaw Police Commander Eric Sortland told AFP.

"From the medical examiner's office to the sheriff to the police detectives, we have never seen anything remotely close to what we have in the past two weeks," Sortland said.

The shocking events at the ranch were exposed after a WHITE man's body was dropped off at a hospital southeast of the city of Seattle on July 2 after his encounter with the horse.

"Basically, his colon was ruptured, along with his lower organs in that region, and he bled out," Sortland said.

A cache of hundreds of hours of videotaped man-on-beast sex sessions was found hidden in a field, Sortland said.

The animals kept at the farm included ponies, horses, goats, sheep and dogs, according to the police commander.

Images of the flock of offerings on the bestial dude ranch were relayed over the internet and records indicate men had come from throughout the United States, according to police.

"Unfortunately, these people were very diligent in filming their activities," Sortland said of a viewing task detectives have found unpleasant.

Police were still reviewing the recordings to determine the range of activities, according to the commander.

Because sex with animals is not barred by law in Washington state, no arrests have been made, according to police who nonetheless continued to investigate on Monday to determine whether any illegal activity had taken place at the ranch.

The case is being used by state legislators backing a bill that would make it illegal to have sex with beasts, Sortland said.

Teenager accused of stabbing her newborn baby 135 times

STILLWATER, Minn. (AP) — A 17-year-old girl stabbed her newborn baby 135 times in a "panic state" and then tossed her body in a garbage can outside her home, authorities said Thursday.

The high school senior told police she gave birth on the floor of the laundry room in her home early Monday, according to court documents. Nicole Marie Beecroft said she saw the baby's finger move and then stabbed the child in a "panic state," the complaint said.

An autopsy determined the infant was born alive, but suffered numerous puncture wounds in the chest area and bled to death from 135 sharp-force injuries, the complaint said.

"She kills the baby and now her life will be changed forever," said Washington County Attorney Doug Johnson.

Beecroft was charged with first-degree murder and was being held in a juvenile detention facility. She was scheduled to make her first court appearance Friday.

The girl's mother told police she didn't know her overweight daughter was pregnant. The Beecroft family does not have a listed phone number.

Authorities were tipped off Tuesday when an anonymous caller told police that a cashier at a Cub Foods grocery store in St. Paul had given birth to a stillborn baby and threw it in the garbage at her home.

The investigation led to Beecroft's home, where they found the baby's body inside a trash bag outside on Tuesday. Inside the trash bag, investigators also found a black-handled knife and some towels, according to the complaint.

DISABLED ORIGINAL GANGSTA:

Walter Simon, 32, (no photo available) is being held in the killing of a woman thought to be an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire. What makes this case unusual, Simon is confined to a wheelchair. Nevertheless, this Original Gangsta is also a major drug dealer in San Francisco. In another slaying last week, Simon allegedly opened fire on innocent bystanders, wounding four people as he sat in front of a liquor store. Simon has denied the shooting but was rebooked on charges of being an ex-felon with a firearm. In another incident, police were informed that Simon was inside a place of business armed with a handgun. When police arrived, they found Simon wheeling forward from the back of the store where officers found a weapon on the shelf. It’s speculated that an associate drives Simon back and forth from alleged ‘hits.’ Source: Jaxon Van Derbeken @ The SF Chronicle

*The following Disturbing & Tragic segment should be a reminder to single mothers to do a background check on men you bring around your children. A sex offender database can be accessed for free via the Internet. A percentage of pedophiles target single mothers to get close to their children.

(CBS) CHICAGO: Two brothers, ages 12 and 14, were found stabbed to death in a closet Thursday morning in the South Side's East Chatham neighborhood. As CBS 2's Joanie Lum reports, the boys were found at a house at 7929 S. Ellis Ave., and their 13-year-old sister was also injured by stab wounds. Their mother was talking to police at the Calumet Area headquarters Thursday morning. The 13-year-old girl was taken to Jackson Park Hospital and Medical Center, police said. Before that, she reportedly ran out of the house to get help after the stabbing around 3:30 a.m. Police seemed to know who they were looking for, and neighbors suspected the ex-boyfriend of the teens' mother. They said he was a sex offender.

One family friend, Lovell Harris, said the girl who survived had told his wife a couple of months ago that she was afraid of the man. "The older guy that she used to live with had tried to come in the door, and she had to put him out, but the girl was scared to really say something about it, and she finally came out and told her mother, that's when she put him out," said Lovell Harris. The Cook County Medical Examiner's office confirmed the deaths of the 12- and 14-year-old boys, but their names were not being released as of 6:30 a.m.. Late details have emerged in this case.

Allegedly, the suspect had a key made (without the mother’s knowledge) and when the mother went to work he came in (using his key), slit the boys throats and raped the 13-year old girl.

Woman gunned down at funeral

by Benjamin Niolet and Marlon A. Walker, Staff Writers

GOLDSBORO - A woman who had been questioned in the killing of her live-in boyfriend was shot to death herself Thursday at his funeral.

The dead, Raheim Antwon Kornegay and Sharon Nichole Sheppard, had a 7-month-old child together and three children with other partners.

Kornegay's mother, Rosetta Stevens, said late Thursday night that she believed Sheppard's killing was revenge for her son's death.

"I just wish everybody would let it go," Stevens said, wiping tears with the top of her gray nightshirt. "And now, because people were trying to retaliate for something, these children don't have a mother or a father right now. I'm really scared for everybody."

Kornegay, 23, was shot to death Sunday at the apartment he shared with Sheppard, 28. She was home at the time, and police said in a Thursday news release that she was a "person of interest."

Sheppard was shot as about 300 mourners were shuffling out of a funeral home after a simple service for Kornegay. The sermon was about the value of a life.

Efforts to reach Sheppard's family were unsuccessful. No arrests have been made.

An HIV-positive Dallas man (above) who secretly recorded his sexual exploits with 131 young men was sentenced to life in prison Friday for attempting to entice sex from a 15-year-old boy.

Dallas prosecutors believe the men with Willie Atkins in the videos could be high-school age minors but they have not been able to identify them. There is no evidence Mr. Atkins told his sexual partners about his HIV status and he rarely used condoms.

Prosecutors think Mr. Atkins lured the young men to his apartment by promising them jobs with his landscaping company.

During the trial, jurors were shown three segments from 90 hours of sexually explicit videotape confiscated by authorities. In one tape, Mr. Atkins had unprotected sex with an unconscious man.

Despite their graphic nature, one juror said after the verdict that the videos and the fact that Mr. Atkins was HIV positive when he had sex with the young men did not play a big role in his sentence.

The boy, who is now 17, has not been in court since he testified earlier this week. He is not being named because The Dallas Morning News typically does not identify victims of sex crimes.

Attempting to entice a minor for sex is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. But Mr. Atkins' two previous convictions for aggravated robbery and firearms possession made him eligible for life.

In closing arguments, defense attorney Richard Franklin said prosecutors unfairly called the young men in the videos "victims." Mr. Franklin said the other men should have known to use condoms.

"They want to say Willie Atkins gave all these people AIDS, spread HIV all over the place," Mr. Franklin said. "They can't be living in some parallel universe where they've never heard of AIDS. It can't be his fault alone, if he has any fault at all."

Mr. Franklin said that the "dangerous activity" each side engaged in "cancels each other out."

Prosecutor Brandon Birmingham told jurors that that line of thinking is "like saying gasoline cancels out fire."

He urged jurors to give Mr. Atkins a life sentence because "he's already sentenced people to death."

Twin six-year-old boys are dead, reportedly strangled by their own mother (above) inside their Baton Rouge home. Police were called to 3146 Wyandotte, which is just east of Plank Road, just before 9:00 Friday morning. What police say happened in the downstairs apartment just boggles the mind. The two adorable little boys were identical twins with biblical names, Samuel and Solomon. The two six-year-olds were full of life.

Aaron Boone, Jr., a neighbor, says, "I mean, yesterday, when I came home, I saw them pushing each other on the dolly, playing like normal kids. Today, I saw the crime scene, the yellow tape. It's unbelievable. I can't believe it." What's even harder to believe is who's accused of strangling the boys; their own mother, 30-year-old Sherie Simms.

Kenyetta Maiden says, "They tell her every day that they love her and I figured that she loved her kids, too. She didn't have no right to take her kids' life." Kenyetta Maiden lives in the apartment right above Simms and her sons. Maiden says in the early morning hours before police came here, the boys' mother, her best friend, called her. Maiden says Sherie seemed to be high on cocaine.

Maiden says, "She was really depressed. She wanted me to talk to her, which I never thought to go and check on her kids. I figured they were going to be asleep." At that point, Samuel and Solomon may have just been asleep in that bed, but now, they'll never wake up, and this friend feels betrayed. Maiden says, "I don't hate her. It's just, I'll never respect her again, ever."

Neighbors say when paramedics rushed the children to the hospital, one of the boys still had an extension cord wrapped around his neck. Deputy coroners pronounced both of the boys dead when they arrived at the hospital. As for Sherie Simms, she is fighting for her life. Baton Rouge police say she took a bunch of pills and is currently in intensive care. If she gets out of the hospital, police will book her with two counts of first-degree murder, which upon conviction; could carry the death penalty.

NEW LONDON, Conn. --A 22-year-old man who allegedly impregnated his then-14-year-old girlfriend three times in six months has been charged with second-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor, police said.

Police said Kevon Walker, then 21, moved from New York to Connecticut last year to be closer to the teen, whom he met while she was on a shopping trip in New York City.

Officers started investigating in July after the victim's mother contacted them.

Walker is free on $50,000 bond and forbidden from having contact with the teen. Though he considered her his girlfriend, it is illegal for adults to have sex with minors.

He told police he wanted to keep the child from the girl's first pregnancy, but that her mother forced her to have an abortion. She later had two more abortions.

Police said Walker admitted to them that he had a sexual relationship with the girl and knew it was wrong, but said he was in love with her.

Walker is due back in court May 31.

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — Six-year-old Christopher Michael Barrios was laid to rest Thursday, a day after a convicted child molester and his family were indicted for sexually abusing and killing the Georgia boy.

According to an indictment issued Wednesday, convicted child molester George Edenfield (pedophile), second photo, and his father (pedophile) took turns sexually assaulting Christopher while the molester's mother watched while masturbating, third photo, then they all choked the boy to death.

The indictment charges all three family members with murder and child molestation in the slaying of Christopher, whose body was found March 15 inside a trash bag dumped by a roadside.

District Attorney Stephen D. Kelley said he will seek the death penalty against 32-year-old George David Edenfield, who has a prior child molestation conviction from 1997, and his parents, David and Peggy Edenfield.

"This is one of the most horrific crimes that I have seen in 21 years of prosecutions," Kelley said.

Christopher went missing for a week before police found his body about three miles from his trailer park home outside Brunswick, a Georgia port city 60 miles south of Savannah. The suspects lived in a mobile home across the street from the boy's grandmother.

The indictment contains grim details about the case that police and prosecutors had not previously revealed. It says Christopher died from asphyxiation March 8 — the day he was reported missing — after the suspects choked him while "ignoring his complaints that they were hurting him." The indictment does not say which of three caused the boy's death.

It also claims George Edenfield and his 58-year-old father sodomized the boy and forced him to perform oral sex while Peggy Edenfield watched and masturbated.

"They deserve the worst, for them to torture my son like that, every last one of them," said Mike Barrios, the slain boy's father.

A friend of the Edenfield family, Donald Dale, was indicted on charges of concealing a death and tampering with evidence. Kelley said Dale did not become involved until after Christopher had been killed.

Nathan Williams, the attorney for 57-year-old Peggy Edenfield, declined to comment Wednesday. Attorneys for George and David Edenfield did not immediately return phone calls.

Glynn County police arrested the Edenfields four days after the child vanished while playing alone outside. Police Chief Matt Doering said all three suspects confessed to playing roles in the boy's abduction.

Police have said Dale admitted to investigators he helped the Edenfields dispose of Christopher's body.

Other charges against the Edenfields include false imprisonment, cruelty to children and enticing a child for indecent purposes.

Police have described George David Edenfield as mentally slow, but not retarded and capable of understanding right from wrong.

Ironically, the Edenfields moved into the trailer park where Christopher lived last year because of a Georgia law intended to keep child molesters away from children. Sheriffs' deputies told George Edenfield in September that he had to leave his home near downtown Brunswick because it was too close to a playground. Georgia law prohibits registered sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of schools and other places that draw children.

His family went to live in the trailer park in October after George Edenfield was arrested for failing to move as ordered. He pleaded guilty to the charge and was sentenced to probation March 5, three days before Christopher disappeared.

George Edenfield was required to register as a sex offender after he pleaded guilty in 1997 to molesting two boys, ages 7 and 9. Prosecutors said he rubbed his clothed body "in a sexual manner" against the boys, who also were fully dressed. He was sentenced then to 10 years on probation.

His father, David Edenfield, pleaded guilty to incest in 1994. He was accused of having sex with an adult relative who was not his son.

Fox News and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

On Monday May 25, the Memorial Day holiday, a neighbor of 17-year-old James Allen Wamsley (above) asked the teen if he could watch her children, a 3-year-old and a nine-month-old baby boy. Wamsley was more than happy to oblige; however, at some point, the teenager chose to cross several lines, both moral and legal.

At about 11:20 p.m., when the neighbor returned from a family picnic, she discovered her infant was severely injured and placed an emergency call to 911. Paramedics transported the child to Kadlec Medical Center where he was treated for sexual assault.

17-year old James Wamsley had raped the nine-month old "boy" child.

The severity of the infant's injuries ultimately required that he be airlifted to Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane. Police have not identified the child or his mother, and as of this writing, his condition is not known.

Richland Police Captain Mike Cobb was at the hospital when the infant was brought in. He later described what he saw to KNDU-TV.

"The child had been brought in, injuries to the child demonstrated that some sort of sexual assault had occurred," Capt. Cobb said. "This is probably one of the most disturbing type of events that ever occurs to a police officer or a family member. So it's nothing we ever want to hear, nothing we ever want to investigate, but unfortunately, all too often we have to."

Authorities have charged Wamsley with first-degree child rape.

If convicted, Wamsley will receive a sentence ranging from 93 to 123 months.

Source: Dave Lohr @ The Crime Library

8-YEAR OLD SERIAL KILLER:

An eight-year-old boy (photo withheld due to age) from Central Indian state Bihar's Begusarai area has been arrested for killing a six-month-old girl from his neighborhood in the Manopur Musahari village.

The boy, Amarjeet, is alleged to have crushed the little girl to death with a stone and buried her body.

What's even more shocking is that the boy is a serial killer. A year back he had killed his six-month-old younger sister, and a cousin.

Since there was no prison facility to house a 8-year old, the boy was returned to his parents and the court asked the parents to monitor him and to keep a close eye on him.

The police consider Amarjeet to be mentally deranged and are questioning him about the murders.

Women Arrested, Accused Of Bathroom Sex In Front Of Children

Third Woman Photographed Alleged Sex Acts, Police Say

Two women in Seminole County, Fla., are accused of performing sex acts in front of children at a community pool bathroom while a third woman photographed them, according to a police report.

Seminole County sheriff's deputies arrested Emily Hernandez and Johannie Jimenez over the weekend at the Casselberry public bathroom.

A woman told police that she was walking into the bathroom with her children, and noticed Hernandez and Jimenez naked and apparently performing oral sex. She said another woman was photographing the acts.

The pregnant mother said she tried to leave the area with her children but the women would not let her leave. She said she was threatened not to call the police.

The woman eventually left the area with her children unharmed, police said.

Hernandez and Jimenez face lewd and lascivious exhibition charges as well as battery on a pregnant person, false imprisonment of an adult and child under 13 years old.

While the women were being transported to the Seminole County Jail, an officer said that Hernandez apparently bit Jimenez inside the patrol car, according to the police report.

By Roxana Hegeman  (SHOPPERS STEP OVER DEAD WOMAN & CONTINUE SHOPPING)

WICHITA, Kan. (July 4) - As stabbing victim LaShanda Calloway lay dying on the floor of a convenience store, five shoppers, including one who stopped to take a picture of her with a cell phone, stepped over the woman, police said.

The June 23 situation, captured on the store's surveillance video, got scant news coverage until a columnist for The Wichita Eagle disclosed the existence of the video and its contents Tuesday.

Police have refused to release the video, saying it is part of their investigation.

"It was tragic to watch," police spokesman Gordon Bassham said Tuesday. "The fact that people were more interested in taking a picture with a cell phone and shopping for snacks rather than helping this innocent young woman is, frankly, revolting."

The woman was stabbed during an altercation that was not part of a robbery, Bassham said. It took about two minutes for someone to call 911, he said.

Calloway, 27, died later at a hospital.

Two suspects have been arrested. A 19-year-old woman was charged with first-degree murder. Another suspect who turned himself in had not been charged as of Tuesday, the Sedgwick County prosecutor's office said.

The district attorney's office will have to decide whether any of the shoppers could be charged, Bassham said.

It was uncertain what law, if any, would be applicable. A state statute for failure to render aid refers only to victims of a car accident.

Eagle columnist Mark McCormick told The Associated Press he learned about the video when he called Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams to inquire about a phone call he had received from a reader complaining about a Police Department policy that requires emergency medical personnel to wait until police secure a crime scene before rendering aid. McCormick said Williams then unloaded on him about the shoppers in the stabbing case.

"This is just appalling," Williams told the newspaper. "I could continue shopping and not render aid and then take time out to take a picture? That's crazy. What happened to our respect for life?"

When Nicholas Grunke [left] last week spotted a newspaper photo of Laura Tennessen [right], the Wisconsin man apparently became so smitten that he plotted a rendezvous with the 20-year-old woman.

But the photo Grunke saw accompanied an August 27 obituary of Tennessen, who died in a motorcycle accident.

Undeterred, Grunke allegedly plotted with his twin brother Alex and a friend, 20-year-old Dustin Radke, to rob Tennessen's grave so that he could have sex with her corpse.

Details of the trio's degenerate scheme are contained in a criminal complaint filed yesterday in Grant County Circuit Court.

(KSDK) - A 48-year-old man was charged Friday with two counts of predatory criminal sexual assault amid allegations he had sex with a 12-year-old girl, authorities said. Larry R. Westwood, (pictured on the right) had sex with the girl on July 18 and July 25, Madison County Sheriff's Sgt. Mike Dixon said. Authorities said Westwood's girlfriend, Amber M. Salts, 20, (pictured on the left) was baby sitting the girl at the home when the crimes occurred. She was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor and pimping.

"There is no indication Ms. Salts took the child to the house with the intention of soliciting the act but she is charged with pimping because she received financial benefit for the act," Dixon said.

On the first occasion, Westwood paid the girl $100, which she split with Salts; he paid the girl $40 the second time, authorities said.

A family member of the girl found out about the crimes and told the girl's mother.

The girl was treated for sexual assault at Gateway Regional Medical Center on July 26. Sheriff's deputies arrested Westwood and Salts later that day.

Westwood and Salts are being held in the Madison County Jail. Bond was set at $150,000 for Westwood and $7,500 for Salts.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Two teenagers have been arrested on charges that they gang-raped a mother and forced her to have sex with her 12-year-old son.

Authorities said 14-year-old Avion Lawson and 16-year-old Nathan Walker are being charged as adults with armed sexual battery by multiple perpetrators, sexual performance by a child, armed home invasion and aggravated battery.

Lawson was arrested Tuesday after police said they matched DNA evidence found on a condom in the victim's home to the teen.

Walker was taken into custody Thursday after police said they found the teen's left palm print inside the victim's apartment.

Both teens are being held in the Palm Beach County Jail without bail.

Authorities said the boys were among a group of about 10 suspects who forced their way into the woman's Dunbar Village home on the night of June 18.

According to police reports, a young man tricked the victim into opening the door of her home after he told her that the tires on his vehicle were flat.

Police said the woman and her son were then ambushed by three masked teens carrying weapons, who pushed the two back into the home.

Investigators said seven other teens entered the home and demanded money while separating the two victims into different bedrooms.

According to police reports, the mother was then raped and beaten by all 10 teens.

Police said the victim's preteen son had a plate smashed over his head and numerous household liquids poured into his eyes. Investigators said the boy was also forced at gunpoint to participate in the sexual assault.

The invaders eventually fled the scene after more than 20 minutes inside of the victim's home, police told WPBF-TV.
Following the attack, police said the woman and her son walked a mile to the hospital.

Police told WPBF-TV they are still searching for as many as eight more invaders in the case, all of whom they said they believe to be between 14 and 18 years old.

Source: WPBF.com

"CHESSBOARD SERIAL KILLER"

MOSCOW - One by one, the squares on the chessboard filled up with numbers , each commemorating a murder.

Alexander Pichushkin allegedly killed most of his victims in a sprawling Moscow park, smashing their skulls with a hammer or throwing them into sewage pits after getting them drunk. He boasted he had nearly reached the last square, No. 64, by the time police captured him last year.

"For me, a life without murder is like a life without food for you," he told investigators in a nationally televised confession. "I felt like the father of all these people, since it was I who opened the door for them to another world."

Pichushkin, 33, looked calm and aloof Monday as he sat in the defendant's cage of the Moscow City Court during a preliminary hearing in which a judge accepted his request for a jury trial and ruled it would start Sept. 13.

After his June 2006 arrest, Pichushkin claimed he had killed more than 60 people over several years, but prosecutors said they had evidence to charge him with only 49 murders carried out in Moscow's Bittsa Park between 2005-2006.

At the cramped apartment where he shared a bedroom with his mother, police found his chessboard with numbers attached to its squares , all the way up to 62.

Most of the victims were men, many of them homeless, whom Pichushkin had allegedly lured to the park with a promise of vodka. To some, he proposed a toast in memory of the dog he walked in the park and buried there when it died, investigators say.

Pichushkin allegedly rammed sticks or vodka bottles into the shattered skulls of some of his victims. More than 40 were purportedly killed by being tossed into a sewage pit.

As the killings grew more frequent in 2005 and panic spread through the public, hundreds of police were sent to sweep the 6.6-square-mile park for suspects.

At one point last year, police thought they had a break in the case: Officers shot and arrested a man who had brandished a knife as he tried to flee a police patrol. To show they were on the wrong track, Pichushkin killed two more victims within a week, he told investigators.

He was finally caught when officers found his name and phone number on a piece of paper in the apartment of his last victim, a woman who worked with Pichushkin in a food store. She had apparently become suspicious of Pichushkin and had left behind a note so police would be able to track him down.

"As we were heading to the park and talking, I kept thinking whether to kill her or take caution," Pichushkin said in the confession. "But finally I decided to take a risk. I was in that mood already."

Russian media, including the government-run Rossisskaya Gazeta, have speculated that Pichushkin may have been motivated by a macabre competition with Russia's most notorious serial killer: Andrei Chikatilo, who was convicted in 1992 of killing 52 children and young women over the course of 12 years.

"SILENCE OF THE LAMBS" DUNGEON MASTER:

John T. Jamelske is a serial rapist who, from 1988 to his apprehension in 2003, he kidnapped a series of women and held them captive in a concrete bunker beneath the yard of his home in De Witt, a suburb of Syracuse, New York.

This millionaire predator kept women captive in a dungeon buried four feet below his home. The women were restrained by ankle chains. He kept one victim captive for three months and another for three years. When he grew tired of his victims, he would release them and go abduct a new victim off the street.

Women began to disappear like they were in the Bermuda Triangle. Jamelske raped his victims on a daily basis. Before each rape, he would read the bible out loud to the victim.

The victims had a basin to bathe in and a plastic can served as a toilet.

Jamelske's last victim was a 14-year old African American girl. She escaped from his car and called her sister who in turn called the cops. Jamelske was apprehended and is now serving a long prison term.

Incredibly, he doesn't think he did anything wrong.

BOY MURDERED WITH MEAT CLEAVER:

Calvin Sharp, a wannabe bad boy (first photo) from Newbury Park, allegedly murdered a defenseless young boy with a meat cleaver.

The disturbing attack took place at approximately 9:30 p.m. Sunday in the Hillcrest Park Apartments near Thousand Oaks. According to neighbors, a tenant of the first-floor apartment, Sandra Ruiz, 33, had been arguing with Sharp, in part, about whether Sandra's son, 6-year-old Sev'n Molina (second photo), spent too much time playing video games. The relationship between Sandra and Sharp is not yet clear; however, according to at least one neighbor, they used to live together in the apartment complex.

As the argument intensified, Sharp picked up a meat cleaver and began waving it around wildly. Sev'n began crying and ran out of the apartment and into the courtyard. Sharp's anger suddenly turned to rage, and he ran out after the child. What happened next can only be described as horrific.

"The little boy was trying to get away. He kept yelling at the boy. He was saying things like die, die, die," neighbor Julia Doryn told KABC-TV yesterday.

When Sharp caught up with Sev'n, he began hacking at the child's body with the meat cleaver, striking him in the head multiple times. Sandra quickly ran to her son's aid, only to have the cleaver turned on her. She was so severely injured by the blows that part of her hand was nearly severed from her body.

By this time, several neighbors, alerted by Sandra and her son's screams, began to gather outside. While some chose to stand by, perhaps frozen with fear, others tried to intervene.

"When I tried to grab the kid, that's when [Sharp] grabbed him and pulled him closer and started flailing that [cleaver] like crazy," neighbor Patrick Bowman told the Los Angeles Times. "He pulled the kid closer to him and started to beat and hack him with the knife."
Unable to stop Sharp, Patrick ran upstairs and dialed 9-1-1. At this point, Diane Cox, a 53-year-old neighbor, rushed over to the scene and confronted Sharp. Sharp brought the cleaver down, cutting Cox's face, but it would prove to be the last blow he dealt with the weapon. Somehow, the brave woman was able to knock the cleaver from Sharp's hand, at which point another onlooker jumped in and tackled Sharp, knocking him to the ground. The two then worked together to hold Sharp down as police cars came to a screeching halt on the street. Deputies with the Ventura County Sheriff's Department were unable to safely subdue Sharp and were forced to shoot him multiple times with a Taser gun.

"When we ran upstairs, the kid was alive," Patrick said. "When we got back out, the kid was dead."

While Sharp was being loaded into the back of a patrol car, paramedics arrived on the scene. Sandra was quickly loaded into an ambulance and transported to Los Robles Regional Medical Center. Sadly, there was nothing anyone could do for poor Sev'n; the blows from the cleaver had proved fatal.

"At this point in the investigation, all signs point to an isolated domestic disturbance," Thousand Oaks Mayor Andy Fox said in a written statement Monday evening. "The city's thoughts and prayers go out to Sandra Ruiz, her family and friends on the tragic loss of her young son."

Source: David Lohr @ Crime Library

Robert Pickton, above, a Canadian pig farmer is charged with murdering at least 22 of Vancouver's 60+ missing women. He later fed their remains to his pigs.

His wild parties included his prostitute victims, but in the most unimaginable and grotesque manner.

Pickton told an undercover police officer he wanted to kill 75 but planned to take a break after one more slaying made it "an even 50," according to a jail house video confession.

Pinkton is currently on trial for 22 counts of murder but authorities fear he may have killed 75 women.

As of February 20, 2007, the following information has been presented to the court:
The items police found inside Pickton's trailer - A loaded .22 revolver with a dildo over the barrel and one round fired, boxes of .357 Magnum handgun ammunition, night-vision goggles, two pairs of faux fur-lined handcuffs, a syringe with three milliliters of blue liquid inside, and "Spanish Fly" aphrodisiac.

A videotape of Pickton's friend Scott Chubb saying Pickton had told him a good way to kill a female heroin addict was to inject her with windshield-washer fluid. A second tape was played for Pickton, in which an associate named Andrew Bellwood said Pickton mentioned killing prostitutes by handcuffing and strangling them, then bleeding and gutting them before feeding them to pigs. However, defense lawyer Peter Ritchie said the jury should be skeptical of Chubb and Bellwood's credibility.

Photos of the contents of a garbage can found in Pickton's slaughterhouse, which held some remains of Mona Wilson.

(CNN) -- Six West Virginia residents have been charged with kidnapping, torturing and sexually assaulting a Charleston woman for at least a week, the Logan County Sheriff's Department said Monday.

Danny Combs and Alisha Burton were charged in the West Virginia case.

Sheriff's deputies went Saturday to a Big Creek, West Virginia, residence in response to an anonymous tip that a woman was being held against her will, the department said in a news release.

As they spoke with a woman on the front porch, "a female inside the residence limped toward the door with her arms held out, saying, "Help me."

The 23-year-old woman had stab wounds on her left leg and bruises around her eyes, authorities said. The wounds were about a week old, the release said.

"Deputies found her with two black eyes, part of her hair had been pulled out, she had lacerations on her neck, and she had been physically, mentally and sexually abused," Logan County Sheriff W.E. Hunter said.

The victim was forced to eat rat and dog feces and drink from the toilet, according to the criminal complaint filed in magistrate court, The Associated Press reported.

Deputies arrested Frankie Brewster, 49; her son Bobby, 24; Danny J. Combs, 20, of Harts, West Virginia; and George A. Messer, 27, Karen Burton, 46, and Alisha Burton, 23, all of Chapmanville, West Virginia. All six were held Monday in lieu of $100,000 bond each, and all have asked for court-appointed public defenders, according to AP.

Charges range from kidnapping and torturing to malicious wounding and battery.

Those arrested are white and the victim is black, and the FBI plans to investigate it as a possible hate crime, according to AP. The sheriff's department requested the FBI's participation, an agency spokesman told AP.

FEDERAL PROSECUTOR ARRESTED FOR TRYING TO HAVE SEX WITH GIRL, 5.

A U.S. prosecutor (above) is accused of using the Internet to arrange for sex with a 5-year-old girl flew to Michigan carrying sexual materials and presents for the child, authorities said last week.

John Atchison, 53, of Gulf Breeze, Fla., was arrested at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after several weeks of Internet conversations between the prosecutor and a detective posing as the mother of the 5-year-old girl.

Officials said Atchison, an assistant U.S. attorney in Florida, was carrying presents for the girl, including a doll and hoop earrings, and also sexual materials, including petroleum jelly.

"MAN GIVES 8-YEAR-OLD GONORRHEA" by Logan Carver @ The Avalanche-Journal

The 8-year-old fidgeted with the microphone on the witness stand as she faced the man she says raped her.

She spent nearly two hours testifying this week against Johnny Ray Satchell (above) in an aggravated sexual assault trial.

The state, as well as the defense, rested Wednesday afternoon after two days of testimony.

Closing arguments begin at 9 a.m. today in the 364th District Court.

Satchell is charged with seven counts of aggravated sexual assault for the alleged rape of the daughter of his former girlfriend over a prolonged period of time. If convicted, he faces five to 99 years or life in prison.

Through two days of testimony, Satchell, 29, has remained emotionless - staring straight ahead and stone-faced as allegations were made against him.

The child testified that Satchell raped her "a whole bunch," in numerous rooms in her house, as well as at her aunt's house.

She also testified that he groped and kissed her, as well as forced her to perform other sexual acts.

An expert witness from the Child Advocacy Research Examination Center testified that the girl tested positive for gonorrhea and that she had scarring near her anus.

Following an investigation, Satchell was indicted in August 2006 on 12 counts of aggravated sexual assault. He is on trial for counts one through seven of the 12.

After a warrant had been out for his arrest for several months, law enforcement officers found Satchell in Hemphill County and he was arrested.

"COUPLE SAVES DOGS DURING FIRE BUT FORGETS TO SAVE SON"

BEAVER COUNTY, Pa. -- Two mobile homes (above rubble) were badly damaged by fire in Center Township, Beaver County, and a couple who lived in one of the trailers is facing charges Tuesday -- even though they are also victims of the fire.

Crystal Adams, 31, and James Chandler, 33, are accused of reckless endangerment, because police say the two "frantically" grabbed their pet dogs and fled the fire at Center Manor Court but left Chandler's young son behind on Friday night.

The 4-year-old boy was treated for smoke inhalation after a firefighter ran inside and pulled him out, township Fire Chief Bill Brucker said.

Police said the firefighters learned that the boy was still inside the burning mobile home about 20 minutes after Chandler and Adams had already gotten out, when the two allegedly told firefighters that they had forgotten the child.

"They were asked numerous times by law enforcement -- I overheard at least once or twice -- 'Is there anyone else in these trailers?' Brucker told WTAE Channel 4's Sheldon Ingram.

The boy was conscious when a firefighter found him in a bedroom, Brucker said.

"You tuck your kid in bed, you should remember that he's still in there," Brucker said.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

"MAN, 32, GETS DEATH PENALTY IN RAPE-KILLING OF 11-YEAR-OLD GIRL"

An Oakland man was sentenced to death last week for raping and strangling an 11-year-old girl in 1999 after luring her inside his apartment with the promise that she could play video games.

Alex Demolle, 32, (above) showed no visible reaction as Judge Larry Goodman pronounced the sentence in what he called the "cold-blooded," premediatated murder of Jaquita Mack (second photo).

After the ex-warehouse worker lured Jaquita into his apartment, he closed the door, cutting off any chance of her escaping or alerting others by screaming for help-before choking her to death so that she wouldn't tell people what happened, the judge said.

Demolle then wrapped her body in a sheet and threw it into a field 15 blocks away and then went on a fishing trip with friends.

During the penalty phase of the trial, jurors heard anguished testimony from Jaquita's family and her teacher at Schilling Elementary School in Newark.

Unbelieveably, defense witnesses portrayed Demolle as a role model, a gentle giant and somebody who had a passion for fishing.

Source: Henry Lee @ The SF Chronicle

"BASKETBALL PLAYER FOUND HANGING FROM A TREE IN BRAZIL"

BRASILIA (Reuters) - A former Washington State University basketball player who was missing for two weeks was found dead in a small town in Brazil, police said on Monday.

Tony Harris, who starred at Washington State in the early 1990s and went on to play professionally in South America, was found on Sunday hanging from a tree on an Army training ground in Formosa, about 45 minutes outside of the capital of Brasilia, a police spokeswoman said by telephone.

Harris, who resumed playing professionally this month for a team in Brasilia, had been missing for around two weeks. The spokeswoman, who did not give her name, said he committed suicide but have not ruled out homicide.

The clothes on the body matched those Harris was described as wearing when he left Brasilia, police said. A family member who traveled to Brazil from the United States will be shown the body on Monday for identification, the U.S. Embassy said.

I disagree with the suicide ruling because: Tony Harris' wife (Lori) said her husband left Seattle for Brasilia on Oct. 31. She last heard from him early Nov. 4, when he spoke to her, she noticed the fear in his voice as he spoke from a Brazilian taxi driver's cell phone. Two days earlier, he called and said "he didn't feel safe and that if he didn't come home now, he wasn't going to make it home," she said.

Harris said her husband had expressed concerns about people involved with the team, and was hearing upsetting rumors about himself. The basketball team's organization, she said, apparently held his passport, and her husband was trying to get to another city in Brazil where a friend could help.

(TODDLER DIES AFTER BEING SEXUALLY ASSAULTED)

By Nate Guidry, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The Allegheny County medical examiner yesterday determined that 10-month-old Daniyah Jackson died from multi system organ failure precipitated by injuries to her abdomen and from a sexual assault. Her death has been ruled a homicide.

Police are expected to charge Clinton Smith, 30, above, with homicide. Before the child died, he was charged with rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child, endangering the welfare of a child, aggravated assault and recklessly endangering another person in the case.

According to police, the girl's mother, Latoya Jackson, left Daniyah in the care of Smith on Thursday morning at her Herman Street home in Troy Hill when she left for work. Paramedics were called to the home that evening.

Police said the baby had suffered bruises on her face, arms and legs as well as a bite mark on her chest. Doctors told police she also had been sexually abused.

Smith told police that he and his 2-year-old son were the only other people in the house that day, but that he didn't know how the baby was injured.

The girl was pronounced dead at 3:34 p.m. Saturday at Children's Hospital, according to the county medical examiner's office.

6-YEAR-OLD SEXUALLY ASSAULTED & HUNG:

NAVARRO MILLS, Texas — The boyfriend of a woman whose 6-year-old daughter was found hanging in the family's garage has been named as a primary suspect in the girl's death, said the Navarro County sheriff's office on Thursday.
Kevin Anders, 32, above, was being held in the Navarro County Jail on a charge of possession of child pornography, the Navarro County sheriff's office said. He was taken into custody without incident at a home in the western portion of the county. Bond was set at $100,000.

"Computer files obtained during the initial crime scene investigation revealed the presence of pornographic images of children," said Mike Cox, Navarro County sheriff's chief deputy.

Anders is a suspect in the death of Hanna Mack, (second photo) whose body was discovered by her mother, Dana Mack, on Monday.

Anders was convicted in 2005 on a misdemeanor charge of driving with an invalid license. He was sentenced to one month plus 15 days in jail and fined $500, according to Texas Department of Public Safety records.

Ms. Mack discovered her daughter missing Monday morning at a time she should have been awake and getting ready for school. The mother found the girl hanging in the garage that houses an above-ground swimming pool, authorities said.

Preliminary autopsy results confirmed that Hanna had been sexually assaulted.

Anders is a convenience store clerk, according to an arrest report. He has not been charged with the murder.

Neighbors expressed frustration about the lack of information now two days after the slaying about 15 miles from Corsicana near the banks of Navarro Mills Lake.
After the sun set Wednesday, dozens gathered just feet from the house where Hanna died, holding candles and grappling with a loss of innocence.

"Lord, we've been robbed of something here," Pastor Ricky Woodall said.

Hanna's mother, Dana Mack, worked as a dishwasher at the Navarro Mills Café. She had moved to town a few months ago and lived with Hanna, two older daughters and a boyfriend in a two-story pale yellow house. Hanna had just entered first grade at nearby Blooming Grove Elementary School.

Her family said Ms. Mack last saw the youngest of her three daughters sleeping on the couch about 1 a.m. Monday.

"KENTUCKY DERBY SEX & DRUG SCANDAL"

by Kenneth Lovett @ The NY Post

October 8, 2007 -- SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - In 2003, her life looked ideal to outsiders.

Wendy Knowlton Cook had a young daughter; her father's horse, Funny Cide, had won the Kentucky Derby in a made-for-TV tale; and she ran a local balloon shop for her mother.

But the woman with everything going for her had been skidding dangerously out of control for years because of drugs - finally hitting rock bottom last week.

She was busted for allegedly performing sex acts on men in front of her kids and, at one point, even snorted cocaine off her infant son's belly while breast-feeding him, authorities said.

Allegations persist, Cook was planning to sell both of her children to pay for more drugs.

Above, Cook's boyfriend Jay Bryant poses with both of her children.

Friends say 37-year-old Cook's battle with drugs can be traced back to her days as a student at Saratoga Springs HS, where she graduated in 1988 and had earned a reputation as a dope-smoking party girl.

Her parents conceded her drug abuse was behind two decades of maddening ups and downs.

"I can't understand the hold it must have on you," her mother, Dorothy, told The Albany Times Union.

"I don't understand it. I tell people she will either take this disease to her grave or it will take her to her grave."

It was the 2003 suicide of husband Patrick Cook, however, that seemed to jettison Wendy into her steepest downward spiral.

Born in Boulder, Colo., in 1970, Patrick Cook was schooled in England and was a musician and writer. In New York, he endured sporadic periods of unemployment after stints as a painter and construction worker.

The marriage also was troubled. Saratoga Springs cops reportedly showed up at the couple's house 14 times on various matters, including for complaints of domestic abuse.

Wendy told cops that Cook had been drinking the night of his suicide on Oct. 31, 2003, and that she had left to go to her parents' house. Calling her several times that night, Cook reportedly left a final voice message at 3:57 a.m.: "This will be the last annoying message that I'll make on earth," police records showed.

Photo Credit: Thomas Hinton.

A Detroit girl who jumped in front of a hail of bullets to protect her mother from an enraged gunman Saturday night is being hailed as an “angel from heaven.”

Alexis Goggins, 7, was hit protecting her mother Selietha Parker, 30, after Parker's ex-boyfriend Calvin Tillie, 29, forced the pair and family friend Aisha Ford to drive to Six Mile Road under threat of death, the Detroit News reported.

Click here to read the full report from the Detroit News.

Tillie, who was armed with a handgun, shot Parker in the side of the head and in the arm after Ford stopped for gas, but before he could fire a third shot, Goggins jumped over the seat between her mother and Tillie, begging him to stop, the Detroit News reported. Without hesitation, Tillie reportedly pumped six shots into the child.

The first grader is in stable condition at Children’s Hospital in Detroit with gunshot wounds to the eye, left temple, chin, cheek, chest and right arm, the Detroit News reported. Parker was admitted to the hospital, but later released.

Tillie was arrested at the scene. He had dated Parker for six months, the Detroit News reported. 

So many people were touched by this courageous story that contributions are pouring in and a trust fund has been set up for Alexis.

LINCOLN PARK, Mich. -- A 21-year-old Lincoln Park father (above) was arraigned Monday on charges that he sexually assaulted and murdered his 8-day-old daughter.

During the hearing, Christopher Richardson vehemently denied that he committed the acts, repeating, "I didn't do this" to the judge and his family.

Earlier Monday, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy held a news conference to give details on what Richardson is accused of doing to his infant daughter, Neveah Richardson.

Richardson had been charged with domestic violence in the beating of his wife. Added to that charge Monday afternoon was murder, sexual assault and criminal sexual conduct against his baby.

Neveah had died as a result of an anal intrusion that caused "massive internal bleeding and sepsis" (infected blood), Worthy said in the news conference.

At his arraignment, Richardson continuously denied he was responsible, calling it "psychotic, sick ..."
Police said Neveah's mother told them that she woke up with her daughter on her chest and found her bleeding from the face and mouth.

When Richardson was brought to the hospital, health officials said she was bleeding from the nose, mouth and rectum.

Lincoln Park Police Chief Thomas Karnes said during a news conference last week that the father beat the baby's mother on the way to the hospital. The grandparents, too, were in the car, he said.

A 20-year-old Santa Maria father (Daniel Trejo, above) was sentenced to 35 years in prison for torture, and child abuse, involving his 4-month old daughter.

The child has recovered from serious injuries at the hands of Trejo, including 18 broken bones.

A couple is currently undergoing proceedings to adopt the child.

Trejo was also charged with having unlawful sex with a minor since the child's mother was underage at the time of conception.

A Memphis mother accused of neglect and charged with leaving two boys home alone on New Year's eve did not have custody of her children. The children were in town visiting their mother for the holidays.

The two children live in Cosiesco, Mississippi with their grandmother, who is the defendant's mother.

The mom, Aundria Jones, picked up the children on Christmas so she could be spend time with them for the holidays.

The two brothers, 7-year-old Christian Griffin and 4-year-old Romello Winters, were not with their mother when the apartment caught fire New Year's morning.

Investigators said 29-year-old Aundria Jones was at a nightclub downtown ringing in the new year.

Today in court she cried as her lawyer and mother asked the court to bring down her bond so she could get out of jail and attend her children's' funeral.

The Judge set bond at $50 thousand dollars. Her attorney, K. Jayaraman, said she sh