- 23 October 2008
-
Japanese police report that a 43-year-old woman took her virtual
divorce from her 'husband' in the online Maple Story game world badly. The
33-year-old office worker whose character she had 'married' had given her his login
information during their times of bliss, and she used those details to kill
off his character. When he noticed that his avatar, one year in the
creating, no longer existed, he contacted the police. A police official in Sapporo
said the woman explained that she had been divorced without any warning and that
this had made her angry. Arrested for illegal access on a computer and
manipulating electronic data, she could face a prison term of up to five years or a fine
of roughly 4000 euros.
- 10 November 2008
-
Further information has been released on events surrounding Czech
woman Barbora Skrlova, who fled to Norway in the guise of a 13-year-old to avoid
testifying against Klara Mauerova in a child abuse trial (see 21 January 2008
Clippings). Mauerova's two sons - along with a seemingly innocent Skrlova -
had been freed from Mauerova's home by police officers after images from the
home's child monitor reached a similar system owned by a neighbour.
A court in Brno has heard that relatives had partially skinned
Mauerova's eight-year-old son, Ondrej, and ate the raw flesh. He was made to
eat some himself as well. Ondrej and his 10-year-old brother described
having cigarettes stubbed out on their skin by Mauerova and other relatives, being
kept locked in a cellar, being forced to cut themselves with knives. etc.
Mauerova has been sentenced to nine years in jail, and several others have been
given shorter prison terms in connection with the affair.
Japan's Tatsuhiko Kawata agreed to wed his mistress. On the night
before the ceremony was to take place, he splashed oil on the floor of the
wedding venue, in a resort hotel in Hokuto, and started a fire. When he didn't
show up for the wedding, his mistress rang him, whereupon he told her that he'd
not invited any guests. The woman cancelled the wedding, which prompted the hotel
to link the fire with the couple.
Kawata later explained to the police that 'I started the fire
because I didn't want to break up with my wife ... and I didn't want to split with
my mistress either'.
- 5 January 2009
-
A search for a missing child was mounted also in Florida, where Meagen
McCormick had told police that her six-month-old son and his nanny had
vanished. After a search over Christmas, she confessed that neither the boy nor the
nanny had ever existed and that she'd made up the tale to bring ex-boyfriend John
Buchness back into her life. Buchness, who did indeed return to Miami to plea
for the return of his son, was unaware that McCormick had had a miscarriage in
March.
Police, about 20 of whom participated in the search for the
nonexistent child on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, have asked the state attorney's
office to make McCormick pay for the wasted resources.
- 23 January 2009
-
In northern Germany, two other young people decided that they had
somewhere to go in a hurry. According to Holger Jureczko of the
Hanover police, six-year-old Mika and five-year-old Anna-Bell 'are
very much in love and decided to get married in Africa where it is
warm'. Mika's seven-year-old sister would be a witness.
On New
Year's Day, the three children packed summer clothes, sunglasses, and
provisions for the journey and left their
apparently sleeping parents behind. The children caught the attention
of a guard while waiting
for a train to the airport. He struck up a conversation with them and convinced
them that getting to Africa would be difficult without much
money or an aeroplane ticket. They were treated to a mini-holiday in
the form of a tour of the police station, where their parents
collected them.
Dr. Richard Batista says he is tired of custody negotiations with his
ex-wife and that he is demanding that she return the kidney he gave
her. Batista, 49, said he would settle for $1.5 million, alternatively.
He says that he had no regrets about the kidney donation, which
he described as 'as if I could put my arm around Jesus Christ', and
adds that 'to this day I would still do it again'.
- 15 February 2009
-
A Chardon, Ohio, woman has pleaded guilty to reckless homicide for
exercising her husband to death. Surveillance video shows
41-year-old Christine Newton-John (also known as John Vallandingham)
pulling 73-year-old James Mason around a backyard swimming pool by the
arms and
legs for some time. After watching surveillance camera footage,
Middlefield police chief Joseph Stehlik said that he counted 43
times in which Newton-John prevented Mason from leaving the water when
he was gasping for breath. Mason died of a heart attack.
- 22 March 2009
-
Police were called in to resolve a domestic disturbance that erupted
in Overland Park, Kansas, when a woman found out that her husband was
married to
the resident of another flat in the same building. Charles L. Clemens
Jr. was splitting his time between the woman he'd married 22 years
ago and a woman he wedded in 2006 with the aid of his father's
identity. In addition to the bigamy, Clemens is accused of stealing
jewellery and money from his second wife.
- 7 May 2009
-
Florida's Lorena Alvarez went out for a drive to look for her
boyfriend. When the 33-year-old Alvarez found him sitting in his
truck in a supermarket car park, she decided to ram the truck with her
car, with her children, ages one and seven, along for the ride. She
later explained to the police that she had crashed into his truck in
an attempt to prevent him from driving while intoxicated.
- 20 May 2009
-
Maliea Martin reported that she'd been assaulted, so the Hannibal,
Missouri, police visited her home to investigate. When they arrived,
the man of the house confronted the officers, making threats. One of the officers
displayed a Taser. In response, Martin, 20, handed her one-year-old
child to the man, as a human shield to prevent the officer from using the Taser. Both
adults were taken into custody, and the child was placed with another
family member.
From Bakersfield, California, we have Angelo Vidal Mendoza, Sr., a
34-year-old man who decided to bite out one of his son's eyes and
badly mutilate the other. After rendering the boy blind, he then
rolled his wheelchair out of his flat and attacked his own legs with an axe. The
child later explained to the police that 'my daddy ate my eyes'.
A report later said that the elder Mendoza was showing signs of being
under the influence of PCP. Both he and the child's mother had
pleaded no contest to child endangerment charges related to PCP use in
2006, and a warrant had gone out on the mother last year for failing to
complete a drugs-related programme.
After ending a long-term relationship, Janet Cunliffe moved back to
England to move in with her 29-year-old daughter, Jane. To cure her
depression, Janet decided to undergo surgery to look like Jane,
explaining: 'Why shouldn't I? She's good-looking. [...] I love her
look and she's part of me. So why not?', while her daughter was
against the surgery at first. The two now put on identical clothes and
make-up before going out for the evening.
- 9 June 2009
-
Not sure what was going on here, but it probably wasn't healthy
A California woman decided to kidnap her daughter's boyfriend and haul
him to another part of the state. The mother, 35-year-old Anna
Gaffney, and an older woman of no fixed address showed up at the man's home
with duct tape and explained their plan for getting him to leave the
daughter, 21-year-old Savannah Lackey, alone. The would-be kidnappers
were arrested. Lackey was arrested later for her attempts to get her
boyfriend to tell the police he'd made up the story.
- 5 October 2009
-
Michigan's Aimee Louise Sword gave up her five-year-old son for
adoption about a decade ago. The 35-year-old Sword recently got back
in touch with him over the Internet. She is accused of seducing
him and successfully cultivating a sexual relationship with him.
Others, defending Sword, claim that he was the one doing the seducing
and that she was taken advantage of.
- 11 March 2010
-
Off to a good start...
According to AP reports, Idaho bridegroom Nathan Lewis, 21, was
arrested twice on his wedding night. First he was booked for drunken
and disorderly conduct. Once released on bail, he proceeded to slap and
choke his bride. He also racked up a charge of interfering with a
report of domestic violence.
The Baltimore Sun reports that Harold Montaize Alford was
unhappy with his girlfriend for communicating with a male on the Facebook social
networking site. Alford, 22, woke her at her home and began attacking
her. Her nephew, 27-year-old Adam Couther, intervened. For his trouble, he was fatally
stabbed in the neck with the knife attachment of a bottle opener. Later,
Alford stressed his innocence and explained that he had seen something
fly through the air just before Couther began bleeding. He has been arrested anyway.
- 28 April 2010
-
A Crestview, Florida, man sent a text message to lady-friend Jennifer
Lovett to report that he wouldn't arrive home for a while. Lovett
responded that she would wait for him at his home. She did not;
she left early, after stealing his computer, camcorder, calculator,
and leather bag. The next two text messages in the exchange were a
demand for the return of these items and 'Good luck finding me'.
Authorities arrested Lovett some time later, after she pawned the bag
and computer, and she faces various charges.
Mainichi Shimbun reports that 58-year-old Masako Iwase woke to
her son asking her: 'Who cancelled the Internet?'. It was her husband
who had terminated the family's ISP contract, but son Takayuki decided
to stab her too with a kitchen knife. In total, he stabbed five
members of his family, then set light to his futon. The 30-year-old
Takayuki later told the police: 'I thought the house should be burnt
down and I wanted to kill my family'.
- 20 October 2010
-
If you want to date a teenaged girl these days. you have to dress well.
Mindful of this advice, Ohio's 31-year-old Patricia Dye dressed up as
a 14-year-old boy in order to go out with a 16-year-old girl. Under
the alias 'Matt Abrams', a short-haired Dye met the girl's parents,
wooed her, and perpetrated 'sexual imposition' upon her.
Prosecutors deny claims that they had tried to strike a plea deal
with Dye. Of the ongoing trial, the girl's mother said: 'They need to
throw the book at her and throw away the key.'
In Ohio, about 150 people attended a birthday party for a
three-year-old girl. All were invited guests, but that didn't stop
the eruption of a brawl that involved half of the guests - of
those not involved, half were children. Elmwood Place Police Chief
William Pesking said that officers 'actually had to wait until they got
backup there in order to make entry because there were so many people
throwing bottles and chairs'. At least five of the 15 people injured
were hospitalised. The girl's princess-themed birthday cake was one
of the few things to survive unharmed.
The fight apparently started because of a long-standing disagreement
between the birthday girl's father and her mother's boyfriend.
And starting a family in a manner qualifying her for these pages
is a Japanese woman - if you don't know what to do with the bodies of your dead babies, be
aware that you might end up getting caught if you leave their frozen
corpses in a shopping trolley outside a supermarket. Atsuko
Fujiwara, a 49-year-old resident of Aichi Prefecture, along
with her son and eldest daughter, are accused of making just such a
drop-off. In a search of Fujiwara's home, a third dead baby of hers
was found, this one in a rubbish bin on the balcony.
- 1 November 2010
-
He may not have relationship problems yet, but he's off to a good
start:
Police in Berkeley, California, have arrested a 29-year-old man who,
they say, disguised himself as a towel-clad dark-sunglasses-wearing
woman in order to enter a university locker room, where he then took
photographs of more authentic women. The man, Gregorio Hernandez, got
away with this the first time, but he returned a couple of days later,
this time calling further attention to himself by wearing an obvious
wig. He was arrested after he left the locker room.
- 5 December 2010
-
Mario Francisco Hernandez is a romantic chap. This 22-year-old Los
Angeles man painted 'Will you marry me?' on his car. The car proved
handy when his girlfriend, the mother of his two young children,
refused his proposal: he used it to chase her through a Burger King
car park. The chase ended when two of his tyres couldn't cope with
his attempt to mount a kerb. Hernandez faces a charge of felonious
assault with a deadly weapon.
After separating, Turkey's Ramazan and Emine Çalçoban continued to
argue with each other, by mobile phone. In August 2007, the
24-year-old Ramazan decided to send a message to Emine: 'you
change the topic whenever you run out of arguments'. Faulty
localisation meant that Emine's mobile phone didn't interpret it that
way: because an 'i' appeared with one rather than two dots over it,
Emine read: 'you change the topic whenever they are fucking you'.
The 20-year-old woman showed the message to her father, who rang
Ramazan to yell at him for treating her like a prostitute. Arriving
at the family's home to apologise, Ramazan was greeted by Emine, her
sisters, her father, and several knives. Ramazan removed a knife from
his chest and turned it back on Emine. He fled, she bled to death,
and Ramazan later hanged himself in jail. Now, Emine's family members
facing trial.
According to Nebraska's /Lincoln Journal Star/, a 19-year-old woman and
her 30-year-old boyfriend had begun arguing when the woman decided
that she didn't want her name associated with him. She tried to slice
the tattoo of her name off his neck. According to police captain
Anthony Butler, the boyfriend suffered only minor injuries, mainly
scratches.
Arkansas media report on the death of two-year-old Harley Davidson.
The girl's mother, Kristy Davidson, claims that she was at work
when her 26-year-old boyfriend, Jesse Holloman, arrived to tell her
that something had happened to the baby. She said that she raced back
to his mobile home and found that all of the food from the fridge had
been removed, to make space inside for the baby girl.
Holloman, by contrast, claims that he'd fed Harley half a bottle of
the antibiotic Amoxicillin, killing the child and placing the body in
the fridge because Kristy had told him to do so. He said she'd asked
him to kill the dog also but that he couldn't find it.
Holloman has been charged with first-degree murder.
In other dead baby news, Rhonda Coshatt was checking up on dozing niece
Lyndsey Fiddler when she heard Fiddler's washing machine make
clunking noises at the end of its cycle. Coshatt discovered Fiddler's
10-day-old baby, Maggie Trammel, entangled with the laundry within.
In a call to emergency services, Coshatt is heard to say to Fiddler:
'No, I did not kill your baby. You did.'
According to court documents, the mother had been using
methamphetamine, amphetamines, benzodiazepine, and opiates. An arrest
for drug use while she was pregnant led Fiddler's family to try to get
her children taken into care. Now, her remaining two boys have been.
- 8 February 2011
-
What to do once your relationship is pretty much over...
According to the Italian press, Calogero Lo Coco recently visited his
former home near Agrigent, Italy, where ex-wife Rosa Nicosia now lived
with her boyfriend, and they killed him. The manner of the killing
could have come straight out of a murder mystery: the couple apparently
suffocated him with butter shoved down his throat, which later
melted.
The couple told authorities that he had arrived intoxicated,
attacked them, been tied up, and then suddenly died. However, traces
of melted butter or margarine were found in the dead man's airways
in a post-mortem examination.
Louisiana's The Courier reports on fairly mild domestic strife.
According to Jerry Voisin, 51, his girlfriend had been drinking when
she wanted to cool a mixed drink in the freezer but found no space for
it. The girlfriend, 47-year-old Edith Tassin, allegedly created space
in the freezer by removing a frozen beefsteak. She is accused of
aggravated battery for solving the problem of where to put the steak
by throwing it at Voisin, hitting him in the side of the face. He was
bleeding when officers arrived.
- 5 June 2011
-
Life imitates urban legend. The Barrie, Ontario,
police, report being called to a coffee shop where two people had met
for a blind date. Their Web site describes the incident as follows:
'The male victim advised he arranged to meet with a female he met
"online" at this location. However, the "date" turned out to be his
current girlfriend.'
An off-duty officer arrested the 49-year-old girlfriend after she
threw a cup of coffee in her boyfriend's face and slapped him.
Britain's The Sun ran an article about beautician Kerry Campbell,
who hopes daughter Britney will become a star - 'a model, actress, or
singer' - thanks in part to the Botox injections that Kerry lovingly
administers every three months. Eight-year-old Britney also receives
monthly full-body waxes and says that she looks forward to a 'boob and
nose job soon, so that I can be a star'.
Public criticism was swift for Kerry, who now lives in the US. She
decided to appear on national television to clear her name. Britney
appeared alongside her, stressing that she no longer 'cries that much'
when given the injections and that it's worthwhile not to have
wrinkles appear when she smiles. For her part, Kerry stressed that
'I'm not the only one who does it'. She is, however, the one who's
called enough attention to herself that her star-to-be has now been
taken into care.
Justin Beynen, an 18-year-old man arrested for car-theft-, traffic-,
breach-of-probation-, and drug-dealing-related offences, asked the
courts to extend his sentence from six to nine months so that he could
spend more time with his cellmate, step-father Jason Hastings.
Hastings had been given a nine-month sentence after selling cocaine to
undercover police officers a few times.
Taking into consideration that Beynen would have nowhere to live
until his cellmate's release, Ontario Court Justice Normand Glaude
accepted the request, though pointing out that the courts are not a
social agency.
Brittni Nicole Colleps taught English at a high school in Texas. She
has now resigned, however, in connection with the orgy she held at her
home with five male students. She'd had an ongoing relationship with
at least one of the boys.
While all of them were at least 18 years of age, Colleps still
faces up to 10 years in prison under Texas law since they were her
students. As for the publicity surrounding the case, her husband,
serving with the US military, said: 'I hope that you will not pass
judgement on her because you do not know all of the facts or details
according to this situation' at a press conference.
- 29 June 2011
-
When his 18-year-old girlfriend had either an abortion or a
miscarriage, New Mexico's 35-year-old Greg Fultz spoke his mind.
In mid-May, he purchased a highway billboard showing him with an
outline of a baby in his arms. The sign reads: 'This Would
Have Been A Picture of My 2-month-Old Baby If the Mother Had Decided
to NOT Kill Our Child!' The (now former) girlfriend has sued him on
grounds of harassment and invasion of privacy and claims that this is
part of a pattern, in which Fultz also posted 'intimate cyber shots of
me from one of our cyber dates'.
A judge has ordered that the billboard be removed, but Fultz's
attorney says that his client will instead go to prison if necessary.
He describes the whole case as stemming from an 'either you marry me
or I'm not going to have this baby type of thing'.
- 25 July 2011
-
Last Christmas, Minnesota's Tamara Lee Mason suggested that her sons -
Jacob (age 17) and Andrew (18) Cobb and their stepbrother Dylan C.
Clemens (25) - play the dice game Yahtzee. They didn't like the idea
and, now that her decomposing corpse has been found, are accused of
her ensuing murder.
They have reportedly confessed to the police that Jacob strangled
Mason while Andrew fastened a plastic bag over her head with a belt.
It was Dylan who hid the remains, taking them to South Dakota and then
back to Minnesota for burial in the backyard once the ground had
thawed.
Steven County Sheriff Randy Willis said: 'She wanted to play Yahtzee
and they didn't. It's very strange.'
In other automotive news, New York bar bouncer Ricaury Peña struck his
23-year-old girlfriend, a waitress at the bar, with a Honda Pilot SUV
in response to her attempt to get into the SUV with him after work.
Apparently intoxicated, he left her semi-naked and bleeding in the
street. She was soon hospitalised with critical head injuries. Five
hours later, the 28-year-old Peņa flipped the vehicle and was rushed
to hospital with critical injuries of his own.
When his wife, Rosa Estevez - the owner of the SUV - arrived there to
be by his side, it didn't take her long to learn of the earlier
incident and declare the marriage to be over: 'We don't have a
relationship now, only a daughter [...] He's my husband - he's
supposed to be not cheating.'
- 22 August 2011
-
A 24-year-old Texas woman is accused of forcing her six-year-old daughter to use a
mobile telephone camera to videotape her having group sex. The mother
confessed to three such incidents, involving six men. The girl has
been removed from her mother's home. Marissa Gonzales, speaking
for Texas Child Protective Services, said of the girl: 'Physically,
she's fine.' The mother has been charged with indecency involving a
child.
A woman arrived at a Scottsdale, Arizona, home for an interview for a
job as a professional assistant and found her two potential employers
- Vanessa Klein, 24, and Steven C. Lester, 60 - dead on the front
porch. The woman rang the police, who reported that both had died
from gunshot wounds. The double shooting is still under
investigation, but initial reports are that Lester shot girlfriend
Klein and then killed himself.
Someone in Success Village, Connecticut, waved down local police
officers in order to report that a mother was feeding beer to her
children in a public park. Approaching the scene, they noticed an
empty 40-ounce bottle of Steel Reserve beer on the ground and a baby
bottle containing a dark liquid. Witnesses reported that mother
Juliette Dunn, 29, had ordered her four-year-old son to chug the
beer and he had complied, whereupon she called him an alcoholic.
In addition to beer, Dunn's 10-month-old daughter was found to have
cocaine in her system. Police are now looking after Dunn, as well as
her 33-year-old companion, Lisa Jefferson. Dunn claims that it is
Jefferson who gives the boy a bottle of beer each day.
- 26 September 2011
-
Ohio's Ashley N. Jessup, 24, is charged with raping and endangering
her 10-month old son. The incidents, alleged to have taken place at
her mother's home, are recorded on video. Franklin County Prosecutor
Ron O'Brien explained that 'over a period of time she was exchanging
progressively worse materials via e-mail to her boyfriend in Michigan'
and that her behaviour with the child had been discussed beforehand.
The case came to light because an ex-girlfriend of that
boyfriend apparently found the video and contacted the police. While
the investigation continues, another party has become involved: the
baby's father, Jonathan Vasquez, is reportedly working to gain custody.
In 2000, Canada's Shirley Anderson, now 73, was awarded 10 Canadian
dollars a month in support from each of her adult children under the
British Columbia Family Relations Act, which deems adults responsible
for supporting their ill, aged, or impoverished parents. One of
her sons, 47-year-old Ken Anderson, refused to pay the higher sum she
insisted upon - CN$ 750 per month - so she initiated a lawsuit.
He has explained to the court that she hadn't provided financial
documents backing up her assertions and has also pointed out that he'd
had to quit school at age 15 when his parents abandoned him, leaving
him to fend for himself when they moved house with his younger brother.
He says: 'I'm done paying her and if the court awards her more money,
after she's used government money to go after us for the last 12
years, I won't pay a cent.'
- 23 October 2011
- Lanarkshire's Richard and Kirsty Finlayson have gained rather more
publicity than they might have desired, for acting on their desires
last year. Kirsty, then 17, was homeless and had apparently met
with older brother Richard to borrow money. While waiting for his
train, she suggested going outside Motherwell train station to smoke.
As soon as they entered the lift, he suggested sex, which commenced
within seconds. A worker, seeing the surveillance camera video,
raised the alarm, but the pair were not apprehended until after they'd
returned to the lift for a repeat performance.
Each blames the other: Kirsty says she was drunk, and Richard said
he just 'went along with it'. Both have been convicted of incest and
are on probation. Kirsty must also receive counselling related to
mental health, substance abuse, and employment issues.
- 8 November 2011
-
New York's Todd J. Remis isn't satisfied with the photographs that
were taken at his wedding, so he is suing the studio, which missed
the last dance and the throwing of the bouquet, for the $4,100 cost of
the photographs and for an additional $40,000 to redo the wedding so
that proper photos can be taken.
Remis, whose wedding took place in 2003, isn't sure where the bride
is now, however. She may have moved back to Latvia after the couple
divorced.
South Carolina's Susan Hendricks decided to collect some insurance
money. After making this decision, the 48-year-old woman reported
that her son had shot himself in the head at the family home.
However, she didn't think she would get enough money from his life
insurance policy alone, so she killed her other son, her ex-husband,
and her stepmother - all with the same gun. Prosecutor Walk Wilkins
said: 'We see greed involved in a majority of the cases we prosecute.
However, I don't think we've seen greed rise to the level of a
quadruple homicide.'
According to Pickens County Assistant Sheriff Tim Morgan, she may
have been responsible also for the fatal shooting of a man who had
entered the house without permission in 2006, but there wasn't enough
evidence at the time.
According to authorities in Colorado Springs, Kevin Gaylor booked a
date with a university student he'd 'met' on the Web site Craigslist
and then things got complicated. His girlfriend returned home for the
evening. Therefore, when the Craigslist woman arrived at his home,
Gaylor rang the emergency services to report that there was a
gun-wielding burglar trying to get in.
Instead, it was the 24-year-old Gaylor himself who was arrested, for
making a false report to authorities.
- 27 November 2011
-
In Florida, L.B. Williams was hoping to get his wife to stay with
him though she'd already filed for divorce. The 50-year-old man admitted to
police that, to get her to reconsider, he had set light to a cross
next to the marital home and then left a note purportedly from the
KKK. His wife, Donna, described the note as saying 'they were
watching us - I assumed me and the kids - and that I better not leave
that nigger'. She contacted the police, expressing surprise that the
Ku Klux Klan would support interracial marriage.
Freemon Everett Seay punished his 16-year-old daughter for trying to run away
from home. The 38-year-old Washington man started by using a willow
switch on her. He then engaged her in battle with wooden swords for
two hours, stopping at 4am, when she could no longer stand in the
armour she had been made to wear for this. The girl later sent
pictures of her injuries to friends, who contacted the authorities. The
Renaissance fair enthusiast was arrested, as was his wife, Julie May
Seay, who works at the Loving and Learning Childcare Center.
Japan brings us the case of a 45-year-old mother who accepted money
from 72-year-old male acquaintance Shoichi Koshio in a hotel room this
summer and then remained in the room while he twice tried to rape her
primary-school-aged daughter. Perhaps the most worrying thing about
the case is that the girl was in her mother's custody at all: The two
adults had been arrested previously for prostituting the woman's eldest
daughter, who is in her early teens.
- 24 December 2011
- Laurie Ann Martinez is a prison psychologist in California who wanted to move to a safer
neighbourhood but needed to convince her husband that such a move was
necessary. She faked her own rape.
Martinez, 36, tried to be thorough. This included scraping
sandpaper across her knuckles, splitting her lip open with a pin,
having a friend punch her in the face with boxing gloves, and wetting herself in order to
give the appearance that she had been knocked out after a struggle.
So how did police find out that her story wasn't legitimate? After
hundreds of hours of work on the case, detectives got their break when
one of Martinez's prison co-workers reported that Martinez had spoken
about faking a crime.
She can now move pretty much wherever she pleases, as she and her
husband have divorced.
- 16 February 2012
-
William Oller Jr enjoyed singing with his karaoke machine outside the
Redding, California, home he shares with his father. William Oller
Sr, 70, did not enjoy the singing, or at least one particular country
song. So, when his son refused to turn the machine off, the elder
Oller said: 'I'm going to shut you up.' His chosen method - four
bullets fired from a handgun - worked.
He has been arrested on charges of attempted murder, though his son
has said that he doesn't want the prosecution to go forward.
Macomb County, Michigan, Sheriff Anthony Wickersham said that a mother
sent her 11-year-old daughter into a grocery store to do some
shoplifting for her while she waited with her other children in the
car park. The 29-year-old woman had given the girl a list of what to
pile into the trolley, but she'd still picked up two bottles of the
wrong type of detergent. So, hoping for an exchange, the mother
entered the shop and explained that her daughter had bought the wrong
brand. She was detained and arrested, and the state's child
protection agency has become involved.
Florida's John Goodman is a wealthy man, and he wants to stay that
way in the wake of a wrongful-death suit related to his driving while
intoxicated. He had set up a trust fund for his children, who are
allowed to withdraw money from it once they reach age 35. The courts
are not allowed to tap into this amount for any awards of
compensation.
Therefore, Goodman, 48, has legally adopted 42-year-old girlfriend
Heather Hutchins as his third child, meaning that she is entitled to a
third of the money in the trust. She is also paid as the trust
administrator.
The trial is scheduled to begin on 27 March.
- 19 April 2012
- Munich disk jockey Dieter S. told newspaper T.Z. that he met a
47-year-old woman in a pub on Easter Monday and accompanied her
home. After having sex with her three times, he decided
to leave, whereupon he found that his 'sex mad' host had locked
the doors from the inside and hidden the key. The 43-year-old man
later said that he 'realised I was trapped and had to keep going until
she fell asleep, so we had sex five more times' over the next five
hours.
He rang the police from the flat's balcony as soon as the woman fell
asleep. Officers arrived 10 minutes later whereupon, in the words
of a police press release '[s]he tried to persuade the police officers to
join her in "related activities" - albeit unsuccessfully'. She faces
charges of sexual coercion and deprivation of freedom.
- 8 May 2012
-
Canada's Jason Laperriere didn't want his girlfriend to find out that
he had spent the night smoking crack cocaine with a woman to whom he had
given drugs in exchange for sex. As an alibi for his absence, he asked the woman
to send his girlfriend a text message reporting that he had been
kidnapped over a $12,000 drug debt. He later rang his girlfriend to
report his release.
His girlfriend had contacted the police, so Laperriere filed a report
with them after his 'release'. He helpfully included two names of
suspects. He is now in trouble not only with the justice system for
wasting police resources but with his girlfriend - or, rather, his
ex-girlfriend.
Florida's Belinda and Paul Berloni were arrested after taking their
seven-year-old grand-daughter for a ride. The way in which they did
it was a problem: according to police, they used their SUV to pull a
'small plastic Hot Wheels car' along a road at 8-15 kilometres an hour,
with the towing mechanism consisting of two dog leashes attached to
the trailer hitch. Also worthy of police note was that the girl was
wearing just a bathing suit and that both adults were intoxicated.
When asked for his driver's licence, Paul Berloni explained that he
didn't have one: it had been revoked in connection with an alcohol-
and vehicle-related offence.
- 25 May 2012
-
In search of a fucked relationship...
A parks officer in Ramsey, Minnesota, found Alan Petrusson
blindfolded and tied between two trees in a public park. The 50-year-old's
genitals were exposed. When the police arrived, Petrusson was gone.
Only his sling and rope remained, along with his car and the
pornographic materials within. As officers were preparing to tow the
car, Petrusson appeared and explained his attempt to engineer
anonymous sex by tying himself up. According to Police Chief Jim Way,
Petrusson could face a charge of indecent exposure.
- 30 June 2012
-
Reuters reports that a woman in Nezahualcoyotl, Mexico, tore out her
five-year-old son's eyes during what state prosecution spokesperson
Laura Uribe described as 'some kind of ceremony inside a house'. The
mother has been arrested, along with the boy's father and five other
people. Apparently, the boy had refused to close his eyes during the
ritual.
- 5 September 2012
-
US Navy submarine commander Michael Ward II, 43, told a woman that
he'd met on a dating Web site that he was a separated man who worked with special
operations. In reality, he was married, with children. When he
recognised that his lies could catch up with him, he decided to break
things off. Allegedly, he faked e-mail to her from co-worker 'Bob' stating that
Ward had died. The message went on to say 'He loved you very much'
and that Ward wanted her to have something.
When the 23-year-old pregnant woman drove to Ward's Virginia home to
pay her respects, the new owner told her that Ward hadn't died but
merely relocated to command the USS Pittsburgh. She contacted the Naval
Criminal Investigation Service, and Ward has been assigned to
administrative duties.
Russia's Alexei Bykov decided to propose marriage to his girlfriend
in an unforgettable manner. And so it was. Irina Kolokov later said: 'We'd
arranged to meet at a certain place, but when I arrived there were
mangled cars everywhere, ambulances, smoke, and carnage. Then when I
saw Alexei covered in blood lying in the road, a paramedic told me he
was dead and I just broke down in tears.'
Bykov, 30, wasn't dead. He had hired stunt men, make-up artists, and
others to stage a crash scene. When Kolokov began crying, the
fake-blood-covered Bykov jumped to his feet and proposed to her. He
explained: 'I wanted her to realise how empty her life would be
without me.' Though 'so cross I almost killed him [...] for real',
she eventually accepted.
- 20 September 2012
-
South Carolina's /Charlotte Observer/ reports on Tracy, a woman who
dumped her boyfriend 12 years ago after he'd robbed a flower shop to
feed his drug habit. A year ago, he was released from prison and
helped her install new doors for her house after a fire. He stole her
truck shortly thereafter and was sent back to jail, from which he sent
love letters. Recently released, he has cropped up in her life again.
She asked two of her sons to investigate why insulation was falling
from her ceiling. They found nothing, but her nephew later discovered
the ex-con asleep in a heating unit in the attic. He had been there
for two weeks, spying on her via a vent and catching his bodily waste
in cups.
California's Tracey Gipaya, a 51-year-old physically disabled woman, died
in hospital after being severely beaten with an extension cord and power strip.
The person responsible for the beating, and earlier ones, was arrested
at his primary school - the woman's 11-year-old son, who was her
primary caregiver. Unlike child labour laws, the charges against him
are unclear.
According to the boy's older sister, who sought guardianship over
him, the child's father was aware of the woman's condition and of who
was handling the cooking, laundry, and other chores. However, a court
has awarded him temporary custody anyway.
- 2 November 2012
- In Xining, China, fire-fighters responded to a call that, after a
family dispute, a man was threatening to jump from his bedroom window
while holding a two-year old child. As the situation unfolded and
talk with the distraught man dragged on, two fire-fighters entered the
room above and executed a move they had just rehearsed on the other
side of the building. One of the two, an abseiler, jumped down with a
flying kick that sent the man and child back into the bedroom.
- 25 November 2012
-
Holly Solomon is a 28-year-old Arizona woman who was angered by the
re-election of US President Barack Obama. Several days after the
election, she became especially angry that her husband, Daniel, hadn't
voted. Although her state's electoral votes had gone to Mitt Romney
anyway, she figured it was worth making an issue of this, so she
chased him in the family car and ran over him. He was taken to a
local hospital, where he was listed as in critical condition but
expected to survive.
Responding to reports that a gunshot had been fired from a 37-year-old
woman's flat in Gothenburg, Swedish police happened upon a
full human skeleton, a box of human bones, and various CD-ROMs that
attracted their interest. One of the latter was titled 'my
necrophilia' and another 'my first experience', including photographs
that prompted prosecutor Kristina Ehrenborg-Staffas to declare that the
unemployed woman had handled the bones in a 'shameful' manner.
The accused claims that she'd bought bones online from all over the
world for historical purposes and that she is not the woman in the
photographs.
- 21 December 2012
-
Texas's Brent Troy Bartel rang the police late at night to report that
'I shed some innocent blood'. When instructed to be more specific, he
told the dispatcher: 'I inscribed a pentagram on my son.' Questioned
further, the 39-year-old man stated that he did this because 12-12-12
is a 'holy day'. He then ended the 911 call.
At Bartel's home in Richland Hills, officers found a shivering
six-year-old boy with a large pentagram carved on his back. A box
cutter was nearby. Bartel is charged with aggravated assault of a
family member with a deadly weapon.
In Wisconsin, Racine County Judge Tim Boyle has ordered Corey Curtis
to stop procreating. As a condition of his probation, the 44-year-old
Curtis is not to breed until he can pay child support for the nine
children he already has, by six different women. He currently owes
the equivalent of 40,000 euros in child support, plus nearly the same
amount in interest.
Curtis said that, while judges 'make [rulings] kind of hastily', he
is going to obey this one, which the judge opines merely enforces
common sense.
In Florida, Archie Malone, 37, and his 16-year-old son Artavious
B. Malone happened to be in Tiny's Liquor at the same time.
Apparently still upset about his father having sent him to a
juvenile-detention facility some years ago, the younger Malone jostled
the elder. The father responded with a punch in the face, so his son
left the store and waited with a gun. When Archie emerged, Artavious
fired off a few rounds, none of which found its mark as his father ran
down the street.
Artavious is charged with attempted murder and illegal possession
of a firearm. He claims that he heard the shots being fired at his
father but wasn't the source of the shell casings that officers
found.
In Łowicz, Poland, traffic policeman Łukasz Molovik
paid for his girlfriend, model Patrycja Pająk, to get breast implants.
Now that she has broken off her engagement to him, Molovik is suing her
for 6000 euros' worth of compensation, half the cost of the
implants. He explains that he is suffering from 'loss of use' of the
32DD assets and that he didn't buy the implants for another man's
benefit.
Pająk had dumped him because he'd begun nagging her to limit her
photo shoots and modelling work once she'd had the implants. She also
stresses that the larger breasts were his idea: 'Łukasz kept going on
about it and saying how big his ex's breasts were', and his manner at
the clinic had even led staff to ask: 'Are you getting the surgery or
is your girlfriend?'. Asked whether he had insisted on the surgery,
Molovik said: 'I do not remember - as a cop, I have a lot of things on
my mind.'
- 4 March 2013
-
The Toronto Star reports that police in Lindsay, Ontario,
were called to a home to handle the 16th in a string of domestic
disputes reported there. This time, it is alleged, the 39-year-old
man and 41-year-old woman had been fighting over the last beer. Officers
found both people covered from head to toe in chips and dip. Both
face charges of domestic assault in connection with the chips-and-dip
attack.
- 27 March 2013
-
Police in Bradford, Pennsylvania, report that a local man deliberately
shot his finger off recently while intoxicated. Corrections officer
Alfredo Fortunato Malespini III explained to emergency responders that
he'd only wanted to 'get rid of his wedding ring'.
Malespini faces weapons-related charges. Adding to his woes, the
wedding ring remained in place on the finger.
Misty VanHorn has children. However, she hoped that would be a
temporary state of affairs. The 22-year-old Oklahoma woman is accused
of trying to sell her children via Facebook, with an Arkansas woman
taking her up on the offer: one two-year-old child and a 10-month-old
for $4,000 or just the two-year-old for $1,000. The idea was to raise
money to bail her boyfriend out of jail.
New York's Rahmell Pettway explained to the police that he was worried
about how his girlfriend might react to him having disappeared for two
weeks. To avoid trouble, he decided simply to fake being a victim of
kidnapping. Officers found the 36-year-old Pettway tied up in the
street. However, they also noticed that the person who'd tied him up
had done so without removing the roll of duct tape afterward -
it was hanging from Pettway's wrists, out of his reach.
He has been arrested for filing a false report. The New York
Post cites an anonymous law-enforcement source as calling Pettway
'a total moron'.
Police in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, say that Delaina Garling, 27, had
been banned from the Family Dollar Store for theft. When she returned,
she pepper-sprayed the staff who attempted to usher her from the
building. She was then tackled, and, losing the fight, handed the can
to her seven-year-old daughter, saying: 'You know what to do, baby.
Spray it!' The girl reportedly did not do so.
- 21 August 2013
-
Text messages lead authorities to believe that Florida's Michael and Tracy Arnold
had just had an argument when Michael, 36, left the martial home without her, on
his all-terrain vehicle. A short while later, the 40-year-old Tracy headed out
on her dirt bike to look for him. They ended up in a nearly head-on collision on
a nearby road, and both died at the scene of the accident. Neither was wearing a
helmet.
Two law professors in Ohio are 17 years into their divorce proceedings. Much of
the case file, which has racked up more than 1,400 entries thus far, has to do
with the custody of their two children, the younger of whom is just about to
reach adulthood.
During one of the many hearings involved, Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge
Leslie Ghiz said: 'It is frightening to this court that either is teaching
current law students the boundaries and ethics of our profession.'
The marriage of Christo Lassiter and Sharlene Boltz lasted seven years less
than the legal battle has so far.
- 19 November 2013
-
A Loganville, Georgia, police officer caught Rachel Gossett, 25,
and Frank Lucas, 27, engaged in sexual intercourse in a pick-up truck in
the car park of a Waffle House. According to Officer Joshua Brickle,
Gossett dismounted Lucas and then just sat in the passenger's seat
until, after being told several times to get dressed and present
identification, she finally made to clothe herself - 'she attempted to
put a cheeseburger on her foot as if it were a sandal'. Both she and
Lucas were determined to be quite intoxicated.
Michigan's Alan Markovitz recently moved in next door to the building
into which his ex-wife lives with her lover. Markovitz, who claims
that this is a coincidence, recently placed a 3.6-metre-tall sculpture in
his garden. The sculpture, which is illuminated at night, is of a
hand with middle finger raised. Markovitz explains that it is
directed at the lover, who knew Markovitz before embarking on an
affair with the latter's wife, 'broke the Man Code'.
- 8 January 2014
-
A 41-year-old man in North Charleston, South Carolina, rang the police
at shortly after midnight on Christmas morning. When
officers arrived, Helen Williams, 44, told them that the man had
fallen and cut himself. However, she too was covered in blood, so his
story seemed more credible: He had returned home without beer, because the
shops were closed, so she had hit and stabbed him with a ceramic
squirrel. Williams is being charged with criminal domestic
violence.
Also thirsty over the holidays was Rosie Pate of Memphis, Tennessee.
According to UPI reports, she was annoyed that her
grand-daughter wouldn't buy beer for her on New Year's Day. Pate told the
police that she slapped and scratched the younger woman and then rang
the emergency services. Police reports state that Pate asked the 911
dispatcher for 'assistance getting beer'. Despite having admitted to
doing so, she later said: 'I have lived to be 68 years old and I never dialled
no police to bring me beer.'
Pate was arrested for domestic assault and making a non-emergency 911
call.
/Diario de Avisos/ reports that three police officers responding to a New Year's Day
emergency call from Tenerife found a 24-year-old man wrapped up to his neck in a
blanket in a car boot. When paramedics roused him to consciousness,
he said that he vaguely recalled his brother, a cousin, and a friend placing him in
the car boot the previous night because he was inebriated.
According to the newspaper /al-Qabas/, a woman in Kuwait filed for
divorce after roughly a week of wedded bliss, explaining that the way her new husband eats his
peas is such a 'shocking sight' that the problem could not be solved.
He scoops them up with bread rather than using a fork.
In another case, from last year, a Kuwaiti woman sought a divorce
because of toothpaste issues: 'We are always arguing. I keep telling
him that he should squeeze in the end of the tube, but he stubbornly
refuses and keeps squeezing it in the middle.'
- 16 Mar. 2014
-
Han Zhang, of the Chinese province of Anhui, placed crushed sleeping
pills in husband Han Mou's drink, then took scissors to his penis and
flushed a large portion of said organ down the toilet. She later
explained that Mou had asked for a divorce and that he would be less
likely to look for another woman this way. A child of divorced
parents herself, she didn't want her children to have a stepmother, 'a
terrible thing'.
On bail three months later, the 30-year-old Zhang used a syringe
to inject a box of milk with crushed sleeping pills. She then removed
what remained of Mou's genitals, called for an ambulance, and turned
herself in to the authorities. Her husband reiterates that he still
does not hate her.
- 13 May 2014
-
Reuters reports that Turkey's Sefer Calinak, 62, appeared on the
television show /Luck of the Draw/ to try to find a new woman to share
his life. He explained to the audience that he'd murdered his wife
and a former lover but had served his time in prison. Before the host
asked him to leave the set, Calinak clarified that the first murder was
because his wife had 'irritated' him and that he'd thought the second
woman was after his money.
- 9 Jul. 2014
-
Shane Landon Tyson claims that former girlfriend Stephanie Ann
Workman still had his $6 Walmart card and he simply wanted to get it
back. When he arrived at her home, the two began to argue. This
awakened Workman's husband, who asked Tyson to leave. Tyson didn't
like the sound of that so unsheathed his sword.
Chad Workman was worried, because the only thing to hand was a
spatula for barbecues. Still, when Tyson hit him with the sword,
wreaking 12 stitches' worth of damage, Workman retaliated, with the
spatula. He says: 'Once across the head. That's all it took.' Tyson
stumbled back to his car and was arrested.
Allegedly, 71-year-old Marshall Harmon and his 32-year-old son got
into an argument near their Florida, home. Whatever the reason, the
younger man mounted a riding lawnmower and started to drive off,
rather slowly, with his father following, rather slowly, in his pickup
truck. Pulling alongside the mower, Marshall apparently fired two
shots in his son's direction, The younger man was hit in the neck and
hospitalised. Speaking for the Escambia County Sheriff's Office,
Sergeant Andrew Hobbs said that Marshall had probably not really
intended to shoot his son.
- 25 Sep. 2014
-
A 19-year-old woman waiting tables at an Allegheny County,
Pennsylvania, wedding reception became uncomfortable when bridegroom
Mark Williams, 33, started acting 'touchy-feely' with her
and trying to force shots of liquor down her throat even after she
explained that she was pregnant. She ended up summoning her boyfriend,
Tyler Smith, to pick her up from work early. The two men ended up in
a fistfight, and both were arrested. A third arrest took
place when the groom's brother, an off-duty state police officer,
struck a local police officer. The server reported that the bride
watched quietly throughout the chaos.
Public safety spokeswoman Sonya Toler said: 'There was a lot of
blood at the scene. It was kind of confusing and loud.' Contributing
to the bloodiness was 31-year-old Brian Taylor, of unknown allegiance, who
punched through the window of a parked car and told arresting officers
that he was HIV positive.
- 28 December 2014
-
Police were called to a Des Moines, Iowa, home after Tramaine Hill's
wife woke him at about 1pm and handed him a McChicken sandwich.
Hill, 21, told responding officers that he doesn't like that type of
sandwich. This, he said, is why he threw the sandwich at her and then
smashed pieces of the fallen bun into her face.
Hill explained that she is guilty of assault, and as evidence he
produced a video in which he entered the bathroom while she was cleaning up her
face and clothes. Officers say that he provoked her into swatting
the camera-phone from his hand so that he could paint her as
aggressive. Hill has been arrested.
- 8 April 2015
-
When fire crews arrived at an Arvada, Colorado, home in response to
reports of an explosion, it was not long before they worked out the
nature of the extensive house fire they faced. There was a clue in
the spray-painted message still visible in seven places on the
exterior of the building: 'My wife is a cheater.' In case of doubt as
to the painter's identity, he also included his wife's name.
Thirty-one-year-old William Landauer, who lived in the building, was
arrested on charges that include first-degree arson.
A 26-year-old pregnant woman responded to a Craigslist advertisement
posted by Dynel Lane, a Colorado woman offering baby clothes for sale. Upon
entering Lane's home, the pregnant woman was beaten and stabbed in the
belly. Lane removed the unborn child and claimed later, to her
husband and at an area hospital, to have suffered a miscarriage.
At the hospital, the baby was pronounced dead and Lane, 34, was arrested,
with the exact charges still under discussion. The formerly pregnant
victim was found in Lane's home and responded well to surgery.
Police are on the lookout for any other women who may have responded
to Lane's advert.
According to Argentina's Crónica, a shepherd in the Balcarce region
who had not been seen for some time was found dead in bed. Both José
Alberto, 58, and the wig-and-lipstick-wearing scarecrow that Rodolfo
Moure found with him are being examined to determine whether a third
party was involved or the 15-centimetre plastic tube attached to the
scarecrow's groin may have had a part to play in the death. Moure
said: 'We are working on the assumption that the man died during sex
with the scarecrow.'
When Victor Sena Blood-Dzraku refused to honour his promise to
follow his 2009 civil wedding to Ellanora Baidoo with a traditional
Ghanaian ceremony for the couple's families, the two went their
separate ways without consummating the union. Baidoo, 26, wants a
formal divorce, while her husband does not. He has not informed her
of his address, and a private investigator proved unable to find him
and serve him with divorce papers. Along with his pre-paid mobile
phone number, Baidoo does have his Facebook details, so Manhattan Supreme Court
Justice Matthew Cooper has granted permission to send the summons by
Facebook private message, 'repeated by plaintiff's attorney to
defendant once a week for three consecutive weeks or until
acknowledged'.
- 5 Jan. 2016
-
'It looks like it was a dispute between the dad and the son's
girlfriend, probably over using the washing machine,' said Los Angeles
County Sheriff's Lieutenant John Corina. He was talking about the
events leading up to some shootings on New Year's Eve. The dad, a
54-year-old man, shot his wife, along with the above-mentioned
girlfriend and also a visitor to the home. The son, 33-year-old
Christopher Morey, finally wrestled the gun out of his grasp and
killed him. Morey is being held on suspicion of murder.
The shooter was described by police as a heavy drinker with a large
gun collection and the cause of dozens of previous trips to the
home.
- 24 Aug. 2016
-
According to a police report from New Albany, Indiana, 37-year-old
Michelle Nelson sent husband Timothy to fetch doughnuts from a local
shop. They didn't have the type she prefers, so he returned home
empty-handed. This did not sit well with her: she opined that he
should know what other types she likes, given their long-term
relationship, and she emphasised her frustration by lunging at him
with a grill fork. He ran from the building with the fork embedded in
his chest. When the police arrived, a blood-soaked Timothy was
applying pressure to the wound. He was taken to hospital, and
Michelle was charged with aggravated battery.
Meanwhile, Florida's Palm Beach Post reports on marital strife in
the Bradshaw household: 84-year-old Uriel was eating mangoes in a
bedroom when his 65-year-old wife walked in and noticed that he'd
been placing the mango peelings on the floor. He responded to her
complaints with a steak knife, stabbing her twice. She banged on
the walls to alert her daughter, who lives next door, to summon the
police. Uriel, who has been arrested for aggravated battery with a
weapon, says that he doesn't remember stabbing his wife, though he
does recall an argument about the mangoes.
In a story from last month, 18-year-old Tatyana Allen became angry
at her boyfriend on a Florida beach. We don't know whether the
issue was mangoes, peaches, or something else, but we do know her
choice of weapon for expressing her feelings: their six-month-old
child. First responders took the injured boy to a local
hospital, and Allen was arrested for battery and for inflicting
physical/mental injury on a child.
Holland's Alexander Pieter Cirk fell for a Chinese woman he met via
a dating app on his phone. After growing frustrated with the
distances involved, he decided to obtain a visa and air tickets to
visit her, and he sent her a photo of his flight details. When he
arrived in Changsha, however, she wasn't there to meet him, so the
41-year-old Cirk remained at the airport. Ten days later, his health
began to flag, and authorities took him to a local hospital.
According to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, a local television
station tracked down the woman, who explained that she'd thought him
joking about making the journey. She added that she hadn't been able
to reply to his post-arrival messages because she'd been scheduled to
have plastic surgery. The woman allegedly expressed hopes of
maintaining her long-distance relationship with Cirk.
- 28 October 2016
-
An Australian man has been sentenced to six years and seven months in
jail after confessing to his wife and then police that he had sexually
exploited his step-daughter when she was 9-11 years old and his
daughter, age three at the time. He also admitted to raping several
chickens. The family dog, in contrast, had proved able to resist his advances. Judge Paul Muscat
described the offender, an Adelaide man in his 20s who has not been
identified by Australian media, as an abuse survivor whose childhood
sexual contact with dogs may have contributed to his more recent
'gross and disturbing' acts.
- 30 November 2016
- Thirty-year-old Brandi Worley is an Indiana woman whose husband
told her that he wanted a divorce. She didn't like the idea that he
might end up with custody of her seven-year-old son and three-year-old
daughter. She later summarised the resulting decision thus: 'I did
not want him taking them, so I stabbed them.' As she told a 911
operator, she stabbed herself too, because she wanted to die with
them. She survived; they did not.