Free Republic

Staff Published: December 22, 2008 Prince William County police have charged a 17-year-old in the double slayings of a Dale City woman and her teenage son. Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul Ebert said Monday that Jean C. Smith, 39, and her son James Smith, 19, were killed during an attempted burglary at their home on Langford Court on Friday afternoon. The 17-year-old, who lives in the neighborhood, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, burglary and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Neighbors and sources identified the teen as Xavier Pinckney. His girlfriend, 22-year-old Jacqueline Munoz,...

An Oakland woman who reluctantly lured her illicit lover to his execution-style shooting death at the request of her jealous gang-leader husband was sentenced today to 15 years to life in state prison for her second-degree murder conviction.

HYANNIS - Greed drove a 13-year-old to plot with an adult friend and another boy to kill his own half brother, burn his body and take more than $10,000 worth of drug money - all for a used BMW, prosecutors and sources said. The sordid tale of drugs, violence, cash and a cheap luxury vehicle unfolded yesterday as two 13-year-olds and a 20-year-old were charged with murdering 16-year-old Jordan Mendes, whose torched corpse was found in a pit in the Hyannis woods. Mykel Mendes, 13, and Kevin Ribeiro, 13, were charged with murder and armed robbery as juveniles, according to...

The skull and bones found last week in a wooded lot outside Orlando, Fla., were identified as Caylee Anthony's on Friday, and Orange County officials declared the little girl was the victim of a homicide

He’s engaged! What do you get a man who’s been married four times, whose third wife died in the bathtub and who is still legally married to his missing fourth wife? We ask because Drew Peterson, the retired Bolingbrook, Illinois police officer, has confirmed through his publicist that he has proposed to a 23-year-old woman he’s been dating for four months. His lawyer confirms that the proposal has been accepted.

Investigators say they believe 64-year-old Paulette Locklear was beaten to death outside her home Tuesday afternoon after confronting a man who was trying to break in. Julio Cesar Ramos, 45, is charged with first-degree murder in Locklear’s death. Ramos, who is from Honduras, has been deported from the U.S. several times and is in the country illegally, said Debbie Tanna, spokeswoman for the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office. Ramos told investigators he is homeless and unemployed., Tanna said. Cumberland County sheriff’s deputies responded to Locklear’s home on the 1200 block of Wilmington Road after she called 911 Tuesday afternoon to report...

HOWTH, Ireland, Dec. 16 (UPI) -- Celine Cawley, who earned the title of "Bond girl" for her small role in "A View to a Kill," was bludgeoned to death at her home in Howth, Ireland, police say. Cawley appeared in the 1985 James Bond movie, which starred Roger Moore as secret agent 007. The Daily Mail said the 46-year-old actress, advertising executive and filmmaker was the victim of a mid-morning attack Monday on the patio of her posh home. She died at the hospital where she was taken -- battered and comatose with serious head injuries -- less than an...

"I'm not like anyone else," murderer says Man facing life sentences for 3 slayings in Hardin, Wyandot counties gives jailhouse interview Sunday, December 14, 2008 10:27 PM By Holly Zachariah THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH MARION, Ohio—MARION, Ohio -- When Terry Shepherd was just a kid, he gutted animals for fun: groundhogs, rabbits, mangy dogs he found wandering the countryside. Growing up on a Hardin County farm, he hunted for food and sport, too. But this was different. "I killed everything I could find," Shepherd said in a two-hour interview at the Multi-County Correctional Center in Marion tonight, an exclusive for The...

Following Rabbi's Murder, Extremists Surround Jewish Homes in Yemen: No action from Yemeni government Following our earlier report on the sectarian murder of a Jewish rabbi, a group of Muslim extremists (associated with the murderer) are surrounding the houses of several Jewish families, throwing rocks and preventing them from leaving their homes. The government has taken no action and in desperation, the murdered man's brother called a local news outlet.

A man accused of running down and killing a woman in front of a Bloomington store had a blood-alcohol level that was more than five times the legal limit, according to charges filed Friday. Anthony Phillip LaSalle, 36, was charged with third-degree murder and three counts of criminal vehicular homicide. His blood-alcohol level was 0.41 percent, according to the charges. The legal limit in Minnesota is .08. The charges say he admitted that he drank a half-liter of vodka that day and said he fled because he had been drinking. LuAnn Marie Johnson, 66, of Burnsville, was struck as she...

December 12, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Amidst an ongoing debate among prolife advocates about whether to classify the Pill as an abortifacient or a prophylactic, pro-abortion advocates have published an authoritative statement declaring that the Pill prevents implantation of embryos, thereby causing an abortion. In a supplement to its November 2008 issue, top reproductive health journal Fertility and Sterility published the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) statement, “Hormonal contraception: recent advances and controversies.” In a summary of the development of contraception in the United States the statement called oral contraceptives the “most widely used” reversible method. In the “wide variety”...

Aqsa Parvez, strangled to death by her father for not wearing a hijab, is dishonored in death as she was dishonored in life.

A MALE corpse wearing a nappy and another dressed in women's clothes were among 17 bodies found near Mexico's northern border. "One had a pacifier hanging around his neck and was only wearing a diaper, while the second was dressed as a woman," said Jose Manuel Yepiz, spokesman for the prosecutor's office of northwestern Baja California state. Police found a total of five bodies in the border city of Tijuana across from San Diego in the US, and 12 others in the violent state of Chihuahua, including one decapitated body and three that had been tortured. Violence has escalated in...

OAKLAND — Police internal affairs detectives investigating the handling of journalist Chauncey Bailey's slaying will have state investigators present when they interview members of their department's command staff. Investigators from the attorney general's office will be there to monitor the interviews, according to a letter the Department of Justice sent to Mayor Ron Dellums in November. But the Justice Department won't take over the whole investigation — which is apparently what Oakland internal affairs investigators wanted, the letter stated. "We do not believe, as has been suggested by the Police Department's Internal Affairs investigator, that the Police Department investigation be...

Detectives believe increase in street violence makes it harder to find suspects CHICAGO — Despite the rise of DNA fingerprinting and other "CSI"-style crime-fighting wizardry, more and more people in this country are getting away with murder. FBI figures reviewed by The Associated Press show that the homicide clearance rate, as detectives call it, dropped from 91 percent in 1963 — the first year records were kept in the manner they are now — to 61 percent in 2007. Law enforcement officials say the chief reason is a rise in drug- and gang-related killings, which are often impersonal and anonymous,...

Estranged wife turns herself in to police BILOXI -- A four-month-old child and her father both died from wounds to the head from gunshots believed fired by the man's estranged wife, authorities said Friday. Romeo Smith, a 30-year-old electrician and native of Jamaica, lived at Maison D'Orleans, off Beach Boulevard. His baby, Savaan, lived in a neighboring apartment with Simone Dixon, his girlfriend and the mother of the infant. "He prayed over the baby this morning before he left the apartment," said Dixon. "He was a praying man. The last thing he said to me was, 'Sim, I'll see...

A St. Bernard Parish teenager has been booked with murder after authorities say he shot two men after being denied a drink at a bar in the Poydras community because he was underage. Anthony Hookfin Jr., 18, of 2304 River Queen Drive, Violet, was booked Friday with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths Thursday evening of Michael Whitehead, 51, of Kenilworth and David Ward, 41, of Oklahoma. Hookfin was captured at about 4 a.m. at his girlfriend's house and is being held without bond. Hookfin allegedly shot Ward and Whitehead outside of Barracuda's Lounge at 7907 E. St....

SAN DIEGO – The teenage son of former state Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez and three friends, all from Sacramento, pleaded not guilty Thursday afternoon in San Diego Superior Court to charges of murder and assault with a deadly weapon. Esteban Nuñez, Ryan Jett, Rafael Garcia and Leshanor Thomas are accused of stabbing to death a Mesa College student and injuring three others in a knife fight at San Diego State University on Oct. 4. Judge David Szumowski set bail Thursday at $2 million for Nuñez, Garcia and Thomas, who are all 19 years old. Bail was denied for Jett, 22,...

Possible gang link probed in arrest of Nuñez's son The former Assembly speaker's son and three other suspects in a fatal stabbing in San Diego identified themselves as members of The Hazard Crew. Police say the group fits the definition of a criminal street gang. By Tony Perry and Patrick McGreevy 5:11 PM PST, December 3, 2008 Reporting from Sacramento and San Diego -- Esteban Nuñez, the son of former California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, and three other men arrested in a fatal stabbing of a college student in San Diego fit the definition of a criminal street gang, police...

t was a bizarre and abrupt way to die for a man who, by all accounts, went at life full-bore and was fit and agile from riding his bicycle everywhere he went ... Doctor killed in mysterious elevator shaft fall It was a bizarre and abrupt way to die for a man who, by all accounts, went at life full-bore and was fit and agile from riding his bicycle everywhere he went. But as San Francisco police combed over the evidence Tuesday, investigators said this is what appears to have happened: Dr. Daniel J. Kliman, an Alameda physician and one...