Mom accused of selling 7-year-old son for $2500 to settle drug debt gets 6 years in prison
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A Texas woman accused of selling her 7-year-old son and planning to sell her two other children to settle a drug debt has been sentenced to six years in prison.
Esmeralda Garza of Corpus Christi was sentenced Friday after taking a plea deal. She was convicted on three counts of selling or purchasing a child. She also was convicted of money laundering and conspiracy to sell or purchase a child.
Last June investigators discovered her son had been sold for $2,500. Investigators also learned that she had planned to sell her two daughters, ages 2 and 3, as well — all to pay off a drug debt.
Woman lived with her dead boyfriend for nearly a month, police say
(Meredith) – A woman is facing charges after police said she lived in an apartment in southern Michigan with her dead boyfriend for several weeks.
Angela Shock, 49, was charged Friday with concealing a dead body and fraudulent use of a transaction device, WWJ reports. The Monroe City Police Department said Shock told them she continued to use her boyfriend’s debit card after he died.
Concerned family members of Shock’s 61-year-old boyfriend reached out to police when they had not heard from the man for weeks.
Police went to the man’s apartment for a wellness check Wednesday. They received no response, but later checked the apartment again. Shock, his girlfriend, answered the door.
Officers said they “quickly determined” there was a dead body inside the apartment.
Shock confirmed to police that her boyfriend had died, according to WDIV. According to police, based on the condition of the apartment and statements from Shock, it appears her boyfriend had been dead for nearly a month while Shock continued to live there.
Shock was taken to the hospital for medical evaluation. Upon release from the hospital, Shock was arrested and taken to Monroe County Jail. Bond information was not available.
Shock’s boyfriend’s cause of death has not been released. Police have not said if they suspect foul play.
According to WDIV, Shock has a prior police record, including charges of stalking, breaking and entering and destruction of property. She also had a warrant out for her arrest for failing to appear in court on domestic violence charges.
Suspected Rhino Poacher Is Killed By An Elephant And Then Eaten By Lions In South Africa
Only a skull and a pair of trousers remained after a suspected rhino poacher was killed by an elephant and then eaten by lions in Kruger National Park, South African National Parks said.
The incident happened after the man entered the park Monday with four others to target rhinos, according to a parks service statement.
An elephant “suddenly” attacked the alleged poacher, killing him, and “his accomplices claimed to have carried his body to the road so that passersby could find it in the morning. They then vanished from the Park,” police said.
His family were notified of his death late Tuesday by his fellow poachers, and a search party set out to recover the body. Rangers scoured on foot and police flew over the area, but because of failing light it could not be found.
The search resumed Thursday morning and, with the help of added field rangers, police discovered what was left of his body.
“Indications found at the scene suggested that a pride of lions had devoured the remains leaving only a human skull and a pair of pants,” the statement said.
Glenn Phillips, the managing executive of Kruger National Park, extended his condolences to the man’s family.
“Entering Kruger National Park illegally and on foot is not wise, it holds many dangers and this incident is evidence of that,” he warned. “It is very sad to see the daughters of the deceased mourning the loss of their father, and worse still, only being able to recover very little of his remains.”
Three individuals who joined the illegal hunt were arrested Wednesday by the South African Police Service, and officers continue to investigate what happened.
The suspects appeared in Komatipoort Magistrate Court on Friday to face charges of possessing firearms and ammunition without a license, conspiracy to poach and trespassing. A judge remanded them to custody and they will be back in court this week, pending a formal bail application.
The African rhino is targeted for its horn because of the belief among some who practice Eastern medicine that the horn has benefits as an aphrodisiac, making it more valuable than cocaine in parts of the world.
Of special concern is the black rhino, which is considered critically endangered after its population tumbled from about 65,000 to 1970 to 2,400 in 1995, according to Kruger National Park. Conservation efforts have boosted their numbers, and the world’s remaining 5,000 or so black rhinoslive predominantly in South Africa, Namibia, Kenya and Zimbabwe.
In 2016, there were between 349 and 465 black rhinos living at Kruger and between 6,600 and 7,800 white rhinos, who also suffer from poaching, South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs said.
Kruger is considered an intensive protection zone, and the government employs a range of resources to deter poaching, including aircraft, dogs, special rangers and an environmental crime investigation unit.
Of the 680 poaching and trafficking arrests made in 2016 by the South African Police Service, 417 were in and around Kruger, the department said. In September, the department announced that six men — including two syndicate leaders, two police officers and a former police officer — had been arrested for trafficking in rhino horns.
Growing Up Poor Not Only Affects Your Health, It Changes as Many as 1 in 13 Genes
Article via ScienceAlert
We all love a good rags to riches story, but the truth is that poverty never really leaves you. Not only does it have a lasting effect on your health and mental well-being, growing up poor changes you at a genetic level.
A new study demonstrates the extent of poverty’s impact on our DNA, revealing that nearly eight percent of our genome can be affected by chemical edits that could stick with you for life.
Researchers from across the US and Canada arrived at this remarkable statistic by conducting a genome-wide analysis on just under 500 participants in the Philippine-based Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey.
Using genetic and survey data taken from women who gave birth in the early 1980s, the team identified a relationship between socio-economic status (SES) and tendency for genes to be modified through a process called epigenetics.
“First, we have known for a long time that SES is a powerful determinant of health, but the underlying mechanisms through which our bodies ‘remember’ the experiences of poverty are not known,” says Northwestern University biological anthropologist Thomas McDade.
The process doesn’t change the actual coding of the genes, but is no less physical in terms of its outcome.
Epigenetics involves chemical changes to DNA that prevent or enhance the reading of a sequence. In cases such as this, the precise mechanism referred to as methylation describes the addition of a methyl group to a gene, modifying its transcription.
The phenomenon has attracted increasing focus in research fields over recent years, with studies suggesting everything from receiving affection as an infant to childhood trauma can prompt your body to edit your genes.
The consequences aren’t trivial, either, potentially affecting cognitive development and even playing a role in conditions such as autism spectrum disorder.
As McDade puts it, “There is no nature vs. nurture.”
Our early life experiences not only shape our minds, they literally change how our bodies work at a fundamental level. And with signs that epigenetic changes have the potential to be passed on through the generations, any potential cause should be taken seriously.
Applying tailored genetic probes to blood samples taken from the survey’s children around their 21st birthday, the researchers identified more than 2,500 sites of methylation affecting 1,537 genes among those identified as being raised in low SES conditions.
Compared with children born into relative wealth, those who became poor later in life didn’t show any significant differences.
Since current estimates put the total count of protein-coding genes in our genome at close to 20,000, we’re looking at changes to nearly 8 percent of our genes. Further studies could reveal even more changes that weren’t evident in this investigation.
Growing up poor is already associated with a significant decline in health for a wide variety of reasons.
Many of the causes are clearly understood. For example, risks associated with differences in diet, access to education, and medical availability can lift chances of disease and poor mental health.
But there are also physiological changes associated with being poor that might not always have convenient explanations, such as chronic inflammation, reduced cell-mediated immunity, and increased insulin resistance, which can lead to health problems.
The study doesn’t go so far as to identify precise links between methylated genes and their potential health impacts, but many sites have previously been implicated in the development of important systems related to immunity and neurology.
Further research should help fill in the missing details, demonstrating the extent to which this surprising diversity of epigenetic changes sets up those living in poverty for a lifetime of suffering.
“These are the areas we’ll be focusing on to determine if DNA methylation is indeed an important mechanism through which socioeconomic status can leave a lasting molecular imprint on the body, with implications for health later in life,” says McDade.
The World Health Organisation estimates some 1.2 billion people across the globe are making their way through life on less than a dollar per day.
Policies and charities that provide health support can only go so far, especially when the consequences of poverty stretch beyond the childhood years.
This research was published in Physical Anthropology.
1st Living HIV-Positive Organ Donor Wants To Lift ‘The Shroud Of HIV Related Stigma’
Article via NPR
Nina Martinez just became the world’s first living HIV-positive organ donor.
In a medical breakthrough, surgeons at Johns Hopkins Hospital late last month successfully transplanted one of her kidneys to a recipient who is also HIV positive.
“I feel wonderful,” Martinez, 35, said in an interview with NPR’s Michel Martin, 11 days into her recovery. The patient who received her kidney has chosen to remain anonymous, but is doing well, Martinez is told.
“They’re doing wonderfully and they got an organ they desperately needed to get and that’s all I could ask for,” Martinez said.
HIV advocates are celebrating the achievement as an important step towards lifting the stigma around a disease that affects some 1.1 million Americans. In 2017, an estimated 18 patients died each day while waiting for an organ transplant. Many of these deaths involved HIV positive patients who have traditionally had access to a much smaller pool of potential organ donors.
The decision to donate
Martinez contracted HIV through a blood transfusion when she was an infant in the early 1980s.
“I do think that my lack of discomfort in talking about HIV does make people more comfortable with the idea, and I do attribute that to being diagnosed at such a young age,” she said. “I didn’t know HIV was supposed to be something that I was ashamed of.”
She said she first looked into becoming a donor last year, when Johns Hopkins became the first hospital in the United States to announce plans to perform organ transplants for HIV patients from donors who are HIV positive. Previously, doctors had only transplanted organs to HIV-positive recipients from deceased HIV donors.
“Like most living kidney donors, I did start this process for a friend that I knew who needed a kidney,” said Martinez.
Then her friend died in November, when Martinez was in the middle of a rigorous evaluation process. “I knew that this was a lot of medical spending not to try and do something with,” she said. So Johns Hopkins found another recipient.
Explaining why she felt compelled to share her story, Martinez pointed to when Johns Hopkins performed the first transplants from deceased HIV-positive donors to two anonymous patients in 2016.
“It was important to me to be able to put a name and a face to that story to show that the need for HIV-positive organs is real and actually benefits everybody,” she said. “My taking somebody off the deceased donor waitlist who is HIV positive means that everyone moves up the waitlist whether they’re HIV positive or not.”
Currently, more than 113,000 people in the U.S. — including those living with HIV — are waiting to receive an organ transplant, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS).
A years-long drive
Last month’s surgery marked the culmination of a years-long drive to expand access to organ donors for patients with HIV.
In 2016, UNOS gave Johns Hopkins approval to carry out the first transplant from an HIV positive donor to an HIV positive patient, capping a two-year push by Martinez’s surgeon, Dorry Segev, to legalize such procedures.
Before that, Segev, an associate professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, helped draft the HIV Organ Policy Equity Act signed by President Obama in 2013. The measure reversed a 1988 law preventing doctors from procuring HIV-infected organs regardless of the recipient’s HIV status.
Segev, speaking with NPR in 2016, said he was motivated to address the “antiquated law” when he saw that the need for organ transplants among HIV patients had swelled since the start of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.
Segev said he grew frustrated as he watched potentially life-saving organs going to waste. In one 2011 study, he and his colleagues projected that an estimated 500 to 600 would-be organ donors with HIV die each year. Had they been allowed to donate while they were alive, they could have been saving more than 1,000 lives annually.
“We were throwing away organs that were infected with HIV that could be used to help people with HIV,” Segev said.
Today, an HIV diagnosis is no longer the death sentence it once was. “People live their lives with it,” said Segev. “They just need to take antiretroviral medication.”
But patients who use those antiretroviral treatments — along with other drugs used to treat the disease — are also at higher risks of kidney and liver failure and often end up on the organ waiting list.
Keeping transplants safe
Given the risk of kidney disease that’s associated with HIV, the medical community has until relatively recently considered it unsafe to leave a would-be donor with just one kidney.
But newer medications are thought to be both more effective and safer, and to guard against potential complications, Martinez was made to go through months of rigorous testing to ensure success for her and her recipient.
“They determined that my future risk of kidney disease was really, really, small,” Martinez said.
Martinez hopes her visibility and openness about her disease encourages others to realize they can be a part of advanced new treatments that allow HIV-positive people to live a healthy life.
“I hope that people who are not living with HIV who wouldn’t normally consider themselves to be potential living kidney donors would actually consider it in earnest, as well as people living with HIV who are on great treatment.”
NPR’s Emma Talkoff produced this story for broadcast.
Her family was throwing her a baby shower. They’re now planning funerals after a police standoff turned fatal.
It was just a few days before her baby shower, and Sara White was bleeding inside a garage. When police tried to help her, it kicked off a hail of gunfire and an hourslong police standoff.
When it was over, White, a registered nurse who was eight months pregnant, and her 16-year-old son, Arkeyvion White, were found dead at the home in Stockbridge, Georgia.
“We don’t know how we’re going to do it,” White’s mother, Kathie White, told CNN affiliate WSB. “We were looking forward to holding another grandbaby.”
The family had been planning a surprise baby shower this weekend, Kathie White said. Now, they’ll be planning funerals.
Police were called Thursday morning to a home after some “sort of domestic dispute,” according to the police department in Henry County, just south of Atlanta.
There was blood on the driveway when they arrived and White, 39, was lying on the other side of the garage door. But the officers couldn’t immediately tell why.
Right after an officer kicked the front door down, a chaotic scene unfolded.
The officer was shot in the chest and hip; and somehow he maneuvered his way into the garage to help White. Outside, a few other officers scrambled to take cover and one of them was shot in the hand.
“Don’t come in here,” the gunman yelled at the officers. “I got a lot of shot…. I got a hostage.”
Police body camera video shows an officer frantically kicking the garage door, trying to make a hole for the wounded officer who was inside. Within seconds, a door panel broke and the officer jumped out.
After firing several rounds, police said the gunman, Anthony Tony Bailey Jr., 47, barricaded himself inside the home. He was White’s boyfriend and had Arkeyvion somewhere in the home.
For more than 15 hours, police negotiators were able to speak with Bailey and continually urged him to let the boy go. Police said they didn’t believe the boy had been injured.
“We are going to wait as long as we can,” Capt. Joey Smith told reporters Thursday afternoon. “Hopefully he would do as he said and release this individual.”
Around 3 a.m. on Friday, police went inside the home.
Henry County Police Chief Mark Amerman said he first ordered officers to deploy gas so Bailey could have a chance to step out of the home. When he didn’t, law enforcement officers went in.
“We tried to do everything we could possibly do to bring this to a peaceful resolution,” Amerman said.
But police found Bailey, White and the teenage boy dead.
Arkeyvion’s body was in an upstairs bedroom and officers found Bailey dead in another bedroom. He had an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
Kathie White said her daughter was due in only a few weeks and they had already chosen a name for White’s baby.
“We already had given him the name … Antonio,” Kathie White said.
Police said the wounded officers, Taylor Webb and Keegan Merritt, were taken to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.
Amerman said the officers were still recovering from their injuries Friday.
15 nurses pregnant at same time in Long Island hospital’s labor and delivery unit
MINEOLA, L.I. — A group of nurses at NYU Winthrop Hospital on Long Island, who ironically all work in the labor and delivery unit, are pregnant at the same time.
The nursing staff, whose job it is to help safely deliver babies and care for preterm newborns, are now planning for their own babies.
Most of the nurses say they’re planning on delivering at the same hospital where they work.
Crafty schoolgirl’s plan to skip school spelling test by dotting herself with red pen ‘like chicken pox’ backfires when she realizes it’s a PERMANENT marker and she’s stained for four days
A crafty schoolgirl’s attempt to enjoy a ‘sick day’ backfired after she tried to draw chickenpox spots on her body but ended up covered in red blotches for four days.
Mother-of-two Charlotte Schooley, 34, said six-year-old daughter Lily had noticed some of her friends were absent due to the illness and hatched her own plan to get out of a spelling test.
The youngster borrowed a red permanent Sharpie pen to ‘do her homework’ and then ran downstairs 10 minutes later claiming she had a rash.
Mrs Schooley said she and husband David immediately saw through the trick and had to stifle laughter as they threatened to take Lily to the doctor, causing her to quickly try to scrub the spots off.
But they would not wipe off even after using body wash, soap, baby oil and hairspray.
Lily returned to school the next day and had to do PE, revealing the spots to her classmates who had to be convinced that she was not contagious.
Mrs Schooley, from Saint Austell, Cornwall, said: ‘The house is always full of laughter with Lily. She is very witty.
‘She had a spelling test the next day that she didn’t want to do.
‘A few of the children in school had come down with chicken pox and she’s had it before so she know she stayed off school for a while.
‘She came down and said “I just need a red pen Mummy, I need to do my homework”.
‘Then she came down 10 minutes later and she was stroking her arm. She said ‘Oh mummy, I’m feeling a bit itchy. I’ve think I’ve got a rash’.
‘We turned the light on and she was absolutely covered in it.
‘Me and my husband were aching with laughter, trying not to let on that we knew.
‘She’d been sat on the bathroom floor drawing dots on herself.’
Mrs Schooley added: ‘She [Lily] was deadly serious about it until we said ‘oh gosh, it’s come on so quickly in 10 minutes. We’re going to have to see the doctor’.
‘She quickly disappeared and we went upstairs to find her trying to rub them off with a flannel.
‘She said “I can’t go to school Mummy because everyone will laugh”.
‘We had to send her in with a letter the next day to say they weren’t contagious or real and we just couldn’t get them off.
‘We used body wash, soap, hot water, baby oil, alcohol wipes. I think it was hairspray in the end that got it off – after four days.
‘Everyone was looking at her like she was contagious. We had to tell everyone she wasn’t.
‘She had PE that day as well and had to wear shorts and t-shirts. The teachers thought it was hilarious.
‘Luckily this happened on a Thursday night so she only had one day [in school with the spots].’
Mrs Schooley believes her daughter had taken inspiration from a light-hearted video on YouTube.
She said: ‘She watches a lot of YouTube and she’d apparently watched a video called “10 Ways to Get Out of School” – so there’ll be another nine to come.
‘She’s always dressing up the cat and pushing her around in pushchairs.’
Woman who worked at church day school arrested in child pornography case; victims ages 2-3
Greensboro (WGHP) — A woman was charged Friday with indecent liberties in a child pornography investigation while she was working at a Greensboro church’s day school, Homeland Security Investigations reports.
Alyson Brooke Saunders, 23, who worked at Fellowship Presbyterian Church’s Fellowship Day School in Greensboro, was arrested Friday morning and charged with six counts of first-degree sexual exploitation of a minor, two counts of sex offense on a child by an adult, four counts of indecent liberties with a child and two counts of crimes against nature.
She is being held under a $1 million bond.
The photos and videos depict indecent liberties against child victims that are between the ages of 2 to 3, according to warrants. The abuse allegedly happened at the daycare, some of it on a changing room table.
The crimes against nature charge involved a dog.
The remaining details listed on the warrants are too graphic to report.
Saunders allegedly forwarded the images to someone in Great Britain.
Fellowship Day School operates both pre-school and after-school programs.
Saunders was terminated from the school after her arrest Friday.
Saunders’ name was brought into the case when Homeland Security Investigations in London arrested a person on child pornography charges overseas and learned the suspect had communicated with Saunders over the Internet.
HSI London then contacted HSI Winston-Salem in February.
Special agents reached out to Saunders, who agreed to a consensual interview and allowed agents to preview her electronic media.
In March, she admitted to exploiting and producing pornography of minor children, Homeland Security reports.
Forensic analysis confirmed that she produced and disseminated child pornography, according to HSI.
School officials said they had performed a background check on Saunders before hiring her, and that the background check did not show any reason for concern.
Saunders had worked at the school for over five years without any concerns or red flags being raised, prior to March 7, school officials said.
Parents of all students were informed in a general meeting on March 8, school officials said. The Session (the governing body of the church) was informed on March 9.
Jeffrey Weber, an attorney representing families who have children who were supervised by Saunders at Fellowship Day School, said Friday, “Those parents I represent who entrusted their children to the care of Alyson Saunders are relieved by the arrest of Ms. Saunders. The parents hope this will lead to a more open response from the school and church following her arrest. There are many questions related to Ms. Saunders and her involvement with a pornographic ring, perhaps at an international level, as well as the extent to which children entrusted to her care were exploited. “
Fellowship Day School released the following statement on Friday:
We at the Fellowship Day School are committed to full transparency with the families as we deal with the situation that first came to light on March 7, 2019. The only limits on this commitment are: 1. Protecting the privacy of the families whose children were involved; and 2. Avoiding interference with the criminal investigation. At this point, we do not have much additional information, but we want to provide this update in any event.
To the best of our knowledge, the criminal investigation by the federal Department of Homeland Security and the State Bureau of Investigation is ongoing. We do not have any new details about where that process stands. Our understanding is that investigators in matters like this tend to keep details confidential while the investigation is going on. For example, no one at the School knows any details about the photos other than what one parent (of one of the children) described at the March 8 parents’ meeting. Melissa Mitchell, the School’s Executive Director, is the only person associated with the School who knows the names of the five children, and that information is being kept in strict confidence.
As far as we know, the investigation still relates to only the same five children and the same one employee. We do not have any information or belief that any other children or any additional employees were involved.
A few people have asked whether the School is withholding information for some reason. Except for the names of the children, the answer is no. If you believe that there is information that the investigators need to know, please contact the lead investigator, Special Agent Cook.
We have been asked by many people why the employee has not been arrested. We do not know and we don’t have any more information about that question than anyone else (other than the investigators) has.
To our knowledge, Special Agent Charles Cook remains the lead investigator for this matter.
As soon as we learn additional information, we will provide another update to everyone. The only limits are the same two as always: protecting the privacy of the families and cooperating with the criminal investigators.
A few additional things;
1. This situation has been reported to Child Protective Services. We are not sure that this was required, since federal and state investigators are already involved, but we provided this notice just in case. Our notice did not provide the names of the children involved but we will provide this if requested by CPS.
2. Fellowship Presbyterian Church, which operates the Day School, has appointed a Task Force whose job is to look at the security that was already in place at the time of the incidents, consider further security measures, and act as a point of contact with the investigators and Bob King. Bob is an Elder at the Church and is an experienced attorney who has helped
other organizations respond to crises. Bob is helping the Church and School understand and coordinate with the investigators. Bob is not charging for his time.
3. If you have suggestions for the Task Force, please email them to Tom **** at *****. Tom is the Chair of the Task Force.
4. As most people already know, the employee at issue is related to the Assistant Executive Director at the School. The Assistant Director is as shocked and heart-broken as everyone else at the School, plus she is dealing with the impact of this on her family. For the Assistant Director’s sake and to avoid any concerns as to appearance, she is not involved in communications with the investigators or with the Task Force.
5. The School has investigated the availability of counseling services for any parent or child who may want this. The list of Greensboro-area counselors who may be of assistance is attached.
Last, we ask for everyone’s continued prayers. The Day School is a non-profit operation that exists solely to help children and their families. Please know that Pastor Nancy Dederer is available for conversation and that our congregation continues to uphold our Day School children, families, and staff in prayer. Grace and peace,
Saunders is scheduled to be in court April 9 at 8:30 a.m.