The man charged with sexually abusing a child earlier this year in Naperville is an adjunct professor at a community college and, reportedly, a minister. James W. French, 63, of upstate Dakota, remained Tuesday in DuPage County Jail in Wheaton on a $250,000 bond. He faces trial on a felony charge of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. Naperville police on Thursday arrested French at his home and seized what Sgt. Gregg Bell characterized as “pertinent evidence to the investigation.” Police on Nov. 16 began looking into French’s activities after being contacted by officials of the DuPage County Children’s Advocacy Center, which investigates molestation allegations involving children.

T.C. Thompson Children’s Hospital officials said Tuesday they are seeing an upsurge in child abuse case. The last week of November, there were six infants brought to Children’s Hospital suffering from non-accidental traumatic head and bone injuries. Two of those infants died. Marisa Moyer of Erlanger’s Safe and Sound program, said, “It’s been awful. I came in one day and saw Dr. (Karla) Garcia with her head in her hands.” Dr. Garcia said the non-accidental traumatic head injuries (shaking a baby fiercely) “is 100 percent preventable.” She and Dr. Annie Church said a combination of the down economy and the holidays may be bringing on the high number of injured infants.

A 26-year-old Coeur d’Alene woman was arrested Sunday on two counts of felony injury to a child after police found her two children living in filthy, unhealthy conditions in Coeur d’Alene.Sgt. Christie Wood of the Coeur d’Alene Police Department told Hagadone News Network, “The conditions have never been this severe.” Police found Elizabeth C. Crossley’s twin 2-year-old girls living in an apartment with a large number of cats and two dogs, and garbage and clutter strewn about, including dirty diapers. Fecal matter was smeared on walls. Urine and feces soaked in and covered the carpet, and the smell of human waste was overpowering to investigators, she said. The stuffed toys the girls clutched also were smeared in feces. Rotten food was in the kitchen, on the stove and counters at the apartment at 1201 N. Lincoln Way, Wood said. “They had bruising on various parts of their bodies and open sores,” she said. “Both girls had dried fecal matter caked on their head, arms, legs, hands, and feet.”

A 4-year-old boy died after he was beaten with a belt Friday as punishment for soiling himself, Mesa Police said. The boy and his 6-year-old brother were left in the care of the mother’s boyfriend, Jorge Busso, 23, while she went to work, the police report said. Busso reportedly drove the mother and 6-year-old to work and school while the 4-year-old waited at home in the 200 block of South 89th Street. According to the police report, Busso smelled a foul odor coming from the 4-year-old’s room. When he realized the smell was from the boy soiling his pants, Busso yelled at the boy and stated he was “very upset.”

Busso had the boy stand alone in a corner of his room for a short period of time before returning and cleaning the boy in the shower. Police said Busso then told the boy he would be punished and placed him against a sharp corner. Busso reportedly told police that he initially spanked the clothed boy’s buttocks with his hand.

LAPLACE, LA – Sad story being reported out of Louisiana where a 15-year-old girl was found beaten to death in her bedroom. Her mother works a third shift job as a security guard and last spoke to her daughter, Taylor Adams, at around 9 p.m. that night. When she came home at around 6:30 a.m. she found her teen daughter dead and covered in blood inside her bedroom. Police say that death was from blunt force trauma to the head and that it happened sometime after 1 a.m. but are not giving out details as to how they arrived at that timeline. No clear motive is known for the attack as there was no sign of forced entry, no sign of robbery and no evidence that she had been sexually assaulted.

A 28-year-old New Jersey man has been arrested for allegedly distributing child pornography over the Internet to an undercover officer. Seth Dixon, of Brick, has since been charged with endangering the welfare of a minor and conspiracy to commit aggravated sexual assault. Dixon was apprehended after investigators say they learned he had distributed child pornography to a 52-year-old man named Walter Domanski Jr. and later reportedly arraigned the former Long Beach Island lifeguard into meeting a 6-year-old girl for sexual purposes.

In a news conference Tuesday afternoon Roanoke County police said Brittany Mae Smith and Jeff Easley were seen in Walmart in Salem Friday night. Police have surveillance video of the pair shopping at the store between 8:00pm and 8:30pm. Authorities say 32-year-old Jeff Easley used Tina Smith’s credit card to purchase items in Walmart. Salem Police have issued warrants for Easley for credit card fraud and credit card larceny. Tina Smith, Brittany’s mother, was found murdered in her home Monday. Police also believe Jeff Easley is using Smith’s car, a silver 2005 Dodge Neon.

The father of two missing children in Mobile, Ala., told authorities that his children are dead and that he had buried them, according to FOX10 News. John DeBlase, 27, allegedly made these revelations during a thorough interview with police, leading investigators to search for the childrens’ bodies within a 100-mile radius of Mobile, according to FOX10 News.

MOUNT CLEMENS, MI – It is an incredibly disturbing case of child abuse. A 13-month-old girl is near death, and a doctor is accused of raping her. 31-year-old David Montaldi is accused of sexually assaulting and abusing his girlfriend’s 13-month-old child, who is now in extremely critical condition.

“If you look at the condition of this child, absolutely incredible how a person can even think of doing something like that to a child,” said Macomb County Sheriff Mark Hackel. Montaldi was a doctor in training, a former resident at Mount Clemens Regional Medical Center up until a few weeks ago, although it is not clear why he was let go.

The mayor of Pitcairn Island, the British territory in the South Pacific convulsed by a child sexual abuse scandal in recent years, has been charged with multiple counts of possessing child pornography. Michael Warren, 46, was arrested by a New Zealand police officer posted to the island, an isolated chunk of rock populated largely by descendants of the Bounty mutineers. More than 1,000 pornographic images and videos featuring children were allegedly found on his computers. At high-profile trials held on the island and in New Zealand in 2004-06, nine Pitcairners were convicted of raping and sexually assaulting girls as young as seven. A British police investigation had uncovered abuse dating back to the 1950s, with 30 locals named as offenders.

Children who are abused or neglected show impairments in cognitive development in adolescence, a large, population-based study found. When tested for literacy skills at age 14, children who had been reported to authorities for either abuse or neglect had a mean difference of ?4.4 points out of 100 (standard deviation 15, 95% CI ?6.3 to ?2.5) compared with children who had not been maltreated, according to Ryan Mills, MPH, of the University of Queensland in Australia, and colleagues. In addition, on testing for abstract reasoning ability, abused or neglected children had a mean difference of ?4.8 points (95% CI ?6.7 to ?2.9), the researchers reported online in Pediatrics.

MIAMI, OK — An Ottawa County man took his life hours after being convicted of child abuse by injury, a prosecutor said Sunday. Christopher William Good, 24, of Miami, was convicted Friday in Ottawa County District Court for seriously injuring his girlfriend’s 15-month-old daughter in April 2006. “The child was literally beaten from head to toe,” said Ben Loring, assistant district attorney. “She was bruised on the top of her head to the bottom of her feet.” The girl, who suffered some brain damage, had cigarette burns, a skull fracture and a broken wrist, he said. The child, now 5, is doing relatively well and in the custody of her father, Loring said.

It is amazing what advancing technology allows computer gurus to accomplish and how easy computers make communicating with one another. Social Networking has spread like a wildfire and everyone who is anyone is part of the Facebook phenomenon. Facebook is a social networking service that allows users to communicate with millions of other active Facebook users. Facebook is responsible for putting in contact lost friends, family and co-workers around the world. Since first launching in 2004, Facebook has reached the half way mark to reaching 1 billion active users and is expected to do so in the next year or so.

Richmond, Indiana – Angela J. Boyd, a 38-year-old Richmond woman has now been formally charged after she allegedly faked the death of her 15-year-old daughter last month. According to the Richmond Police Department, Boyd arranged to have a funeral for her daughter, who she stated had been brutally raped and murdered by her father in Iowa. The service was scheduled for November 9th, at New Life Ministries Church of the Nazarene. The church gathered a collection plate two days before the funeral, and brought an additional collection jar to the service, all for the memory of Boyd’s daughter.