LANSING, MI – An Ingham County judge found Thomas McClellan guilty of first-degree murder Friday, meaning the 25-year-old Holt man will spend the rest of his life in prison for stabbing then burning Luna Younger, his 5-year-old stepdaughter. Ingham County Circuit Judge Joyce Draganchuk also found McClellan guilty of first-degree child abuse and first-degree arson. Draganchuk alone deliberated because McClellan’s attorney, Patrick Crowley, requested a bench trial instead of trial by jury. READ MORE HERE

QUEENSLAND – A man who killed his seven-week-old baby will be sentenced for manslaughter after pleading guilty at the Brisbane Supreme Court. Rick Cataldo was arraigned over the May 2012 death of daughter Lily Rain Cataldo at the court on Thursday, where he entered a plea to a single charge. Lily’s mother Michelle Leask was in April sentenced to five years’ imprisonment after also pleading guilty to manslaughter. READ MORE HERE

German police have busted a child porn website with 87,000 members and arrested a man they accuse of running it. Officers detained the 39-year-old, who has not been identified, north of Frankfurt. Several suspected users were arrested across Germany and Austria  They are all accused of involvement in a forum called Elysium, which had operated on the ‘Darknet’ since the end of 2016. The website was used for the worldwide exchange of child pornography and to make appointments for the sexual abuse of children, prosecutors said. “Among the child pornographic images and video files exchanged by the members of the platform were recordings of the most serious sexual abuse of children, including toddlers and depiction of sexual violence against children,” it said. READ MORE HERE

The internet is a fantastic tool, but dangers lurk within! Keeping your children and teens safe online becomes more challenging by the day. Don’t worry though! In this guide, I show you what dangers to look out for, and share some quick and easy tips to help protect your loved ones. The internet raises a host of dilemmas for modern parents. While we are keen to see our children harness the opportunities the web offers them, we also have to balance this with the obvious need to protect young people from its inherent dangers. The internet is now far too ubiquitous for parents to simply plead a lack of technical understanding. The dangers of the connected world are just as real as the benefits. READ MORE HERE

DEPUTIES: BABY ON VENTILATOR AFTER MAN STICKS FINGER DOWN THROAT

GREENVILLE, S.C. – A man and woman are accused of child abuse after a 5-month-old was taken to the hospital with severe oral trauma, according to the sheriff’s office. Celeste Paulina Marroquin, 20 – Charged with 2 counts of Unlawful Neglect of a child – $20,000 bond. Ricardo Perez Salas, 23 – Charged with Child abuse and Unlawful Neglect of a Child – No bond. Investigators say Salas was in a home with the child despite a recent DSS order prohibiting contact with the child. At some point between June 10 and 11 – the child starting crying and Salas put his finger down the throat of the child for an extended period of time, causing the damage, according to the report. READ MORE HERE

YUKON, Oklahoma – A man was arrested after he allegedly conspired to sexually abuse a newborn baby. On June 8, the Midwest City Police Department contacted the Canadian County Sheriff’s Office after gathering evidence Daniel Thomas J. Deffner, 39, of Yukon, traded child pornography and was engaged in a discussion involving child exploitation with a person in Midwest City. Officials say the Midwest City Police found Deffner was messaging a pregnant woman, who lives in Midwest City, through Facebook. READ MORE HERE

Anesthesiologist accused of administering drugs that sped up his death to harvest his organs

CALIFORNIA – Police are investigating a claim by a Los Angeles County coroner’s investigator that an anesthesiologist used a painkiller to hasten the death of a gravely injured boy to increase the likelihood his organs could be harvested without deterioration. Dr. Judith Brill, 65, has been accused of administering a high dose of painkillers to Cole Hartman, eight, before he was taken off life support. Hartman had gone into cardiac arrest after nearly drowning in a washing machine. At the time of the autopsy, coroner’s investigator Denise Bertone raised questions about the dose of the painkiller fentanyl given to the boy and pressed for re-examination of the case until a subsequent medical examiner added fentanyl toxicity as a significant cause of death. READ MORE HERE

ARIZONA – A woman and her boyfriend are facing murder charges after police say her 10-year-old son was tied up, beaten and burned to death. Lt. Vincent Schaan, with the Chino Valley Police, says Christian Pearson died Sunday from the injuries he suffered before being found Thursday. He had been was hospitalized in critical condition. Schaan says with the boy’s death police will ask prosecutors to charge Christina’s mother, 34-year-old Julianna Moreno, and 36-year-old Daniel Terry with first-degree murder. READ MORE HERE

The father being investigated in the death of his six-year-old daughter, whose decomposing body was found in an Illinois garage, claims her death was an accident. Jason Quate claims the girl, who has been missing for two years, choked to death on a steak after he spanked her. Quate, 34, who in a Las Vegas jail on unrelated prostitution charges, claims her mother then hid the body in a dilapidated and vacant home in Centreville, near St Louis. Quate faces a court hearing Friday on charges of felony sex trafficking and living from the earnings of a prostitute – though no charges have yet been filed over his daughter’s death. READ MORE HERE

A victim of a Pentecostal evangelist who sexually abused vulnerable children threw away the $20 he had given her to buy her silence after he had raped her. Another victim and her family were excluded from the Brisbane church after raising the allegations with its leaders, including the 42-year-old evangelist and treasurer. On Thursday evening, he was sentenced to 13 years’ jail after being convicted of 21 child sex offences, including seven counts of rape. The man, who can’t be identified, had between 2011 and 2013 sexually abused four girls and had repeatedly raped one over a period of 18 months, the Brisbane District Court heard. READ MORE HERE

KNOXVILLE – A child rapist was sentenced to 50 years behind bars on Thursday. Jonathan Mitchell Cooper, 31, was convicted in March on three counts of incest, three counts of child rape and one count of aggravated sexual battery, according to a release from the Knox County District Attorney General’s Office. “Parents are supposed to protect their children, not prey upon them,” General Charme Allen said in the release. READ MORE HERE

Europol releases images from child abuse videos to track offenders

AUSTRALIA – More than 30 alleged pedophiles have been charged after a crackdown on child sex abuse in regional Western Australia. The arrests were made after a nine month investigation, with the alleged perpetrators charged with almost 300 offences including sexual penetration and interfering with children as young as nine years old. Most of the accused men are Aboriginal and are from towns including Roeburn, Wickham and Karratha and surrounding areas, with many of them regarded as elders in their communities. READ MORE HERE