Crime Newswire

We're told that the murdered baby "had been in the care of her father," but we don't know what that means. Was he custodial? Was this a visitation situation? Was he "babysitting" while Mom was forced to work?

Dad is identified as EDUARDO OROZCO.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-arrest-baby-20130512,0,7440013.story

Father held on suspicion of killing 6-month-old girl

By Julie Cart

May 12, 2013, 9:22 p.m.

A man is in jail after being arrested on suspicion of killing his 6-month-old daughter, authorities said Sunday.

L.A. County sheriff deputies were sent to a home in an unincorporated part of Whittier on Friday to investigate the death of the child, who had been in the care of her father.

Authorities identified the suspect as 20-year-old Eduardo Orozco.

The child had suffered blunt-force injuries and was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead, said sheriff's Sgt. Al Cano.

An investigation led to Orozco’s arrest Saturday night. He is being held without bail at the Norwalk sheriff’s station.

A Florida woman accidentally shot her friend in the leg while waiting in line at a Starbucks on Saturday. Police say Pamela Beck and Amie... Janie Campbell http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janie-campbell/

Dad is identified as MICHAEL BELL JR.

http://scotchplains.patch.com/articles/ucpo-plainfield-father-arrested-for-allegedly-beating-his-3-month-old-child

UCPO: Plainfield Father Arrested for Allegedly Beating His 3-Month-Old Child

The infant that Michael Bell Jr., 34, is accused of attacking remains in grave condition at Robert Wood University Hospital.

1:00 am The following press releases were received from the Union County Prosecutor's Office.

Update, May 11

Michael Bell Jr. , 34, was arrested Saturday night in Newark while attempting to flee the state via bus, announced Prosecutor Theodore J. Romankow. The Union County Homicide Task Force, New Jersey Transit Police Department, and the Amtrak Police Department arrested Bell near Penn Station following a cooperative effort.

Bell was transported to the Union County Jail and ordered held without bail by Superior Court Judge Robert Mega.

The infant that Bell is accused of attacking remains in grave condition at Robert Wood University Hospital. More information will be released as it becomes available.

Original Release, May 10

The Union County Homicide Task Force and the Plainfield Police Division are actively searching for a man wanted in connection with the severe beating of an infant.

Police were called to a house on the 200 block of Lee Place in Plainfield around 10:35 p.m. Friday. There, they discovered an injured 3-month-old child who was immediately transferred to Robert Wood Johnson Hospital, said Prosecutor Theodore J. Romankow. Doctors later determined that the child, now listed in grave condition, was suffering from fractures and internal bleeding.

Authorities have charged the child’s father, 34-year-old Michael Bell with 2nd Degree Aggravated Assault. Bell fled the house after allegedly assaulting the child, and police are actively searching for him, said Romankow. Additional charges against Bell are expected to be filed in due course.

Anyone with information that leads to the arrest of Michael Bell is eligible for a reward of up to $5,000 from Union County Crime Stoppers. Anonymous tips can be called into (908) 654-TIPS or registered at www.uctip.org.

Additional information will be released as it becomes available.

ORANGEBURG, S.C. -- Investigators say they have arrested a South Carolina man, accusing him of stealing money from his grandmother, along with her electric wheelchair.... AP http://www.huffingtonpost.com/emily-thomas/

One of the Supreme Court's most celebrated criminal procedure decisions turns 50 years old Monday. By a 7-2 vote, the Court ruled in the 1963... Radley Balko http://www.huffingtonpost.com/radley-balko/

Dad is identified as GARFIELD GOOD FACE.

http://www.argusleader.com/viewart/20130513/UPDATES/305130024/Fund-set-up-Pierre-baby-allegedly-killed-by-father

Fund set up for Pierre baby allegedly killed by father

May 13, 2013 6:22 AM

Written by Associated Press

PIERRE — A memorial fund has been set up for a 2-month-old boy whose father is charged in his death.

Twenty-nine-year-old Garfield Good Face, of Pierre, faces a second-degree manslaughter charge in the Thursday death of his son, Teirnyn.

KCCR radio reports that a cause of death has not yet been determined. Hughes County State’s Attorney Wendy Kloeppner says an autopsy is planned. The Probable Cause Affidavit, which states the reason for a suspect’s arrest, has been sealed at the attorney’s request.

Pierre police received a called of an unresponsive infant about 9:30 a.m. Thursday. When officers arrived to Good Face’s home, they began CPR on the child. Teirnyn was pronounced dead after being transported to a hospital.

The Teirnyn Good Face Memorial Fund is set up at Wells Fargo.

Ron FranscellA few years back, I wrote a book entitled, Sun Struck: Sixteen Infamous Murders in the Sunshine State.  During my research, I made a brief trip to Homosassa to visit the site where Jessica Lunsford was abducted and murdered.  While standing in front of the burned-out ruin of a shabby mobile home, chills crept up my spine.  (One or more unknown citizens had set the trailer on fire as if to wipe away the stain of murder.)  Here a beautiful, well-adjusted, and totally innocent pre-teen girl had been sadistically brutalized.  As I viewed the spot where John Couey buried Jessica alive, I recoiled in utter horror. 

In his series of state guides to the locales of infamous crimes, true crime author and award-winning novelist Ron Franscell has recorded hundreds of locations where the reader can experience the same emotions as I did on that day in Homosassa.  So far, he and Globe Pequot Press have created the following books: The Crime Buff’s Guide Outlaw Texas; The Crime Buff’s Guide to Outlaw Washington, DC; The Crime Buff’s Guide to Outlaw Rockies; and The Crime Buff’s Guide to Outlaw Pennsylvania, due out in the fall of this year.  These books not only describe some of the most interesting crimes in US history, they provide the reader with GPS coordinates to the sites. 

Ron agreed to answer a few questions about the creation of this intriguing series, and about future editions.

How did you come up with the idea for the Crime Buff’s Guide series?

My wife and I were traveling across northern Louisiana and I wanted to see the spot where lawmen ambushed Bonnie and Clyde in 1934.  In the nearby village of Gibsland, we asked a fella how to get to the monument on a lonely rural road. He told us, but whether the directions were bad or we misunderstood, we couldn’t find the place.  We returned to town and asked somebody else. The directions were different … but we still couldn’t find it.  We finally succeeded on our third try, but by then the afternoon was banjaxed and I was frustrated.

“Wouldn’t it be much easier if instead of counting mailboxes and left-hand turns they just gave us GPS coordinates?” I spluttered.  And in that instant, the CRIME BUFF’S GUIDE books were conceived!  So far, we’ve covered Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, Maryland, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania (in October). Coming soon will be Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Nevada.

A lot of history is hidden, especially crime history. It’s so well hidden that we often dash through life blissfully unaware that some of the most startling crimes in America happened right in our own backyards—sometimes literally. By harnessing the power of satellite navigation, I wanted to help fellow history and crime buffs discover something extraordinary in ordinary places – to show how surprisingly close we live to the darker side of American history.

Why is location so important?

I’m an old-school newspaperman. I believe there’s something important to be learned from “being there.”  For example, I always imagined JFK’s assassination had been a great drama played out on a great stage – so expansive that one man couldn’t possibly have committed that heinous murder at such a great distance.  Then I visited Dealey Plaza, which was, in reality, much more intimate and small than I imagined.  When I peered down on the fateful spot from Oswald’s sixth-floor perch, I realized that any Wyoming kid who ever hunted rabbits with a .22—as I did—could have made that shot.  “Being there” changed my whole perspective of that tragic event.

Crime is part of history, part of who we are.  So the history of crime is important to understanding our culture.  And just like other historic sites where imagination, myth and history entangle, significant outlaw-related sites can also offer a glimpse beneath the surface of the present.  As every traveler knows, visiting important—and sometimes forgotten—places can enlarge our understanding of history infinitely.

The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre happened in a Chicago warehouse that’s now a park where children play. The Black Dahlia’s dismembered body was found in an open field that today is somebody’s suburban Los Angeles front yard. Actor Fatty Arbuckle’s debauchery took place in a landmark San Francisco hotel room—which you can still rent today.  You can eat at a Scottsdale strip-mall restaurant once owned by Gambino mob informer Sammy “The Bull” Gravano while he was in witness protection.

And without asking for vague directions, you can stand on the exact spot where Bonnie and Clyde died in a storm of gunfire.

What are some of the favorite cases you’ve researched for your books?

It’s impossible to visit the site of the Columbine mass murder in Littleton, Colorado, and not be moved.  It’s impossible to stand in Ford’s Theatre and not feel surrounded by ghosts.  And it’s impossible to visit the crumbling site of the famous Chicken Ranch—“the best little whorehouse in Texas”—and not smile.

But many of my favorite places have told very human stories.  There’s a cemetery in Texas where the patriarchs of two feuding families, killed by each other in a fatal barroom brawl, are buried side-by-side and (by order of the sheriff) their two graves have been literally chained together for eternity. 

Then there’s the strange tale of small-time Oklahoma outlaw Elmer McCurdy, shot down by a posse in 1911.  When nobody claimed his body, the local undertaker mummified him and displayed his corpse until a few years later when some outlaw cohorts claimed the body—and promptly sold it to the carnival circuit.  Elmer’s body was a midway attraction for decades, then disappeared. In 1976, a TV crew filming a “Six Million Dollar Man” episode in a deteriorating Los Angeles amusement park found a mannequin in a warehouse. The mannequin turned out to be Elmer’s mummified corpse.  He was returned to Oklahoma and buried under two tons of concrete—so he’d never be moved again.

And in the sleepy town of Granbury, Texas, where men claiming to be John Wilkes Booth, Jesse James and Billy the Kid showed up -- long after they were all presumed dead.

In the small, overlooked stories, I often find the kind of human stories that make it all worthwhile.

One of my favorite stories is in your Guide to Washington, DC.  The grave of Edgar Allan Poe has been visited by millions, yet there is still a mystery about his death.  What do you think really happened to him?

We love our mysteries, don’t we?  And as the world’s first mystery writer, Edgar Allan Poe’s mysterious ending seems almost poetic.  Of course, I don’t know what killed Poe. As a storyteller, I sometimes lean toward the most fantastic theories because they make the best stories.  Illness is certainly a leading diagnosis (and some have suggested rabies from a rat bite).  Nevertheless, the possibility that Poe was “cooped”—forcibly inebriated and coerced by local electioneers to vote repeatedly for a chosen candidate—is a compelling theory.

Each state has a unique culture.  Does this relate to crime, too?

Yes, to a degree.  Wyoming has a very different crime history than, say, Pennsylvania because their pasts are so different.  So each state or city has its own extraordinary historic twist.

More striking to me is how the crime histories of diverse places like Wyoming and Pennsylvania overlap.  For example, one of Wyoming’s most infamous outlaws is Harry Longabaugh, better known as the Sundance Kid.  But did you know Harry was born in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania (where his childhood home still exists)?

I have been rather amazed at how many crimes and outlaws have spanned time and space to pop up in places where you least expected to find their shadows.

This seems like a natural TV series idea to me.  Is that a possibility?

You’re right!  And some TV people agree.  An entertaining cable series based on the CRIME BUFF’S GUIDE series is on the table right now.  It could be a fascinating program that’s part history, part travelogue, part crime show.  Fingers are crossed!

Thanks for a great interview from one of the finest true crime writers alive today.  And like many of the better true crime writers, he is also an outstanding novelist.  Check out Ron’s website and buy one of his books.

Dad is identified as CHRISTOPHER BERRY.

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2013/05/lowell_father_charged_with_inj.html

Lowell father charged with injuring 2-month old boy

By The Associated Press on May 13, 2013 at 7:53

AM LOWELL, Mass. (AP) — A 2-month old boy from Lowell is in the hospital with critical injuries that authorities say were caused by his father.

Prosecutors say 22-year-old Christopher Berry is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Lowell District Court on a charge of assault and battery on a child causing substantial bodily injury.

Police responded to a city home on Saturday where they found the baby boy unresponsive.

The infant was brought to Lowell General and then transferred to Tufts Floating Hospital for Children in Boston.

Authorities determined the injuries were not accidental.

It was not clear if Berry had a lawyer for the case.

The Sun of Lowell reports that Berry is a veteran who served in Afghanistan.

Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office West Bank crime report, May 12
NOLA.com
This information reflects initial calls for service reported by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office for the west bank of Jefferson Parish. Locations are approximate due to automated location methods and address inconsistencies, the Sheriff's Office ...

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Suspect, 53, put loaded firearm in aluminum wrap

Agents who found the weapon in Kerry Lee Bobo's checked bag said he believed the foil could block security screening devices.

Gun Wrapped In Foil

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Suspect, 53, encased loaded 9mm firearm in aluminum wrap

Agents who found the weapon in Kerry Lee Bobo's checked luggage concluded he believed the foil could block X-ray and other security screening devices.

Gun Wrapped In Foil

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Dad is identified as ADOLFO GUZMAN. Notice that there is no mention of a mother in the home, and that the boy is now "staying with relatives."

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/13/3395258/father-accused-of-tying-son-to.html

Father accused of tying son to laundry pole outside Miami Beach home

Adolfo Guzman, 49, is being held at a Miami detention center, accused of using bicycle cable wires to tie his 12-year-old son to a concrete laundry pole by his ankle because the boy left home without permission.

By GINA CHERELUS

A Miami Beach man was charged with aggravated child abuse after tying his son to a pole in front of their home near 71st Street for several hours, police said Monday.

Adolfo Guzman, 49, is being held at a Miami detention center, accused of using bicycle cable wires to tie his 12-year-old son to a concrete laundry pole by his ankle because the boy left home without permission.

Guzman left to go shopping shortly after, leaving the child tied up for a couple of hours, according to police.

Jehovah’s Witnesses going door to door noticed the tied-up child and notified police, Miami Beach spokesman Bobby Hernandez said.

Officers called in Miami Beach Fire Rescue to cut the boy free of the wire bicycle lock.

“This is a horrific crime. It is unbelievable that someone would do this to their child,” Hernandez said. “It’s wrong to leave a dog chained up, much less your own son.”

According to the police report, Guzman warned his son, after an earlier incident on Saturday where he wandered off, that if he left again, he would be tied up as a punishment.

The 12-year-old complained that the cables caused him pain in his ankles but no other injuries were reported. The Department of Children & Families is collaborating with police, said spokeswoman Lissette Valdes-Valle. The 12-year-old is staying with relatives, she said.

The family has no previous history with the department. A hearing on where the boy will stay is set for Tuesday.

Guzman is being held on $50,000 bond.

Abortion doctor found guilty of first-degree murder
WGNtv.com
A jury Monday found a Philadelphia abortion provider guilty of three counts of first-degree murder. Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, was accused of killing babies by using scissors to cut their spinal cords. Authorities alleged that some of the infants were ...

Google News

New Zealand Herald
Get tough on corruption - SFO
New Zealand Herald
During a presentation at the 2013 Forensic Conference yesterday, SFO general manager of fraud and corruption Nick Paterson said under the Secret Commissions Act 1910 "you might as well be fining people a peppercorn and sending them off on their ...

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Wall Street Journal
Abortion Doctor Convicted of Murder in Baby Deaths
Wall Street Journal
PHILADELPHIA—A doctor who performed abortions was convicted Monday of first-degree murder in the deaths of three babies who were killed with scissors after they were born alive. In a case where the grisly details only compounded the emotional debate ...

Two weeks after deliberations began, jurors in the trial of Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell told the judge Monday morning they are hung on two of the counts against him.

We have not repented of the torture that we facilitated after 1993 and implemented after 2001. Because we have not repented, we are all the more at risk of doing the exact same thing under new conditions or a new president. Dr. David P. Gushee http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-david-p-gushee/

After 10 days of deliberations, a Philadelphia, Pa., jury convicted abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell on Monday of three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths... Laura Bassett http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laura-bassett/

NBCNews.com
Abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell convicted of first-degree murder
NBCNews.com
By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News. Philadelphia abortion provider Kermit Gosnell was convicted Monday of three counts of first-degree murder for the death of three babies that prosecutors said were delivered alive and subsequently killed. Gosnell ...

NPR (blog)
Doctor Found Guilty Of Murder In Late-Term Abortions
NPR (blog)
A jury in Philadelphia has found Dr. Kermit Gosnell guilty of first-degree murder in three illegally performed late-term abortions. The jury also found Gosnell, 72, guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of a woman who was overdosed on ...