MOUNT VERNON, Ohio — A man accused of keeping a 13-year-old girl bound and gagged in his basement spent six years in a Colorado prison for setting a fire to cover up a burglary and had been released from parole only a month ago. The teenager’s mother and brother, along with a friend of her mother’s, remained missing Tuesday after authorities searched a lake and park near the suspect’s home. Authorities offered little hope that they would be found alive but planned to continue their search. Matthew J. Hoffman has been held at the Knox County jail since his Sunday arrest on a kidnapping charge.

HARTFORD, Conn. — A driver who’s serving a manslaughter sentence for striking and killing a 14-year-old boy is suing the victim’s parents, blaming them for their son’s death because they allowed him to ride his bike in the street without a helmet. Matthew Kenney’s parents, Stephen and Joanne, sued 48-year-old driver David Weaving shortly after he was sentenced last year to 10 years in prison, accusing him in Waterbury Superior Court of negligence and seeking more than $15,000 in damages. Weaving, who has a history of drunken driving convictions, responded months later with a handwritten countersuit accusing the Kenneys of “contributory negligence.”

STOCKTON, Calif. — New charges have been filed against a former school bus driver accused of molesting an 8-year-old special-needs girl. Richard Evans initially was charged for one alleged incident on Nov. 3, but prosecutors added more charges Monday after learning about a second. Deputy District Attorney Kristine Reed announced three further charges against Evans for allegedly molesting the special needs student on another previous occasion. He was charged with two more counts of sexual assault of a child under 10, and another charge of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14.

The nightmare of post-natal depression is well-known but many mothers suffer from an even more terrifying condition – post-natal psychosis…

Just hours after her first child was born, Rebecca Coggins was ­overcome by an overwhelming sense of fear. ‘My husband was by my side, thrilled at becoming a father, but all I can remember is ­feeling a kind of growing terror,’ says the 33-year-old from Nottingham. ‘I was lying in hospital convinced that ­something terrible was going to happen to baby Amy, that someone was going to try to kill her and I knew I had to get her home in order to be safe.’

BARRIE, Ont. — Elaine Campione’s face suddenly contorted into a grimace and her body shook violently as she stood in the prisoner’s box and the jury announced a guilty verdict Monday. The jury found Campione guilty of two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her daughters, Serena, 3 and Sophia, 1, whom she drowned in the bathtub on Oct. 2, 2006. The jurors deliberated more than six days. Three female jurors silently wiped tears from their eyes. The woman they had just convicted began wailing, then crumpled over in the prisoner’s box.

Los Angeles authorities now know the two infants belonged to nurse Janet M. Barrie. But the identity of the children’s father and why their bodies were kept for decades in a steamer trunk are mysteries. After months of detective work, police have solved one of the mysteries surrounding the mummified remains of two babies discovered in the basement of a Westlake apartment building. DNA tests prove that the dead infants, who were found in a steamer trunk wrapped in newspaper from the 1930s, were the children of the trunk’s owner, Janet M. Barrie.

A young couple and their two children were found shot to death in an apartment in Erie, Pennsylvania, Saturday morning alongside a wounded two-year-old, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. Detectives were investigating the incident as a murder-suicide and believe the father was the gunman, Lt. Tom Eberlein of the Erie Police Department told the paper. Police found the 29-year-old father, 28-year-old mother and two of their children — aged 7 and 4 — dead in the home after acquaintances of the mother dropped by the apartment Saturday morning and discovered the slain family.

A southern New Jersey man has been arrested and charged with murder after he smothered his 4 week old son with a pillow last Thursday. Erik D. Griffin of Burlington City, stated he placed the pillow over his son’s face because the infant would not stop crying. Griffin fled the home after realizing the boy was no longer breathing. The child was found later in the day by his maternal grandmother, who attempted to resuscitate him, but was pronounced dead later at Burlington County’s Lourdes Medical Center in Willingboro.

Holding a picture of her “sweet angel baby,” Tina Lane and others in the packed courtroom watched Aaron Laconsello’s every move as he appeared on camera to answer charges against him. Laconsello, 18, also known as Aaron Michael Hooper, was formally charged Friday with:

Chester, PA — Jorge Alvarado-Barbosa, an 18-year-old cafeteria worker Chester Community Charter School was arrested on assault charges Wednesday after he allegedly punched an 8-year-old boy in the mouth Monday afternoon. According to police, Alvarado-Barbosa was taking out the trash when he saw the child sitting on a rock wall outside. Alvarado-Barbosa reportedly walked over to the child and said, “I put your brother in the headlock.” Obviously unimpressed, the kid replied, “I don’t care.” At that point, Alvarado-Barbosa started screaming at the child, calling him a bitch. He then grabbed the kid, put him in an arm lock and punched him in the face with a closed fist. Alvarado-Barbosa then took the boy, still in an arm lock, and walked him over to his teacher. The teacher took the child to the principal’s office and reported the incident. Portions of the attack were captured on the school’s video surveillance, but the alleged punch was not. Now, you would think the principal would have been on the phone with the police and the kids parents, right? You’d be wrong. According to the kid’s dad, school officials did not inform him of the incident, he heard about it several hours later from his older son. “They didn’t call the police; they didn’t notify the authorities; they didn’t even send him to the nurse,” said the victim’s father, Valdez May. “They left him to clean his own self up.”

St. Albans, VT – Misty Smith, 34, is being held on $1 million bail for allegedly drugging, kidnapping and sexually assaulting three of her 11-year-old son’s friends. Smith was arrested on Wednesday after one of the alleged victims was reported missing by his parents. The 11-year-old boy was seen heading to Smith’s home after school Tuesday afternoon, and when he failed to show up at home, his parents and police canvassed the neighborhood. The boy’s parents visited Smith’s home and asked her three separate times if she had seen the boy – each time, Smith denied having any knowledge of his whereabouts. When an officer questioned Smith about the missing boy that evening, she played stupid once again. Hearing noises coming from an upstairs bedroom, the officer asked if he could take a look. In the bedroom, he found the missing boy and two other 11-year-old boys.

Dallas, TX — Authorities say that after 34-year-old Miguel Torres Sr. wrecked his Ford Expedition late Thursday night, he just up and took off, leaving three of his four children behind. Torres reportedly slammed into a light pole and lost control of the vehicle, sending it spinning. His 5-year-old daughter, Mia, was thrown from the SUV, car seat and all, and landed in the middle of the street. Torres kept driving. He stopped at a park about a mile away, took his 11-month-old daughter Emma from the vehicle and beat feet – leaving his 6- and 9-year-old sons inside the SUV. The 9-year-old, who was not injured, was able to flag down help for his brother Thomas, who suffered a serious gash to the head.

When Elizabeth Smart stepped down from the stand, ending three days of excruciatingly personal testimony Wednesday, she had painted her accused kidnapper as a brutally cruel, religious zealot obsessed with sex. Speaking in a controlled voice, her words tinged with anger, Smart called Brian David Mitchell selfish and a “hypocrite” who raped her at every chance he got even while proclaiming himself to be God’s servant. “I’m always impressed by her grace, her dignity, but most of all her courage,” John Walsh of “America’s Most Wanted” told “Good Morning America” today. “She’s been waiting to get on that witness stand for years.”

MUNCIE, Ind. — School officials said they didn’t call police after a Muncie Central High School student reported she was raped because they wanted to investigate her story themselves.The 16-year-old girl told staff members she was raped inside a bathroom at the school just after noon Tuesday, 6News’ Joanna Massee reported.School officials said they called the girl’s guardian but opted not to contact police, even though there was an officer in the building at the time. After reporting the rape, the girl said she was told the write a report about the incident and was kept in the principal’s office for two hours.Police didn’t become involved until about four hours later when a worker from a troubled children’s center took the girl to a hospital to be examined.