Crime News

       Joshua Zoch Three Suspects Charged in Death of Josh Zoch 3 teens arrested in fatal beating Closing arguments expected in Kershaw Co. murder trial Christopher Ryan Whitehead Derrick McDonald Robert Lee Cannon

                       Dawn Ruger The Charley Project: Dawn Renee Ruger Missing woman found dead; man arrested Man arrested after woman’s body found southeast of Sumas Woman’s body found near Paradise Valley Man Arrested After Woman’s Body Found Near Sumas Man arrested after woman’s body found southeast of Sumas Inmate Information PRICE BENJAMIN CORY Incarceration Date: 19:35:00 05/12/08 Scheduled Release: Jail Housing Location: C Pod Visitation Hours: Fridays 6:00PM to 7:05PM Arrest Date : 15:30:00 05/12/08 Arrest Type : INVESTIGATIVE HOLD Arrest…

         Tracie Williamson                     Lindzie Williamson Jessica Perez Family says deaths could have been prevented Home’s location may have contributed to time it took to find bodies Man Killed Girlfriend And 2 Children In Murder-Suicide, Police Say Four bodies found inside South Salt Lake home Four dead in murder-suicide in South Salt Lake S. Salt Lake cops find 4 dead in apparent murder-suicide

              Lucely “Lilly” Aramburo The Charley Project Lucely “Lilly” Aramburo Missing Since 6/2/2007 Miami, FL Websleuths: Lilly Aramburo A MySpace for Lilly Family asks for help in finding At Risk Missing Person Lillly Aramburo Where is Lilly? Christen’s MySpace                  Christen Pacheco

5 Bodies, Including 3 Children, Found in Houston Home Five bodies found inside NE Houston home Young children among 5 found dead in home Family of five found dead Family Of 5 Found Dead At Northeast Houston Home

Trench Reynolds: DBKP This Week in Crime - May 4-10 The weekly wrap up from yours truly. ShareThis

Charlotte OKs millions to fight crime The Charlotte City Council voted Monday to approve a $4.8 million plan to boost efforts to fight crime. More than likely though they’ll just use it to install a new revolving door at the Mecklenburg County Jail. ShareThis

Michigan Teen Gets Life Sentence for ‘Thrill Kill’ Beheading Jean Pierre Orlewicz, 18, didn’t speak before being sentenced to the mandatory term. “I am grateful that you are going away for the rest of your life, because in my view I believe you will kill again,” Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Annette Berry said. You’d be surprised how many defenders this scumbag had. ShareThis

Holy Mug Shots, Batman! Again we have The Smoking Gun’s weekly mugshot round up along with the ever amusing accompanying FARK thread. I wonder what #1 did. She looks too cute to be in a mugshot. ShareThis

Eco-Terrorist Gets 19 Years In Prison A man convicted of conspiracy in an eco-terror case was sentenced Thursday to 19 years and seven months in prison, U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott said. Eric McDavid, 30, was convicted in March of conspiring to damage or destroy property by fire and an explosive. The suspected Earth Liberation Front member threatened to bomb Nimbus Dam and the forest service building in Placerville. Of course his family is crying entrapment. See you in 20 years hippie. ShareThis

Monday's Decisions from the Ninth Circuit: Jon Sands at Ninth Circuit Blog posted a summary of the Ninth Circuit's decisions in U.S. v. Caruto, Woods v. Carey, and Miller v. Blackletter. Defendant's rights appeared to be the theme of the day. U.S. v. Caruto addressed whether a prosecutor could argue the omissions in a defendant's post-arrest statement before invoking her Miranda rights. The Ninth Circuit held the prosecutor could not. Miller v. Blackletter involved the denial of a defendant's request for a trial extension to search for another attorney. Yesterday's Ninth Circuit decision held…

Fast Track DP in Utah? The Utah legislature is considering putting a constitutional amendment on the 2010 ballot that would shorten post conviction review of death penalty cases. The measure, which has been proposed by the Attorney General, would set time limits for raising constitutional claims in the state courts. A story by Pamela Manson of the Salt Lake City Tribune quotes one Deputy AG who said that under the current lax post conviction review process, "we have the death penalty on the books, but no death penalty." Murderer's Appeal Rejected: A Texas inmate convicted and sentenced to…

California Supreme Court's decision in Humberto S. was not the only prosecutor recusal opinion issued by the California Supreme Court today. Today, the court also decided Hollywood v. Superior Court and Haraguchi v. Superior Court. The case of Jesse James Hollywood (really) involved the murder of Nick Markowitz. According the court's statement of facts, Hollywood is accused of ordering the kidnapping and eventual murder of Nick in order to extort repayment from Nick's older half-brother Ben. After Nick was killed, Hollywood became a fugitive and fled to Brazil. The prosecutor obtained…

The California Supreme Court today issued a decision regarding the proper role of prosecutors when the defense attempts to access information protected by a privilege held by the victim. In a child molestation case, the trial court recused a large portion of the Los Angeles County DAs office for supposedly stepping outside its role as the public prosecutor to represent the victim in resisting defense efforts to access her privileged psychotherapy records. The Supreme Court held that there was no conflict. The prosecution may appear in a discovery proceeding and resist disclosure. Opinion…

No decision yet in the Guantanamo detainee case, Boumediene v. Bush. Be sure to tune in next week, same time, same channel. The Court decided Gonzalez v. United States on the (yawn) question of whether consent to having the jury voir dire in a federal criminal trial be done by a magistrate judge instead of a full-fledged district judge requires the personal waiver of the defendant as opposed to simple consent by counsel. No, 7-1-1. The lone new cert. grant is Bell v. Kelly, No. 07-1223, a capital habeas case on the extent of deference to state court decisions under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The…

Government has assured South Africans that only the best crime investigators will be incorporated into the new Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI) which will replace the Scorpions unit.

MUNCIE, Ind. (AP) - A Ball State University student says he and his friends were attacked outside a Muncie bar because of their sexuality. Twenty-one-year-old Kyle Flood of Indianapolis, who is gay, says he considers the attack a hate crime.

CRIME levels in Gloucestershire are as low as they were in 1990, according to the latest annual crime figures unveiled this week. In total, there were 6,703 fewer recorded offences compared to this time last year, with all crime down by 13 per cent across the three divisions.

Hub cops have vowed to continue a blitz on car crime as a city councilor called for them to rev up more sting operations to put the brakes on vehicular villains. A Herald...

MUNCIE, Ind. (AP) - A Ball State University student says he and his friends were attacked outside a Muncie bar because of their sexuality. Twenty-1-year-old Kyle Flood of Indianapolis, who is gay, says he considers the attack a hate crime.

Pete Doherty - Doherty Returns To Stage After Prison Stint

Prison Employees Receive Settlement

Attempted robbery suspect not fit for trial

Armed Robbery In Metro

Ellsworth: Grandmother robbery case going to trial

People find Crime Rant by typing in the strangest search strings. Sometimes they are ironic to the nth degree. This week some internet surfer entered the following into a search engine: how interview teaching job with blemished record They landed on Jennifer Rice: I Know What Boys Like. That’s the post about the Tacoma teacher who kidnapped and raped her 10-year-old student. Makes us wonder just how blemished was this searcher’s resume?

Guest blog by Doug Sacrison, Crime Rant intern Uh-oh! Watch out South Carolinians. You’ve got gypsies! And where there’s gypsies, you can bet tramps and thieves aren’t far behind. Sheriffs in South Carolina are warning residents to watch out for gypsies. The “travelers” or “tinkers” are apparently roaming the state looking for a quick buck through scams. Or maybe the cops just want you to think that. Gypsies have long been given a bad rap throughout the world, so maybe the authorities in Cherokee County are just now getting on that bandwagon. The…

Remember Oklahoma judge Donald Thompson who was caught red-faced and red-handed pleasuring himself underneath his robe with a penis pump during courtroom proceedings?  Crime Rant readers were disgusted by the incident and told us so. Now here comes Elizabeth Halverson, a Nevada judge, who has rewritten the rules of court protocol to benefit herself.  Here’s what the AP said today: LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) — Elizabeth Halverson is a judge. But the way courthouse staffers see it, she expects to be treated like a queen. Her former bailiff, for example, says Halverson made him feel like a…

[CR Note: Thomas Loudamy is an aspiring journalist who has written to hundreds of serial killers, female murderers, celebrities in prison. Thomas estimates he has received thousands of letters written by about 400 American and Canadian inmates since he started his unusual pen pal hobby in 2001. He shares letters from his files every Friday here on Crime Rant. This week, he gives us a peek into the mind of a trio of men cooling their heels in prison — including Crime Rant favorite, Bobby Cutts, Jr., the cop turned killer that broke our hearts by murdering Jessie Davis and her baby last…

Here’s my tip of the day before we get going: Never trust a guy with one of those Vincent Price/Robert Goulet/ Josef Fritzl pencil-thin mustaches. I’m not saying the Pancho Villa/Geraldo is the way to go here, but stick with me. What brings me to this observation is the fact that, with all that is wrong in our world today, what is important seems to be overlooked by a media hungry for the next celeb mishap, or an incest story that makes your skin crawl. What happened to the hardcore news, centered around social issues that truly matter? Does anybody really care anymore? Last night, the…

Recently advertised jobs in the UK: Research Assistant, Judging Offenders: the role of observers’ emotions, Department of Psychology, University of Kent: The successful candidate will work on the ESRC funded research project “Judging Offenders: the role of observers’ emotions under the direction of Dr Jane Wood. The project examines how people’s trait emotions and moods influence the way they perceive offenders and their subsequent judgements of how the offender should be treated. Closing date: 9 May Senior Lecturer, Applied Criminology, Department of Crime and Policing Studies,…

The May 2008 issue of Criminal Justice and Behavior (Volume 35, No 5) is a special issue on child sexual abuse, particularly timely in view of the Pope’s current visit to the USA. Abstracts can be accessed here, though you’ll need to pay or have a subscription to view the full articles. Here are the contents: Karen J. Terry - Stained Glass: The Nature and Scope of Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church Margaret Leland Smith, Andres F. Rengifo, and Brenda K. Vollman - Trajectories of Abuse and Disclosure: Child Sexual Abuse by Catholic Priests Alex R. Piquero, Nicole Leeper…

Did a psychological profile go too far? Via the Associated Press, 6 April: His life a shambles after he was sent to prison for murder, then set free with new evidence, Timothy Masters paused to reflect on the calamitous series of events that brought him to ruin’s precipice. Almost 21 years passed before DNA evidence proved what he’d been saying all along: He is no killer. He was just a teenage boy with a hobby of drawing gruesome pictures. His sketches of shootings, stabbings, explosions, torture were used as evidence to convict him of killing an aspiring writer in 1987, a…

My life’s a bit busy at the moment with not much time for considered blogging. Forgive me if, for a little while, I post interesting titbits without much commentary (better, I think, than posting nothing at all, or posting ill-considered commentary). Three articles caught my eye in the latest issue of The Social Science Journal. The first is on homicide in the US South: A significant literature has evolved in the last 40 years investigating regional variation in lethal violence, with most studies focusing on Southern homicide rates…. We investigate regional variations in the…

Recently advertised jobs: Lecturer/Senior Lecturer (0.1 or 0.2fte), Forensic Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University: The School of Psychology invites applications for a fractional lectureship in forensic psychology. You will contribute to teaching and project supervision in the area of forensic psychology. Closing date: Friday 4 April 2008 Lecturer/Senior Lecturer, Crime Science, Northumbria University: This is a new post to join a closely knit team in teaching crime science on a range of undergraduate and post graduate programmes. You will also have the opportunity to contribute to the…

Starting next year across the country, rape victims too afraid or too ashamed to go to police can undergo an emergency-room forensic rape exam, and the evidence gathered will be kept on file in a sealed envelope in case they decide to press charges. The new...

Oakland police are investigating a marijuana-growing operation at an apartment complex overlooking Lake Merritt that was uncovered after firefighters put out a blaze there early today. About 150 marijuana plants worth thousands of dollars were found inside...

A man on parole from Arkansas was arrested today in connection with a hit-and-run crash that killed a 57-year-old Daly City man a few blocks from his home. Police had tracked the suspect, Russell R. Real, 28, of Daly City, to Silver Springs, Nev., during the...

DNA from a cigarette butt left at the scene of burglary has led to the arrest of a suspect in a fatal Vallejo hit-and-run crash, authorities said today. Solano County prosecutors have charged Joseph Padua, 43, of Vallejo with felony hit-and-run and vehicular...

A parolee from Oakland was arrested for a sexual assault on an El Cerrito pathway underneath the BART tracks, police said today. Troyshawn Robinson, 20, is accused of confronting a man and a woman walking along the path near Gladys Avenue about 8:15 p.m....

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it 7,846 times, drugs make you stupid. They also make you impotent, slow and hungry. If they made you white, drugs will also make you into your average right wing radio talk show host. According to the AP, a man walking through a security checkpoint got busted with weed. [...]

The level of some people’s intelligence astounds me, but the only thing that astounds me more is the intelligence people have when it comes to how low they think other people’s intelligence is as well. Don’t drag us down to your evolutionary level. According to the AP, a man tried to pass off a fake winning [...]

Mothers’ Day is just around the corner and we here DumbCriminals.com want to honor all the mothers out there by using this cruel, tragic and badly timed story to remind all of your ungrateful children who haven’t bought you a present yet that your mother can and will shoot in the leg with a BB [...]

There are some stories that make you question where humanity is headed and if were aren’t heading down in a spiral of stupidity and ignorance. Then there are stories that make you question if we’re already there. According to the , a man has been arrested for punching a camel. Not a cigarette or the cigarette’s [...]

Identity theft has taken on a new form recently by arresting suspects using other names and personal information when they are charged at the scene of a crime. What’s in a name, though? Well in this case, it’s first degree murder and vehicular homicide. According to the AP, a man used the name of a wanted [...]

Mixing a little business with pleasure, police in Bismarck, North Dakota, arrested a suspect for stealing stuff from their annual auction. The sale, held May 10 at the police impound lot, attracted hundreds of people. One of those people, an unidentified 40-year-old man, was caught stealing a screwdriver set from the inside of one of the vehicles that was [...]

An apparent case of the munchies got four teenagers in Hailey, Idaho, in trouble with police there the night of May 10 at a McDonald’s restaurant on North Main Street. One teen was arrested on suspicion of driving while under the influence and all four face possible misdemeanor possession of marijuana charges, according to Hailey Assistant [...]

Authorities in McMinnville, Tennessee, have arrested a man whom they say misdialed and ordered pot from a sheriff’s deputy there. Sheriff Jackie Matheny said that Deputy Jason Rowland was off duty when his cell phone rang and the voice on the other end asked if he had any “smoke.” Rowland played along and the caller ordered [...]

A man in Fort Pierce, Florida, apparently had exhausted all other options the morning of May 7 to get his girlfriend to stop yelling at him. So as the couple argued, the man, identified as 41-year-old Israel Rosado, decided to cut himself with a kitchen knife. “This was the only way to get that stupid (woman) to [...]

A man in Cromwell, New Zealand, who robbed a bank there back on April 3 was a little too anal for his own good. He was found with the cash hidden up his anus, Judge Alistair Garland heard in the Alexandra District Court heard May 8. The unemployed man, identified as 36-year-old Michael Geoffrey Linn, confessed that day [...]

Texas child welfare officials say the member of a polygamist sect who gave birth last month is not a minor as they had said previously.

Advocates of electronic monitoring technology say its use on repeat criminal offenders could save lives. Its detractors fear a widening breach of civil liberties and an illusory sense of protection.

A man and woman opened fire on guards at an entrance to an American Indian reservation and fled into its hilly interior, where they were killed in a gun battle with sheriff's deputies and a police commando team, authorities said.

The House of Yahweh is a different, even darker Texas sect that the state has been investigating for years.

A federal judge in Detroit has dismissed the case of a Muslim woman who sued a judge for demanding she remove her veil in court.

The 'New York' season finale will leave viewers in suspense. Spoilers inside.

The 'CSI' star will be in court later this month.

An unexpected visitor crashes a funeral, and Warrick faces more trouble with Lou Gedda in the season eight finale. Major spoilers inside!

Three new episodes air this week, including 'CSI''s season finale. Official plot details and cast lists inside.

The franchise continues to place as usual.

A woman walked into the Santa Clara police station last week to complain about her arrest on drug and DUI charges, according to an item on the police log. The problem? According to the police, she was under the influence of a controlled substance again! And we all know what happened — she was...

A San Bruno man pleaded no contest today to shooting three teenage boys with a BB gun, according to a Bay City News Service story. It seems the guy decided to join a water balloon fight with his 13-year-old neighbor and two of the boy’s friends. But what started out as lobbing water [...]

A caller reported to Palo Alto police that someone took two dogs from her “by force.” Outright theft? Dispute about ownership? Isolated incident? Intriguing. We’ll have to watch the logs for a possible trend. Police log May 12

The Los Gatos-Monte Sereno police log — usually not the most interesting among the logs we get into the newsroom — contained two unusual thefts. First, someone broke into a residence and only took one item — a pair of earrings worth $11,000. Sounds like the burglar might have...

Tucked into the Los Gatos/Monte Sereno police log, between even more reports of identify fraud linked to an electronic payment machine at Lunardi’s on Blossom Hill Road, is a report of rather nasty vandalism at a store on Union Avenue. Apparently someone poured glue into the locking...

We have just released a comprehensive report on mortgage fraud, with plenty of hard numbers and details on emerging scams.

Each year, we investigate hundreds of heart-breaking human trafficking cases. Learn about our strategies and victim services.

Connecting to an unsecure network can leave you vulnerable to attacks by hackers. What you need to know.

Find out how our undercover sting exposed graft and greed in the government of Tennessee.

Whether you skate for sport or fun, it’s great exercise. Inline skating burns as many calories per minute as running, and puts less strain on your joints. But if done recklessly, skating could mean serious harm. Before you hit the pavement for your next workout, check out these skating safety tips from the National Safety Council (NSC): Always wear protective gear, including a helmet, knee and elbow pads, and wrist guards. Master the basics of skating – striding, stopping, and turning – before going out on your own. If you’re just learning, consider taking a lesson. Skate on the right…

According to the Federal Trade Comission, as many as 9 million Americans fall victim to some type of identity theft every year. Would you know what to do if you became a target? Matthew Bowen, online expert for the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) offers some simple advice to help protect yourself online. (more…)

Making extra cash from the comfort of your own home sounds like a pretty great deal, but it can be hard to tell which companies are legitimate. According to the Federal Trade Commission, over 2 million Americans fell victim to a work at home scheme last year. The are variations on these schemes, but they typically involve receiving packages, relabeling them and sending them out again. Even if you do receive money for postage and your time, these funds may be coming from stolen or counterfeit credit cards or checks.U.S. Postal Inspector Ken Jones offers us his best advice: only work for…

Whether keeping up with friends, sharing music, or doing research for a school project, teens are very familiar with the power of social networking, and they’re spending more and more of their time using these tools. The AMW Safety Center has frequently posted tips for how parents can help keep their kids safer when surfing the web. But parents should also be aware that while online social networks are allowing kids to develop a broader group of friends and access to a wide array of information, these tools are also serving to influence teen behaviorfor better or for worse. Peer…

It seems like it would be great news if someone told you that you’d won a sweepstakes prize. But if you ever receive a check and the sender asks you to send them any money back, you are the target of fraud. According to the NCL, fake check schemes are the most commonly reported type of internet fraud. No matter how legit a check or money order looks, even if you are able to cash it, you will be responsible for any funds deposited and withdrawn. Unfortunately, by the time you realize it’s a scam, it’s usually too late. (more…)

With cybercrime now a global phenomenon, perhaps it will take a global police organization to keep it in check...

In the recently released internet thriller Untraceable, starring Diane Lane, a criminal uses advanced technology to ensure that his own macabre...

dentity theft, pornography, corporate blackmail – in the web's underworld, business is booming. Rob Sharp finds out what's happening where, and whether we can ever stop it...

Williams uses his computer and detective skills, honed during years of fighting cyber crime at the Fayetteville Police Department, to operate his own private company...

How do you walk that fine line between privacy, law enforcement, and citizen rights in dealing with computer crimes...?

A 9-year-old boy was in critical condition Tuesday night after he was run down by a speeding car in Brooklyn just steps away from his home and school, police said.

Accused Manhattan madam Kristin Davis' lawyer urged a Manhattan judge Tuesday to spring his buxom, pasty-faced client from jail, calling the case against her "beefless."

The FBI busted four more school officials Tuesday in a growing probe of corruption in the unit that performs safety inspections of school buses.

A Brooklyn jury took just 30 minutes Tuesday to convict an ex-con of killing a 3-year-old girl and badly wounding three others when he sprayed an apartment with a .357 magnum.

There will be no free lunch for a couple of crooked rabbis who pleaded guilty Tuesday to ripping off a government program to feed needy students at Brooklyn yeshivas.

... 400 foreign children vulnerable to exploitation in prostitution, the drugs trade and domestic servitude went ... suspected victim of child trafficking - a crime the United Nations has described as "a ... represented, with missing under-18s from Iraq, Afghanistan, China and India. From Europe, young Moldovans, Albanians ...

... Deleon Vanegas, 20, was originally charged with murder in the death of 15-year-old Fernando Cortez ... him there anyway. They rented movies, got Chinese takeout and stopped by a drug house ...

... she gave him more ILLEGAL immigrant from China who tied up, tortured and robbed his ... and gagged his former boss at a Chinese restaurant and her teenage son and daughter. ... one of Lin's accomplices has since been murdered by the gangsters who brought him into ...

... Mark Thomas: My Life in Serious Organised Crime - BBC Radio Entertainment for BBC Radio ... Affairs for BBC Radio Ulster Silver: The Assassination of Benazir Bhutto - BBC World Service ... BBC Radio 3 Bronze: The World Today: Chinese Congress - BBC World Service News & ...

... firm says San Francisco can better fight crime if it closes half of its ten ... city, notably around the Tenderloin. However, most homicides occur in the Mission and Bayview neighborhoods. ... manpower to check around the neighborhood," says Chinatown's Daniel Luu. Police Chief Heather Fong is ...

Military facilities around the country are dealing with an increasingly common threat: trespassers who comb dangerous bombing ranges and other combat areas in search of valuable scrap metal. And because commodity prices have soared over the past two years, these so-called "scrappers" have become more brazen in their hunt for munitions.

Authorities say they'll begin digging for evidence of graves at a California ranch where Charles Manson's infamous "family" of outcasts and drifters once made their home. Inyo County Sheriff Bill Lutze said he will allow a limited four-day excavation at Barker Ranch beginning May 20 because forensic tests of the soil had produced mixed results.

Police detained a suspected pedophile in New Jersey Thursday, just two days after Interpol made a rare appeal for public help in the international manhunt to catch him, the police agency said.

Police arrest the Reverend Al Sharpton for stopping traffic as he and hundreds protest the verdicts in the Sean Bell shooting trial in New York Wednesday. The civil rights leader was arrested on disorderly conduct charges along with Bell’s fiance, two survivors of the shooting and nearly 200 other demonstrators.

The San Diego County district attorney's office says nearly 100 students have been arrested at San Diego State University on drug-related charges.