SANTA ANA, CA — The parents of a severely autistic boy were arrested after investigators determined the 11-year-old had been kept in a large metal cage, possibly to control his violent outbursts, authorities said Wednesday. The cage — similar to an extra-large dog kennel — was found in the home with a mattress and other bedding inside, Anaheim police Lt. Bob Dunn said. It was roughly 6 feet tall, 5 feet long and 3 or 4 feet wide with room to stand.

A 47-year-old Chandler man has been accused of posing as a 16-year-old to lure a Massachusetts boy cross country. Brad Cooper of Chandler appeared in Maricopa County Court for the first time on Monday as he pleaded not guilty to more than 20 counts of child sex-abuse. Cooper was arrested on June 11, after local police found a missing 14-year-old boy from Pittsfield, Massachusetts at his home. According to court documents, Cooper posed online as a 16-year-old named ‘Trent Thompson’ to start talking to the victim in April.

A mother depressed over her son’s suicide killed her two young daughters and herself early Tuesday using suffocating nitrogen gas at their upstate New York home, about a week after a stay in a mental institution, authorities said. East Greenbush Police Chief Christopher Lavin said a 911 call at about 1:45am sent police to the town house in the Albany suburb, where they found the mom and girls, ages 6 and 9, unconscious from exposure to the odorless gas in a first-floor bedroom. Rescuers had to break down the door to the locked room and tried CPR for a half hour before the three were taken to Albany Medical Center, where they died.

Israeli searchers on Monday discovered the bodies of three Israeli teenagers, who were abducted on June 12, north of Hebron in the West Bank. The bodies were found near Halhul on Monday afternoon. Israeli security forces, which had been conducting extensive searches in the area, sealed off the area and declared it a closed military zone. Hebron was also sealed off. A search team from the local Kfar Etzion field school, along with IDF soldiers from an elite unit, found the teens. The local volunteers had been asking for two weeks to join the search.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Graco have recalled approximately 1.9 million infant car seats due to faulty harness buckles. The seats were manufactured between July 2010 and May 2013. Some consumers reported having difficulty opening the buckle. As a solution Graco will provide a free replacement buckle.

An Oklahoma City mother is devastated after her son, who she hadn’t seen for more than a year because he was kidnapped by his father, was killed in a ‘brutal attack’ Thursday. Katrina DeBoard dropped the 2-year-old Dominic off for a visit with his Marine vet father, Derek Wells, at a home in North Carolina in May 2013. And the next time she saw him was early Friday morning, dead. ‘I never would’ve imagined, in two years, the only way I’d see my son again was him being cold,’ DeBoard said on Saturday.

An 85-year-old Virginia nanny has been convicted of assaulting an infant she had been babysitting. Evelyn Faye Pillow appeared in Henrico Circuit Court Friday, admitting that there was sufficient evidence to convict her on a misdemeanor assault charge. The abuse occurred last September while the octogenarian was caring for a little boy. Medical experts were prepared to testify that the months-old child showed classic signs of shaken baby syndrome. As part of the plea agreement, Pillow was ordered to perform 400 hours of community service.

A southwest Florida woman will now spend the rest of her life in prison after being found guilty of killing her autistic stepdaughter by gagging her so tightly the little girl became brain dead. Misty Stoddard, 37, blinked away tears after a Sarasota jury took just two and a half hours to convict her of the first-degree murder of 11-year-old Melissa Stoddard on Friday. Melissa died of suffocation in December 2012 after being tied to a wooden plank with her mouth duct-taped shut. She had moved in with her father and his second wife – Misty – just five months earlier to escape her mothers abusive household in North Carolina.

The mother of a 14-year-old girl bombarded with many hundreds of sexually explicit Facebook messages from a paedophile trainee teacher has reacted with fury and disbelief after he was spared jail. Tony Marsden sent thousands of messages to the youngster which at first used charm and flattery to groom but quickly grew explicit and sinister. When the girl’s mother found out what he was doing it took her 1,450 sheets of A4 paper to print out the vile transcript.

DOUGLASVILLE, GA — A man is facing murder charges after police say he intentionally rammed a woman with his car and then ran her over. Police say 53-year-old Janice Pitts was sitting at a traffic light on Highway 5 in Douglasville Wednesday when her Lincoln Navigator was hit from behind by 23-year-old Dewey Green. “He just kept hitting us, he just kept hitting us,” said Pitts’ daughter, Iesha Davis. Davis was in her mom’s SUV at the time with her 4-year -old son.

DRIPPING SPRINGS, Texas — A man arrested for burglary in a Central Texas town told police he had been held captive for at least four years by his adoptive parents in a garage apartment locked on the outside, authorities said. Jenifer Elise Thyssen, 40, and Dane Andrew Thyssen, 39, were being held Friday at the Hays County jail. They were arrested Wednesday on kidnapping charges.

Domestic violence is a devastating social problem that impacts every segment of the population. While system responses are primarily targeted toward adult victims of abuse, increased attention is now being focused on the children who witness domestic violence. Studies estimate that 10 to 20 percent of children are at risk for exposure to domestic violence (Carlson, 2000). These findings translate into approximately 3.3 to 10 million children who witness the abuse of a parent or adult caregiver each year (Carlson, 1984; Straus and Gelles, 1990). Research also indicates children exposed to domestic violence are at an increased risk of being abused or neglected. A majority of studies reveal there are adult and child victims in 30 to 60 percent of families experiencing domestic violence (Appel and Holden, 1998; Edleson, 1999; Jaffe and Wolfe, 1990).

The We Stand Up Coalition (www.we-stand-up.org) is an organization in Delaware that is working for the awareness and prevention of Child Sexual Abuse. They recently collaborated with a publishing/media group to create a song, publish a book, music video, and Public Service Announcement (PSA) to bring awareness to sexual molestation. The founder of the We Stand Up Coalition, Terrance Tykeem, published a book about child molestation called “TOUCHED.” The book also acknowledges the work Dreamcatchers for Abused Children does. The acknowledgment can be found on page 105.

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee — Campbell County child murder suspect Joshua Adams Comer has been taken into custody. Comer was wanted in connection with an investigation into the murder of a 3-year-old in LaFollette. It was a search that crisscrossed Campbell County for more than 24 hours. And on Wednesday evening, in a valley on Whitman Hollow Road, Josh Comer was found hiding inside the home of someone he knew. It took law enforcement everything they had. Officers from other cities, US Marshals, K-9 Units, helicopters, TBI agents, and of course the deputies that Sheriff Robbie Goins says stayed out all night to search.