HEMET — The suspect in the murder of a 17-year-old boy fatally shot the victim, then went out for hamburgers and gasoline before he came back and set his friend on fire, a witness said Friday. Jose Campos, 18, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of 17-year old Adrian Rios. 18-year old Ivan Andres Ruiz admitted in court to helping Campos cover up the murder of Rios and escape authorities. He was charged as an accessory and sentenced to six months in jail. Campos’ 17-year-old girlfriend, Felicia Sharp, also is charged in the case. Police said Campos burned Rios’ body in a backyard bonfire and dismembered it with Sharp’s help.

3,500 people are trafficked into the U.S. through I-10 in El Paso each year. Half of them are children! Many of them are forced into labor and sex trafficking. Back in 2005, the Department of Justice gave a small task force a grant to combat sex trafficking here in the borderland. That grant has since dried up, but the task force is doing what they can with what little they have. “It is so difficult to find the victims,” said Virginia McCrimmon. She is the point of contact for the victims of human trafficking. “They are very much afraid, the threats that are used as a means of control,” she said.

David Salsbury, a former Milwaukee County corrections officer, was sentenced Friday to 44 years in prison and nearly 20 years of extended supervision. This, for his conviction on more than a dozen charges of sex crimes against children. Prosecutor Sara Lewis said, “…he (Salsbury) essentially abused and sexually assaulted four different children who were known to him.”

Medford police are investigating whether a sex offender arrested last week on suspicion of having sexual contact with two boys and recording it could have also abused other children. Richard Lee Taylor, 58, of the 700 block of Nobility Drive, was arrested Oct. 6 on numerous charges related to the sexual abuse of children. He was arraigned in Jackson County Circuit Court on Oct. 7 on three counts each of using a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct, encouraging first-degree child sexual abuse, and encouraging second-degree child sexual abuse. The charges carry a bail of $1 million, but Taylor remains lodged in the Jackson County Jail on a no-bail probation violation charge, alleging that he failed to register as a sex offender.

A 21-year-old University of Georgia student is facing child pornography charges after a technical support company sent his computer to authorities. On the laptop, police found disturbing images of sexually abused children, the Athens Banner-Herald reports. One image showed a bound, naked toddler and another showed a child as young as 3 years old, according to warrants obtained by the newspaper.

Facts About Child Abuse

Injured teddy bear.

* 84 percent of prison inmates were abused as children.
* One in three girls and one in five boys are sexually abused by an adult at some time during childhood. (Most sexual abusers are someone in the family or someone the child knows, not the proverbial stranger with a lollipop.)
* Families with four or more children have higher rates of abuse and neglect, especially if their living conditions are crowded or they live in isolated areas.
* More than 80 percent of abusers are a parent or someone close to a child. Child abuse is far more likely to occur in the child’s home than in a day care center.
* One in thirteen kids with a parent on drugs is physically abused regularly. (Drug and alcohol abuse in the family makes child abuse about twice as likely.)
* One out of ten babies born today are born to mothers who are abusing drugs. Drinking and smoking heavily during pregnancy also endangers the health of unborn children.

Suicide was the 11th leading cause of death in the United States. It was the 8th leading cause of death for males, and 19th leading cause of death for females. The total number of suicide deaths was 30,622. The 2001 age-adjusted rate** was 10.7/100,000 or 0.01%. 1.3% of total deaths were from suicide. By contrast, 29% were from diseases of the heart, 23% were from malignant neoplasms (cancer), and 6.8% were from cerebrovascular disease (stroke) – the three leading causes. Suicides outnumbered homicides (20,308) by 3 to 2. There were twice as many deaths due to suicide than deaths due to HIV/AIDS (14,175).

STAMFORD — A 39-year-old father brutally beat and choked his 13-year-old daughter over her school grades Tuesday night, police said. His wife was arrested for allegedly trying to cover up the child abuse. Carlos Chaparro and his wife Yellka Chaparro, 28, were arrested Thursday afternoon by Stamford police officers after their 13-year-old daughter and 17-year-old son reported a vicious case of child abuse. Carlos was held on a $100,000 bond and both will be arraigned Friday afternoon in state Superior Court in Stamford.

LAHORE: The number of child abuse cases have been rapidly growing in Pakistan due to a lack of proper preventive and protective measures adopted by the government, as well as the parents, Sahil, a non-government organisation (NGO) working for children’s rights, said on Thursday, at a press conference held at the Lahore Press Club. Child abuse is a global phenomenon and the developed nations had adopted strict measures to protect their children from such incidents as they could ruin a person’s entire life, a Sahil representative, Iftikhar Mubarak and other officials said. The victims of child abuse had to face many complex psychological problems throughout their lives, they added.

According to a study conducted by the NGO, a break up analysis of gender continued to show that the number of female reported cases of child sexual abuse were higher than the male cases.

The Director of Childline Botswana, Onkemetse Mbazo has said that incidents of child abuse are on the rise in the country. In an interview with The Telegraph, Mbazo said that most of the children they have accommodated are of cases such as jailed parents, neglected children, with some coming from unfit parents. She said that there are also cases of parents who are being abused by their children. “We have accommodated children from one-day old to about five years of age. Family re-integration of children is also a challenge,” said Mbazo, commending the government for assisting NGOs with donations.

Aiken County, SC — The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) has arrested an Aiken daycare owner accused of the death of a 16-month-old infant male. Elouise Wade-Meria Taylor, 51, of Saint Johns Church Road, in Aiken, is charged with Homicide by Child Abuse. According to a SLED arrest warrant, Taylor is accused of shaking the child and causing head trauma, resulting in his death.

Russellville, AL – A 27 year old man from Russellville has been indicted on some serious child abuse charges. Thomas Coalson is accused of violently throwing an 18 month old boy into a playpen to stop him from crying. The incident happened in July at a home in the Freddy Mills Trailer Park in Russellville.The indictment came out of the September grand jury session, and the case could go to trial in December.

The mother of the slain 7-year-old Florida girl whose body was found in a landfill says she will attend every single day of the trial of the man accused of kidnapping, molesting and killing her daughter. A year after Somer Thompson vanished, Diena Thompson has vowed to honor her daughter’s memory by facing 25-year-old Jarred Mitchell Harrell in court. “I still feel guilty for what happened to Somer,” she told NBC’s “Today” show this morning in an emotional interview in which she seemed to struggle at times to finish her sentences. “And so I want her to know that I’ll always be there for her, no matter what the …”

TRENTON, MI–Jennifer Petkov was arrested today for ‘assault using a dangerous weapon’ after she allegedly tried to use her car to run over a neighbor. This is the same woman who had been taunting a dying little girl, Kathleen Edward of Trenton, by posting disturbing photos on Facebook. Police in Trenton tell Fox 2 News that the neighbor Petkov allegedly tried to hit with her car, was not a member of Kathleen Edward’s family or Rebecca Rose’s family, Kathleen’s grandmother.

Petkov remains in jail at this time, pending a bond of $7500 or 10% paid for release. Fox 2 has crews on the way to where she is being processed. Photos and a video report to come.