ENCINITAS — Police in San Diego County have released composite sketches of two of three men accused of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a girl while she was walking home from school. The incident happened Friday around 4:10 p.m. in the 800 block of Melba Road in Encinitas. The 15-year-old girl told authorities she was walking home from San Dieguito High School, when three men in a white, four-door sedan forced her into their car.

A Scottsdale man who held his 3-week-old baby girl’s jaw shut to keep her from crying pleaded guilty Friday to aggravated assault and child abuse charges, authorities said. A Maricopa County Superior Court judge is scheduled to sentence Zachary Wilson, 21, on Oct. 25. Scottsdale police arrested Wilson and Jones in April after Jones and her mother took the baby to the emergency room with a swollen head.

Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn emergency room staff discovered a fracture running from the side to the top and also to the back of the head, according to court documents. The child was transferred on April 10 to Phoenix Children’s Hospital where they found the child had nine healing rib fractures and a healing fractured wrist.

Police in North Carolina have charged former Manassas teacher Kevin Ricks with sexually molesting a young boy there more than 30 years ago in a case that stems from evidence that Ricks has abused numerous boys while working as a camp counselor, teacher and foreign exchange host since the late 1970s.

A 48-year-old Minneapolis man who used wireless Internet connections in area coffee shops to share images and videos of children engaged in explicit sexual conduct pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of distributing child pornography.

Ivan W. Tencate admitted to distributing 314 images and 94 videos of child pornography. He was arrested by FBI agents at a downtown Minneapolis Dunn Bros coffee shop after they traced his Internet activity to that location.

A Marshall man could face hundreds of felony charges after a young woman claimed he abused her for a number of years, officials say.

John Wayne Hensley, 44, of 185 Hensley Drive, was arrested Monday by Madison County deputies and charged with three felony counts of taking indecent liberties with a minor, jail records show. A detective said the initial complaint could theoretically lead to hundreds of charges if the district attorney chooses to pursue them. Madison County Sheriff Buddy Harwood said his department began investigating the case after the Department of Social Services reported that a 17-year-old girl said she was being sexually abused since she was in fourth or fifth grade. “She said she couldn’t stand it anymore,” Harwood said. “She said he had been touching her inappropriately for several years.”

A 37-year-old man took the witness stand Thursday to deny charges that he had sexually abused his own son.
The boy, now 8, testified a day earlier in Baltimore County Circuit Court that his father had sought certain acts as “punishment” when the boy misbehaved. Prosecutors say the abuse took place between August 2008 and June 2009, and led to an indictment against the suspect after the boy told his mother about the allegations. The man was charged with sexual abuse of a minor, assault and two sexual-offense counts.

LIVINGSTON PARISH, LA – Livingston Parish Deputies say a father admitted he beat and abused his daughter. The 11 year old girl told deputies she say in handcuffs chained to a desk for hours. She says she ate, slept, and at times used the bathroom while tied to the desk.

BARTOW | A Lakeland man wanted for 15 years on charges that he sexually abused two children was arrested in a New Jersey public housing complex.
Luis Colon-Gonzalez, 59, was booked into the Polk County Jail on Wednesday. He is being held without bond, charged with four counts of sexual battery and two counts of lewd behavior. The Penns Grove, N.J., Police Department said Colon-Gonzalez was arrested without incident Aug. 16. The Polk County Sheriff’s Office was contacted by letter from the housing authority in Penns Grove with a possible address for Colon-Gonzalez, deputies said.

The National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) reported an estimated 1,760 child fatalities in 2007. This translates to a rate of 2.35 children per 100,000 children in the general population. NCANDS defines “child fatality” as the death of a child caused by an injury resulting from abuse or neglect, or where abuse or neglect was a contributing factor.

What is PTSD? Although traumatic events have long been known to cause psychological problems, the disorder itself was first formally characterized in the early 1980s. Even now it is the subject of controversy, with many psychiatrists and clinical psychologists saying a diagnosis of PTSD is meaningless (see articles in recent editions of the British Medical Journal). Personally I do not subscribe to this view, rather I believe the problem is one of inaccurate diagnosis.

Generally speaking PTSD is identified by the following three symptoms: 1) re-experiencing traumatic events (ie, obsessive recollections, flashbacks, nightmares); 2) avoidant symptoms (fear of being with people); and 3) signs of hyperarousal (easily startled, irritable). Traumatized people often suffer from a combination of PTSD, depression and other anxiety disorders. Often the victims of PTSD are mis-diagnosed. For example, some patients will present more severe symptoms of hyperarousal with severe depression. The re-experiencing of events is often mis-diagnosed as “obsessiveness” within a depressive disorder. Hyperarousal symptoms may be mis-diagnosed as insomnia and anxiety within a major depressive episode. Other PTSD victims are mis-diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The six year old daughter of Majd Mohammed Al-Shara, already locked up on a second degree child abuse charge, died of burn injuries received over last weekend.

Al-Shara and his daughter Aliaa had been next to a fire pit when the 40 year old defendant dumped an accelerant, which police think was gasoline, onto the fire. The vapors exploded and the girl, only two feet from the fire, was burned over 90% of her body. Al-Shara received only minor burns.

Aliaa died yesterday at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit.

Michael Williams, 28, a postman, who was jailed for eight-and-a-half years, used social networking sites to groom up to 1,000 child victims over a five-year period. He persuaded hundreds of children aged 10 to 16 to perform sex acts on an internet video camera, or webcam, which he recorded on carefully catalogued computer files.

A retired priest received a 10-year suspended sentence today after entering an Alford plea to one count of child abuse in Frederick County Circuit Court. Visiting Montgomery County Circuit Judge Richard E. Jordan additionally sentenced Thomas Roy Bevan to 18 months of home detention and five years of probation. Additionally, Jordan ordered Bevan to undergo a mental health evaluation and receive treatment.

A Gilbert man, initially charged with first-degree murder in the death of a 13-month-old girl, pleaded guilty to lesser charges in a Maricopa County Superior Court this morning. David Arnold Reed III, 23, copped to manslaughter and child abuse in the 2009 beating death of Cheree Goard, the daughter of his girlfriend. Reed stood trial for the murder charge last month but the jury came back deadlocked. Another trial was scheduled for this month but Reid took the plea deal.