BERRIEN SPRINGS, Mich. —A 16-year-old boy’s claim that his mother handcuffed him to a chair for about a week in a tiny room in his southwest Michigan home as punishment for shoplifting was being investigated as possible child abuse and unlawful imprisonment. The teen and his 9-year-old sister were put in foster care after the boy called 911 from a computer in the home, according to The Herald-Palladium in St. Joseph.

GEORGIA–The state’s child welfare agency is investigating the deaths of four children within three weeks who had prior contact with the agency, officials said Friday. The children died in separate instances, and the police are investigating several of the deaths. None of the children were in the care or custody of the state Division of Family and Children Services at the time of their deaths, spokesman Lisa Marie Shekell said. DFCS officials are investigating the degree of contact that the children had with the agency, which handles cases of child abuse and neglect.

Alsea School District Superintendent Jon St. Germaine and teacher Stacy Knudson pleaded no contest Friday to charges that they failed to report child abuse. Both entered into diversion contracts, which would allow the charges to be dismissed after a successful completion of a four-month program. The diversion program requires each to perform 30 hours of community service, pay $150 in fees and write a letter to the Benton County District Attorney’s Office demonstrating that they understand their roles as mandatory reporters and the importance of reporting abuse.

How can you know when your children might be at risk—from a loved one, a stranger, a friend, or someone esteemed in the community because of the position held? How do you go about talking to your children? What do you do if you learn that questionable or illegal activity has occurred? And how do you help your children recover? … How do you recover yourself?

Iowa’s 51,960-name child abuse registry could get an overhaul in the wake of complaints that the list damages reputations and job prospects for the accused before they’ve had a fair hearing. “There are too many innocent people on that registry list,” said Rep. Bruce Hunter, D-Des Moines. “This isn’t about letting people guilty of child abuse off the hook. Those people shouldn’t be anywhere around children.”

South Carolina–A 31-year-old EMT worker has been charged with solicitation of a minor and dissemination of obscene material to a minor after police accused him of soliciting sex online from someone whom he believed to an underage child. Corey Damon Crocker, of Pendleton, reportedly sent both graphic pictures and engaged in sexually explicit conversations as well with an undercover officer in Greenville who had been posing as the minor online.

Aloha, OR —- A cheer/gymnastics coach has been arrested and charged with possessing child porn after an investigation revealed he had been downloading graphic material from the internet. Jeremy Brandon Waldridge, 32, is also the owner of Top Notch, which offers classes for childrens’ cheerleading, trampoline and tumbling, to sleepovers, field trips and parent’s night out.

“The serial killer has the same personality characteristics as the sex offender against children”
-Dr. Mace Knapp, Nevada State Prison Psychologist.

• “There are 400,000 registered sex offenders in the United States, and an estimated 80 to 100,000 of them are missing. They’re supposed to be registered, but we don’t know where they are and we don’t know where they’re living.
– Ernie Allen, President of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Childrento co-anchor Hannah Storm on The Early Show

• The most serious and chronic offenders often show signs of antisocial behavior as early as the preschool years.
– (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) (was in Juvenile Justice Bulletin: Nov 1998 OJJDP: U.S. Department of Justice)

CHARLOTTE COUNTY: A Charlotte County couple faces child abuse charges after their twin 4-month-old girls were taken to the hospital with broken bones. The father and mother of the infants, Timothy Waters, 25, and Tabitha Walker, 25, were charged with Aggravated Child Abuse and Child Neglect for Medical Care.

An Ohio toddler who stumbled upon a CD depicting child abuse led authorities to bust a man for sex crimes that happened seven years earlier, and two-thousand miles away, in California. Police in New Philadelphia, Ohio say the disc showed another child being molested by a Canton man, Jeffrey Roderick, perhaps in 2004, and led to his arrest and confession.

A Rosemount man is accused of sexually assaulting an 8-year-old girl by making her wear diapers and urinate on herself while he took pictures and video, which he posted online. Richard Michael Marquardt, 35, was charged in Dakota County District Court with multiple felonies, including five counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count of possession of pornography involving minors, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday.

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. — Police have arrested a man accused in a gruesome family home invasion that left two young brothers dead. Antonio Cardenas Rico, 28, was arrested by Gwinnett County police early this morning and charged with two counts of murder. He’s accused of stabbing Edward Garcia, 1 and Bradley Garcia, 3 to death.

RIVERSIDE — Jurors say a 40-year-old Riverside woman was sane when she stabbed her 17-month-old son to death. That was the decision reached by jurors Thursday today after hearing several days of testimony in the sanity trial of Lori Burchett. The same panel found Burchett guilty last month of first-degree murder, and assault on a child resulting in injury or death, in the slaying of 17-month old Garrison in the family home.

BANNING — Three 13-year-old boys have been arrested in the Inland Empire, after police say they admitted to raping a girl in a park playground as she was walking home from school. Police say it happened Monday evening at Roosevelt Williams park in the city of Banning. The attack occurred just blocks from Nicolet Middle School, where the 13-year-old victim and her attackers are all students.