Baby born with bullet wound after mother shot during road rage incident, police say
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — An infant delivered over the weekend after the mother was shot during an apparent road rage incident along a Tennessee highway also sustained a bullet wound, police documents reveal.
The boyfriend of the 19-year-old victim, who was 36 weeks pregnant when she was shot, told detectives he was traveling westbound on I-40 near the North Hollywood exit when a dark-colored Chevrolet Impala with three men inside began riding his bumper, according to WREG. The victims tried to get away from the vehicle, but to no avail.
He says the driver pulled up next to his vehicle and started firing several rounds into the SUV.
His girlfriend was hit three times in her right hip.
Initially she was taken to Methodist North in Memphis, where police say they discovered the vehicle with bullet holes, blood and broken windows.
From there, the teen was brought to Regional One and went into surgery for the bullet wounds and to deliver her baby.
After she gave birth, doctors discovered the newborn had been shot too.
Native Memphian and mother Taura Lewis told WREG that news of the shooting makes her uneasy. “Since I got a child out here, I’m nervous too,” she said. “I don’t even want to be out in public anywhere since it’s so dangerous.”
Police have not said if they believe the vehicle was a premeditated target.
Officers say whoever is responsible was driving a dark colored Chevy Impala and they do believe other people were driving in the area when the shooting happened.
This is the second shooting off I-40 in the same area in recent days. Last week, a man told police he was driving near the Chelsea exit when two cars pulled up and sprayed his car with bullets.
Police have not said if they believe these two shootings are connected, and are asking anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers 901-528-CASH.
Mother accused of feeding child acid, chlorine in attempt to cure autism
INDIANAPOLIS – An Indianapolis father accused his wife of feeding their child bleach to help cure her autism, according to a recent police report.
The report says the mother was putting drops of hydrochloric acid and a “water purifying solution” made with chlorine – which combine to form bleach – in her child’s drink, according to WXIN. The man says his wife told him she read about the mixture online in a Facebook group. The mother reportedly identified the mixture as the “Miracle Mineral Solution.”
The Department of Child Services is currently investigating the case and has removed the child from the home, police said.
MMS claims to be a cure-all for anything ranging from cancer to hepatitis, and even aids. However, health officials, including the FDA, have warned the product could be deadly, and the so-called “purifying” element is sodium chlorite.
“Sodium chlorite is an industrial chemical used as a pesticide and for hydraulic fracking and wastewater treatment,” the FDA said after a Washington state man was found guilty in 2015 on multiple counts for selling MMS. “Sodium chlorite cannot be sold for human consumption and suppliers of the chemical include a warning sheet stating that it can cause potentially fatal side effects if swallowed.”
Officials at the Applied Behavioral Center for Autism say it’s common for parents to search for home remedies to cure autism.
“Taking things into their own hands is something that many parents have done out of desperation, out of hope,” president and founder Sherry Quinn said.
Behavioral Center Clinical Director Kelly Goudreau added that it’s natural for parents to want to find a cure for their child’s autism and it’s common for them to look towards “home remedies.” However, she adds that it’s important to remember that there is no “cure” for autism, and that any treatment that is administered should be one that is backed by research and scientific evidence.
“It’s a diagnosis that’s going to stay with them. The goal is how can we make them more independent, how can we make them the most successful they can be with that diagnosis,” she said.
via: http://pix11.com/2018/02/12/mother-accused-of-feeding-child-acid-chlorine-in-attempt-to-cure-autism/
Two-Month-Old Baby Allegedly Suffers 35 Broken Bones; Foster Father Charged
A 26-year-old foster father is facing neglect and battery charges in Indianapolis, where he is accused of squeezing the limbs of a 2-month-old girl. Doctors allegedly determined that she had more than 35 broken bones.
A probable cause affidavit obtained by PEOPLE confirms the charges against Kyle Rice, who investigators say admitted causing the infant’s injuries.
The arrest comes just weeks after the premature baby, born with traces of marijuana in her system, was left in Rice’s care, according to the affidavit.
The child was taken from her birth mother after the blood test results showed the presence of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.
The unnamed baby’s injuries, which also included numerous bruises, were discovered during a visit to the hospital on Jan. 31, the affidavit states. Doctors took X-rays of the child, which allegedly showed fractures in her hands, legs, feet and back.
Rice allegedly told investigators he squeezed the infant in frustration when the child refused to eat and kept crying.
“He tried to give her a bottle, but she was spitting it out,” reads the affidavit. “He then changed her diaper and she pooped while he was changing it. He held her, but she continued to cry and wouldn’t calm down.”
Rice allegedly squeezed her hands and feet, and bent her legs backward, the affidavit states.
Rice’s wife, who works full-time, told investigators she was unaware the baby was being abused.
It was unclear whether Rice has entered a plea or retained an attorney.
A court date is set for early April.
via: http://people.com/crime/foster-father-allegedly-injured-baby-with-35-broken-bones/
‘I love this s***… I thrive on it,’ Tennessee sheriff says after shooting and killing a man
Shortly after Tennessee law enforcement shot and killed a man during a two-county vehicle chase in April, White County Sheriff Oddie Shoupe seemed fired up as he recalled his conversations with dispatchers.
“They said, ‘We’re ramming (the suspect),’ ” Shoupe told a deputy in body-camera footage obtained by CNN this week. “I said, ‘Don’t ram him. Shoot him.’ “F*** that s***. You’re gonna tear my cars up.”
Shoupe later says of the chase, “I love this s***. God, I tell you what, I thrive on it.”
The comments, recorded April 13 after the sheriff arrived at the scene where officers shot and killed Michael Dial on the side of State Route 111, are at the center of a federal lawsuit filed last week by Dial’s widow against White County, Shoupe and others.
The widow, Robyn Spainhoward, alleges that a White County sheriff’s deputy and a Sparta police officer used excessive force to kill Dial, 33, of Clarksville, Tennessee.
Shoupe, in the body-camera video, says he was in another part of the county during the chase but gave orders to dispatchers that would be relayed to the pursuing officers.
In the video, he says he “gave the order to take him out because he (Dial) was going to kill somebody if we hadn’t.”
Two deputies and a police officer were injured during the pursuit, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said. The prosecutor ruled the shooting was justified, CNN affiliate WTVF reported.
District Attorney General Bryant Dunaway did not return CNN’s calls for comment about the case.
The lawsuit, which seeks up to $10 million, alleges that the sheriff ordered the shooting “solely to prevent damage to patrol cars.” The suit, filed in US District Court in Nashville, cites Shoupe’s comments lamenting damage to his vehicles for part of its argument.
“I feel with every part of me, that’s exactly what they wanted to do, was kill him,” Spainhoward told WTVF. CNN tried to contact Spainhoward through her attorney but he said she wasn’t granting any more interviews.
Citing the lawsuit, Melissa Worthington, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office, said Shoupe and his department would not comment.
White County Executive Denny Robinson and Sparta Police Chief Jeff Guth also declined to comment.
‘Use deadly force if necessary’
The chase began on a late April afternoon when police in Smithville, in DeKalb County some 55 miles southeast of Nashville, tried to pull Dial over on suspicion of driving with a suspended license, according to the lawsuit.
Dial, in a pickup towing a loaded, open-air trailer, kept driving. He’d been in Smithville for a flea market, Spainhoward told CNN affiliate WKRN in April.
When Dial went east into adjacent White County, Sparta police and White County sheriff’s deputies picked up the chase. Dashboard and body-camera videos obtained by CNN show squad cars trying to force the truck off the road or get it to stop, by running into it or cutting it off.
The truck and patrol cars came into contact several times as Dial headed north on Route 111, the truck at times weaving, and items spilling out of the trailer. Despite being forced into the median at one point, Dial kept going.
The lawsuit says Dial was driving around 50 mph, and “at no point after turning onto Highway 111 did Dial pose a threat to any members of the public.”
But deputies are heard telling dispatchers that at least one officer’s vehicle had been disabled.
A dispatcher eventually relays new instructions from the sheriff, who was not involved in the chase. Here’s a conversation in one of the dashboard camera recordings:
Deputy: “Get a hold of 59 (the sheriff), see if we can do something to get this maniac off the road.”
Dispatcher: “(Unintelligible), deadly force.”
(A different video — from a reserve deputy’s body camera — shows the dispatcher saying: “Per 59, take him out by any means necessary, including deadly force.”)
Deputy: “10-9 (repeat)?”
Dispatcher: “Per 59 (the sheriff), use deadly force if necessary. Take the subject out by any means necessary.”
Deputy: “10-4. Central, be advised, I’m fixing to ram him.”
Dispatcher (40 seconds later): “All units, per 59, do not ram this subject. If you need to, get up and use your shotgun and end this pursuit.”
At about this moment, a pursuing squad car hits the truck in the rear passenger side, turning it sideways.
A body camera shows a reserve deputy exiting his vehicle and firing a gun.
While the reserve deputy is running, other shots — fired by a Sparta police officer, according to the lawsuit — are heard.
The truck goes off the right of the road and down an embankment. It then goes briefly back up, toward the general area of a police car, before going back down and coming to a rest.
Both the reserve deputy and the Sparta police officer shot Dial, with one of them shooting him in the head, the lawsuit says. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Dial died of the gunshot wound to the head, a report by the White County medical examiner’s office says.
‘He meant to kill some people’
After the shooting, Shoupe arrives on the scene. Eventually he gets back into a vehicle with a deputy.
Body camera footage reveals conversations that the sheriff was having in that vehicle after the shooting:
Shoupe: “I told them, I said, ‘Take him out.’ ”
Deputy: “I heard.”
Shoupe: “Damn, I don’t give a s***.”
Deputy: “It wasn’t long after that I heard, ‘Shots fired. Shots fired.’ ”
Shoupe: “They said, ‘We’re ramming.’ I said, ‘Don’t ram him. Shoot him.’ “F*** that s***. You’re gonna tear my cars up. I got two cars tore up again.”
Shoupe then appears to engage in several phone calls. Several times, Shoupe either says Dial tried to kill an officer or posed a deadly threat.
“He’s (Dial) tore our cars all to hell. He tried to kill him. I’m telling you. You (ought) to see that city car,” Shoupe says in one call.
“He (Dial) rammed the city officer, tried to kill him, and he has tore their car all to hell. I mean he ran over the back at it, right up on top of it,” Shoupe says in a subsequent call.
Shoupe also mentions that one officer is bleeding from the mouth, and was taken to a hospital.
The TBI said three officers — a Sparta police officer and two White County sheriff’s deputies — suffered “injuries consistent with being in a vehicle crash.”
“I gave the order to take him (Dial) out because he was going to kill somebody if we hadn’t,” Shoupe says during a phone call in the body-camera footage. “I’m telling you … this is a hell of a pursuit. I mean, he meant to kill some people.”
“Anyway, sir, I just wanted to let you know that I hate it, but that’s what we do,” he says before ending the call.
He later tells an officer in the car: “If they don’t think I’ll give the damn order to kill that mother*****, they full of s***.”
After lamenting that he was on the “wrong end of the county” during the chase, Shoupe delivers one of the quotes that the lawsuit highlights:
“I love this s***. God, I tell you what, I thrive on it.”
Then Shoupe, once again, refers to Dial as a threat.
“He was going to kill somebody,” the sheriff says.
‘I don’t know how you can thrive on taking a human life’
Attorney David Weissman, who represents Spainhoward in the lawsuit, told WTVF that Dial did not have a weapon and that the shooting was unjustified. In an interview with TV station, he referred to Shoupe’s “thrive” comment.
“I don’t know how you can thrive on taking a human life,” Weissman said. “That’s not law enforcement.”
He also pointed to Shoupe’s comments about the patrol cars, asserting they show he was more concerned about the vehicles than Dial’s life.
“If that’s the mentality of the highest policymaker in the county, that’s scary,” the lawyer told WTVF.
The lawsuit alleges Shoupe shouldn’t have given the deadly-force order, in part because the sheriff wasn’t at the scene.
“The decision to order the use of deadly force when not physically present to evaluate the situation speaks volumes as to the malicious and sadistic mindset of Sheriff Shoupe,” the lawsuit reads.
Dunaway, the district attorney for an area that includes White County, ruled the shooting justified, saying in part that Dial posed a danger to law enforcement and other citizens, and that his truck was going back up the embankment toward the Sparta police officer’s vehicle, WTVF reported.
But Spainhoward has said she doesn’t believe her husband needed to die.
“They could have let him go 10 more miles down the road. He probably would have run out of gas,” she told WTVF.
Mother gives birth, abandons baby in airport bathroom with handwritten note: Authorities
Authorities are looking for a mother who they believe abandoned her newborn baby at Tucson International Airport with a handwritten note pleading, “I just want what is best for him and it is not me.”
The woman, seen on security footage carrying something wrapped in a blanket and walking with an awkward gait, may have given birth in an airport bathroom in Tucson, Arizona, before leaving the child on a changing table at a family changing room with a handwritten note, Los Angeles ABC station KABC reported.
The Tucson Airport Authority released footage this week of the woman walking through the airport when the baby was abandoned on Jan. 14, and are looking to find out who she is.
The note left with the child read, “Please help me. My mom had no idea she was pregnant. She is unable and unfit to take care of me. Please get me to the authorities so they can find a good home.
“I just want what is best for him and it’s not me,” the note adds.
Tucson Airport Authority via StoryfulAirport security received a 911 call from someone who discovered the baby at the changing table near baggage claim, according to KABC, and they immediately began investigating.
The child was in good condition, authorities said.
The Washington Post reported airport officials found bloody clothes in an airport bathroom they believe belong to the woman.
Article via: http://abcnews.go.com/US/mother-birth-abandons-baby-airport-bathroom-handwritten-note/story?id=52955414
Man Allegedly Raped Teen As She Died and Texted Co-Workers Photos: ‘LOL I Think She OD’d, I’m smashing her to pass the time’
A Washington State man allegedly raped an 18-year-old as she lay dying from a drug overdose and sent partially-nude photos of her to a group text.
The 19-year-old man boasted about having sex with Mariner High School student Alyssa Mae Nocedato to his co-workers at Dairy Queen, where he then worked a double shift before returning home to stuff her body into a crate with plans to bury it, police allege in documents obtained by PEOPLE.
After she died, the man used the Nocedato’s fingerprint to access her locked cell phone and posted a message on her personal SnapChat account to suggest she had run away, “which he knew the female had history of,” according to a probable cause affidavit in the case.
“She died having sex with me,” Brian Roberto Varela, of Lynnwood, told to a co-worker at a local Dairy Queen, where he worked Sunday after he says he awoke at his home alongside the victim’s body following a party the previous night, the document states.
Varela, who has not yet entered a plea, was arrested Tuesday and is being held in Snohomish County jail after his arrest for rape, manslaughter and homicide by controlled substance, according to jail records. Each of the three charges carries a $500,000 bond.
Jail records do not indicate if an attorney has been appointed to represent him or speak on his behalf.
After Varela shared parts of his story with co-workers, one of them alerted a girlfriend, who went online and matched the alleged victim with a Facebook post from a mother seeking help to locate her missing daughter.
The co-worker and the co-worker’s girlfriend then reported the death to police in Everett, Washington, who went to Varela’s home and found the victim’s body in a plastic crate in Varela’s bedroom.
At the party, Varela said Nocedato, The Daily Herald reports, snorted a line of crushed Percocet pills before she ingested a “dab” of liquid THC – liquid marijuana – that Varela provided and shared with her at a Feb. 3 party, police say.
He says she passed out on his bed within 30 to 60 seconds.
“LOL I think she OD’d, still breathing, I’m smashing her to pass the time,” Varela then allegedly wrote in a group text to three of his co-workers. He also shared two photos of the victim, nude except for a pair of white Calvin Klein undergarment briefs, “on her back with swollen purple/blue lips clearly unconscious,” the probable cause affidavit states.
One of Varela’s co-workers told police the term “meant that Brian Varela was having sex with the female.”
Varela’s mother told police that she had recently “kicked out” her son because of his drug use and “gangster lifestyle,” according to the affidavit. Varela had then moved in with a neighbor who hosted the Feb. 3 party, and who, after Varela told him the next day that Noceda had overdosed, advised him to call 911, police say.
Instead, Varela went to work.
As Varela allegedly talked further with a co-worker about the incident, he said that because he’d had intercourse with the victim, it could appear he had “raped” the victim. He told the co-worker, “I don’t know if she was alive or dead” during the sex, the affidavit states.
He told his friend that he thought the victim still was breathing and he wanted to take her to the emergency room, but that he was too tired and chose instead to go to sleep, the document states.
According to police, Varela said he created the misleading SnapChat post on the victim’s phone because he, too, had gone online and seen the Facebook post from the victim’s mother announcing that she was missing. Afterward, he tossed the victim’s phone into a construction zone behind the Dairy Queen, according to the affidavit.
Varela allegedly told his co-worker that he had to break the victim’s legs and “bleed her out” in order to stuff the deceased into a crate prior to taking it to a “hole” that he had identified in Marysville and where he planned to dispose of the body.
Anna Clark, in the Snohomish County Prosecutor’s Office, tells PEOPLE that a court hearing for Varela is not yet scheduled.
via: http://people.com/crime/man-allegedly-raped-dying-teen-snapchat/
Woman accuses husband of stealing her kidney
WEST BENGAL, India – An Indian man is in police custody after allegedly stealing one of his wife’s kidneys to serve as a dowry. When she complained of stomach pain two years ago, Rita Sarkar, 28, says her husband arranged a visit to a private nursing home in Kolkata, where the couple stayed with one of his relatives, per the BBC.
Sarkar—who claims her husband abused her for years with demands for a dowry, though dowries are banned in India—says she was given a drink that made her feel drowsy, per the Telegraph of India.
Later, a doctor at the nursing home “told me that I needed immediate operation for appendicitis,” Sarkar says. “The next day, I was operated on.” Months later while visiting family, she developing lower back pain and visited a hospital, where an ultrasound showed an infection in her left kidney.
Her right kidney, however, was gone. “I was shattered,” Sarkar tells the Telegraph. “I then understood why my husband implored me to keep quiet about the surgery,” she adds, per the Hindustan Times.
“He sold my kidney because my family couldn’t meet his demand for dowry.” Sarkar filed a police complaint on Friday naming Biswajit Sarkar, as well as his brother and mother.
While the mother is reportedly on the run, the two men were arrested Monday and face charges including attempted murder and organ trafficking, reports the Hindustan Times.
A police rep says they “suspect the involvement of a racket,” adding “a special team has been formed to investigate.” Reached by the Telegraph, Biswajit Sarkar said his wife had donated a kidney willingly and “even signed a consent letter.” But Rita Sarkar says “I was definitely drugged and don’t remember signing any paper.”
via: http://pix11.com/2018/02/08/woman-accuses-husband-after-discovering-one-of-her-kidneys-is-missing/
Social media users outraged over ‘potty training’ video – man pours hot sauce in his hands and smears it on boy’s face
OKLAHOMA CITY – A video with the caption “Potty Training 101” has people furious after it surfaced on Snapchat.
In the footage, a man can be seen picking up a child with what looks like a bottle of hot sauce in his other hand. The boy is seen squirming and crying.
The part creating the most concern on social media, according to KFOR, is when the man appears to pour the hot sauce in his hand and rub it on the boy’s face as he screams.
“As soon as I saw it, I was literally shaking and crying,” said Shana Honeycutt, who spotted the video online. “I absolutely, 100 percent believe that putting hot sauce in your child’s pants and wiping it on their face is absolutely child abuse.”
The recording was originally posted in a private Facebook group, but then members made it public since so many people were outraged. The boy’s mother, who is a member of the private group, told everyone the child is fine.
“He told me, when he was a child, that it was done to him,” Honeycutt remembered the man in the video saying.
The video has hundreds of shares and got the attention of Choctaw and Midwest City police in Oklahoma, as well as the Department of Human Services.
“If you see something on social media, one great thing that would really help us out is if you could … provide the name of the person who posted the video,” said Casey White with the Department of Human Services. “Even better would be to either record or screenshot that video or that picture.”
DHS officials told KFOR they can’t specifically comment on the case, but urged people to call their hotline if they suspect any type of abuse.
“We just asked, if people see something, to say something to us,” White said.
Honeycutt said she’s glad she did something to help the boy.
“I’m a mother, also. I have a 4-year-old and a 1-year-old, and I can’t imagine doing that to my child myself, let alone a man I’m dating,” Honeycutt said.
Honeycutt said she wants to see a thorough investigation and help for the parents.
“They both need some education on what is considered abuse and appropriate responses and how to potty train appropriately,” she said.
Customers say they found rodent poop baked into pizza from Little Caesars
INDIANAPOLIS – A Little Caesars restaurant near downtown Indianapolis is back open, after health inspectors shut it down Tuesday after receiving a couple’s complaint of rat or mice droppings baked into their pizza, according to WXIN.
Johnathan McNeil said he and his girlfriend bought a pizza at the establishment near the intersection of 22nd St. and Meridian St., but on the way home she noticed something was amiss.
“She looked at the pizza and realized there was, like, doo-doo looking stuff on the pizza,” said McNeil.
McNeil said he returned to the restaurant to demand an explanation.
“All of them were looking at my pizza dumbfounded as if they didn’t know what’s going on,” said McNeil. “I said ‘That’s mouse doo-doo on the bottom of my pizza.’”
McNeil said he called police who arrived on the scene and suggested he contact the Marion County Health Department. An inspector initiated an emergency inspection, which resulted in the business license being suspended.
“We did find that there were rodent droppings and violations that warranted us doing a license suspension,” said Janelle Kaufman with the Marion County Health Department.
Upon a follow-up inspection the next morning, Kaufman said the problems had been corrected.
“They cooperated with us, they worked with us … they cleaned everything they needed to do,” said Kaufman.
Inspection reports show the restaurant has been doing battle with mice since at least last August. The store was cited four times since then, before being given the all-clear on October 3, 2017. However, the store was never closed.
Health officials said with only seventeen inspectors to cover about 4600 county restaurants, they rely on diners to be their eyes and ears.
“When they call and let us know what they see, it’s so helpful to us,” said Kaufman, “any restaurant can benefit from another inspection.”
McNeil hopes other diners will learn from his experience.
“I just want people to check their food and be very cautious about what they’re eating,” said McNeil.
Managers at the store declined to comment. WXIN reached out for comment from the restaurant’s corporate franchise owner, but did not immediately heard back.
Restaurant inspection reports are not posted until 10 days after they are conducted, however a restaurant’s cumulative inspection history can be found online.
5 headless bodies left in front of funeral home
MEXICO CITY — Five headless bodies were left in front of a funeral home in a northern Mexico town in a drug region, prosecutors said Wednesday.
The prosecutors’ office in the border state of Chihuahua said the killings occurred in Guachochi, which is an area known as “the golden triangle” because of the amount of drug production there.
The office said four men arrived in a pickup truck Tuesday at the Guemar funeral home and left two headless bodies riddled with bullets.
Hours later, another pickup went to the same funeral home and left three more headless bodies. The driver of the truck said he found the bodies on a road and brought them to the funeral home.
Four of the victims were identified by relatives.
In Mexico’s capital, authorities reported Tuesday that a hand-lettered banner had been hung along a main boulevard in which the hyper-violent Jalisco New Generation cartel claimed to be operating in Mexico City. On Wednesday, federal officials expressed doubt about the banner.
Renato Sales, Mexico’s national security commissioner, said that “up to this point we don’t believe that these banners belong to” the Jalisco cartel. He added that authorities also had not seen “signs of any operation presence of this group” in Mexico City.
Petty criminals in Mexico have sometimes been known to try to pass themselves off as members of more powerful cartels in an attempt to intimidate the public and rivals.
Speaking of drug related violence, Sales acknowledged what critics of government policy have long claimed: that arresting cartel leaders simply fragments the groups into smaller and often more violent gangs.
“The (crime) statistics are related to the fragmentation of groups that are fighting for (border) crossing points to ship opioids, fentanyl, meth,” Sales said, adding that gangs also are battling over control of towns and ports.
via: http://pix11.com/2018/02/07/5-headless-bodies-left-in-front-of-funeral-home/