20-year-old Chicago woman faces murder charges after police say she killed two of her young sons, leaving one in a bathtub and throwing another from an 11th-floor apartment window before jumping herself
Aleah Newell of Chicago was charged with two counts of murder for the death of the boys, ages 2 years and 7 months. She also is charged with attempted murder for stabbing her grandfather before she jumped from the apartment building on Chicago’s South Side. She was scheduled to have a bond hearing on Saturday.
Aleah Newell and her grandfather had been hospitalized in critical condition, police said Friday. There was no update on their condition Saturday.
Newell and her 2-year-old son, Johntavis Newell, were found on the ground outside a high-rise around 2 a.m. Thursday after police received a 911 call about a person injured on the street. Officers later found 7-month-old Ameer Newell in the bathtub of the 11th-floor apartment, along with the 70-year-old grandfather, who had been stabbed. Authorities have not released his name.
They say Aleah Newell stabbed her grandfather and Ameer Newell several times before she set the infant in a “scalding” hot bath. She then threw Johntavis out the window and jumped herself. Scaffolding broke the woman’s fall, but she suffered several broken bones, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
Her mother, Zera Newell, told the Sun-Times that Aleah Newell took her children to a women’s shelter earlier in the week and asked workers there to take her children. Zera Newell said her daughter had shown signs of depression in the past.
“I thought she was over that,” Newell said, adding that “maybe behind closed doors it was another thing.”
The Salvation Army toldWBBM-TVthat Aleah Newell stayed Monday and Tuesday at Shield of Hope, a Chicago homeless shelter for families, and left on Wednesday morning.
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has started an investigation into the deaths. A department spokesman said DCFS had no prior contact with the family.
Photo Credit: dailymail.co.uk
US military confirms terror attack on US base in Kenya
The U.S. military has confirmed to ABC News that there has been a terror attack on a military base in Kenya that houses some U.S. military personnel. The Somali terror group al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for the attack that Kenyan authorities said had been repelled with four militants killed in the fighting.
“U.S. Africa Command acknowledges there was an attack at Manda Bay Airfield, Kenya and is monitoring the situation,” said a spokesperson for U.S. Africa Command in a statement provided to ABC News. “As facts and details emerge, we will provide an update.”
The official did not provide information about any potential casualties at the Kenyan military base that has housed U.S. military personnel for years. It is unclear how many American personnel are stationed at the base that has reportedly been a site for U.S. special operations forces operating in Somalia.
Kenya Defense Forces said an attempt was made at approximately 5:30 a.m. local time this morning to breach security at Manda Air Strip and that it had successfully been stopped and the air strip was safe.
Earlier, al-Shabab had said in a statement that some of its fighters had launched “ a daring dawn raid on a U.S. naval base known as ‘Camp Simba’ in Lamu County, Kenya.”
The Al Qaeda affiliate claimed that their fighters had taken control of a portion of the base, a claim that could not be verified.
Last week al-Shabab carried out a car bomb attack in the heart of Mogadishu that killed at least 80 civilians.
About 500 U.S. troops are stationed inside Somalia assisting and advising that country’s military in its fight against the terror group.
Photo Credit: Staff Sgt. Devin Boyer/AP
Palm reader allegedly scammed client out of $71K to banish demon from her daughter
SOMERSET, Mass. – A Massachusetts palm reader allegedly convinced a client that her daughter was possessed by a demon and swindled her out of $71,000, according to the Somerset Police Department.
Tracey Milanovich, 37, is charged with six counts of obtaining property over $250 by trick, attempt to commit a crime, criminal harassment, larceny over $1,200 and intimidating a witness, a spokesman for the Fall River District Court in Somerset, Massachusetts, told CNN.
She pleaded not guilty at her arraignment on Monday and was released on personal recognizance. Her next court appearance is scheduled for February 21, the court said.
CNN called Milanovich’s attorney for comment but has not yet received a response.
Through a business called Tracy’s Psychic Palm Reader, police said Milanovich convinced a client that she needed to provide cash and purchase household items, including towels and bedding, to banish a spirit from her daughter. Milanovich was found to have stolen approximately $71,000 from the woman, the department said.
Milanovich was arrested on December 27. Somerset police are asking anyone else who thinks they may have been a victim to contact them.
Photo Credit: fox2now.com
KY man skinned puppies to make fur coat
FLOYD COUNTY, Ky. (WLEX/CNN/Meredith) — A Kentucky man is facing animal cruelty charges after police say he killed and skinned his neighbors’ dogs to make a “doggy coat”.
Jonathan Watkins in being held at the Floyd County Jail and is being charged with two counts of animal cruelty and two counts of tampering with physical evidence.
Joshua Vicks lives next door to Watkins and said that his family told him Watkins came over to their home covered in blood.
According to Vicks, Watkins said he was making a fur coat. When Vicks couldn’t find the dogs, he called the police.
“He could skin a person just like he did a dog. Ain’t no doubt about that,” Vicks said. “He’s capable of stabbing you and just walking away.”
Photo Credit: cbs46.com
Man accused of breaking into elderly woman’s home, sticking hand down her pants
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A 72-year-old woman was in her home when a man broke in and put his hand in her underwear, according to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office.
Investigators said Wilbert Henderson, 52, broke into the woman’s home, forced her onto the ground and put his hand down her pants.
Neighbors heard the woman screaming and ran over to help her, detectives said. Investigators said they started banging on her window and that caused Henderson to take off.
Deputies said after they arrested Henderson, he admitted he broke into her home and put his hand in her underwear. He told them he intended to have sex with her, according to detectives.
Henderson was arrested and charged with one count lewd and lascivious battery upon an elderly person and one count burglary to an occupied dwelling.
Photo Credit: wtsp.com
Florida man wakes up to find another man sucking on his toes
BRADENTON, Fla. — A Florida man woke up in the middle of the night to find another man sucking on his toes, according to the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies say the man was sleeping in his bed in Bradenton, when he woke up and realized he wasn’t alone.
The man told deputies he assumed he was being robbed, so he told the intruder he didn’t have any money.
But money wasn’t what he was there for.
The intruder told the man he was there to suck on his toes, according to an investigation write-up.
That’s when the man punched the accused toe sucker and forced him outside, according to investigators. While the two brawled, the man who sucked the toes told the other man he had a gun and tried to fondle him, according to investigators.
The man continued to hit the intruder for about 30 seconds before running inside and calling 911, deputies said. At this point the intruder broke out the front window of the home and stomped on the other man’s car’s windshield until it broke, deputies said.
Investigators said the toe-sucking man took off, so they tried to track him with a K-9 but were unable to find him.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Pastor John Gray’s Church Is Facing Possible Eviction
Controversy just can’t stay away from John Gray, the Trump-supporting Black pastor who is fresh off a number of scandals including an apparent extra-marital affair. This time around, though, he and his church in South Carolina are facing eviction over some unpaid bills that the landlord has alleged in court documents, the Greenville News reported on Thursday.
Gray’s Relentless Church, which rents property in Greenville from Redemption Church, reportedly ignored an order to vacate the premises by the end of the year, prompting the eviction process’ formal start on Thursday, the first official business day of the year.
“The court filing asks for an application of ejectment and says Relentless breached its lease agreement because it failed to make all payments to cover the costs of the sanctuary and The Imagine Center, the sports and fitness facility operated on the church campus,” the Greenville News wrote in its report. Redemption also said that it had to take over the debt for the Imagine Center to avoid going into foreclosure.
The Greenville News reported that Gray apparently tried to finagle his way into new leasing agreements that never worked out, leaving Relentless Church on a month-to-month lease that expired as soon as it turned 2020.
A statement sent to NewsOne on behalf of Gray following the publication of this story said Relentless Church had not been served eviction papers and instead was served a notice of filing.
“We will address this matter through the appropriate legal channels,” the statement, sent on Thursday evening, said in part. “We stand behind our original statement and are confident that the payment amounts required under the leases referenced in the complaint have and will continue to be paid. Our efforts at mediation and with wise counsel to present every detail absent of legal have proven fruitless on their end multiple times. To the Relentless Church family please note, we have dealt honorably and have utilized every possible measure to resolve these differences to date. We will continue to serve the Lord, reach the lost, and serve the community. This unfortunate issue will not hinder the vision, work, functionality, or heart of this church. We invite the media and the public to do their own due diligence. There will be no further comment at this time as we allow our legal team to proceed accordingly.”
There was no indication of how much money was owed, but in the recent past, Gray has gone to extreme lengths to maintain an air of wealth and show that cash isn’t an issue for him. That seemed to be true when he was called out in April for wearing a pair of expensive Nike Air Yeezys, which retail in the area of about $4,000 and higher.
And in December of 2018, Gray defended an even bigger extravagance. He bought his wife a Lamborghini Urus, which is priced around $200,000, for their eight-year anniversary. He posted a video of him gifting his wife the luxury vehicle. In the video, you can hear Gray say to his wife, “You light my fire. Let this Lamborghini light your fire, baby!”
He also denied plundering money from the church treasury to purchase the vehicle.
Gray, whose net worth is estimated to be about $7 million, also lives in a home that was purchased by Relentless Church for $1.8 million.
The drama in Gray’s life hasn’t been limited to money. In case you missed it, Gray told the women of “The Real” in March, “Over a year ago, my wife and I were in a very difficult place in our marriage, and in that time, I began to converse with someone — other than a counselor, other than a pastoral leader, which is where I should have taken my issues and challenges — and began to converse, and I was even in the presence of that person one time. But being in the presence of someone is not the same as sleeping with them. I did not sleep with anyone.”
If Gray was worried about the future of his church, there was no indication of any anxiety on his social media channels. The pastor who has vehemently defended his association with Donald Trump posted a video on New Year Eve inviting people to worship with him at Relentless Church.
“If God has done anything for you, thank Him and start your year off right,” Gray wrote on Instagram.
If Redemption Church is right, Gray may need to practice what he preaches.
A father and his 9-year-old daughter were killed while hunting. They were mistaken for deer
A South Carolina man and and his daughter died after being shot while hunting deer on New Year’s Day, a relative of the victims told CNN affiliate WCBD.
Kim Drawdy, 30, and his 9-year-old daughter, Lauren, were hunting Wednesday near their home in Walterboro, South Carolina, according to Benny Drawdy, Kim’s brother.
The two were shot by hunters after being mistaken for deer, according to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR). The agency said a group of four hunters was driving deer, which is when a group walks toward the animals to move them, but it did not give further details on how two of the hunters were shot.
“When I got the message, I just couldn’t believe it,” Drawdy told WCBD. “My heart stopped when they told me it was my brother and his daughter.”
Emergency crews responded and found the victims about half a mile into the woods, Colleton County Fire Chief Barry McRoy told CNN. The Colleton County Coroner has not yet released the cause and manner of death, according McRoy.
The SCDNR is investigating the shooting.
CNN’s Danielle Hackett contributed to this report.
via: https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/father-9-old-daughter-were-025914478.html
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Snoop Dogg makes hip-hop lullaby album for babies
Rapper and noted cannabis connoisseur Snoop Dogg has released an album for infants that’s packed with some of his greatest hits — in lullaby form.
The record, “Lullaby Renditions of Snoop Dogg,” features tranquil xylophone-laced renditions of hip-hop gems such as “Gin and Juice,” “Drop It Like It’s Hot” and “Doggy Dogg World.”
The 48-year-old “D-O-double-G” made the album with Rockabye Baby! Music, which has partnered with tough-guy rappers such as Eminem and Kanye West in the past to make tunes for tots.
It showcases 12 sleep-inducing songs, including baby-friendly versions of “Beautiful,” “What’s My Name?” and “Lay Low.” It was released last month and costs $17.
Hits such as “Smoke Weed Everyday, “B—h Please” and “That’s my N—a” didn’t make the cut.
In 2018, Snoop Dogg, real name Calvin Broadus Jr., showed off his domestic side when he launched a cookbook titled, “From Crook to Cook: Platinum Recipes From Tha Boss Dogg’s Kitchen,” which offers recipes on everything from smoothies to omelets.
Photo Credit: pagesix.com
Owners of Detroit’s burning ‘firefighter selfie’ house are ‘furious’
The owners of the burning, two-story Detroit house where grinning firefighters took a widely-panned selfie on New Year’s Eve are “furious” over the viral image.
“Everybody is furious,” Deonte Higginbotham, 21, told The Post of the brick home that’s been in his family for 50 years.
“They just let it burn to the ground … Eighteen men and none of them did anything,” he added of the firefighters in the tasteless selfie. “All of them need to be fired.”
After the group snap lit up the internet, red-faced fire officials argued that the home was “vacant” and too engulfed in flames for the smoke eaters to save.
“The chief in the middle of the picture there was retiring, and I think they just felt they would do this as a memento, but unfortunately, that’s probably not very professional,” Deputy Fire Commissioner Dave Fornell told The Post.
“It was a fire in a vacant building … The fire was pretty involved, we were not going to go into the building. What we would do is keep the fire from spreading” to other structures, he said.
Google Maps images show that the houses next door and across the street from the Higginbotham’s brick two-story do appear vacant and abandoned.
But Google Maps images and public records show the Higginbotham’s home at the corner of Green and Gould streets was indeed owned and well-cared for before the fire struck.
In fact, the only reason Higginbotham and his mother, Dorothy, weren’t there on New Year’s Eve was that the family had been renovating the house, he said.
Higginbotham still lived there with Dorothy, 70 — who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, he said.
“I’ve lived in it my whole life,” growing up there with two older brothers and an older sister, Higginbotham said.
“She’s really sick right now,” he said of his mother. “We were trying to get the house remodeled” to accommodate her illness, he said. “She’s staying with family” elsewhere in Detroit, he added.
“She doesn’t know about the fire,” he said. “I don’t even want to tell her.”
Neighbors told him that the firefighters barely bothered to hit the house with water, Higginbotham said.
Meanwhile, the FDNY’s own smoke eaters said Thursday that the vulgar photo would never be taken in the Big Apple.
“Wow, that’s crazy,” a firefighter outside Ladder 24 on West 31st Street told a reporter who showed him the selfie.
“It’s surprising. You gotta do your job. It doesn’t matter [if the house is empty or occupied], he said. “If something’s on fire, you need to extinguish it first before taking any pictures.”
He added, “That’s against our policy. We don’t post work pictures on social media.”
It remained unclear if there would be any repercussions for the 18 Detroit smoke eaters who are now eating crow.
“It was probably just a lapse of judgment — a 60th of a second in a multi-hour operation,” the deputy commissioner said.
“If disciplinary action is warranted,” it will be taken, he said, but the matter is still under investigation.
Additional reporting by Khristina Narizhnaya
via: https://nypost.com/2020/01/02/owners-of-detroits-burning-firefighter-selfie-house-are-furious/
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