A former Dallas police officer was sentenced Monday to nearly four years in federal prison for defrauding Crime Stoppers of at least $250,000 in the years that she oversaw the popular cash-for-tips program.
U.S. District Judge David Godbey called Theadora Ross’ crime an “outrageous betrayal of the public trust” in handing down a 46-month sentence. The judge said he likely would have given her a harsher sentence if not for the fact that she has an adult daughter with Down syndrome and other health problems who relies on her for care.
But Godbey said it appeared Ross was motivated by greed and not concern for her daughter.
“This went on for years, and she recruited other people to help her in this criminal enterprise,” Godbey said. “I wonder if she thought about what would happen to her daughter if she got caught.”
Melissa Brannen
On December 3, 1989, five-year-old Melissa Brannen disappears without a trace from a Christmas party in Fairfax, Virginia. After interviewing everyone who had been at the party, investigators determined that Caleb Hughes had left the party at roughly the same time that Brannen was discovered missing. When detectives visited Hughes' home at 1 a.m., they found him washing his clothes, shoes, and belt.
Police in Curacao said Saturday that they have several leads following a brazen heist in which gunmen pretending to be police stole 70 gold bars worth an estimated $11.5 million from a fishing boat.
Authorities have the license plate number of one of three cars used in Friday's getaway, and they have been asking for the public's help in tracking the suspects, police spokesman Reggie Huggins told The Associated Press.
"There is information coming in," he said. "We are getting reactions from the public, but we still have to sort it out."
Police have said that at least six men were involved, but no one has been arrested in a case that surprised authorities in the Dutch Caribbean island.
A day after Kasandra Perkins died of multiple gunshot wounds and the boyfriend who killed her then killed himself, friends and neighbors are beginning to describe the young, new mother.
She would take walks with her baby daughter, Zoey, outside their home in the 5400 block of Crysler Avenue in Kansas City, took pride in decorating the home she and Chiefs player Jovan Belcher moved into more than a year ago and hoped to one day be a teacher.
Though most of her family was in Texas, friends say her outgoing personality and kindness helped her build a large group of close friends here in the Kansas City area. There were friends she met at Blue River Community College, girlfriends and wives of other Chiefs’ players and a tight, small group of girlfriends she would grab good food and margaritas with at a favorite local Mexican restaurant.
William Kennedy Smith
On December 2, 1991, opening testimony begins in the highly publicized rape trial of William Kennedy Smith, a nephew of President John F. Kennedy. Smith, then a 30-year-old medical student at Georgetown University, was accused of sexually assaulting a 29-year-old Florida woman in the early hours of March 30, 1991, at the Kennedy family’s Palm Beach compound.
Caril Ann Fugate & Charlie Starkweather
In the early morning hours of December 1, 1957, teenage spree killer, Charlie Starkweather and his girl friend, Caril Ann Fugate, murder gas station attendant Robert Colvert for refusing to sell him a stuffed animal on credit. Starkweather returned several times during the night to purchase small items, then finally, brandishing a shotgun, forced Colvert to hand over $100, then drove Colvert to a remote area. After Colvert was injured during a struggle over the gun, Starkweather killed him with a shot to the head.
On the night of November 29, 1988, near the impoverished Marlborough neighborhood in south Kansas City, an explosion at a construction site killed six of the city’s firefighters. It was a clear case of arson, and five people from Marlborough were duly convicted of the crime. But for veteran crime writer and crusading editor J. Patrick O’Connor, the facts—or a lack of them—didn’t add up. Justice on Fire is OConnor’s detailed account of the terrible explosion that led to the firefighters’ deaths and the terrible injustice that followed. Also available from Amazon
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