crime

Florida man convicted in decades-old Maryland rape
Washington Post (blog)
On Thursday, a jury in Montgomery County Circuit Court convicted Ricketts of first-degree rape and two charges of first-degree sexual offenses after DNA from the crime matched his profile. Ricketts, a convicted sex offender, had been living in Florida.

and more »

-- A man attacked by a baseball bat-wielding college student is suing the school where the attack happened, saying it failed to protect the... AP http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brandon-wetherbee/

NEW YORK — A dog owner says she thinks there's a chance her prized pet was deliberately poisoned while competing at the Westminster Kennel Club... AP http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jessica-leader/

Music Video Of The Day: Ra Ra Riot 'Dance With Me'
Chicagoist
Music Video Of The Day: Ra Ra Riot 'Dance With Me'. Indie pop rock outfit Ra Ra Riot performs Friday at the Metro. Since you apparently can't watch music videos on television anymore, we'll showcase one here daily. There's no rhyme or reason, time or ...
Ra Ra Riot – Dance With Me | Music VideostupidDOPE.com
Watch Ra Ra Riot's "Dance With Me” (Video)Prefixmag

all 3 news articles »

Police intercepted a record amount of meth in Australia, estimating its worth at $440 million, the BBC reports. Authorities said in a press conference video... The Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ron-dicker/

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A condemned killer's plea for mercy was rejected by Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Thursday, less than a week before he is... AP http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paige-lavender/

Murder charge filed in death of Mississippi mayoral candidate
NBCNews.com (blog)
By M. Alex Johnson, staff writer, NBC News. Authorities charged a Mississippi man with murder Thursday, a day after the body of a candidate for mayor of Clarksdale, Miss., was found. Authorities had been searching for Marco McMillian, 34, since Tuesday ...

Monte Sereno slaying: Alleged prostitute facing murder charge appears in court
San Jose Mercury News
Katrina Marie Fritz, 33, of Pittsburg, faces charges of murder in the commission of a robbery and a separate count of committing a home-invasion robbery in the Nov. 30 killing of Raveesh Kumra. Prosecutors have tacked on a gang enhancement to each of ...

A former coal company executive pleaded guilty Thursday and identified his old boss as part of an effort to cover up safety violations before the worst U.S. mine disaster in decades.

The multi-state manhunt after last week's shooting spree on the Vegas Strip is over. Police in Los Angeles today arrested 26-year-old Ammar Harris, reports the Las Vegas Sun . Harris is accused of firing at a vehicle driven by aspiring rapper Kenneth Cherry, which caused Cherry's car to slam into a...

St. Paul man charged with wife's murder, police still looking for body
KARE
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Prosecutors charged Jeff Trevino of St. Paul with second degree murder on Thursday. He's accused of killing his wife and then trying to cover it up. Police say they continue to search for the body of 30-year-old Kira Trevino Steger ...

Times of India
Board charges juvenile with Nirbhaya's rape and murder
Times of India
NEW DELHI: Finding prima facie evidence against him in the Nirbhaya gang rape case, the Juvenile Justice Board on Thursday served notice on the sixth accused — a minor — for gang rape, murder, kidnapping, unnatural offences, attempt to murder ...
Juvenile in Delhi gang-rape and murder case pleads not guilty to chargesThe Independent
Delhi gangrape: Juvenile court frames rape, murder charges against minorIndian Express
Amanat:Juvenile faces rape, murder charges;but no punishmentOneindia
Naharnet -Saudi Gazette -Global Times
all 42 news articles »

Wall Street Journal (blog)
How to Turn Your Hometown Into a Crime Scene
Wall Street Journal (blog)
When I told my wife about the plot of my crime novel, “Black Irish,” her face grew grave. Not because of the serial murders or the flayed victim or any of the other plot details, but because of the black-edged portrait of my hometown of Buffalo, where ...

KTLA
Misconduct found on jury in Calif. corruption trial
CBS News
LOS ANGELES The judge presiding over the corruption case of several former officials of a Southern California city kicked a juror off the panel Thursday, citing misconduct, CBS Los Angeles station KNX-AM reports. The juror was dismissed after she said ...
Bell corruption trial: Juror dismissed; deliberations to restartLos Angeles Times
Juror Dismissed in Bell, Calif, Corruption CaseABC News
Juror Dismissed in Bell Corruption Trial; Deliberations to RestartKTLA
CBS Local -NBC Southern California -abc7.com
all 13 news articles »

Mystery surrounds the apparent killing of a mayoral candidate in Mississippi.

KTLA
Juror Dismissed in Bell, Calif, Corruption Case
ABC News
A weeping juror was dismissed Thursday for committing misconduct during deliberations in the public corruption trial of six former officials of the suburban city of Bell. The woman juror admitted she looked up information online and had her daughter ...
Misconduct found on jury in Calif. corruption trialCBS News
Bell corruption trial: Juror dismissed; deliberations to restartLos Angeles Times
Juror Dismissed in Bell Corruption Trial; Deliberations to RestartKTLA
CBS Local -NBC Southern California -abc7.com
all 13 news articles »

Ammar Asim Faruq Harris, 26, the suspect in a shooting and crash that left three people dead last week in Las Vegas, has been arrested in Los Angeles, the FBI police said Thursday.

Police chief offers snapshot of crime
Daily Journal Online
Farmington is a safe place to live and do business. That was the word given by Police Chief Rick Baker earlier this week when he gave his annual crime statistics report. The chief said the department logged 3,617 initial incident reports — those being ...

WXYZ
Kwame Kilpatrick corruption trial jury finishes 8 days of deliberation, no verdict
Detroit Free Press
The jury in ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's public corruption trial is finished for the day, wrapping up day eight of deliberations with still no verdict. Deliberations will resume at 9 a.m. Friday in U.S. District Court in downtown Detroit. The ...
Jurors in the Kilpatrick corruption trial resume deliberations on ThursdayWXYZ

all 8 news articles »

Whatta a deal. Daddy assaults the baby for crying and lies about it. He threatens the baby's older brother not to tell. AND HE STILL GETS A PROBATION.

Dad is identified as JOHN F. LEWIS III.

http://www.gillettenewsrecord.com/stories/Shaken-baby,86784?category_id=93&sub_type=stories,maps

Shaken baby
Father is sentenced in the case Thursday

Nathan Payne, City/Living Editor Posted 2/28/13

Melissa Hicks looked into the eyes of her son, Cody, on Thursday morning and wondered what could have been.

As she cradled his tiny body in her arms, she recalled the moments in late June when he stopped breathing while she was holding his 5-week-old frame.

“He died right there in my arms,” she said as a tear streaked down her cheek, leaving a trail of eye makeup. “I found my baby, blue, lifeless and unresponsive. His life was over before it ever started.”

She revived him while her husband called 911.

That was the moment when Cody’s life ended and a lifetime of what could have been began.

Her husband told her that Cody had a bellyache and was in his crib, but she knew his condition was much worse than that as soon as she scooped him up from his bed. Melissa kept him alive for what seemed like hours as she waited for an ambulance to get to her home southeast of Gillette.

The boy, who now is 9 months old, was only a few weeks old when his father, John F. Lewis III, became frustrated with his crying and shook him. Cody’s tiny brain bounced off of the inside of his scull, causing a subdural hematoma, a brain bleed. He stopped crying, not because he was comforted by his father, but because he was dying.

Days of treatment at Campbell County Memorial Hospital gave Melissa no answers. Eventually, after Cody began to convulse uncontrollably, he was sent by air ambulance to Denver.

She knew something was not right.

In the days and weeks following that night when Melissa came home from work to find her son barely clinging to life, John Lewis refused to admit to anybody that he had shaken his son, she said.

Even after doctors at Children’s Hospital of Colorado told the couple that their newborn son was the victim of severe child abuse, he would not admit what he had done. They told the couple to use their last days with their son wisely. They told them it was time to think about getting a priest to give Cody his last rites.

Melissa had to consider asking a priest to lay hands on her boy and, hopefully, provide a calm end to his short life.

But he didn’t die. Each time doctors told Melissa to expect the worst, Cody surpassed their predictions.

Cody has recovered some ­— a few days ago he crawled a little — but still he is months behind where he should be. Doctors say the extent of the damage done to his brain may not be evident until he is much older.

Today, Melissa clings to the small victories, the little glimmers from her son’s eyes or the occasional coo.

Doctors say that the blood that pooled behind Cody’s eyes may have damaged his eyesight permanently.

That parts of his brain that control motor skills were damaged. That the shaking destroyed most of the frontal lobes of his brain.

Eventually, John Lewis admitted to deputies that he had shaken his infant son until he stopped crying. It was Cody’s 7-year-old half-brother who told deputies what Lewis had done.

The boy had the courage to stand up for his infant brother, even after being threatened by his mother’s new husband, Melissa said.

Lewis was charged with aggravated child abuse, a felony, punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

And, in November, the 35-year-old man changed his plea to guilty in a deal with prosecutors that would recommend he not spend a day in prison. It would be a four- to five-year sentence suspended in favor of probation.

The deal infuriated Melissa.

“You’d spend more time for drugs in prison than you do for harming a child,” she said. “Those children need a voice.”

During the change-of-plea hearing, she protested the deal that she says prosecutors struck without consulting her. She asked District Judge Michael N. “Nick” Deegan for a chance to speak. He asked her to write a victim impact statement.

It is a statement that she planned to read Thursday at the 11 a.m. hearing where Deegan would decide whether to stick to the deal prosecutors struck with John Lewis.

Melissa said she would speak not for herself, but for Cody. She would ask that Deegan depart from the prosecutors’ deal and put Lewis in prison for at least five years. She prefers he be locked up for 10.

It would be a voice for a boy who may never have one of his own.