A Utah judge has ruled that a man accused of killing his four-year-old stepson can stand trial for murder charges. Prosecutors, who claim Nathan Sloop and his wife starved and abused the boy for several days until his death in May 2010, plan to seek the death penalty. Four-year-old Ethan Stacy’s body was found, with his face disfigured from hammer blows, in mountains. The makeshift grave had been sprinkled with dog food.

On Wednesday, police in Austin arrested two Mexican nationals who reportedly participated in the gang-rape of a 13-year-old girl on June 29. The girl, a runaway, who lives at the Settlement Home for Children, was picked up by three Latino men and driven to the Avalon Arms apartments, where she was raped by a large group of men for several hours, according to police. As many as 13 men took turns sexually assaulting the girl. Many cheered and filmed the sickening crime on their cell phones, according to court documents.

A teen who went missing in Los Angeles in April was discovered a month later in Northern California, having been kidnapped and used as a sex slave on a marijuana farm. The Los Angeles Police Department decribed the 15-year-old girl as a runaway. They believe she was kidnapped by Ryan Balletto, 30, and his associate Patrick Pearmain, 25, and taken to their growing operation in Lake County, California. According to a criminal complaint, when the girl wasn’t being used to harvest marijuana she was locked for days at a time in a 4-foot by 2-foot metal toolbox.

Disgraced BBC presenter Stuart Hall had his prison sentence for a series of sex assaults on girls doubled yesterday. Three Appeal Court judges ruled that his original 15-month term was ‘inadequate’ and should be increased to 30 months. The former It’s A Knockout host, 83, was told that he will not be eligible for release until September next year. Hall, a married father-of-two, had admitted sexually assaulting 13 girls aged nine to 17 over nearly 20 years.

The Investigator Tom Meyer has confirmed that a plea deal has been offered in the case against Ariel Castro. Castro is said to be considering the deal today but nothing has been finalized. Castro is facing 977 criminal counts including kidnapping, rape and aggravated murder. If the plea deal is accepted, Castro is expected to appear in court tomorrow morning to formally accept the deal.

Tobyhanna Township, PA – Jason Camp, a 41-year-old Pennsylvania man, was jailed Friday after he allegedly photographed himself raping a toddler. According to Pocono Mountain Regional Police, an investigation was launched Friday after a co-worker discovered Camp looking at an image of a naked child on his iPad while the two were at work. During a subsequent search officers discovered the image and determined that it had been taken two days prior.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina man targeted a sex offender at random, killed him and his wife and later told deputies he planned to kill others on the state’s sex registry, authorities said Wednesday. Jeremy Moody and his wife, Christine, were arrested and charged with murder, Union County Sheriff David Taylor said. Jeremy Moody confessed to the crime and told investigators they arrested him just in time, Taylor said. “He planned to kill another sex offender on the register today,” the sheriff said.

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More and more children are becoming the innocent victims of the deadly drug Methamphetamine as the number of at-home labs skyrocket, shocking statistics revealed today. Authorities in certain states estimate that in 90 per cent of home lab busts, neglected, abused and sick children are taken away from their meth-addicted parents. Sippy cups and pacifiers sit alongside dangerous chemicals easily available in shops like liquid drain cleaner and lithium batteries as a record-setting number of abusers are using the ‘shake and bake’ or ‘one pot’ method.

Vermont authorities are warning residents in advance of a high-risk pedophile being released from prison Friday. Residents are being told to be extra cautious with their children as a high risk pedophile is set to be released from a state prison Friday, with 12 to 13-year-old blond-haired, blue-eyed boys said to be at highest risk, according to reports. ‘It’s terrible they’re letting him out. Once a pedophile, always a pedophile,’ Springfield, VT. resident Jamie Hooper said.

A bullying boyfriend who bludgeoned his ex-partner to death in front of their 11-month-old daughter when she threatened to leave him was jailed for at least 19 years today. Jack Wall, 22, beat hairdresser Amelia Arnold, 19, over the head with a dumbbell eight times – just a day after she had tried to report him for domestic violence. With their baby daughter screaming just meters away, Wall tried to break Miss Arnold’s neck and strangle her – later claiming the horrific act was not as easy as it looked ‘in the movies’.

NYPD cold case detectives are seeking help from the public to identify the little girl dubbed ‘Baby Hope’ whose body was found inside a cooler off the Henry Hudson Parkway in 1991. On Tuesday, the 22nd anniversary of the unsolved crime, police circulated the neighborhood around Dyckman Street in Washington Heights near the wooded area where the child was found, speaking to residents and offering a $12,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest and conviction. The discovery by highway workers of a little girl, believed to be between three and five years old, tied with rope and squeezed into a picnic cooler beneath full cans of Coca-Cola struck a nerve with police and residents alike.

OHIO — The Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force is offering a reward for information which would lead to the capture of fugitive Willard Wigfield. Wigfield is wanted by the U.S. Marshals and the Lake County Sheriff’s Office for the rape of a child under the age of 15. Wigfield is believed to be hiding somewhere in Northern Ohio or Florida. He also has a previous address near the 7700 block of Miami Road in Mentor-on-the-Lake, Ohio.

MANATEE, FL — Detectives have arrested a suspect in the kidnapping and rape of a 5-year-old Bradenton girl with the help of a discarded lunch box. Dominick Jerome Hawkins, 36, was arrested and charged with kidnapping and capital sexual battery Wednesday afternoon. Hawkins was located just after 2:30 p.m. Wednesday by a Sarasota police detective, culminating a manhunt led by the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office with the help of the Sarasota Police Department and the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office.