A U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel faces court-martial after being charged with assault, rape and lewd acts against a child for a series of alleged abuses over a six-year period in two states. The Military Times reported on Thursday that Lt. Col. Reginald W. Kabban’s trial at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, where he is currently stationed, has been rescheduled for Sept. 23. Kabban was originally set to go to trial on June 10. READ MORE HERE

A little girl’s headless body was exhumed from a Missouri cemetery thirty years after she was found murdered in an abandoned apartment building in St. Louis. ‘Jane Doe’, believed to be between eight and 11-years-old, was exhumed last week with the hope that she might finally be identified and her killer brought to justice, KTVI reported.  Crews exhumed her body from Washington Park Cemetery in Berkeley, Mo., on June 17 after researchers and police spent months looking for her unmarked grave. READ MORE HERE

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH – Police are asking for help locating a man accused of raping a child. On May 29, police say Bolo Chervon Lapiste was shot twice in the back, allegedly by Anthony Vick. Vick was arrested earlier this month in connection with the shooting. Now Lapiste is facing three charges of raping a child and police are asking for help locating him. READ  MORE HERE

Heatstroke Deaths of Children in Vehicles

So far in 2013 there have been at least fifteen (15) deaths of children unattended in vehicles; seven which has been confirmed as heatstroke and eight which, based upon the known circumstances, are most likely heatstroke (2013 list).  Last year there were at least thirty-two deaths of children (see 2012 list) due to hyperthermia (heatstroke) after being left in or having gained access to hot cars, trucks, vans and SUV’s.  Since 1998 there have been at least 574 documented cases of heatstroke deaths of children in vehicles.  This study shows that these incidents can occur on days with relatively mild (i.e., ~ 70 degrees F) temperatures and that vehicles can reach life-threatening temperatures very rapidly. READ MORE HERE

STATISTICS

• Total number of U.S. heatstroke deaths of children left in cars, 2013: 15
• Total number of U.S. heatstroke deaths of children left in cars, 2012:  32
• Total number of U.S. heatstroke  deaths of children left in cars, 1998-present:  574
• Average number of U.S. child heatstroke fatalities per year since 1998: 37
• See Monthly Statistics
• See Per Capita Deaths by State

3-year-old boy left in vehicle dies while family attends funeral

PALMETTO, Florida – A 3-year-old boy is dead after being left in a vehicle in Palmetto for three hours while his family attended a funeral Saturday. According to the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office, deputies and paramedics responded to the report of an unresponsive child in the 2700 block of 5th Ave. E. around 4:20 p.m., where the boy, Kyrese Dwayne Anderson, of Lehigh Acres, was pronounced deceased. READ MORE HERE

Cherish Perrywinkle was abducted from Walmart by Convicted Sex Offender

Jacksonville, Florida ~ Just over an hour after a 56-year-old sex offender seen leaving a Northside Walmart Friday night with an 8-year-old girl was arrested Saturday morning, police say the girl’s body was found at a Northside church.  Police say Donald Smith left the Walmart on Lem Turner Road with Cherish Perrywinkle.  He was taken into custody in a traffic stop about 9 a.m. Saturday on Interstate 95, but the girl was not with him. About 10:15 a.m., an emotional Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office spokesman announced the victim’s body was found at a church on Broward Road. “We located the body of Cherish Perrywinkle,” Officer Shannon Hartley said. “A very difficult time, obviously, for everyone involved.” READ MORE HERE

NOTE: Williams declined to answer reporters’ questions about how Cherish died or what Smith did in the hours between his disappearance with the girl and his arrest, saying that the investigation remains open.

INFO ON SMITH:

Smith has been a registered sex offender since a 1993 conviction in Duval County for attempted kidnapping and selling obscene materials. He has been arrested several times since then, most recently in 2009 on a charge of child abuse after making obscene phone calls to a 10-year-old girl, making verbal threats, and impersonating a social worker with the Florida Department of Children and Families who claimed to be investigating the girl’s family. Smith pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges in that case and was released from jail May 31.

UPDATE: Donald James Smith, sex offender denied bail after being accused of abducting, killing Florida girl

1. Donald James Smith Charged in 2013 FL Slaying of Charish …

    

2. No Bail for Registered Sex Offender Charged in Murder of 8-Year …

    

3. No bail for Fla. sex offender charged in death – USA Today

    

4. No Bond For Sex Offender Charged In Girl’s Death « CBS Miami

    

5. No bail for Fla. sex offender charged in death | News – Home – WKMG

    

6. No Bail for Fla. Sex Offender Charged in Death – ABC News

    

7. Monsters Among Us: Convicted sex offender Donald James Smith …

    

8. Sex offender charged with murder of 8-year-old Cherish Perrywinkle …

What is child sexual abuse?

Child sexual abuse is any interaction between a child and an adult (or another child) in which the child is used for the sexual stimulation of the perpetrator or an observer. A central characteristic of any abuse is domination of the child by the perpetrator through deception, force, or coercion into sexual activity. Children, due to their age, cannot give meaningful consent to sexual activity.

Child sexual abuse includes touching and non-touching behaviors:

• sexual kissing
• inappropriate touching or fondling of the child’s genitals, breasts, or buttocks
• masturbation
• oral-genital contact
• sexual or digital (with fingers) penetration
• pornography (forcing the child to view or use of the child in)
• child prostitution
• exposure or “flashing” of body parts to the child
• voyeurism (ogling of the child’s body)
• verbal pressure for sex

READ MORE HERE

China executes official for child rapes after online uproar

Authorities in central China executed a former Communist Party official for raping 11 underage girls, state media said on Wednesday, following an online uproar about the latest case of abuse of power. Li Xingong, who was the party’s deputy head in Yongcheng city in Henan province, was found guilty of assaulting the girls during police interrogations starting from the second half of 2011, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Li appealed against the guilty verdict, but was rejected by the Supreme Court, Xinhua said. READ MORE HERE

A fugitive couple sought by the U.S. Marshals for child cruelty was recently seen in the Maywood area of Los Angeles. They had been recently added to the U.S. Marshals 15 Most Wanted List. U.S. Marshals were actively searching the region for Janet Killough Barreto and husband Ramon Barreto. The couple is suspected of traveling to Guatemala on multiple occasions to purchase children from an adoption agency, according to the L.A. County Sheriff’s Dept. READ MORE HERE

SUSPECT ACCUSED OF SHAKING BABY

OAKLAND PARK, FL – Detectives with the Broward Sheriff’s Office are telling CBS 4 that they are working to locate a child abuse suspect accused of shaking a baby. Sixteen-month-old Michael Zink appears to be just like any other child — walking, climbing and playing. But his mother Jennifer says that about a year ago she got a call from her then-boyfriend Michael Benner — who was watching her children. “He had called me and started panicking and told me that something’s wrong with Michael,” she told CBS 4?s Carey Codd. “He’s not acting normal.” Zink says she rushed home from work to her Oakland Park apartment. She says Benner had not called 911 so she did. “Somebody obviously hurt him,” she said. READ MORE HERE

Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs), founded by former Madison County District Attorney and Congressman Bud Cramer and modeled after the National Children’s Advocacy Center, have been operating since 1985 and now number more than 800 in the United States, serving more than 276,000 children in 2012 alone. These programs have historically been supported through one primary federal funding stream, the Victims of Child Abuse Act within the U.S. Department of Justice, which currently provides $19 million to individual CACs, chapters, several training and technical assistance projects (including two at the National Children’s Advocacy Center), and an Accreditation program for these CACs. READ MORE HERE

Family set up sting on 30-year-old man after alleged sexual predator their daughter, 15, met on Facebook gave her an engagement ring and arranged to run away with her

A 30-year-old man who allegedly groomed a teenager online with promises that he would marry her has been caught after the 15-year-old girl‘s parents set up a Facebook sting. After the family of the Spokane girl discovered she had been meeting a man she met on Facebook, her mother posed as her daughter online and arranged a meeting. When Jason Richards arrived at the family home in Spokane, Washington, in the early hours of June 8, the girl’s father and his friends were waiting for him. READ MORE HERE

HOUSTON — A seven-year-old boy was beaten by his parents with a high heel, an extension cord, a ruler and a belt because he got in trouble at school, according to police. The boy’s father, Christopher Burrell, and his stepmother, Savannah Johnson, from Houston, Texas, were both charged with felony injury to a child. The boy had black eyes, a fractured arm and hand and numerous cuts and bruises to his head and body which were a mixture of old and new when he was taken to hospital. The Houston Police Department were alerted to the abuse after school administrators called CPS when the boy showed up to school with a black eye and a large bruise on his head. READ MORE HERE

Gang Member Convicted in Baby’s Shooting Death

COMPTON, California — A teen convicted in the shooting death of a one-year-old boy who was sleeping in his father’s arms was sentenced to 90 years to life in prison Friday. Donald Dokins, 16, was found guilty of murdering Angel Cortez in Watts on June 4, 2012. Jurors deliberated for only an hour and a half in April before convicting the teen of murder and attempted murder, along with a gang enhancement. On the night of the shooting, the baby’s father, Mauro Cortez, was outside his home with friends, holding his infant son. READ MORE HERE