The Face of America in Year 2016

[kscarbel2]

No murder charges???  This man should be summarily executed. Show the murdered child some respect and justice.

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Associated Press  /  September 6, 2016

A Minnesota man confessed Tuesday to abducting and killing 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling nearly 27 years ago, recounting a crime that long haunted the state, and sharing chilling details that included a handcuffed Jacob asking him: "What did I do wrong?"

Danny Heinrich, 53, of Annandale, made the admission as he pleaded guilty to a federal child pornography charge that will likely keep him locked up for 20 years, with civil commitment possible after that, meaning he could spend the rest of his life in custody.

Asked whether he abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered Jacob, Heinrich said: "Yes, I did."

In the years after Jacob's disappearance, his mother Patty became a nationally known advocate for missing children. A 1994 federal law named for Jacob requires states to establish sex offender registries.

With Patty and Jacob's father, Jerry Wetterling, in a packed courtroom, Heinrich described seeing Jacob, Jacob's brother, and a friend bicycling down a rural road near Jacob's central Minnesota home in St. Joseph the night of Oct. 22, 1989.

Heinrich laid in wait for the three boys to return, and when they did, he put on a mask and confronted them with a revolver. He said he ordered them into a ditch and asked their names and ages.

Heinrich said he told the two other boys to run and not look back or he'd shoot. He said he then handcuffed Jacob and drove him to a gravel pit near Paynesville, where he molested him. Afterward, Jacob said he was cold, and Heinrich let him get dressed. Jacob then asked whether he was taking him home.

"I said, 'I can't take you all the way home,'" Heinrich said. "He started to cry. I said, 'Don't cry.'"

Heinrich said at some point a patrol car with siren and lights passing nearby caused him to panic. He said he pulled out his revolver, which had not been loaded, and put two rounds in the gun. He said he told Jacob to turn around. He held the gun to the boy's head and pulled the trigger. The gun didn't fire. Heinrich then fired two shots. After the second, Jacob fell to the ground.

Some of Jacob's family members cried openly as Heinrich calmly described the crime.

Heinrich said he went home for a couple of hours, then went back to the gravel pit and buried Jacob about 100 yards away. He said he returned to the site about a year later and saw that Jacob's jacket and some bones had become exposed.

"I gathered up as much as I could and put it in the bag and transported it across the highway" to a field, and reburied the remains, he said.

Heinrich led authorities to Jacob's buried remains in a central Minnesota field last week. His remains were identified Saturday.

"It's incredibly painful to know his last days, last hours, last minutes," Patty Wetterling said after the guilty plea. "To us, Jacob was alive, until we found him."

Prosecutors said the Wetterling family was consulted on and approved the plea agreement, which required Heinrich to give a detailed confession and tell investigators where to find Jacob.

As part of the plea agreement, Heinrich will not face state murder charges.

U.S. Attorney Andy Luger defended the deal, describing Heinrich as a volatile man. He said defense attorneys came to prosecutors 10 days ago with the possibility of a confession, and prosecutors feared he'd change his mind.

"He's not getting away with anything. We got the truth. The Wetterling family will bring him home," Luger said.

Heinrich's attorneys declined to comment after the hearing.

Authorities named Heinrich as a person of interest in Jacob's disappearance last October when they announced the child pornography charges.

Heinrich had long been under investigators' scrutiny. They first questioned him shortly after Jacob's abduction, but he maintained his innocence and they never had enough evidence to charge him. They turned a renewed spotlight on him as part of a fresh look into Jacob's abduction around its 25th anniversary.

As part of that effort, investigators took another look at the sexual assault of 12-year-old Jared Scheierl, of Cold Spring, nine months before Jacob's disappearance. Investigators had long suspected the two cases were connected.

Using technology that wasn't available in 1989, investigators found Heinrich's DNA on Scheierl's sweatshirt, and used that evidence to get a search warrant for Heinrich's home, where they found a large collection of child pornography. The statute of limitations had expired for charging him in the assault on Scheierl, but a grand jury indicted him on 25 child pornography counts.

As part of Tuesday's plea deal, Heinrich also admitted to assaulting Scheierl.

The AP typically doesn't identify victims of sexual assault, but Scheierl has spoken publicly for years about his case, saying it helped him cope with the trauma and that he hoped it could help investigators find his attacker and Jacob's kidnapper.

Jacob's abduction shattered childhood innocence for many rural Minnesotans, changing the way parents let their kids roam. His smiling face was burned into Minnesota's psyche, appearing on countless posters and billboards over the years.

Heinrich is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 21.

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[kscarbel2]

Associated Press  /  December 10, 2016

A Florida father was arrested Friday and charged in the death of his 23-month old toddler son, who was left in a pickup truck for eight hours, according to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.

Troy Whitaker, 41, was charged with aggravated manslaughter.

Whitaker left his Palm Harbor house Friday morning with his 5-year-old daughter, Addison, and 23-month-old son, Lawson.

He dropped his daughter off at school, but forgot to drop his son off at daycare.

Whitaker ran errands around town, and noticed his son in the backseat of the Chevrolet pickup truck in the afternoon, after having returned home.

The boy had an "extremely high body temperature" and was transported to Mease Countryside Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

"It was obvious that he had been dead for a while," said Sheriff Bob Gualtieri.

The boy was in the truck from about 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., when Whitaker returned from a trip to the supermarket.

“What (Whitaker) says, is he thinks he dropped (Lawson) off... but he didn't,” Sheriff Gualtieri said.

“He came back here to the house, he arrived at the house about 8:30am, went inside... and stayed in the home until about 10:30 this morning. He then went out and walked the dog, then went back inside and stayed in the house until 3:30 this afternoon. When he came out at 3:30 he entered the truck and says that he did not see Lawson. Where Lawson was seated was in a car-seat behind the driver's seat... facing forward in the backseat of the vehicle. He then goes to the Publix, spends about 30 or 40 minutes (there), then comes out and puts the groceries on the front passenger seat of the truck. At that point, he says again that he does not see Lawson. He comes home, parks in the driveway and gets out, and goes over to the passenger side where he had just put the groceries in, and when he opens the door he sees Lawson. Lawson is deceased at that point... he had not been breathing for a long time.”

Gualtieri added Lawson's body temperature was 'about 108 degrees' at 5:00pm.

“He was clearly negligent, he can offer no explanation other than he thought he dropped the kid off and that doesn't make any sense quite frankly,” the sheriff said about Whitaker. 

“He has to be held accountable. This defines culpable negligence.”

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[kscarbel2]

Murders up 10.8% in biggest percentage increase since 1971, FBI data shows

The Guardian  /  September 26, 2016

Murders in the US rose 10.8% last year, the biggest single-year percentage jump since 1971, according to data released Monday by the FBI.

The rising violence was driven by an increase in the murders of black men, and by an increase in the number of gun murders. At least 900 more black men were killed in 2015 than in 2014.

There were roughly 1,500 additional firearm murders in 2015. No other type of weapon saw a comparable increase. The number of knife murders dropped slightly.

The percentage of murders committed with guns increased to 71.5%.

Percent changes year to year

The net increase in murders, which follows a two-decade downward trend, erased the gains of the past few years, and put the number of murders back at 15,696, about the same number as in 2009.

Murder and violent crime are still dramatically lower than they were at the peak of the violent crime wave of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The national murder rate last year was about half what it was in 1991.

Even as murders rose, the country’s overall crime rates did not increase as substantially. There was a 3.9% increase in the estimated number of violent crimes, but a 2.6% decrease in the estimated number of property crimes.

Despite an “overall increase” in violent crime, 2015 still represented “the third-lowest year for violent crime in the past two decades”, says attorney general Loretta Lynch.

Her prepared remarks [oddly] did not mention the 10.8% increase in murders.

“We still have so much work to do,” Lynch said. “But the report also reminds us of the progress that we are making. It shows that in many communities, crime has remained stable or even decreased from the historic lows reported in 2014.”

A third of the murder increase was driven by upticks in just ten larger cities: Baltimore, Chicago, Houston, Washington DC, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Nashville, Kansas City, Missouri, St Louis, and Oklahoma City.

Baltimore saw the greatest increase in murders, with 133 more people killed in 2015 than in 2014, pushing the city to its highest-ever murder rate. Some of America’s largest cities, including New York and Los Angeles, saw their murder numbers remain near historic lows in 2015.

Black men and women face much less violence today than they did in the early 1990s, belying Donald Trump’s claim last week that “our African American communities are in the worst shape they’ve ever been ... ever. Ever. Ever.”

Murder rates by race and sex

Despite steep declines in violence since the 1990s, though, the murder rate for black men and boys is still much higher than for other Americans, and it increased slightly last year, according to a Guardian analysis of FBI supplementary homicide data and census data. The supplementary homicide data includes a racial breakdown of murder victims submitted by most, but not all, law enforcement agencies.

In 2015, black men were about nine times more likely to be murdered than white men, and black women were three times more likely to be murdered than white women, according to the analysis.

Compared with the early 1990s, when the biggest contributors to the crime increase were the country’s largest cities, “it’s slightly smaller cities that are having the biggest impact on rising murders”, said John Pfaff, a Fordham University law professor who studies criminal sentencing and incarceration. The 10 cities that drove a third of the murder increase only account for 13% of total murders in the US, he noted.

Guns uses for homicides

There is no consensus yet on what factors might be driving a sharp increase in murders alone, but crime has become a politically charged election issue, and the uptick will probably figure in Monday’s presidential debate.

Crime trend experts said they expected politicians to overplay the significance of the new numbers and to react with “hysteria”.

In St Louis, which already had one of the highest murder rates in the US, murders increased again last year. Last year, 143 of the city’s murder victims were black men and boys killed with guns, according to data from the police department. Local residents were not optimistic that a debate over a national murder increase would make them safer.

Murders since 1960

Advocates for criminal justice reform said they worried the one-year uptick would fuel calls for a return to damaging, tough-on-crime policies. The US has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, and both violent crime and mass incarceration disproportionately affect black Americans.

The human cost of an overreaction to the murder increase could be “a lot bigger” than the toll of the rising violence itself, Pfaff said. He said he expected the increase to prompt calls for more arrests and more prison time.

The wealthier white Americans whose votes help determine crime policy “don’t tend to be those who feel the costs”, Pfaff said.

Early data from large cities this year suggests that 2015’s uptick in murders may not be a single-year increase. A report from the Brennan Center, analyzing murders in 30 large cities this year, projected an additional 13.1% increase in the murder rates for those cities in 2016, with most of that increase being driven by just three cities: Chicago, Baltimore and Houston. Together, the national large city increases in 2015 and 2016 were projected to drive a 31.5% increase in the murder rate compared with 2014.

“There is no evidence of a national murder wave, yet increases in these select cities are indeed a serious problem,” the Brennan Center report concluded. Chicago alone has seen a close to 50% increase in shootings and murders this year.

FBI Director James Comey has repeatedly drawn a connection between increasing violence and “a change in how the police are doing their work” due to the continuing nationwide protests over police killings of black citizens.

“In today’s YouTube world, are officers reluctant to get out of their cars and do the work that controls violent crime?” he asked in 2015, describing “a chill wind that has blown through law enforcement over the last year”.

In May, he suggested the increasing violence could be related to “marginal pullbacks by lots and lots of police officers”, and said that police leaders across the country had seen a change in how their officers do their jobs.

Barack Obama’s administration has repeatedly rejected any connection between protests over police violence and increasing murders. But a Justice Department-funded report on the 2015 murder increase concluded that there might be some connection between public anger over police killings and an increase in community violence.

Criminologists caution that crime and violence are highly local, and driven by a tangle of so many different factors that it is nearly impossible to say exactly what causes a given increase or decrease. Crime statistics are also easy to over-dramatize. Murder numbers in a small town, for instance, can be dramatically distorted by a single incident with multiple casualties. A town that typically sees a murder a year will see a 100% increase in murders if it ends the year with two.

New York City, which saw more than 2,000 murders a year in the early 1990s, saw just 352 last year, according to New York police department data. Los Angeles, which saw more than 1,000 murders a year in the early 1990s, has seen fewer than 300 in recent years.

Trump has blamed Obama and his administration for a “rollback of criminal enforcement” that has made the country less safe.

This criticism is not supported by the FBI’s murder data. Murders have declined through most of Obama’s two terms, with a serious uptick only in his second-to-last year in office. Between 2008, the year before Obama took office, and 2014, murders dropped, with 2,000 fewer Americans murdered in 2014 than in the last year of George W Bush’s administration.

Crime experts also cautioned that a single-year uptick was not a trend. “It’s the curse of success. Because we’re doing better, a similar absolute change will look worse,” Pfaff said.

Despite a general downward trend over the past decades, nationwide murder numbers have increased in some recent years. In 2005, for instance, murders increased by 3.67%, according to FBI data, then increased a further 3% in 2006.

In October 2006, the Police Executive Research Forum released a report warning the country about “a gathering storm of violent crime that threatens to erode the considerable crime reductions of the past”.

“Violent crime in many of the nation’s cities, from one coast to the other, has begun to spike upwards,” the report argued. “The percentage of violent crime in America had the largest single-year increase in 14 years.”

The next year, murders resumed a downward trend.

In general, the president and the federal government have very little power to determine the country’s response to crime and violence. The country has 18,000 local law enforcement agencies of different kinds, including more than 12,000 local police departments, which are largely independent from federal control. Most power to determine crime policy is in the hands of state legislators, and local mayors, police chiefs and prosecutors.

[kscarbel2]

Associated Press  /  September 27, 2016

Federal authorities have arrested and charged the grandmother of a 2-year-old boy who was killed by his mother due to potty-training issues in South Dakota.

Authorities say 28-year-old Katrina Shangreaux murdered her son, Kylen, after he had an accident while potty training at his grandmother's house in Porcupine on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

She has pleaded not guilty to murder and child abuse in the death of her son on July 28.

Her mother, Sonya Dubray, 47, is accused of hindering the investigation by altering or destroying evidence and giving false and misleading information to investigators. 

She laundered the dead boy's clothes, cleaned the crime scene, misled investigators about alleged abuse against the boy and falsely told a Bureau of Indian Affairs special agent that the child was potty-trained.

'Potty training was the catalyst for the child abuse and Dubray knew the statement and representation was false,' said prosecutors. 

Dubray faces charges, including accessory to murder and tampering with evidence, and could face up to 43 years in prison if convicted. 

She was arrested Monday and is due to make her initial appearance Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Rapid City.

The boy was in his mother's custody and living at his grandmother's home in Porcupine when he died. 

He had bruises, bite marks, a torn scrotum and other injuries, and evidence suggests a potty-training issue triggered the killing, FBI Special Agent Mark Lucas said in an affidavit.

FBI agents said the boy's mother hit him in the head and stomach with her feet and fists until he suffered intracranial bleeding and died, the Rapid City Journal reported.

Shangreaux's trial was recently delayed from early October to early December to give her defense more time to prepare. She faces life in prison if convicted.

The boy was the half-brother of a 1-year-old boy who was murdered in April 2015 by the father of the two boys. James Shangreaux Sr. is accused of abusing the boy, causing head and brain injuries. He.has pleaded not guilty to murder and child abuse and faces a mid-January trial. He also could face life in prison if convicted.

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[kscarbel2]

Associated Press  /  September 28, 2016

A 14-year-old gunman has been arrested after opening fire on the playground of Townville Elementary School in South Carolina around 1:45pm on Wednesday, just after murdering his 47-year-old father.

The South Carolina boy shot and killed his father, then drove to an elementary school where he opened fire with a handgun, wounding two six-year-old children and first grade teacher Meghan Hollingsworth before being tackled by an off-duty firefighter who held him for police.

One of the students, Jacob Hall, is in critical condition at Greenville Memorial Hospital. 

State Rep. Alan Clemmons, who is a friend of the family said: “He died twice, and was revived, during medical transport and again during surgery. He's in ICU now where a team of doctors are working to stabilize him. Once stabilized, he will face yet another surgery.”

Jacob lost 75 percent of his blood and has suffered brain trauma. 

The boy shot dead his 47-year-old father, Jeffrey DeWitt Osborne, at their home. Then, he drove a pickup truck about 2 miles to Townville Elementary School where he crashed into a fence surrounding the playground.

After the teenager began shooting, Townville volunteer firefighter Jamie Brock pinned him down while staff led children to safety inside the building.

A witness heard the boy yelling 'I hate my life! I hate my life! I hate my life!' 

The boy was being home schooled because he was expelled from his school last year for bringing a machete and hatchet to school and attacking a child.  

The boy's father, Jeffrey DeWitt Osborne, was a convicted criminal. In April 1991, he was convicted of a marijuana offense in South Carolina. In December 1995, he was found guilty of criminal domestic violence. In March 1996, he was convicted of property damage. The father has also been declared bankrupt with three separate companies filing liens against him dating back to 2005.  

Update: Jacob Hall, the 6-year-old boy who was critically wounded in a school shooting died Saturday, days after a 14-year-old boy opened fire on a school playground. Jacob Hall had been fighting for his life at a hospital after a bullet struck him in a main artery in his leg, causing him a major brain injury due to the loss of blood. Jacob died about 1 p.m. Saturday,

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[kscarbel2]

CBS  /  September 25, 2016

Dozens of African Americans attacked a California Highway Patrol vehicle in Fresno, California on Sunday afternoon around 3:40, at the intersection of North and Orange Avenues.

Police say a group of about 40 people were putting on a sideshow, driving around recklessly and doing tricks and “burnouts” in their cars.

The group's “show” blocked off the intersection, illegally halting traffic. 

When the officers tried to break up the event, the crowd violently turned on them and targeted a police vehicle, shouting: 'F*** the police, n****. We run the streets, motherf*****.'

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[gearhead204]

well maybe ISIS isn't our greatest concern......SAD state of humanity in this country!

[david wild]

Isn't it funny when crap for brains got elected they (the folks) danced in the streets, after almost 8 years now they riot. and it's not his fault.  Are Liberals and democrats that stupid ????? I think so.

[kscarbel2]

Grandmother murders 3-year-old grandson

Associated Press  /  September 28, 2016

A Delaware woman has been arrested and charged with suffocating her three-year-old grandson, whose decomposing body was discovered in bed inside her trailer home.

State police say paramedics responded to a home in Felton at around 8.40am Tuesday after Angela Bingham, 51, called 911 saying she wanted to harm herself and that she had killed her grandson, Rilan Everett.

Paramedics and state troopers then entered the woman’s residence and found the toddlers body body decomposing in his bed. 

He had been dead for more than a week.

Bingham has been charged with first-degree murder.

Bingham confessed to suffocating her grandson with a washcloth on September 18 as the boy lay awake in bed after telling him 'it was time to go.'

Bingham told police that Rilan had been living with her because her daughter left to be with her boyfriend.

A neighbor described the toddler as extremely bright and very devoted to his grandmother.

A search of the residence yielded a calendar in the kitchen that had an entry on September 18 that read: 'Dead, I love you.'

Angela Bingham remained jailed Wednesday on $1,000,000 cash bail. 

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[kscarbel2]

Cultural decay and declining standards of behavior in the United States

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Security footage taken outside a store on Winward Avenue in Venice Beach, California, on Sunday night showing a man punching a woman.

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[gearhead204]

20 hours ago, kscarbel2 said:

Grandmother murders 3-year-old grandson

Associated Press  /  September 28, 2016

A Delaware woman has been arrested and charged with suffocating her three-year-old grandson, whose decomposing body was discovered in bed inside her trailer home.

State police say paramedics responded to a home in Felton at around 8.40am Tuesday after Angela Bingham, 51, called 911 saying she wanted to harm herself and that she had killed her grandson, Rilan Everett.

Paramedics and state troopers then entered the woman’s residence and found the toddlers body body decomposing in his bed. 

He had been dead for more than a week.

Bingham has been charged with first-degree murder.

Bingham confessed to suffocating her grandson with a washcloth on September 18 as the boy lay awake in bed after telling him 'it was time to go.'

Bingham told police that Rilan had been living with her because her daughter left to be with her boyfriend.

A neighbor described the toddler as extremely bright and very devoted to his grandmother.

A search of the residence yielded a calendar in the kitchen that had an entry on September 18 that read: 'Dead, I love you.'

Angela Bingham remained jailed Wednesday on $1,000,000 cash bail.

 

GOOD LORD  THIS WOMAN IS ONLY 51.......LOOKS LIKE A HARD LIFE IS GOING TO GET HARDER!

[kscarbel2]

Abused, tortured and ultimately murdered, North Carolina child’s body found

The Charlotte Observer  /  September 29, 2016

Nearly five years after Erica Parsons was last seen, her diminutive skull and bones were delicately sifted by detectives from the red clay of upstate South Carolina, the final chapter of her short and ever-tragic life, an all-American horror story.

Erica – who was given up at birth to a family said to despise her – was found in deep, rural Chesterfield County, S.C., after her adoptive father told authorities where to find her.

Authorities in RowanCounty, where the undersized and partially deaf girl lived a life of servitude and abuse, said they would announce details in coming days in a story that transfixed the region – and the nation – for years.

Erica’s decomposed remains, tugged from the soil in a remote area not far from where Sandy Parsons’ mother lived, has already been carried to the N.C. Medical Examiner’s Office and identified.

Sandy Parsons, the adoptive father of the missing girl, has recently begun talking to authorities about the case from prison. He bragged that authorities would not be able to locate Erica's body without him because it was hidden somewhere that not even hikers or hunters would venture.

It is not known whether he has struck some kind of arrangement that could involve a plea deal if he testifies against his wife, Casey Parsons.

Authorities said late Thursday they learned in August that Erica was more than likely deceased, but did not elaborate on specifics.

Both Sandy Parsons and his wife were convicted last year of financial crimes that included cashing adoption assistance checks totaling more than $12,000 after the child’s disappearance, and are both in federal prisons.

Sandy Parsons, 42, is serving eight years in a prison in Butner and his wife, Casey Parsons, 41, is serving 10 in Tallahassee, Fla.

Investigators say Casey and Sandy Parsons have been uncooperative. Oddly, neither has been charged in the girl's death or disappearance. 

Authorities said Erica’s remains were recovered by RowanCounty detectives who were joined by agents from the FBI and N.C. State Bureau of Investigation.

David Marshburn, a Smithfield private investigator, was retained last year by a family member to help look for Erica's body.

Working on a tip, Marshburn said he examined an area near Pageland, S.C., in June, and was planning on organizing a large-scale search soon if other tips he was pursuing petered out.

Casey Parsons had always maintained that she gave Erica to the girl’s biological grandmother named “Nan” Goodman at a McDonald’s.

She had said during the investigation that Goodman – who authorities were never able to find – lived in a white house with two chimneys, a long front porch and a horse pasture beside it.

When Marshburn and his lead investigator, Marsha Ward, went to explore the area, they saw a dwelling that eerily matched the description: two chimneys, long porch and a pasture with a couple of horses.

Only one thing – the house wasn’t white; it was brown.

Marshburn said that Sandy Parsons’ stepfather, who lives in the residence, told him that Casey Parsons always liked the house “but she thought it would be prettier white.”

Marshburn said the house was at least two miles down a dirt road from the main highway, a “very secluded” area, he said.

Timber had recently been harvested in the woods nearby, which Marshburn said makes searching difficult because the ground is disturbed and limbs and wood are strewn about.

Marshburn said he passed on the information about the tip and the house to the FBI and RowanCounty authorities investigating Erica's case.

Food as punishment

Home-schooled, developmentally disabled and isolated from other children, Erica lived a life of punitive discipline and degradation, according to federal court testimony in 2015.

[From 2015: Parsons’ home a house of horror, family says]

Food was often withheld from her as punishment, her adoptive brother James Parsons testified. If Erica stole a cookie or something else to eat, she’d be fed canned dog food by Casey Parsons.

It was James Parsons who reported her missing on July 30, 2013 after a squabble with his parents.

He told investigators it had been more than a year and a half since anyone had seen her, sometime before Christmas 2011 when Erica was 13.

Raised by others

Erica was born Feb. 24, 1998, the daughter of Carolyn Parsons, who relinquished parental rights as did Erica’s biological father, Billy Dean Goodman.

Carolyn Parsons said she gave up the newborn because she couldn’t afford to raise her and didn’t want the child to struggle as she did, spending much of her childhood in foster care or homeless shelters.

Billy Goodman’s sister, Teresa Goodman, offered to take the baby, but she was told that other arrangements had been made for Erica.

“I would have raised her as my own child,” Goodman told the Observer. “To think she could have lived with us and been loved, truly loved.”

Erica went to live with her uncle, Sandy Parsons, and his wife Casey Parsons, when she was five months old. She was adopted by the couple in 2000.

When Erica’s picture flashed on her TV screen after the disappearance, Teresa Goodman recognized the family resemblance instantly. She had never met Erica or Sandy and Casey Parsons – who lived only a few miles away from her Salisbury home – but felt an instant and urgent connection to the girl.

Frustrated after years of mystery, she heard about Marshburn after he and his certified cadaver dog, Kaz, located the body of Kelli Bordeau, an Army combat medic, two years after she disappeared from Fayetteville in 2012.

Marshburn had befriended one of the suspects in the case, and finally persuaded him to lead him to woods where the woman was buried.

Once there, Kaz found the shallow grave.

Goodman felt drawn to Marshburn and called him about a month later. Marshburn agreed to take the case.

He told her he was adopted too, and waived his fees.

House of horrors

RowanCounty child welfare authorities investigated allegations in 2004 that Erica was being abused. Casey Parsons told them that Erica had gone to live with one of her sisters. and the inquiry was apparently closed.

In March 2005, Erica returned to the Parsons home. She wasn’t enrolled in Rowan schools, but was to be home-schooled.

Erica would occasionally visit with her biological mother, Carolyn Parsons. Their last meeting came in January 2011 at the restaurant in Mooresville.

Erica, who spoke little that day, wore a cast and splint. She had fallen out of a tree, Casey and Sandy Parsons told her. In fact, she had suffered abuse at the hands of the family.  

But testimony in the 2015 trial of the Parsonses for fraud drew a horrific picture of abuse directed at the girl who was virtually imprisoned – often sealed alone in a closet – in the family home. It was revealed that Erica was often fed dog food or no food at all, excluded from family activities and had her arm broken by one of her siblings. 

James Parsons, the Parsons’ oldest biological son, said he and other children in the family routinely abused the girl, often at their mother’s urging. He once broke her arm, he said.

“I would hit her, physically abuse her, fists, belts,” he said under oath.

He said he abused Erica from the time he was age 5 and stopped when he was 16.

“I didn't want to hit her no more,” he said. “I couldn’t stand it.”

[Judge to Casey Parsons: ‘You and your husband did something horrible’]

James Parsons said his mother encouraged the other children to abuse Erica, and he often saw Casey Parsons punished the girl with violence.

“She would beat her with a belt if she didn't listen,” he said. “Mama would bend her fingers back.”

His father, Sandy Parsons, would hit her with his fist on top of her head, James Parsons said. At one point, the girl developed a bald spot because of scabbing, he said.

Erica was often locked in a closet in the various homes the family lived in, he said.

Sometimes she was beaten for relieving herself on the floor, he said, while locked in.

Closet examined

Tara Cataldo, the FBI lead case agent on Erica’s disappearance, said investigators inspected the Parsons’ home on

Miller Chapel Road

near Salisbury in August 2013. They noticed holes in the wall beside a bedroom closet that seemed to be from an old eye-hook lock typically used to hold screen doors closed.

Carpet and wall board from the closet were sent to the FBI laboratory, and traces of Erica's blood and other DNA – believed to be from saliva or urine – were detected, she said.

Five photos of Erica were also recovered from a computer in the home, she testified – all of Erica, on different days, standing in a corner.

‘Like a zombie'

James Parsons told the court that the last time he saw Erica was in the autumn of 2011, when she was standing in a corner as punishment.

“She didn’t look too good – she looked like a zombie,” he testified. “She said she did not feel good. She said she could not breathe too good.”

Casey Parsons, he said, told the girl “to shut the f--- up.”

He said Erica was gone the next morning, and he never saw her again. His parents had left early that day, which was unusual.

When they came back, they told him Erica had gone to live with her biological grandmother.

Sister took Erica

Robin Ashley testified that her sister Casey Parsons did not bond with Erica in part because she despised Erica’s biological mother. “She couldn't stand to look at her face because she reminded her of Carolyn Parsons,” Ashley said.

Erica came to live with Ashley twice over the years.

One of those times, in the summer of 2004 when Erica was about 6, Ashley said she noticed that the girl was bruised on the backside. Casey Parsons had sent her away because she didn't want to hurt her anymore, Ashley said.

“She lost control,” Ashley said. “She didn’t want to end up killing Erica.”

Ashley said that Erica was treated like “a little slave.” Erica was made to stand in the corner for long periods as punishment.

She said Erica wasn’t allowed to play with other children at family gatherings because she was often being disciplined.

‘A little Cinderella’

Janet Parsons, Sandy Parsons’ stepmother and Casey Parsons' mother-in-law, testified that for a time in 2011, they all lived together in her China Grove home.

“Erica wasn’t treated as kindly as the others,” she said. “She had to do more chores. She was kind of like a little Cinderella – she had to do the chores.”

Janet Parsons said that Casey Parsons and the rest of her family once went to the beach, and Erica was left in the house alone.

Her grandfather found her hiding. She said she was told not to be seen while the others were at the beach.

Vast investigation

RowanCounty deputies were joined by the FBI and other federal agencies in a widespread search for Erica.

At one point, authorities with search warrants tore up the back deck behind the Parsons house. Another search of the property turned up a collection of printed material about the JonBenet Ramsey murder in Colorado and the case of Susan Smith, who drowned her children in South Carolina.

A red wooden shed the Parsonses used was searched on the China Grove property of Sandy Parsons’ parents. Among the items retrieved: teeth and a hammer.

Authorities checked with every school district in the state to see whether the girl – who once had a special teaching plan drawn up for her because of hearing loss – had enrolled anywhere. She hadn’t. Nor did her Social Security number ever turn up in any Medicaid records nationally.

“There is an absolute absence of records about Erica Parsons, who has disabilities,” IRS agent Robert Norlander testified during the fraud trail, “because she is dead.”

When it came time for U.S. District Thomas Schroeder to sentence Casey Parsons, he echoed the agent’s conclusion and issued a blistering condemnation:

“You and your husband did something horrible, horrible with her,” he said.

“What happened to her is known only to you and God. In the dark of the night, you did something to her.”

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[kscarbel2]

Cultural decay and declining standards of behavior in the United States

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Ohio mother murders children

Associated Press  /  October 20, 2016

Ohio mother Brittany Pilkington, age 24, is charged with suffocating her three young sons.

She admitted to police that she smothered each boy with a blanket. 

The married mother-of-four is accused of suffocating her sons over a 13-month period out of jealousy at the attention her husband gave the boys.

Authorities say she killed her 3-month-old son Niall in July 2014, his 4-year-old Gavin in April 2015 and 3-month-old Noah in August 2015. 

The couple's 5-year-old daughter remains in the custody of relatives.

Pilkington has pleaded not guilty to three counts of aggravated murder.

Her trial is scheduled for late February 2017, and if convicted, she could face the death penalty. 

In July, Pilkington's husband, 44-year-old Joseph Pilkington, pleaded guilty to sexual imposition for having sex with his wife before they were married and getting her pregnant when she was just 17 years old. 

Before marrying her, the Joseph Pilkington had been in a long-term relationship with Brittany's mother and had lived with her from the time she was nine. 

Under the plea deal, the husband was required to register as a sex offender for 15 years. Pilkington is not considered a suspect in his children's deaths.

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[kscarbel2]

If you kill two people, you “could” face the death penalty. Could ???

And then, the killer remains on “death row”, at the taxpayer’s expense, for years until his appeals are exhausted, or a slick lawyer is able to reduce his penalty on a technicality to life in prison, pointlessly costing taxpayers even more.

 

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Oklahoma Double Murder Suspect Has Hit List, May Be Headed to Nevada

ABC News  /  October 26, 2016

A 38-year-old Oklahoma man who has evaded police for two days after killing two people and shooting four others -- including two police officers -- has a hit list and may intend to kill up to eight more people, authorities said Tuesday.

"This is a man who has indicated a total propensity to kill people, to injure people, shoot people," said Oklahoma County Sheriff John Whetsel. "He has no care for human life whatsoever." Authorities believe he may be headed to Nevada and have notified police there to be on the lookout. Oklahoma County Sheriff John Whetsel said the suspect, Michael Vance, “could” face the death penalty if convicted of the crimes. Whetsel is warning citizens to stay clear if they spot Vance, adding that he has "absolutely nothing to lose." Vance's rampage began Sunday evening, when he allegedly shot two police officers responding to the scene at a mobile home park over reports of shots fired in the area. The two officers sustained non-life-threatening injuries, officials say, and were temporarily disabled as Vance fled the scene in their patrol car. One officer was shot in the foot and another was hit by gunfire in both legs. Investigators believe Vance live-streamed two videos while on the run, one from inside the police cruiser and another while inside another vehicle. In one of the videos, Vance appears in a blood-covered shirt and says he's been shot before showing a rifle on the seat next to him.

"Letting y'all know, look, this is real," he says in the video, according to the Associated Press. "If you want to know what's up next, stay tuned to your local news." Vance said things were "going to be intense," according to an affidavit released on Monday night.

He then proceeded to a mobile home park, where police discovered the bodies of two of his relatives. Officials identified those victims as 55-year-old Ronald Everett Wilkson and 54-year-old Valerie Kay Wilkson, his wife.

The affidavit describes wounds consistent with attempts to sever one victim's head and the other's arm.

Vance then allegedly "shot at and injured" a woman as he was in the process of stealing her silver 2007 Mitsubishi Eclipse.

Vance is also suspected of shooting a man during an attempted carjacking early Monday. Vance was last known to be driving a 2007 Mitsubishi Eclipse and was armed with an AK-47. He is considered to be armed and extremely dangerous, authorities say. Sheriff Whetsel instructed any potential witnesses not to approach Vance but to call 911 and let the police handle the situation.

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Associated Press  /  October 31, 2016

A fierce gun battle with Oklahoma state troopers left a homicide suspect dead and ended a weeklong manhunt for the man responsible for a string of violent crimes across the state, including the killing of two relatives and the shooting of three law enforcement officers.

After a tip from a farmer led authorities on Sunday to a camp site near Hammon in far western Oklahoma, the manhunt intensified for Michael Dale Vance Jr.

Several troopers were chasing Vance, who was driving a stolen flatbed pickup truck, when the vehicle went off the road near Leedey, 130 miles northwest of Oklahoma City.

"He exited the vehicle and engaged our troopers in a pretty fierce gun battle," Oklahoma Highway Patrol Capt. Paul Timmons said. "It's probably safe to say he (Vance) was hit more than once."

Vance was pronounced dead at the scene.

Earlier Sunday, Vance shot and wounded Dewey County Sheriff Clay Sander after Sander stopped a pickup truck to warn the driver about a chain dragging behind it.

"The driver of the truck stopped and exited the vehicle shooting an assault rifle," said Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Jessica Brown. "The sheriff was shot in the shoulder and arm as he returned fire."

Oklahoma Highway Patrol air units in the area were able to spot the vehicle, and a chase ensued.

Authorities were tipped off to Vance's whereabouts by a farmer who spotted a vehicle in his field that matched the description of the car the fugitive was thought to be driving.

"The vehicle was covered with brush and tumbleweeds," Timmons said. "It appears that he had been camped out there for some time."

Also on Monday, authorities charged three acquaintances of Vance, 34-year-old Danny Roach of Oklahoma City, 36-year-old April Harden, and 33-year-old Reginald Moore, with aiding Vance after he had shot and wounded two Wellston police officers and killed two relatives.

Roach provided Vance with bandages, an assault rifle and ammunition last week after Vance came to his home in Oklahoma City.

Roach admitted he was aware that Vance had just been in a shootout with law enforcement, and he also knew that Vance had just killed two people.

All three were charged Monday with two counts of accessory to felony murder after the fact, and Roach was charged with two counts of possession of a firearm after a felony conviction. Roach and Moore each also face two counts of shooting with intent to kill because they provided the weapon Vance used in the shooting of the Dewey County sheriff and of a man near Sayre during an attempted carjacking.

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[kscarbel2]

America’s Opioid Epidemic

Associated Press  /  October 26, 2016

A mother overdosed at the wheel of her car while her baby son sat in the backseat.

Erika Hurt was found by police on Saturday shortly after 2pm in Hope, Indiana, still clutching a syringe in her floppy left hand.

The 25-year-old's 10-month-old son was crying in the backseat. They were parked outside a Dollar General Store.

Hurt was revived and taken to hospital. She was later charged with child neglect and possession of drug paraphernalia. 

Hart's incident is the most recent in a string involving cars and drugs with children present. 

Kristin Tippett drove backwards into a Wendy's restaurant while overdosing at the wheel on heroin in Dunbar, West Virginia, on Tuesday.

Her son was also in the backseat. Paramedics revived her using Naloxone, the same drug given to Hurt. 

In Ohio, a couple was found passed out in their car after injecting heroin last week.

Taylor Swartzlander, 24, and Haley Kirkendall, 22,were filmed by a bystander as they sat slumped over in the two front seats of their car on October 17. 

Rhonda Pasek, 50, and James Accord, 47, passed out in their car while overdosing with Pasek's grandson in the back 

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[kscarbel2]

Alabama woman took heroin 12 hours before giving birth to dead baby

WALB ABC News  /  October 27, 2016

Jefferson County authorities have filed a motion to revoke bond after they say a woman gave birth to a stillborn child in Oct. 2016 after ingesting multiple types of drugs, including heroin, while out on bond for a 2015 charge of chemical endangerment of a child.

The Jefferson County District Attorney's Office for the Bessemer Cutoff wants Raven Lynn West's bond revoked because she violated her release by using drugs and they feel she is a danger to herself and others. They hope a judge will hear the case next week.

"She admitted to going and getting a bag of heroin and snorting it in the bathroom, the same day she said she could feel the child kicking. About 12 hours later she delivered a dead child," said Pleasant Grove Police Lt. Daniel Reid.

West was charged last year after her newborn tested positive for heroin and codeine.

"It's not a happy situation," said Bill Veitch, Jefferson County District Attorney for the Bessemer Cutoff. "If they have access to it [heroin], they're going to do it. If they're going to do it, they are going to hurt the children."

West was jailed in 2016 due to failure to appear and bonded out on Oct. 6, 2016. She was 37 weeks pregnant at this time and taken to the Alethia House for rehabilitation the same day she bonded out.

West left the Alethia House Oct. 7 and took Xanax and Loritab. On Oct. 8, investigators say West bought and snorted a bag of heroin. She said she felt the baby kicking inside of her that night.

"I'm not just frustrated. I'm mad. I'm sickened. I'm heartbroken. I mean, what do you do in a case like this?" said Reid.

West gave birth Oct. 9 to a stillborn child and on Oct. 10 she left the hospital.

Reid and Veitch say the infant's official cause of death has not yet been determined. They are waiting for the coroner to complete the final report.

"You know, I believe that evidence is going to show there is a direct causal relationship between her snorting heroin and 12 hours later delivering a dead child," said Reid.

If that's the case, Reid says West will likely be charged with chemical endangerment death of child.

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[kscarbel2]

Sex offender who chained up woman killed at least seven

The Guardian  /  November 6, 2016

Todd Kohlhepp admits shooting four people in South Carolina and shows police graves of two others on his property

A South Carolina man killed at least seven people in a hidden crime spree that lasted more than a decade and only was uncovered when police rescued a woman chained at the neck in a storage container.

Todd Kohlhepp accepted responsibility for an unsolved massacre in which four people were killed, one day before the 13th anniversary of the deaths that stumped authorities, said Sheriff Chuck Wright.

On Sunday, relatives of those killed in the massacre gathered in a Spartanburg courtroom. They sat a few feet away from Todd Kohlhepp, 45, as he was denied bond on the murder charges. It was their first chance to face the man accused of the killings.

After the hearing, magistrate judge Jimmy Henson thanked the families for their civility and composure. “I know there’s a lot of hurt ... beyond what a lot of people understand,” he said.

Authorities have charged Kohlhepp with four counts of murder in the 2003 deaths at the Superbike Motorsports motorcycle shop in Chesnee. Kohlhepp’s role in those killings was uncovered after a woman was found last week chained in a locked metal container on Kohlhepp’s property in rural Woodruff.

“We got ‘em today. We got ‘em today,” Sheriff Wright said. “I’m rejoicing that this community can know that four people who were brutally murdered, there’s no wondering about it anymore.”

A Spartanburg County sheriff’s investigative report from Saturday said Kohlhepp “confessed to investigators that he shot and killed” the owner, service manager, mechanic and bookkeeper of the motorcycle shop, giving details only the killer would know.

Now, investigators fear they will make more disturbing discoveries as they unwind a hidden crime spree that unfolded over more than a decade. Kohlhepp is also charged with the woman’s kidnapping, and prosecutors say more charges are expected. Kohlhepp is a suspect in at least three other deaths.

Authorities were searching again on Sunday on the suspect’s 95-acre Woodruff property. Wright said Kohlhepp had shown investigators where he says he buried two other victims there.

Those are in addition to the body found on Friday at the site. Authorities identified that victim as 32-year-old Charles Carver, the boyfriend of the woman found on Thursday. Carver, who died of multiple gunshot wounds, went missing with the woman at the end of August.

Before Kohlhepp emerged as a suspect, investigators said all four victims were killed with the same pistol. They have theorized that the killer came in the back and killed mechanic Chris Sherbert, 26, as he worked.

Bookkeeper Beverly Guy, 52, was found just outside the bathroom, in the middle of the showroom. Thirty-year-old shop owner Scott Ponder was found just outside the door, in the parking lot. He was Guy’s son. Brian Lucas was in the doorway of the shop.

Kohlhepp was released from prison in Arizona in 2001 and registered as a sex offender. As a teenager, he was convicted of raping a 14-year-old neighbor at gunpoint and threatening to kill her siblings if she called police.

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[kscarbel2]

5 Utah students stabbed in boy's locker room; teen detained

Associated Press  /  November 15, 2016

As a group of boys at a Utah high school changed Tuesday morning into gym clothes for physical education class, a straight-A student pulled out a knife in the locker room and stabbed five of his classmates, sending the injured running for their lives and covered in blood.

The 16-year-old suspect with no record of disciplinary trouble also stabbed himself in the neck and was cornered by school workers until a police officer assigned to Mountain View High School got to the locker room and subdued him with a Taser shot.

The five victims are all expected to survive. The two most seriously injured were in critical but stable condition.

The suspect was treated and released following the attack.

Police say none of the victims had done anything to hurt the suspect, and the stabbings were not racially or ethnically motivated.

School district spokeswoman Kimberly Bird said the suspect was a new sophomore student who was previously homeschooled. There were no indications he was having problems or being bullied.

[kscarbel2]

55-pound teen critical after 2 years 'isolated' in Shelby County basement

WVTM 13  /  November 15, 2016

A 14-year-old boy weighing only 55 pounds is fighting for his life after spending much of two years locked in the basement of his Helena home with little food, water or medical care.

Authorities in Shelby County announced charges against the boy's adoptive parents, and say it's one of the most horrific cases they've investigated. "It's the worst case of neglect that I have ever seen," said Helena police Chief Pete Folmar.

The 14-year-old boy, whose name is not being released, is in critical condition. Authorities said he weighs less than half of what a boy his age should weigh.

“Doctors noted the child was severely, chronically malnourished, dehydrated, suffering from acute respiratory distress, shock, hypothermia, hypothyroid and that he was close to death. The child remains gravely ill at this time and faces a long and difficult recovery and an uncertain prognosis," Helena police Chief Pete Folmar said.

Richard and Cynthia Kelly late Monday afternoon were charged with aggravated child abuse, a Class B felony. They were moved from the Helena City Jail to the Shelby County Jail, where they were undergoing the booking process. Their bonds are set at $1 million bond each.

The investigation began Sunday when Helena police were notified by hospital staff through DHR of the boy's arrival at the hospital. Authorities say his parents took him there when his condition worsened.

Richard and Cynthia Kelly are accused of denying food, nourishment and medical care to the boy, who was "subjected to forced isolation for extended periods of time."

Authorities say that "isolation" was disciplinary in nature.

The boy was was not enrolled in Shelby County Schools, and authorities were told he was homeschooled.

Neighbors said they had seen the boy mowing the lawn weekly through the summer while his dad stood on the porch and watched him. They told WVTM 13 they believed he was 8 or 9 years old because he was so small.

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[kscarbel2]

26-year-old Ohio man pleads guilty to kidnapping, raping 6-year-old

Mansfield News Journal  /  November 14, 2016

An Ashland, Ohio man admitted Monday in Ashland County Common Pleas Court that he pulled a six-year-old girl out of her bedroom and raped her in the back yard of her home last August.

Brock D. Martin, 26, of 815 Union St., pleaded guilty to six felony charges as part of a plea bargain in which he also admitted to two other burglaries dating back to 2013, including one that was sex-related.

Martin pleaded guilty to one count of kidnapping, two counts of rape and one count of aggravated burglary, all first-degree felonies. He also pleaded guilty to single second-degree felony counts of attempted rape and burglary.  As part of the agreement, the prosecution will drop one count of aggravated burglary and two counts of rape, all first-degree felonies, along with a second-degree felony attempted kidnapping count and a fifth-degree charge of drug possession.

All four rape counts alleged in an 11-count grand jury indictment in September 2015 carried sexually violent predator specifications, while the aggravated burglary and kidnapping charges included sexual motivation and sexually violent predator specifications.

According to Ashland County Prosecutor Christopher Tunnell, Martin was charged with an incident on Aug. 18, 2015 in which he pushed a fan out of a window of an Orange Street home on Ashland’s north side, reached in and pulled a six-year-old girl out of her bed and raped her in the back yard.  He said Martin ran off into nearby woods after a resident of the home came out of the house and interrupted the incident.  He later was captured by an Ashland Police Department K-9 unit.

During a police interview, Martin confessed to two other, unsolved, crimes, including an Aug. 11, 2015 burglary in the 900 block of Orange Street in which a woman awoke to find him standing over her bed.  Martin fled when he saw the woman’s husband come down the hallway after the husband came home from work.

Martin also admitted to and was charged with an unsolved burglary on March 17, 2013 where he entered an Ashland residence around midnight and assaulted two 13-year-old girls who were having a sleepover.  He attempted to drag one of the girls out of the home but fled after being caught in the act.

The aggravated drug possession charge was for an incident involving Percocet.

Tunnell told reporters Monday that Martin was not familiar with any of his victims.  “It appears all the incidents were completely random,” he said.

Martin originally pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to all counts in the indictment.  However, Judge Ron Forsthoefel determined he was competent to stand trial after reviewing a competency evaluation report by the District V Forensic Diagnostic Center.

During Monday’s hearing, Martin quietly answered “Yes, your honor,” as Forsthoefel asked him if he understood the charges, that he was waiving his right to a trial and most of his appeal rights and was agreeing to a sentence of life in prison without parole and to pay $3,000 in restitution for out-of-pocket victim medical expenses.

The judge indicated he was ready to sentence Martin on Monday but delayed action until Dec. 19 at 9:20 a.m. after defense attorney Rolf Whitney asked for a pre-sentencing investigation into Martin’s background.  Forsthoefel warned Martin that the state was not obligated to withdraw any of the charges if he changed his mind about his guilty pleas before sentencing.

“You understand that if the court orders a pre-sentence investigation report it’s going to give me some information on your background, educational background, treatment and general and criminal history but it’s not going to change the impact of the written plea agreement and the likely sentence you are facing if we proceed with sentencing?” the judge asked.  Martin replied that he did.

One of the victim’s family members muttered that Martin was “one sick (expletive)” as she left the courtroom.  Several other family members were heard to say after they met privately with Tunnell, that they were satisfied with the plea.

Tunnell said the five charges that were dropped involved additional conduct that occurred in each circumstance.  He also emphasized that each situation was accounted for with Martin’s guilty pleas.  Tunnell did not anticipate that the pre-sentence investigation report would change any terms sentence in the plea agreement.

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[kscarbel2]

Cultural decay and declining standards of behavior in the United States.

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Father sexually abuses and kills his 10-week-old girl

The Washington Post  /  November 28, 2016

The initial allegations in the case were brutal:

Robert Davidson, a 24-year-old father in Rockville, had sexually abused his 10-week-old daughter and then killed her.

In court Monday at Davidson’s plea hearing, it became even more clear how much the little girl had suffered in her short life.

The autopsy of Aleah Thompson showed a broken collarbone and 34 rib fractures in “various states of healing,” said Assistant State’s Attorney Mary Herdman.

The injuries occurred during at least three “severely traumatic events” and appeared to be the result of Aleah’s chest being constricted, Herdman said.

Davidson pleaded guilty to sex abuse of a minor and first-degree child abuse resulting in death. As part of his entering the plea, prosecutors agreed to drop an additional charge of second-degree murder.

Davidson faces up to 50 years in prison. [why not death?]

On June 23, 2015, Davidson called police and medics to an apartment where he lived with Aleah and Aleah’s mother, Lorena Thompson.

The child died three days later at a hospital.

Davidson initially told detectives he’d been in the living room playing video games when he heard labored breathing coming from a bedroom. He went to check on Aleah, he had said, and found her limp and unresponsive.

Davidson also told police that he had dropped his daughter several times and that she had rolled off a couch. He later admitted to police that he had shaken the child.

An autopsy found the child died of “multiple blunt force injuries.” Doctors found injuries to her head, eyes and spine. A forensic anthropologist examined Aleah’s bones, and determined she had suffered severe trauma during the first two weeks of her life, several weeks after that, and just before her death.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, prosecutors agreed to seek no more than 50 years in prison for Davidson.

Aleah’s mother also was charged in the case.

On July 22, 2016, she pleaded guilty to neglect of a minor. Police and prosecutors say she had seen bruising on her girl and suspected Davidson had inflicted the injuries, but she took no action. She was sentenced to five years of probation.

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[kscarbel2]

KSL Broadcasting, Salt Lake City  /  December 1, 2016

A 15-year-old Mueller Park Junior High School student casually walked into a science class shortly after school began Thursday and without saying a word, fired a blast from a shotgun.

"I heard it cock, and then I heard the shot go off and I looked up and there was a big hole in the ceiling," said fellow student Dan Fowers.

"He looked angry when he came in, like just kind of an angry face, and he just shot at the ceiling without an explanation. He didn’t really say anything," added student Calvin Smith.

The student was carrying a 12-gauge shotgun, a .9 mm handgun and two boxes of ammunition — one for each weapon.

Moments after firing the round, he was disarmed by his own father and mother who had gone to the school that morning looking for their son because they were concerned about his behavior that day.

"They were (also) concerned that there were weapons missing from the house," said Bountiful Police Chief Tom Ross.

Investigators say the guns the boy took are normally locked in his parents' safe. He used a long coat to conceal the shotgun as he walked from his house into the school.

There were 26 students and a teacher in the classroom the boy walked into.

A student and the teacher immediately attempted to talk to the boy, causing him to pause.

"I believe those seconds played a big role in the outcome," Ross said. "The suspect did put the gun toward his neck and his intentions may have been to commit suicide."

The pause allowed time for the boys' parents — who were two classrooms away at the time looking for him — to run into the science class after hearing the shot and pull him into the hallway.

"Both participated in apprehending him," Ross said, while a teacher called 911. Investigators said they did not yet know whether the parents called police or the school about their concerns before arriving at the building.

The parents disarmed their son and a Bountiful police officer arrived shortly after and took him into custody.

Meanwhile, the school went into lockdown. All of the students were instructed to hide under their desks.

As soon as the boy was pulled out of the room, the class locked the door and executed the lockdown drill it had previously practiced.

A Bountiful police officer who was already near the school arrived within two minutes. Because it was dispatched as an "active shooter" situation, over 100 officers from law enforcement agencies between North Salt Lake and Layton responded to the school.

The boy was booked into the Farmington Bay Detention Center for investigation of two counts of theft of a firearm and two counts of bringing a weapon to school.

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[kscarbel2]

KETV  /  December 1, 2016

A 14-year-old boy is charged with the fatal shooting of his mother and younger brother while they were sleeping, according to authorities in New Stanton, Pennsylvania.

At 6.53am, Jacob made a 911 call falsely telling a dispatcher that his father had shot his mother and brother.

'Why didn't he kill me? I need help,' Remaley was quoted in the affidavit as telling the operator.

He then hung up the phone, but called back a short time later, loudly accusing the operator of hanging up on him and demanding that an ambulance be sent to his home. 

Jacob Remaley finally admitted to shooting his mother, Dana Remaley, and his 8-year-old brother Caleb, telling police that he used his father's gun and would have shot his dad too if had not already left to go to work at a VA hospital.

"He woke up that morning, went to an area in the kitchen, recovered a firearm from atop the refigerator -- that firearm wasn't loaded at the time," Trooper Stephen Limani said. "He got a magazine, loaded that firearm, walked into his mother's room, and -- from a very short distance -- fired one round into her forehead, subsequently killing her, and then walked into his brother's room and repeated the same act."

Dana Remaley, 46, worked at West Hempfield Middle School and Caleb was a third-grade student at Stanwood Elementary. Police said both were found dead Wednesday morning inside the family's home.

The firearm Jacob used was a Ruger LCP .380 Auto handgun.

On Wednesday, Jacob Remaley was charged as an adult with two counts each of criminal homicide and third-degree murder. 

David Remaley's father said his 52-year-old son is a US Army veteran who had served in Iraq, and who is now employed as a master plumber at the VA Hospital in Pittsburgh.

Mr Remaley had a license to carry and had a handgun on him at all times, and at least one other firearm at home.

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[kscarbel2]

Associated Press  /  December 1, 2016

A Florida woman was indicted on a murder charge Wednesday after authorities say she strangled her one-year-old daughter with a string of Halloween lights then blamed it on her two-year-old son.

The Seminole County Grand Jury issued an indictment against Krisen DePasquale, 27, on charges of first-degree premeditated murder and aggravated child abuse for the November 10 death of baby Mia Rice.

Kristen DePasquale told police that when she stepped out of the shower on Nov. 10, she found the child unconscious in the living room, the lights wrapped around her neck.

But a police detective noted that the bathroom shower was dry and so was the towel that DePasquale said she had used. Also, her feet were dirty, and there was makeup on her face.

Police say the medical examiner determined an adult type force placed pressure onto little Mia’s neck for a least four minutes before she died.

The father of the children is in prison on unrelated charges.

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[kscarbel2]

KTLA 5  /  November 30, 2016

A 72-year-old convicted rapist was sentenced to 520 years in state prison for sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl he was babysitting at her Canyon Country home last year, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said Wednesday.

John Adam Whitsell was convicted last month of four counts of lewd act upon a child, four counts of oral copulation or sexual penetration with child 10 years old or younger, and one count of forcible oral copulation of a victim under 14.

Whitsell was babysitting a family member when he abused her between Jan. 1 and June 30, 2015.

He was arrested Nov. 10, 2015, and has not been released since then.

In two separate cases, Whitsell was convicted in 1971 in Louisiana of two counts of aggravated rape. He served seven years in prison for those convictions.

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