A professional clown in the River Valley was arrested on child pornography charges Wednesday morning in Fort Smith, according to police. Thomas Harold Morgan, 47, who bills himself as “Sondance the Clown,” was arrested on charges of distributing, possessing, or viewing child porn. Through an online investigation, the Fort Smith Police Department’s computer forensic team was able to detect someone at a residence in the 500 block of S. 20th was downloading the images through a well-known, internet file-sharing network, according to police.

CLINTON, NC — A mother in North Carolina is upset with administrators at her son’s school, after she says the 10-year-old was strip-searched. Clarinda Cox says she came home from work on June 1 to find her son Justin waiting in the driveway, and that he was very upset. Her third grade son says a girl had dropped money in the cafeteria, and he picked it up and gave it back to her.

LOS ANGELES — An ex-con was sentenced to death on Thursday for the 2003 rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl, whose bound and burned body was discovered in an alley. A jury convicted Latece Megale Brown on April 11 of 17 felony counts, including the first-degree murder of Jacquies Williams and the kidnapping, rape and sodomy of five other victims, who ranged in age from 14 to 25 years old.

BELLEFONTE, PA — The jury considering the fate of Jerry Sandusky on Friday pored over transcripts of testimony in the high-profile child rape case as the second day of deliberations got under way. The statements of prosecution witness Mike McQueary, who testified that he saw Sandusky apparently sodomizing a boy, and defense witness Dr. Jonathan Dranov, who said McQueary’s initial account differs from what he said on the stand, were read back to jurors.

When Samantha Tomasini and her boyfriend Patrick Fousek tried to sell their baby to two woman outside Walmart for $25, the woman called police. At the time of the arrest Tomasini and Fousek were high on methamphetamine.

Robert Kelly, a psychologist from Oxford Michigan, plead guilty this week to beating his 20-year-old daughter Megan to death with a baseball bat while she slept on May 9, 2011. According to the NY Daily News, Kelly went to police almost immediately after the crime, and police dispatcher Tony Van Houten testified that Kelly responded to his question, “Do you know who did it” with “Yes, I did.”

SACRAMENTO, CA — Thirty-six years ago, three men kidnapped a bus full of schoolchildren for ransom before entombing them in a San Joaquin Valley rock quarry. The 1976 crime has become part of California lore — and many of those in the small town of Chowchilla, where it happened, thought those responsible would stay behind bars for life. But later this month, one of the three kidnappers will be a free man.

Five years ago, five-week-old Holden Gothia was sleeping inside the suburban Houston apartment he shared with his parents when he was castrated by his own mother who was high on drugs. Katherine Nadal claimed the family dog tore off her son’s genitals but a jury found her guilty and she was sentenced to 99 years in prison in August 2009. Doctors said Holden faced years of surgeries and counseling but, today, the boy acts like a typical five-year-old, playing football, singing and running around with his older brothers.

Ogad Singh, a marble miner in the village of Dengari in Rajasthan, India, beheaded his 20 year old daughter with a sword and paraded it around town because he disapproved of her promiscuity. Daily Mail cites that Singh’s daughter had moved back in with he and his wife after she left her husband two years ago. Since then, she had been carrying on affairs with various men around the village.

SARASOTA, FL – SPD Police are asking the public for help locating a man they say is wanted for multiple counts of Capital Sexual Battery on a Child Less Than 12 Years of Age and Lewd and Lascivious Molestation.

Cyberbullying: What parents need to know Bullies and mean girls have been around forever, but technology has given them a whole new platform for their actions. As adults, we’re becoming more aware that the “sticks and stones” adage no longer holds true; both real world and online name-calling can have serious emotional consequences for our […]

SHINER, Texas — Hearing his 5-year-old daughter crying from behind a barn, a father ran and discovered the unthinkable: A man molesting her. The father pulled the man off his daughter, authorities say, and started pummeling him to death with his fists. With his daughter finally safe, the father frantically called 911, begging a dispatcher to find his rural ranch and send an ambulance.

In a landmark ruling, a California jury has awarded record $28million in damages to a woman who had accused the Jehovah’s Witnesses of allowing one of its adult members to molest her as a child. Alameda County jurors awarded $7million in compensatory damages last Wednesday and another $21million in punitive damages the following day to 26-year-old Candace Conti, her attorney, Rick Simons, said.

A fifth-grade teacher and youth soccer coach, a registered sex offender from Hernando County and a Disney employee are among 38 men charged as part of a sex sting operation involving minors in Polk County. The men were charged as part of “Operation Cyber Child,” a 10-day extensive undercover operation conducted by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE); U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and various other area law enforcement agencies.