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

UTAH – A Utah man who allegedly punched his 3-month-old son in the face after the infant spit up on him last weekend has been charged with second-degree felony child abuse. Mason Allen Blair, 22, of Ogden, was charged Friday in Provo’s 4th District Court, accused of leaving the baby suffering from “severe head trauma, including multiple brain bleed.” Police said earlier this week that the child was initially in critical condition, but had been stabilized and was thought to be gradually improving. A condition update was not immediately available Friday. READ MORE HERE

A convicted sex offender has been sentenced to 20 years in jail after sexually assaulting and getting a 12-year-old girl pregnant. Jose Anthony Caracciolo, 50, is already behind bars and serving a 25-year federal prison sentence for transporting the girl out of state for sex, and had pleaded guilty in September 2014 to first-degree aggravated sexual assault. Investigators with the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office first became aware of Caracciolo’s crimes in New Jersey in April 2013 after police in the town of Egg Harbor looked into the girl’s pregnancy. READ MORE HERE

BUCYRUS, OH – He told police he raped a 5-year-old girl, and now could spend the rest of his life behind bars. Donald C. Fisher, 56, of Bucyrus, was sentenced Monday to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 15 years after he entered a plea of guilty to one count of first-degree felony rape. READ MORE HERE

A Knox County stepmother will spend more than two decades behind bars for abusing her stepsons. On March 12, Jessica Cox was found guilty of beating, burning and starving her two stepsons. She was convicted on 24 of the 29 counts against her. That includes 23 counts of aggravated child abuse and 1 count of reckless endangerment. READ MORE HERE

NEVADA – Las Vegas police arrested the father of a 3-year-old boy late Friday after the child reportedly drowned in a bathtub that afternoon and had apparent signs of abuse. The father, Brandon Nicholson, faces multiple felony charges including murder by child abuse, police said. About 2:10 p.m., Metropolitan Police Department officers responded to a home on the 4600 block of Vegas Drive to investigate the possible drowning incident. READ MORE HERE

Pope Francis acknowledged Saturday that the Vatican has a 2,000-case backlog in processing clerical sex abuse cases and says criticism of the slow pace was justified. But he says more staff are being added and insists the Vatican is “on the right path.” Francis was making his first comments about the criticism leveled at the Vatican’s handling of sex abuse cases by Marie Collins, an Irish abuse survivor who resigned from Francis’ sex abuse advisory commission in March. Collins quit because of what she said was the “unacceptable” level of resistance within the Vatican to implementing the group’s proposals to better care for victims and protect children from priests who rape and molest them. READ MORE HERE

Pope Francis acknowledges Vatican’s 2000-case sex abuse backlog

Pope acknowledges 2,000-case backlog in sex abuse cases

Police arrested Bove after a brief car and foot chase that ended in Sharon, PA Thursday

PENNSYLVANIA — Police have found the body a young female believed to be a 13-year-old girl abducted Tuesday, authorities said Thursday night. An Ashtabula man suspected of kidnapping Kara Zdanczewski of Ashtabula was nabbed Thursday afternoon by police in Sharon, Pa., authorities said. The suspect did not bring Kara back home after an outing, police said. The Pennsylvania State Police Major Crimes Unit identified the man as 46-year-old John R. Bove, of Ashtabula. Initial reports, however, identified the man as from Pennsylvania. Bove is a registered sex offender in the state of Ohio, according to the Ohio Attorney General’s database. He was convicted of rape in 1990 in New York. READ MORE HERE