Man Killed Toddler By Placing His Foot on Her Chest and ‘Pressing Down’

A 25-year-old Hesperia man was convicted Thursday of killing a 1-year-old girl by placing his foot on her chest and applying pressure with his 230-pound frame, prosecutors said. Daniel Ruiz was found guilty on one count each of second-degree murder and assault on a child causing a death, according to a statement released Friday by the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office. READ MORE HERE

NEW YORK — For a short time Monday afternoon, the Christmas manger at a New York City church might have been able to pass for the real thing: A newborn baby, with the umbilical cord still attached, was abandoned there. Now, New York City police are searching for whoever left the child. READ MORE HERE

San Diego police were investigating the fatal shooting of a 14-year-old girl, Anna Hernandez, whose partially decomposed body was found in a canyon area behind an apartment complex days after she went missing. The teen’s body was discovered last Wednesday late in the afternoon near the 2900 block of Market Street, San Diego Police Department officials said, according to the local television station. READ MORE HERE

WAKEFIELD, The Bronx — A 22-year-old woman was arrested for cutting a pregnant woman’s stomach open, taking her unborn baby and killing her, in the Wakefield area of the Bronx Friday afternoon, the NYPD said. The woman, 22, was stabbed multiple times by another woman around 2:30 p.m. on Monticello Avenue. She then cut the baby out of the pregnant woman’s stomach, according to Bronx councilman Andy King. READ MORE HERE

Pregnant Woman Killed in Stabbing in the Bronx

Pregnant Bronx Woman Fatally Stabbed, but Baby Survives

HOUSTON, Texas – Police are investigating the death of a toddler found burned to death in an oven. Police say 19-month-old J’zyra Thompson and her three siblings were left alone while their mom was at work. Two of the children are just three years old, the other child is 5. Police say when they got there the child was already dead. Family members say they don’t know why the couple didn’t tell anyone the kids were home alone. READ MORE HERE

An Alabama pastor might have escaped punishment for years of sexually abusing children if not for surprise testimony at a custody hearing two years ago. Mack Charles Andrews Jr., 55, on Monday pleaded guilty to multiple charges of rape, sodomy, sexual abuse and attempted rape in exchange for 15 years in prison. Andrews will get credit for the two years – 783 days, to be exact – that he spent in the Clarke County Jail prior to sentencing. READ MORE HERE

Alabama pastor’s years of sexually abusing children unraveled when one woman spoke up

The son of the owner of a Billings day care, who sometimes supervised children, was charged with multiple counts of sexual abuse of children Monday morning. Jared Addison Terhune, 40, who is being held in lieu of a $250,000 bond in the Yellowstone County Detention Facility, has been charged by the County Attorney’s office with five felony counts of sexual assault, two counts of sexual intercourse without consent and one count of sexual abuse of children. READ MORE HERE

CLEVELAND — A 26-year-old Cleveland Heights man has been sentenced to life without possibility of parole for sexually abusing two children, according to Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty. Travis Sylvester was convicted by a jury on Oct. 30 on one count of rape, three counts of gross sexual Imposition and two counts of kidnapping. The jury’s verdict also specified that the victims were both under 10 years of age at the time of the attacks and that the kidnappings were sexually motivated. READ MORE HERE

19 people claim abuse by the same scoutmaster ‘who went from tent to tent molesting boys’

A Connecticut scoutmaster abused 19 children in the 1960s and 1970s, attacking one child more than 1,000 times, a lawsuit claims. Donald Dennis allegedly went ‘from tent to tent molesting boys’ as young as 11 during camping trips – some of them hundreds of times – and assaulted youngsters at a church where they had meetings. Seventeen men and two women have come forward to sue The Boy Scouts of America, making it the biggest legal case against the organisation in its history. Their lawyer said: ‘I have a client who was molested over 1,000 times. There was never any supervision on the camping trips. They just left this guy alone with all of these kids and he would go from tent to tent molesting boys.’ READ MORE HERE

A California woman has been found guilty of murdering her two-month-old daughter, who was killed after she was placed in a microwave for as long as five minutes. Ka Yang, 34, has been convicted of first-degree murder and assault on a child in the death of her daughter Mirabelle Thao-Lo in their Sacramento home on March 17, 2011. Jurors rejected Yang’s argument that she had been in the middle of an epileptic seizure when she placed her daughter in the microwave. But prosecutors argued that Yang had lied to investigators about Mirabelle’s death before they discovered a pacifier inside the microwave. READ MORE HERE

NEVADA – The Washoe County District Attorney, Chris Hicks, announced the sentencing of a Reno man to 13 years to life in prison for the kidnapping and repeated abuse of a 7 year old boy. Robert William Downs was sentenced to a term of 8 to 20 years each on three counts of Child Abuse and a term of 5 years to Life for one count of First Degree Kidnapping by District Court Judge Elliott Sattler.  Downs was previously found guilty on June 5, 2015.  Based on the sentence received today, Downs will not be eligible for parole until he has served a minimum of 13 years in prison. READ MORE HERE

VANCOUVER — A British Columbia man convicted of trafficking underage girls for sex has been handed a 23-year prison sentence in a case described by a judge as violent, extremely disturbing and “bordering on psychopathic.” Reza Moazami‘s sentence, delivered by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Bruce on Tuesday, is nearly three years longer than the prison time sought by the Crown. READ MORE HERE

A Queensland mother didn’t seek help for her three-year-old daughter despite knowing she suffered horrific injuries from being repeatedly sexually abused by the woman’s ex-partner. The 28-year-old woman, who can’t be named, was sentenced to four years’ jail in the Brisbane District Court on Tuesday after pleading guilty to one charge of cruelty to a child under 16. However, the mother’s sentence was suspended as she has spent 522 days in custody, but she must remain on good behavior for the rest of the sentencing period. READ MORE HERE