Mom Accused Of Forcing Teen Son To Have Nightly Sex With Her

Filed under: Child Abuse, Crime, Drugs, Incest, Sexual Abuse

OMAHA, Neb – A 15-year-old boy told a school counselor that his 41-year-old mother would make him have sex with her nightly when he lived with her in Omaha.

The alleged abuse happened in 2008 and 2009 when the boy was in 7th and 8th grade. The boy told police his mother was addicted to prescription drugs at the time of the sexual assaults.

His mother was arrested Monday and charged with first-degree sexual assault. She made an initial appearance Wednesday in Douglas County Court and her bond was set at $30,000.

The boy’s father told Omaha television station WOWT this week that he had previously had a feeling something was wrong, but didn’t learn about the alleged abuse until a few weeks ago. He said his son is receiving counseling. Some video after the jump.

SOURCE: www.dreamindemon.com

Teacher, Johnny Dempsey, Arrested For Sex Abuse And Incest

Mingo County teacher charged

Delbarton, W.Va. ~ Johnny Ray Dempsey, 36, a teacher at Kermit K-8 and Tug Valley High School would have you believe he’s a great guy, that is if you check out his MySpace. He’s a happily married man with two young daughters. A man of God, he also claims to be a pastor. The first thing you notice on his profile is all the young girls he has has as friends.

MySpace here, cached here, mugshot from wvjail.info

“GULF WAR ERA VETERAN. OBTAINED MY BA IN EDUCATION SEEKING A MASTERS. CURRENTLY TEACHING AT TUG VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL….”GO PANTHERS!!!” PASTOR OF THE GRACE & TRUTH BIBLE CENTER IN DELBARTON, WV. MARRIED FOR 16 YEARS TO MY BEAUTIFUL, LOVING, WIFE TRACY. WE HAVE TWO GIRLS ……(names removed)……….. WE LOVE GOD AND THANK HIM FOR OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST!!! IT’S OUR GOAL TO SHARE THE LOVE OF CHRIST TO EVERYONE AND HELP ANYONE IN NEED. IF YOUR HUNGRY WE WANT TO HELP FEED YOU…IF YOUR THIRSTY WE WANT TO GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO DRINK….WHATEVER THE NEED WE WANT TO HELP AS MUCH AS WE CAN. OUR OVERALL GOAL IS TO REACH THE LOST AT WHATEVER THE COST………….”

Dempsey was arrested and charged after questioning at the Mingo County sheriff’s office on Friday. He confessed to incest and the sexual assault of a 14-year-old family member in June of last year. The girl had recently reported the incident.

Johnny Dempsey is being held at Southwestern Regional Jail, bond set at $100,000. Arrest Link.

SOURCE:  www.deadkidsofmyspace.com

Police Charge Arthur Goodwin In Repeated Rape Of Child

Bond set at $200,000:

Tell any group of people that stepparents are about one hundred times more likely to fatally abuse their children than are “true” parents and you can’t expect an easy audience — especially if you suggest that the key factor could just be the lack of a genetic relationship. So the questions rained down thick and fast on Canadian psychologists Martin Daly and Margo Wilson when they floated these conclusions (gleaned from their twenty years of research) at a Darwin Seminar at the London School of Economics. The questions were as varied as the audience of scientists, historians, undergraduates, and interested passersby that these provocative seminars invariably attract.

“How can you know such a thing?” people asked. “What makes you think that genetic relationships play a part, as opposed to a hundred other possible confounding variables, such as the poverty of the parents and the duration of contact between parent and child?” “What about adopted children?” “What use is such information, anyway?” “Aren’t you just stirring things up for no good reason?”

Daly and Wilson, from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, did not arrive at their conclusions casually. In the 1970s, about ten years after the “battered child syndrome” had been officially recognized, they set out to see if children were more likely to be abused by stepparents than by biological parents. In addition, they wanted to explore a specific Darwinian hypothesis. There had been new developments in Charles Darwin’s idea that human behavior, as well as our physical appearance, has been shaped to a significant extent by natural selection. In particular, in the 1960s, William D. Hamilton, now professor of zoology at Oxford University, had put a new construction on the phenomenon of altruism — the process by which individuals apparently sacrifice their own self-interest, and even their lives, to benefit others.

Hamilton showed that natural selection could and would favor genes that promoted altruistic behavior, provided that the individuals who benefited from the altruism had a high chance of containing the same genes. In fact, such altruistic behavior is not altruistic at all, in the sense that moral philosophers use the term, but is entirely selfish. The gene that promotes the apparent self-sacrifice is simply promoting its own replication, by enhancing the survival of copies of itself — albeit copies contained in other individuals. Thus, said Hamilton, we might expect individuals to compromise themselves if doing so benefited their own kin, who would indeed contain copies of the gene that promoted the self-sacrificial behavior. The final mist is that parental care, and the self-sacrifice that goes with it, are merely special examples of the altruism that any organism might be expected to show toward its own kin.

Although stepparents in some societies are related to the children, Daly and Wilson reasoned that stepparents are not generally kin to their stepchildren, at least not in most Western societies. Therefore, we might expect that they would show no predilection to sacrifice themselves (in large or even small ways) on a stepchild’s behalf. They sought to find out if this hypothesis, based on Hamilton’s extension of Darwin’s ideas, was true.

Wilson says, “We were astonished to find that it was not easy even to begin to explore this hypothesis. Official statistics from the United States didn’t reveal whether parents who abused children were step or biological. It just didn’t occur to criminologists that the nature of the relationship was important, so they generally didn’t bother to record it.” She and Daly had to took beyond the official statistics, to the raw data of case histories. By 1980 they had demonstrated that children under three years of age are at least seven times more likely to be abused by stepparents than by biological parents.

Daly and Wilson believed, however, that statistics for child abuse in general might be biased by underreporting or incomplete reporting. After all, parents don’t want to admit that they have beaten their children; there are plenty of ways to conceal abuse or to explain away injuries. To gain a truer picture, the researchers decided to focus specifically on a form of abuse that is exceedingly difficult to cover up: homicide. Once again — even more astonishingly — most official statistics, including the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports, the U.S. national archive, did not differentiate between killings by stepparents or by biological parents. But Statistics Canada from 1974 to 1990 did contain relevant data.

Its figures showed that children under the age of two were at least one hundred times more likely to be killed by stepparents — particularly stepfathers — than by biological parents.

“Of course,” Daly stresses, “most stepparents take to the task extremely well, and generally make loving substitute parents. The incidence of abuse is low.” Nonetheless, for stepparents the homicide rate comes out at about 600 per million parent-child groups living together, compared with just a handful for biological parents. Further examination of records in the United States and Britain revealed an increased risk for children with stepparents. Moreover, a closer look at the case histories reveals that while biological parents who kill their children are often severely depressed and, Daly and Wilson reported, “may even construe murder-suicide as a humane act of rescue,” stepparents who are homicidal “are rarely suicidal and typically manifest their antipathy to their victims in the relative brutality of their lethal acts.”

That there is a difference in incidence of fatal abuse between stepparents and genetic parents seems undeniable, but what are the reasons for it? Daly and Wilson have explored all the obvious, possibly confounding variables of the kind that their Darwin Seminar audience seized upon. Is poverty the real cause? Certainly, it is a risk factor in child abuse. And the breakup of previous marriages that often lies behind stepparentage obviously can be costly, reducing economic status. But, according to Daly and Wilson, the case histories show that child homicide is vastly greater among stepparents than biological parents at an levels of wealth. Poverty emerged as an independent, additional factor, but a relatively weak one.

Well, is remarriage itself then a factor, suggesting some fickleness of personality that might predispose a person to abuse? Apparently not. The case histories show that people who remarry typically continue to treat their own children well even when they abuse their stepchildren. Or does the difference lie in early opportunities for bonding? Are biological parents conditioned to respond well to their children because they are exposed to them from birth? “There isn’t much evidence on this,” says Wilson, “because not many stepparents see their stepchildren at a very early age, so it is hard to make a direct comparison. The few cases there are — although not statistically significant — suggest that stepfathers are at least as likely to abuse their stepchildren even when they are present at the actual birth.”

Don’t adopted children provide a cogent comparison since, as with stepchildren, they are generally unrelated to their substitute parents? In fact, their risk is roughly the same as with natural parents. Surely this negates the notion that the added risk of stepparentage has genetic origins? “It might seem to,” Daly acknowledges, “but there are two big, additional factors in adoption. First, adopting parents are obviously highly motivated and extremely closely monitored before they take on a child. Second, they tend to return children to adoption agencies far more often than is generally appreciated.” This would weed out “unbonded” adoptive parents. So, although the data from families with adopted children appear to contradict the Darwinian idea that lack of genetic relationship reduces the likelihood of care, confounding variables make direct comparison impossible.

To test the genetic hypothesis to the full, Daly and Wilson asked their own question in reverse. Why is it that the overwhelming majority of stepparents treat their stepchildren well? After all, parenthood is a huge investment, an enormous burden to shoulder for the genetic offspring of somebody else. In Darwinian terms, at least, parenting means one thing only: perpetuating yourself by reproduction. But Daly says, “We know that when some other male animals take over a new family they will kill any existing offspring of previous matings — as male lions will do. It’s easy to see why: it is in their own genetic interests to impregnate the females themselves, and existing cubs simply get in the way. Not all male animals behave this way. Incoming male baboons, for example, treat existing children well. This seems to be part of the mating effort; the females will not accept males that do not demonstrate parenting skills. This model seems to fit the human case as well. But, although stepparents do take on the task, Darwinians would predict that the full expression of parental feeling is liable to be buffered. Sometimes it’s buffered too much.”

Daly and Wilson reiterate that the overall rate of homicide by all parents of their children is low, and that most stepparents treat their new families well. Nevertheless, stepparentage emerges not only as a key risk factor in parental child abuse and homicide, but as the biggest factor. The Darwinian hypothesis — that the explanation may lie in the lack of familial relationship, and not primarily in economic or social factors — has stood up so far to the more obvious criticisms.

Finally we can ask — as the Darwin Seminar audience did — “Of what use is such knowledge? After all, most stepparents are good parents, so what good does it do to target them?” Margo Wilson answers, “In general we feel that it is better to know than not to know. It must be bad in principle to shy away from discovery just because the knowledge gained may seem uncomfortable. In fact, we can envisage good, practical reasons for this kind of knowledge. For one thing, social workers worldwide are invariably overworked. Anything that might help them to focus their efforts more accurately has to be worthwhile. And it can’t be good that everyone has been overlooking the biggest risk factor for so long.

“We might also suggest that a mother who is thinking of remarrying should bear in mind that she cannot take her new partner for granted; she cannot expect that he will automatically treat her children as if they were his own. Actually women know this already of course — but perhaps the point needs more emphasis.”

In short, if Wilson and Daly’s ideas are applied sensibly and humanely (and are not used to make stepparents feel bad), then, in principle, they could save much human misery and perhaps human life. If this proves to be so, then those who object to this kind of insight should acknowledge that by objecting, they are allowing human suffering to take place unnecessarily — and they should take moral responsibility for so doing.

As for the Darwin Seminars, they provide one of the best forums yet devised for academics in Darwinian studies to take their ideas beyond their own scientific discipline and expose them to experts from other fields — and, vitally, to the public at large. The Seminars, established at the London School of Economics two and a half years ago by Helena Cronin, are open to everyone and are already acknowledged on both sides of the Atlantic as intellectual and social salons of key importance. Cronin is herself a scholar of the new “evolutionary psychology” and author of The Ant and the Peacock: Altruism and Sexual Selection from Darwin to Today, a reappraisal of Darwin’s idea of sexual selection. She says, “Darwin always wanted his ideas ‘to throw light on man,’ and we aim to help realize his dream. We don’t yet know how much light Darwinian hypotheses win spread, but there’s already good reason to think they will be very illuminating indeed. Daly and, Wilson’s studies are among those showing that the ideas win be useful too. They can save lives.”

Colin Tudge is a science writer and research fellow in the Centre for Philosophy at the London School of Economics. His latest book on human evolution is The Day Before Yesterday (Simon and Schuster).

Colin Tudge “Relative danger“. Natural History. FindArticles.com. 27 Jan, 2010. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_n8_v106/ai_20147994/

A 27-year-old Valdosta State Prison inmate was strangled to death, according to the Lowndes County coroner.

Georgia Department of Correction John W. Arnett, an inmate in Valdosta State Prison, was strangled to death, according to Bill Watson, Lowndes County Coroner. He was serving a sentence for child molestation.

Georgia Department of Correction Anthony Tyler Rogers, already serving life in prison for murder, has been accused of killing another inmate in the Valdosta State Prison.

John Arnett, who was convicted of child molestation in both Bartow and Appling counties, was found in his cell last Thursday. The cause of death was manual strangulation, according to Coroner Bill Watson.

Arnett’s sentence began last July, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections.

An inmate already serving time for a previous murder conviction has been accused in Arnett’s death. Anthony Rogers has been in jail since October 1998 following his conviction for murder in the Savannah area.

Arnett is at least the third state inmate to die in recent weeks.

On Jan. 1, guards at the state prison in Jackson found 35-year-old Leeland Mark Braley hanging in his cell. Prison officials say Braley, sentenced to death in 1999 for the murder of a Zebulon insurance agent, apparently took his own life.

Timothy Pruitt’s death more than three weeks earlier was ruled an “alleged suicide,” though his death remains under investigation.

- Christian Boone contributed to this report

SOURCE:  http://www.ajc.com/news/convicted-child-molester-strangled-284149.html?cxtype=rss_news_128746

MARSHFIELD, Mo. (AP) – An Amish couple who were shunned by leaders of their southwest Missouri community for suspected child sexual abuse involving family members have pleaded guilty.

According to court records, Johnny A. Schwartz pleaded guilty Tuesday to two counts each of statutory sodomy and child molestation. He was sentenced in Webster County Circuit Court to a total of 20 years.

His wife, Fannie J. Schwartz, pleaded guilty to child endangerment for failing to report the abuse. She was sentenced to five years’ probation and 100 hours of community service.

Four men described by prosecutors as bishops of the Amish community near Seymour face trial March 10 on one misdemeanor count each of failing to report suspected child abuse. After they were charged last fall, their lawyer questioned whether they qualify as mandatory reporters of suspected abuse under Missouri law.

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(Marshfield, MO) — Two Amish people charged in a Webster County sex abuse case from last fall have been sentenced.

Johnny Schwartz received 27 years in prison.  He had pled guilty to statutory sodomy and child molestation.

Fannie Schwartz, Johnny’s wife, got five years probation with 100 hours of community service.  She pled guilty to endangering the welfare of a child.

According to prosecutors, Fannie told Amish church leaders about her husband having sexual relationships with two people under the age of 17.  The abuse happened between 2000 and 2007.

SOURCE:  http://www.koamtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=11885168

HURLEY, Mississippi – The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office has arrested a woman and two others on meth related charges.

Investigators say 40 year old Amy Prassenos was neglecting her 14 year old daughter by allowing her to be present and participate in manufacturing methamphetamine at their house in Hurley. When authoroties arrived at the house around 10:30 Friday night, Ms. Prassenos was not there, however the 14 year old was there alone with one 18 year old and 19 year old male. Also present were a 17, 16 and 12 year old female. During the search, investigators discovered marijuana as well as assorted meth paraphernalia and chemical precursors which were used to manufacture meth.

Amy Prassenos was charged with one count of Felony Child Abuse; Once count of Manufacturing Methamphetamine while in possession of a firearm; One count of possession of Methamphetamine while in possession of a firearm; Once count of Generation of Hazardous waste while manufacturing Methamphetamine.

Rodney Rogers was charged with same charges as Prassenos with the exception of Child Abuse.
Larry Riley was charged with one count of Manufacturing Methamphetamine; Generation of hazardous waste while Manufacturing Methamphetamine; He was currently on probation through Florida on Meth Related charges. Prassenos was also arrested July 2005 in Mobile County Alabama Possession of Drug Paraphernalia, Possession of Anhydrous Ammonia, Manufacturing Methamphetamine and for flight/escape as a fugitive from justice.

Anyone with information related to this investigation or other illegal drug activity is asked to call the NTF at 228-769-3302 or email at taskforcetips@cableone.net
The Narcotics Task Force of Jackson County is comprised of officers from the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department, Pascagoula Police Department, Gautier Police Department, Moss Point Police Department, and the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics.

SOURCE: http://www.wkrg.com/mississippi/article/mom_charged_with_child_abuse_drug_use/679838/Jan-26-2010_4-29-pm/

Abuse suspect escapes torture charge of child

After deliberating for more than two days, a Yolo Superior Court jury exonerated a Woodland man of torturing a seven-month-old girl.

However, the jury did find Richard Schirnhofer, 19, guilty of four counts of child abuse related to injuries received by the young girl, but could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he had personally caused any of the child’s injuries apart from several rib fractures. On this one count the jury found a special enhancement of great bodily injury to be true.

Schirnhofer had been accused of abusing and torturing the child who was found to have extensive bruising and fractured bones when she was taken into protective custody Oct. 20, 2008.

The child had severe bruising to her inner thighs coupled with a fractured femur that may have been caused during the same incident, according to a doctor’s testimony. Further, she had a fractured tibia, ulna and five rib fractures.

Several witnesses testified during the weeklong trial that Schirnhofer would roughly grab and shake the child, while yelling at her to “shut up.”

But witnesses testimony wasn’t sufficient in proving Schirnhofer caused the other three injuries.

“I think that obviously the jury found someone other than Richard caused the injuries,” said Public Defender Tracie Olson.

Olson hugged her client as the verdict was read in regards to the torture charge, which could have sent him to prison for life. Turning toward Olson, Schirnhofer cried and rubbed his eyes

in reaction.

Juror No. 5 said the process was meticulous and involved extensive discussion about the abuse charges, however the five-man, seven-woman jury was able to come to a consensus almost immediately that Schirnhofer was not guilty of torture.

Deputy District Attorney Tiffany Susz left the court room looking incredulous and had little to say about the verdict.

“The verdict reflects the commitment of the jury to perform their civic duty in such a serious case with difficult evidence of horrific injuries to an innocent baby,” Susz said. “In these difficult budget times, this case is a solemn reminder of the invaluable service to our community that law enforcement and Child Protective Services provides.”

SOURCE:  http://www.dailydemocrat.com/news/ci_14277062

Police: 2-Year-Old Boy Found Locked In Closet

MESA, Ariz. — A 2-year-old boy was found locked in a closet in a Mesa apartment Monday night, according to Maricopa County Constable Fred Arnett.

His mother, Corrina May Davis, 21, is charged with two counts of child abuse.

Arnett said he discovered the boy while serving an eviction notice at Del Coronado Apartments on South Longmore Street.”I found the child laying there, basically in the fetal position,” Arnett said. “It appeared that this (the closet) was this child’s actual living quarters.”"The problem that I had was there was no visible water of any kind, there was no food. There was nothing this child could do to even sustain life,” he said.C

ourt documents obtained by CBS 5 say the child appeared to have suffered physical and sexual abuse.The probable cause statement says the boy had “bruising of different colors on both sides of his face, a chipped tooth, a cut and a bruised lip, bruising to his ears, bruising to his hip” and blood coming from his genitals.Arnett said he was most disturbed by the child’s response to him. “Any 2- or 3-year-old at least cries,” said the father of two young girls. “This child wouldn’t even cry. This child wouldn’t laugh or smile to anything we would do. In any of our attempts to get a reaction out of this child, there was nothing.”"He was so floppy and lifeless. It’s like he had given up. There was no fight in this child,” said Arnett.

In court records, Davis admitted to locking her son in the closet and leaving him alone while she went to work.Davis denied abusing her son.She told police he is “clumsy” and “walks into walls.”

The boy is in CPS custody.Arnett said he is grateful he discovered the child when he did.”I can at least sleep better at night knowing he has to be in a better condition than he was last night,” he said.

SOURCE:  http://www.kpho.com/news/22350799/detail.html

Mass. High School Girl Takes Life After Allegedly Taunted by Cyber Bullies

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

MyFoxBoston.com

File photo of Phoebe Prince.

While police in South Hadley, Mass., investigate whether cyber bullying was to blame for the suicide last week of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince, the teenager who had recently emigrated from Ireland suffered a final indignity – disparaging remarks believed to be posted by classmates to a Facebook page created in her memory.

Prince died on Jan. 14 after a rough freshman year. Friends and school officials told MyFoxBoston.com that Prince had been picked on and taunted since moving to Massachusetts last fall.

South Hadley High Principal Daniel Smith sent out a letter to parents of students at the high school. In the letter, he called Prince “smart, charming, and as is the case with many teenagers, complicated . . . We will never know the specific reasons why she chose to take her life,” Boston.com reported.

School bullies taunted Phoebe Prince through text messages, the computer and on Facebook and other social networking sites, Smith told the Boston Herald.

Smith said the bullying often surrounded arguments about teen dating, Boston.com reported.

In the letter to parents, dated Jan. 20, Smith addressed the disagreements: “These disagreements centered on relationship/dating issues. School personnel immediately intervened . . . and both counseled and provided consequences as the situations required. It is what happened after those incidents were over that is cause for significant concern.’’

Even after her death, bullies posted disparaging messages on her Facebook memorial page. The comments had to be removed from the page.

A makeshift memorial was held for Phoebe Prince over the weekend.

Messages left by FoxNews.com for South Hadley High School’s media spokesman and the South Hadley Police Department were not returned.

Local police and the Northwestern District Attorney are investigating.

SOURCE:  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,583948,00.html?test=latestnews

Lily Burk Autopsy Shows The Teenager Fought for Her Life

Lily Burk (Family Photo)

Related links

• Charlie Samuel, 50, in court Photo
• Lily Burk Remembered by Family, Friends Video
• Error Kept Charlie Samuel on Streets Video
• Remembering Lily Burk Photos
• Parolee Arrested in Death of Lily Burk Should Have Been Supervised Video
• Suspect In Burk Abduction Shook Supervision Video
• Self Defense Classes Popular After Abduction Video

LOS ANGELES — A parolee accused of kidnapping and killing 17-year old Lily Burk has been ordered to stand trial.

A judge on Monday ordered a trial for Charlie Samuel after ruling there is enough evidence to support charges of murder, kidnapping and robbery.

He will be arraigned Feb. 9.

Earlier, the coroner testified that the autopsy conducted on Burk showed the teenage engaged in a violent struggle with her attacker.

“The cause of death was (an) incised wound to the neck,” Dr. Jeffrey P. Gutstadt.

The fatal wound was consistent with having been inflicted by a sharp object such as a broken glass bottle, Gutstadt said.

But the teenager also suffered injuries to her entire body, including wounds to her lower neck, bite marks on the left side of her face and left ear, as well as bruising on her back and contusions on her knees and feet, Gutstadt testified.

Burk’s body was found in the front passenger seat of her black Volvo S40, which was spotted in the parking lot of a food processing plant on Alameda Street on July 25, 2009 — one day after she disappeared while running an errand for her mother.

Fingerprints found in her car led police to 50-year old Charlie Samuel.

Samuel is accused of abducting the teen as she was about to get into her car near Wilshire Boulevard and Wilshire Place after going to Southwestern University School of Law on the afternoon of July 24, 2009, to pick up some tests for her mother, who is a professor at the school.

Police allege the girl, at Samuel’s orders, made unsuccessful attempts to get money from a downtown ATM before calling her parents in an effort to get money.

Police say surveillance video shows Lily Burk and Charlie Samuel walking to an ATM at the Union Bank on Second and San Pedro streets in Little Tokyo in the hours before her death.

Police say the teen can be seen trying and failing to extract cash.

The attempts failed because her credit card was not set up to be used as an ATM card.

Over the next hour, Burk called both of her parents to ask how to use the card and was told by her father that it could not be used at an ATM, police said.

“She didn’t tell them that she was in distress,” Diaz said.

She reportedly told her father she needed money to buy shoes and was told to come home.

“Burk then made arrangements with her father to go to their home to pick up an unspecified amount of money,” the police statement said. “She never made it home.”

Los Angeles police officers testified that they took Samuel into custody after watching him drink from a paper bag containing a can about 5:25 the day the teen disappeared. They said they recovered clothing — containing what appeared to be a voluminous amount of blood and allegedly worn by Samuel — discarded in a trash bin.

Samuel is charged with one count each of murder, kidnapping to commit robbery, carjacking, kidnapping for carjacking, second-degree robbery and attempted first-degree automated teller machine robbery, along with the special circumstance allegations of murder during a kidnapping, robbery and carjacking.

Prosecutors are expected to decide later whether to seek the death penalty for Samuel, who they allege has a 1987 robbery conviction from San Bernardino County and a 2006 conviction from Van Nuys for petty theft.

Samuel remains in custody without bail.

KTLA-TV, Los Angeles

Friday, January 22, 2010

Lexie Dial Murdereds Five-Month-Old Son After Child Fails To Walk

Lexie Dial MySpace Profile

Lexington, SC (The Weekly Vice) – Lexie Dial III, an 18-year-old Lexington man was jailed after he allegedly shook his 5-month-old son to death after the child failed to learn to walk quickly enough.

According to the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department, Dial and his son, Joshua Hunter Dial, were at home alone together on Tuesday when Dial decided to teach his son 5-month-old son to walk.

Investigators say Dial became frustrated with the boy when it seemed his son wasn’t able to get the hang of walking.

Dial reportedly grabbed the child underneath his armpits and then shook him so violently that he almost immediately went unconscious, suffering from severe brain trauma around 8:00 p.m.

The infant was rushed to the Palmetto Health Children’s Hospital where he was pronounced dead Wednesday around 2:00 p.m. Doctors say he died from “subdural hemorrhage and cerebral edema as a result of blunt-force, closed-head injury”. In other words, from shaken baby syndrome.

Dial was booked into the Lexington County Detention Center and charged with homicide by child abuse. His bond amount has not yet been set.

Mandi Milenko
The Weekly Vice
www.theweeklyvice.com

Thursday, January 21, 2010

13-Year-Old Girl Sentenced To 90 Lashes After Bringing Cell Phone To School

Jubail, Saudi Arabia (The Weekly Vice) – An unnamed 13-year-old girl in Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to 90 lashes after she was caught in a heinous crime. Saudi officials say the teen was caught bringing a camera phone to school.

Saudi officials say the teen assaulted her teacher after she was caught with the camera, which is routinely banned from all girls’ schools.

Officials say the flogging will proceed in public while her classmates look on. The flogging will then be followed with two months detention.

Human rights groups criticized the decision, pointing out the punishment is harsher than is regularly handed out to robbers and looters.

Under Saudi Arabia’s Sharia Law, flogging is deemed a mandatory punishment for a number of moral transgressions such as adultery, dating or even being alone with a member of the opposite who is not related. Flogging may also be used, however, for a variety of other violations of Sharia law at the Judge’s discretion.

Danny Vice
The Weekly Vice

http://www.theweeklyvice.com

Phillip Glenn Terrell

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By Stephen Gurr
sgurr@gainesvilletimes.com

Erica Luce Had A Bad Feeling And A Dead Baby

Filed under: Crime, Suspicious Death

Springfield, MA - Police and paramedics were called to the Clarion Hotel Sunday morning to provide medical assistance to a child in need – information on what exactly was wrong with the child isn’t being released. The 6-week-old baby was taken to Baystate Medical Center where he was pronounced dead. An autopsy is planned for later today. The child’s mother, Erica Luce(Myspace ) claims that she woke up at about 3:00 a.m. Sunday morning with a “bad feeling.”

According to her, that’s when she found her infant son, Ethan, naked on the floor, covered in cold water, lying next to an air conditioner that was turned on full blast. And how did he end up in that predicament? Erica believes that someone broke into her room earlier that morning, while she was visiting with a friend in an adjacent room, and murdered her son. Wait….what? According to Erica, she left Ethan and his 3-year-old sibling alone in the room after they had fallen asleep at about 12:30. She popped over to her friend’s room for a chat and claims that she checked on the children every 15 minutes until she fell asleep. Did she fall asleep in her own room or the room next door? Your guess is as good as mine. She also mentioned that the 3-year-old child was sitting up awake in bed when she found Ethan on the floor. I have a feeling there is some vital information being left out of Erica’s account. No arrests have been made as of yet and police are neither confirming nor denying Erica’s story.

Photos

A Sparland man who had been scheduled to go to trial Monday in Marshall County on five child-molesting charges chose to take a plea bargain instead.

Mark A. Hankins, 42, pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. He admitted sexual conduct with girls aged 7, 9, and 11, separately and on different occasions during the past 18 months.

His plea also eliminated the possibility that his trial might delay the beginning of a specially scheduled murder trial on Thursday in a courthouse with only one courtroom.

Under a partially negotiated plea agreement, Hankins will face a sentence of at least three years in prison and a maximum of seven years when he is sentenced on March 16 by Circuit Judge Scott Shore. The agreement excluded the chance of probation that normally would be an option for Hankins’ Class 2 felonies, said defense attorney Christopher McCall.

But the agreement also spared him the risk of a possible 30-year sentence on the more serious charge of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child. Two counts of that offense were dismissed.

A 6-year-old brother of the youngest victim witnessed Hankins molesting her in October, State’s Attorney Paul Bauer said in court. His conduct with the other girls occurred in June 2009 and June 2008.

Bauer had said Friday that Hankins’ trial could delay Thursday’s scheduled start of Tony Smith’s murder trial, but he and McCall said the plea had been worked out after that. Two unrelated misdemeanor cases set for possible trial Tuesday or Wednesday will not interfere with the murder trial, Bauer said.

SOURCE:  http://www.pjstar.com/news/x1685420997/Sparland-man-pleads-guilty-to-child-sex-abuse

Photos

A 55-year-old Bartow man has been charged with 60 counts of possessing child pornography, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office said.

But when investigators started to review the child pornography photos, one victim was a 4-year-old girl he was babysitting while the girl’s mother went to work, they said.

Detectives interviewed Daryl James McClelland and learned that he sexually abused the victim numerous times in 2008 and 2009 while be was babysitting the girl, they said.

The sheriff’s office also charged McClelland with eight counts of sexual battery on a victim under age 12, five counts of lewd molestation and one count battery on a child by contact with bodily fluids.

McClelland, arrested Friday, remains in the Polk County jail with no bail set.

SOURCE:  http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/local/polk/125-polk-man-made-porn-of-child-rape-detectives-say

Couple arraigned for abuse of infant

Posted at: 01/25/2010 12:24 PM | Updated at: 01/25/2010 12:58 PM
By: Reed Upton, KOB.com

Jacob Nichols being arraigned Monday Morning.  Nichols and Ashley Gibson are charged with abusing their infant daughter.

A homeless couple who allegedly abused their 3-month-old infant will remain jailed in lieu of a $500,000 bond.

Ashley Gibson, 19, and 20-year-old Jacob Nichols were arraigned Monday morning before District Court Judge Denis Barela-Shepard on child abuse charges. Barela-Shepard continued the $500,000 bail.

Investigators say that Gibson and Nichols were living at the Joy Junction homeless shelter when they threw the infant on a bed and then beat her when she cried.

The child remains hospitalized at University of New Mexico Hospital.

Despite a visit from a representative of the state Children, Youth and Families Department responding to concerns of Joy Junction employees, the child was allowed to remain in Gibson and Nichols’ custody.

The two were arrested after Nichols took the child to University of New Mexico Hospital because she was running a fever and a hospital employee, seeing signs of abuse, called Bernalillo County deputies.

TAUNTON — Bryan M. James of New Bedford was sentenced Monday to serve 12 to 15 years in state prison for abusing his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter so severely she was left permanently disfigured.

Superior Court Judge Barbara A. Dortch-Okara said she based the prison term on state sentencing guidelines, although she said she could not recall a more egregious child abuse case in her courtroom.

Prosecutors said James bit off the girl’s upper lip and punched the child so often that her ears became deformed and her body constantly covered in bruises. Children’s Hospital in Boston ranked the child abuse case among its worst ever.

Assistant District Attorney Silvia Rudman recommended two consecutive prison sentences that would have put James, 37, in prison for 25 to 30 years. Defense attorney Theodore Barone said a 9-to-11-year sentence would have been fair.

Barone said there was little evidence for the jury to have convicted James last Friday on three counts of assault and battery on a child causing substantial injury and one count of assault and battery. The jury returned a not-guilty verdict on a single count of mayhem after finding he did not maliciously cause the injuries.

Barone said he and James will weigh the possibility of an appeal.

“I believe my client that he did not commit these acts,” Barone said.

Meanwhile, Bristol County District Attorney C. Samuel Sutter attended Monday’s sentencing at Taunton Superior Court. He said he was disappointed with the judge’s decision.

“The sentence was not severe enough,” Sutter said. “We gave our sentencing recommendations tremendous thought. I thought they were fair and appropriate.”

Though sentenced to a minimum 12-year prison term, James will actually serve at least 9½ years because he already has been held without bail since his arrest on July 4, 2007.

Following his release, James will be placed on probation for 15 years. He will be required to undergo anger management counseling, submit a DNA sample and will not be allowed to have contact with minors.

Lawyers said state sentencing guidelines for someone with James’ relatively minor record — he has three prior assault-and-battery convictions and three restraining-order violations — recommend a 12-to-13½-year sentence for a conviction on assault and battery on a child causing substantial injury.

However, Sutter said those guidelines were inapplicable because of the egregious nature of the offense.

“This was a horrid case,” he said. “This was the embodiment of human depravity.”

Prosecutors accused James of frequently abusing his live-in girlfriend’s daughter whenever he lost his temper; often because the child wet herself. The girl, now 6, testified two weeks ago that James bit and punched her.

Police said the abuse occurred inside the Newcomb Street home that James shared with the girl’s mother, Jessica L. Silveira.

Silveira, 28, is charged with trying to cover up the abuse. She is free on bail and is scheduled to stand trial in March.

SOURCE:  http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100126/NEWS/1260322

Father may face murder charges

Doctors suspect baby was shaken before weekend death

The 5-month-old victim of suspected child abuse died over the weekend, Battle Creek police said Monday.

An autopsy was scheduled Monday on the body of Shawn D. Brown Jr. at Lansing’s Sparrow Hospital after he died Sunday. Doctors said Friday they suspected the child had been shaken, causing serious injuries to his brain.

Results of the autopsy were not immediately released, but on Monday afternoon the baby’s father, Shawn D. Brown Sr., 26, of Battle Creek, was arraigned in Calhoun County District Court on charges of first-degree child abuse. And prosecutors said they expect to file murder charges against Brown as early as today.

Assistant Prosecutor Sarah Lincoln said in court that pending results of the autopsy, her office expects to file either open murder or felony murder charges against Brown in the death of his son.

Battle Creek police were called Friday after Brown took his son to Battle Creek Health System about noon. The infant later was taken to Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo.

Brown told authorities he had been feeding the child with formula, and that a short time later, the baby began choking. He told police he attempted to dislodge whatever might be causing the problem first by using the Heimlich maneuver, applying force to the abdomen, and also by using CPR.

However, police were called after doctors determined the child suffered a brain injury from being shaken.

Detective Sgt. Carter Bright said Monday that Brown initially was charged with abuse. He said murder charges will be sought after the diagnosis and because Brown was alone in the house with the child in the first block of West Rittenhouse Avenue.

Doctors told police the injury would have caused almost immediate symptoms. The examination by doctors also showed evidence of previous injuries to the brain, police said.

Because of a prior felony conviction, Brown could face up to 30 years in prison on the child abuse charge. He faces mandatory life in prison without parole if he is charged and convicted of first-degree or felony murder.

During his arraignment, Brown was told by Magistrate Earl Brutsche that his preliminary examination is scheduled Feb. 8. Brutsche set bond at $1.5 million.

The child is the second homicide victim in Calhoun County in 2010.

SOURCE:  http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/article/20100126/NEWS01/1260311/Father+may+face+murder+charges

Mental Health “Expert” Claims That Child Sexual Abuse is Rarely Painful or Terrifying

Psychologist and associate at Harvard University, Susan A. Clancy, proposes in her new book that it is not the sexual abuse itself that causes trauma, but “the narrative that is later imposed on the abuse experience.” She writes in a letter to the Boston Globe, “For children, sexual abuse is rarely painful or terrifying at the time it occurs.”

Pedophiles and child sexual abusers have often tried to assert that children are not traumatized and harmed by the sexual abuse. Perpetrators say the child develops problems because of society’s view of sexual abuse. Clancy appears to share this belief and says that most victims do not report fear or panic.  I have to question where she gets her interview subjects because, out of the hundreds of survivors of child sexual abuse that I have corresponded with, virtually every one of them has expressed feeling some kind of fear, panic, terror, or they dissociated from the abuse because their mind could not handle the trauma.

Clancey alleges that the child usually only experiences confusion because the child does not understand the sexual encounter, and she says that because the child usually sexually accommodates the perpetrator, the child will feel intense shame when they become an adult and are told by professionals and society that the abuse was wrong.

Clancy has titled her book, The Trauma Myth. This was her first mistake. She is already saying with her title, “It is a myth that children are traumatized by child sexual abuse.” She is essentially saying that the rape,  sodomy, and sexual violation of a child’s body does not harm the child, is not painful for the child, and does not create fear or terror.

Ms. Clancy has obviously never been raped by a full grown man when she was a child, or vaginally penetrated with a foreign object by her father or step-father. She has obviously never endured being straddled by a man four times her size while she sleeps, only to be awakened by one of his hands over her mouth, and the other groping her vagina. Susan Clancy has never been forced by her older brother to perform oral sex on her own sister. These kind of cases are not rare –any mental health expert knows that. For this psychologist to say that it is a “myth” that child sexual abuse is not traumatizing, is not only ignorant but it places children in danger. This belief system places countless children in harm’s way because pedophiles and child sexual abusers will embrace this “myth” theory and use it to sexually violate children.

Ms. Clancy, I can attest to the fact that many children do feel pleasure mixed with confusion over being sexually assaulted by an adult. I was a victim of incest and rape by my father, and I have felt the inner turmoil and feeling through my body like melted butter when my father touched me sexually -and later in my childhood- when his rapes turned into sexual intimacy with my own dad, it felt good. However, contrary to your ignorant opinion, and contrary to the endless amounts of evidence –rape, sodomy, and a toddler having a man’s penis shoved down its throat is NOT rare, NOR a myth. If you are saying that forced fellatio is not traumatizing for the child, then someone ought to revoke your license. Contrary to your absolutely irresponsible belief system, when my father first placed his penis in my mouth at age three, I was traumatized, choked, and terrified. When he raped me on a cold bathroom floor at age seven, and I thought I was dying because I did not know what was happening to me, I experienced terror beyond description.

Ms. Clancy, if trauma experienced by a victim of child sexual abuse  is a myth then how do you explain the millions of survivors of child sexual abuse who have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder so severely, that it affects their entire lives with abnormal fears, flashbacks, panic attacks, nightmares, nervous system disorders, ringing in the ears, chest pain, insomnia, bladder problems, heart trouble, exaggerated startle response and hypervigilance? These survivors developed their trauma-based symptoms because their vagina or rectum was ripped open by a man’s penis, or from having a penis shoved down their tiny mouth, or by having their chest nearly crushed by a man’s body when he climbed into bed with them and lay his heavy body on top of them. Some of them were traumatized by sexually degenerate women who violently abused their bodies, like Greg Milligan, whose mother beat his genitals when she could not have an orgasm with him.

You are correct Ms. Clancy, I liked the pleasure, affection and attention that I received from some of the abuse that I endured by my father, but I also experienced deep confusion and guilt, not because of what society taught me about child sexual abuse, and not because of anyone in my family telling me it was wrong –but  because, as a child, I instinctually knew that what was happening between my father and me was wrong. I knew as a child that it was unnatural. More importantly, I experienced a tremendous amount of pain and fear during those years –enough to induce decades of PTSD symptoms that eventually stopped my life and sent me to countless medical doctors and mental health experts.

Please also see: Harvard Psychologist Says Children Are Willingly Abused

I urge all survivors of severe child sexual abuse, all victims of adult rape, and all parents to write Susan Clancy and tell her what you feel about this book and its title. You can reach her by writing:

Susan A. Clancy

Associate of Psychology

William James Hall

33 Kirkland Street

Cambridge, MA 02138

In the letter to the editor reprinted below, The Leadership Council’s advisory board member Dr. Philip Kinsler responded to a Boston Globe Letter to the editor by Dr. Susan Clancy, in which she stated, “For children, sexual abuse is rarely painful or terrifying at the time it occurs.”

Children are Harmed by Sexual Abuse

The Boston Globe
Letters to the Editor
Children are Harmed by Sexual Abuse
February 27, 2005

AS A PROFESSIONAL who has devoted many years to trying to aid in the healing of child sexual abuse survivors, I was surprised by the peremptory tone and deficient scholarship in Susan Clancy’s Feb. 20 letter regarding child sexual abuse (”The concept of repression”).

The notion that child sexual abuse is usually not harmful is ignorant at best and provides pernicious support to pedophiles at worst. This pseudoscience was thoroughly debunked in the controversy over the infamous Rind study in 1998 alleging similar notions to Clancy’s. Clancy states she does ”not believe that repression exists.”

Personal belief does not belong in scientific discussions.

There are more than 85 studies in the literature, conducted using multiple research paradigms, that verify the phenomenon of fragmentary or total traumatic amnesia. No study that has asked survivors the question has failed to find a robust number of persons reporting the phenomenon.

The difficulty of creating this phenomenon in laboratories using word lists with college sophomores is a problem of research design and paradigm; not a lack of effect of trauma on memory. And Dr. Jennifer Freyd has shown that word-list experiments carefully done do find traumatic memory effects.

As a therapist, I have worked with survivors of priest abuse and seen first hand their shattered faith in themselves, in the priesthood, in the church, in God. The notion that most victims of sexual abuse are gently groomed for an experience they do not find distasteful is shocking in its ignorance. Studies of the natural history of abusive families indicate that in familial abuse there is typically a mixture of family violence, parental alcoholism, and child sexual abuse.

Tell me that my clients who have been raped at gunpoint by drunken relatives firing guns near their heads to obtain compliance have not been harmed. Clancy’s letter is a biased document whose errors of logic and scholarship do not reflect the state of the science and serves to support the dangerous notion that children can give consent to and are not harmed by sexual abuse.

PHILIP J. KINSLER, PhD

Lyme , N.H.

http://www.psyfil.net/(Dr. Kinsler is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at  Dartmouth Medical School, where he supervises psychiatry  residents’ diagnostic and therapy work.  Dr. Kinsler is an experienced expert witness and testifies  broadly on criminal, civil, and family court matters.  Dr. Kinsler is extensively published in the fields of  psychological trauma, suggestibility in interviews of children  and adults, relational psychotherapy of trauma survivors, and ethical forensic practice.)