Mom Allegedly Killed in Sleep by Sons Who ‘Were Tired of Her Parenting Style and Demands on Them’
Two Nevada teens allegedly confessed to fatally stabbing and bludgeoning their mother because they “were tired of her parenting style and demands on them,” police said.
Sgt. Adam Tippetts of the Nye County Sheriff’s Office said in a videotaped statement that Michael Wilson and Dakota Saldivar, both 17, are the suspects in the death of their mother, Dawn Liebig, 46. Both are being charged as adults.
Tippetts said deputies responded Monday to a missing persons call from the teens, who allegedly claimed their mother had “simply disappeared and they had not heard from her.”
Next, the teens allegedly claimed their mom was suicidal and asked them to assist her suicide by stabbing her to death, Tippetts said.
But suspicious officers went through the teens’ phones and allegedly discovered a text from one saying, “my mom passed away,” according to a declaration of arrest obtained by local news station FOX5.
Tippetts alleged the pair “finally confessed that a few hours prior to the murder, they had a fight with Liebig and were tired of her parenting style and demands on them.”
According to Tippetts, the teens said they waited until their mom fell asleep and then allegedly stabbed and bludgeoned her over a 30-minute period.
The declaration of arrest alleges that Wilson stabbed Liebig in the neck and Saldivar struck her 20 times in the head with a hammer, FOX5 reports.
One of the teens allegedly took detectives to a shallow grave in the desert where they discovered Liebig’s body and the murder weapons, Tippetts said.
Wilson and Saldivar were charged with open murder, conspiracy to commit murder and domestic battery with a deadly weapon.
Both were taken to an adult detention facility where they were denied bail at their first appearance in front of a judge.
Attempts to reach their attorneys were unsuccessful. They will have a formal arraignment on Aug. 9, an official confirms to PEOPLE.
Man accused of locking girlfriend’s children in closets, forcing them to eat shoes
Sedalia, MO (WDAF) — A Sedalia man is behind bars, accused of horrific child abuse. The victims are three of his girlfriend’s children who were allegedly beaten, starved, locked in closets and made to eat shoes.
Piles of TVs line the driveway, broken blinds in the windows, and toys litter the yard. Police say it’s inside the Sedalia home where two girls and a boy, ages 12, 9 and 8, endured horrific abuse for four years.
Court records say James Hays Jr. lived at the home with his girlfriend, his three kids and her three kids.
Back on July 23, the aunt of the 12-, 9- and 8-year-olds took the kids to a nearby hospital after noticing they had “large bruises.”
The children’s mother told FOX4 she tried to escape 30 or 40 times over the years. But last week, she finally was able to knock Hays over and run with her kids to a neighbor’s house, then get her sister’s help.
Investigators interviewed all three kids, and court records detail the brutal abuse they endured.
One child had visible bruising on her legs. A neighbor who didn’t want to be identified said there was a visible footprint on the girl’s shin, and she had badly bruised ribs.
The children told police Hays would often “yell at them, kick them a lot and spank them” for “trying to get something to eat.”
On one occasion, a child said Hays forced her to eat hot peppers and poured water over her head so that she “couldn’t breathe.”
The kids also said they were often shoved in bathroom and locked in with “bars” that Hays would “slam down.” One child reported that their mom would try to “sneak food to them while locked in the bathroom.”
Court records say more than once, the kids were made to take “several shoe laces” out of shoes, and Hays would “make them eat parts of the shoes.” Whoever ate “most of a shoe” would get “to stop and eat real breakfast.”
Hays is also accused of forcing the kids to do jumping jacks, squats and push-ups, and if he wasn’t satisfied, the kids said he’d “kick, spank and swat with a belt” with “little pointy metal things on it.”
Court records say Hays would also use a “spatula and hanger” to beat them. The abuse often leading to “bruises” and “bleeding.”
Police searched the house Monday, finding many of the conditions the kids described, including metal brackets and bars near the doors. Hays was arrested and now faces three counts of felony child abuse.
The children are staying with extended family members.
Hays is being held on $1 million bond. He has extensive criminal history, including a past partner, who filed a restraining order against him.
Baby-sitters accused of beatings, severe abuse over 6 days
A couple baby-sitting four children subjected at least two of them to physical and psychological terror over six days, making a girl drink dog urine, knocking out her brother and inflicting beatings that left visible injuries and required their hospitalization, police said.
Jakayo Scott Frye and Shyann Marie Hills, both 22, were charged Wednesday in Pennsylvania with dozens of crimes, including aggravated assault, false imprisonment, unlawful restraint and child endangerment.
Police said the victims’ mother paid Frye and Hills $100 to watch her four children — while she vacationed in North Carolina for a week in late July — at a house trailer in the town of Rome, near the New York border.
A 9-year-old girl appeared to suffer the worst abuse, including being tied to a cabinet by the wrists until her hands turned purple and being forced to lick her own urine from a wooden floor after she was not allowed to use the bathroom for an extended period, police said.
When her mother picked her up on July 27, police said, the girl complained of an aching back, said she felt as if she was about to pass out, was heavily bruised and showed difficulty walking. An ambulance was summoned, and the hospital called police.
A nurse told investigators the girl suffered a possible ankle sprain, was dehydrated and showed severe injury or stress to her muscle tissue. A police investigator observed bruising all over both children’s bodies, including the girl’s “extremely swollen and red” ears.
One of her sisters said the girl was picked up repeatedly by the ears.
The mother told police Frye and Hills explained the bruises by telling her the children had been throwing themselves against a wall and that a dog crate had fallen on the 9-year-old.
Frye and Hills were both jailed. His bail was set at $750,000 and hers at $500,000. No lawyer was listed for them in court records.
Investigators learned the harrowing allegations in interviews with the two children, their two sisters and another child, a 14-year-old boy.
They recounted how the girl was forced to run in place with a 5-gallon jug tied to her body, and to hold a “plank” position while nails would puncture her feet if she moved.
The girl was also kept awake for 24 hours, on some days she wasn’t fed at all, and she was tied to a dog crate by her waist and hands, police said.
Her 8-year-old sister said the girl was forced to drink dog urine through a straw, police wrote.
The 9-year-old girl told an interviewer “they treated the dogs better” than they treated her and her brother, according to the arrest affidavit. She recounted that Frye threatened her to keep quiet about his alleged attacks or “he would ‘come for her,’” police said.
The child told police she was tied up because she was crying for her mother, and was being abused. She said her head was “smashed” against a bedroom door and the refrigerator “numerous times,” police wrote. Frye and Hills are accused of beating children with their fists, a metal stove handle and a belt.
Frye stood on the back of the 7-year-old boy while he was in a “push up” position until he passed out, police alleged, and a 10-year-old sister told investigators “they woke him up by putting his head under water.”
The couple allegedly had the 14-year-old boy beat up the 7-year-old boy, police also said.
Court records list Frye and Hills as residents of Rome and of Towanda, a neighboring town. A preliminary
hearing is scheduled for Aug. 14.
via: https://pix11.com/2018/08/02/baby-sitters-accused-of-beatings-severe-abuse-over-6-days/
Woman says supermarket called police on her while she was helping a homeless man
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Barbecuing while black. Napping while black. Now add helping homeless people while black to the list of things that can lead to a visit from police.
Employees at a Safeway supermarket in Mountain View, California, called 911 on an African-American woman and her family because they suspected them of shoplifting, police said. Safeway has since apologized for what the store said was a misunderstanding.
Erika Martin told CNN that the incident occurred when she stopped at the store last month to help a homeless man she knew hung out there. She gave him a bag of dog food and some treats for his pit bull. Her two sisters were also there and gave two men care packages with soap, toothpaste, hand sanitizer and other hygiene products.
“I help the homeless as much as I can. I see homeless people weekly and I try help them the best that I can,” Martin said.
Martin said her son, who’s about to turn 10, and her nieces and nephews went into the store to see if the bakery was giving out free cookies and to get samples from the deli.
Martin stayed outside and talked to her sisters and the man to whom she gave the dog food.
She said a Safeway employee came out of the store, looked directly at her and rushed back inside, which she thought was strange.
As Martin prepared to leave, two police cars drove up and one stopped behind her so she couldn’t back out of her parking place. They asked why she was there and if she had any warrants, Martin said. She told them that she’d never even had a parking ticket.
Mountain View Police spokeswoman Katie Nelson said that a Safeway employee called the police and to report a theft in progress. Five officers were dispatched to interview store employees and the Martin family.
“It was extremely clear to us that no one who had been identified was potentially involved in any sort of criminal activity, and we explicitly said as much to Safeway employees,” Nelson said.
Martin said one of the officers told her that Safeway had called the police because she matched the description of someone taking items from the store and said the suspect was wearing a spaghetti-strap shirt.
Martin said she was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt that said “Y’all need Jesus,” and had not even gone into the store. Nelson said the description “somewhat matched” the top one of Martin’s sisters was wearing.
The employee told the police that the children were running back and forth to a car parked outside.
“During the initial dispatch call, a Safeway employee informed our dispatcher that both employees and customers believed a man and a woman as well as children were working together to try and take items from the store,” Nelson said.
Martin said the questioning scared her son and he started crying while talking to one of the officers.
He told her that when the children asked for cookies the woman at the bakery counter told him that “We don’t have anymore cookies to give to you,” Martin said. He said they looked behind the counter and saw that there were cookies back there.
The officer asked if they had taken any cookies and he said no.
“My son was crying so much, he was so scared because he thought he did something wrong. He thought the police were going to arrest him for looking behind the counter,” she said. “To see my child in so much fear broke my heart.”
She said police let them go after about 30 minutes
“In that short amount of time, we not only determined that no crime occurred, we explicitly told Safeway employees as such. None of the people Safeway identified in their call to us nor in their subsequent interview with us committed any crime whatsoever,” Nelson said.
“We were very appreciative of the way the family allowed our officers to wrap up the call, and we apologized for inconveniencing their evening,” she said.
After one of Martin’s sisters, Faith Martin-Ware, posted a video of the July 8 incident on Facebook, news outlets began picking up on the story.
Martin said she and her sisters had shopped at that store three or four times a week but are not comfortable going back there now.
“We were there to do a good deed and we left feeling humiliated, embarrassed, hurt and shocked,” she said.
Safeway spokeswoman Wendy Gutshall said in a statement that employees called police because a man suspected of shoplifting there in the past was in the store.
“Safeway has reached out to Ms. Martin to sincerely apologize for the misunderstanding, and we look forward to continuing the discussion regarding her concerns. We have also commenced an internal investigation, which remains ongoing,” she said.
Martin said that a store manager has apologized for what happened and she is scheduled to speak with someone with the Safeway corporate office on Wednesday.
Gutshall said that Safeway held store-wide employee meetings earlier this year to reiterate their policies against racial discrimination and racial profiling of customers, and plan to roll out training on implicit bias later this year.
Dad ran over son twice in driveway while texting
COLUMBUS, Ga. — Police in west Georgia say a father was texting when he ran over his toddler son twice in his driveway.
The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reports 24-year-old Trenton Cook is charged with second-degree homicide by vehicle and failing to exercise due care, both misdemeanors.
Columbus police Officer Chad Daugherty testified during Cook’s preliminary hearing Tuesday. He said Cook waited until his girlfriend’s children went inside to pull into his driveway May 8. He felt a bump, and then another while reversing. He discovered he’d run over 22-month-old Zakai A. Cook, who later died.
Daugherty says cellphone data shows Cook sent a text while pulling in. Police found no evidence of intent, and public defender Lindsey Brown called it an accident.
The judge agreed and set Cook’s bail at $2,800.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/08/01/dad-ran-over-son-twice-in-driveway-while-texting-cops/
Woman allegedly kills roommate over texts to ex-fiancé
An Oklahoma woman is accused of killing her roommate after she found text messages with her ex-fiancé, according to officials.
Kristen Elizabeth Jones, 21, allegedly shot her 23-year-old roommate, Miranda Pederson, in the head then covered up the murder by setting their house in Luther on fire, The Oklahoman reported.
Jones’ ex-fiancé, Bryson Harrington, lived at the house with both women, according to the newspaper.
The alleged shooting occurred when Jones discovered Pederson had been exchanging texts with Harrington.
In a phone call monitored by authorities, Jones told Harrington that Pederson first stabbed her in the hand.
Jones then allegedly grabbed a gun and shot Pederson in the back of the head, according to police. She also reportedly admitted to burning down the home to “cover it up because she got scared.”
Hickory Hills Fire Protection District responded to the home around 9:45 a.m. Monday after the fire chief spotted smoke, news station KFOR reported.
“While at the scene, putting out the fire, they discovered a body inside the home,” Oklahoma County Sheriff spokesman Mark Opgrande told KFOR. “They immediately called the sheriff’s office, and we called our homicide investigators to the scene.”
Authorities said they learned Jones fled the state and pulled her over Monday afternoon at a traffic stop in Gainesville, Texas.
She was booked Tuesday into the Oklahoma County jail on suspicion of murder, arson and desecration of a human corpse.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/08/01/woman-allegedly-kills-roommate-over-texts-to-ex-fiance-cops/
McDonald’s Serves Pregnant Woman Cleaning Fluid In Latte
A pregnant woman in Canada had a stomach-churning experience Sunday morning when she was served a latte filled with cleaning fluid.
Sarah Douglas of Lethbridge, Alberta, was on her way to her son’s baseball tournament when she went to a McDonald’s drive-through for a latte.
It wasn’t until she was on the highway that she suspected something was wrong, she told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
“I immediately had to put my hazard lights on and pull over and spit it out and rinse my mouth out with … water,” Douglas said. “I opened up the lid of the coffee and out pours this pungent smell of chemical. It wasn’t a latte at all.”
Douglas, who is seven months pregnant with her third child, said the liquid in her cup was a watery brownish color.
When she returned to the restaurant to complain, she said, a staff member told her that two cleaning lines were hooked up to the latte machine, according to The Globe and Mail newspaper.
The on-duty supervisor showed Douglas the bottle of cleaning fluid so she would know what to tell poison control.
“So, I took a picture of it and then another co-worker of his had also overheard what had been going on, and was a little bit upset at the situation and said that this had happened before,” she told Lethbridge News Now. “And she was a little mad that it was occurring again.”
Douglas contacted Alberta Health Services’ Health Link and was transferred to poison control.
She turned out to be OK, since she hadn’t swallowed the liquid. She visited her family doctor just to make sure there were no lingering effects, according to the CBC.
Dan Brown, who owns the McDonald’s franchise where Douglas purchased the tainted latte, released a statement on Wednesday:
Since learning about the complaint, our team has been in very close contact with the guest and apologized to her. The health inspector also visited my restaurant and is not investigating further.
McDonald’s is renowned for its food safety protocols and I am sorry that this happened in my restaurant here in Lethbridge.
What happened is that the machine was being cleaned — as it is every morning. Unfortunately, the milk supply line was connected to the cleaning solution while this guest’s drink was made.
We have taken immediate action to review the proper cleaning procedures with the team and have put additional signage up as an added reminder.
Although Douglas survived the ordeal unharmed, it’s still eating at her, mainly because she fears that the cleaning fluid might end up in juice, soda or soft-serve ice cream and be ingested by kids.
“As a mother, I want to make sure I have voice and that I’m being heard in terms of the safety of consumers, and how (alleged) negligence can affect people in such a drastic way,” she told Lethbridge News Now.
Teen fractures skull trying to do ‘Kiki Challenge’
IOWA CITY, Iowa — A Bettendorf teen is in an intensive care unit in Iowa City after attempting a viral dance trend.
Anna Worden, 18, said all parents and teens need to hear her story.
Worden graduated from Pleasant Valley this past year. She’s been dancing since she was 3 years old.
“For us to get to this point you see today has been a long road. Its hard on all of us,” father Mike Worden said as his daughter attempted to walk a few steps around her hospital room.
This is not where Anna pictured she’d end up simply because of what happened one night she was driving around town with friends on July 23.
“We were over by the round-about, and I thought it would be a fun idea to do the Kiki Challenge,” Worden said.
She’s been dancing since she was little, so she wanted to try out the newest dance fad going viral online called the “Kiki Challenge.”
Thousands of fans worldwide have been posting videos of themselves jumping out of moving cars and dancing to a Drake song. The dance challenge started in late June when a social media star posted a choreographed video and told people to learn the moves.
“I tried, and the last thing I remember was opening the door, so apparently I got out and tripped and fell and hit my head,” she said.
Still unconscious, Worden had to be airlifted to Iowa City for emergency treatment.
“I had five minutes to give her a kiss and not know what was going to happen. I will always remember that,” her father said.
Worden had a fracture in her skull, blood clots in her ear and bleeding in her brain.
“When we got here and I finally gained consciousness in the ICU, that’s when it hit me like, ‘Wow, I’m actually in the University of Iowa hospitals because I tried to do some little challenge everyone’s doing now, and I’m the one that got majorly hurt,’” she said.
The girl who was graceful on her feet is now re-learning to walk.
She also has a lesson to teach.
“Be more careful about the challenges and fads that are going around. It may seem fun, and it may seem easy, but at the same too, they could be so dangerous,” she said.
Worden is hoping to be discharged from the hospital on Monday. When she goes back home to Bettendorf, the road to recovery is still far from over. She will be doing outpatient physical therapy closer to home.
via: https://pix11.com/2018/07/31/kiki-challenge-attempt-sends-teen-to-icu/
Florida mom says medics didn’t take daughter to hospital, thinking that she couldn’t afford it. Daughter died 5 days later
A Florida woman claims an ambulance wouldn’t take her 30-year-old daughter to the hospital, because, she said, fire rescue personnel assumed the family couldn’t afford it.
The Hillsborough County fire rescue personnel were put on immediate administrative leave with pay and face disciplinary hearings Tuesday, according to the county.
The incident happened early in the morning on July 4. That’s when Nicole Black called 911 after she discovered her daughter Crystle Galloway wasn’t well. The first thing Black said on the 911 recording is: “I need an ambulance.”
But that’s not how Galloway ended up getting to a medical facility.
While sending fire rescue, the dispatcher asked Black more about what happened. Black told dispatch that her daughter had a baby by cesarean section June 27 and wasn’t feeling well.
“My granddaughter called and said, ‘Something’s wrong with mommy,’ ” Black told dispatch. Since she lived a couple of doors down, she immediately ran down to her daughter’s. There she found Galloway slumped over in the bathroom, her “lips swollen, drooling from the mouth.” Black said her daughter was only “kind of” alert and had passed out.
The dispatcher coded the incident as a “Stroke (CVA)/Transient Ischemic Attack” according to county documents, and sent Lt. John “Mike” Morris, Acting Lt. Cortney Barton and fire medics Justin Sweeney and Andrew J. Martin. Two sheriff’s deputies were first on the scene. A separate investigation has cleared the deputies of any wrongdoing.
Fire rescue units arrived 12 minutes after being dispatched, according to county records of the incident.
According to Lt. Morris and fire medic Sweeny’s account as summarized by the department, county documents, the fire rescue crew said when they got to Galloway’s complex they asked her if she wanted to be taken to the hospital and she “responded affirmatively.”
Galloway was able to get up and walk to the stair chair which the crew could use to carry her down three flights. Rather than put her in the ambulance, they put her in Black’s car and the mother drove off. The crew said it went back into service immediately.
“The whole conversation as the EMS drivers put my child in my car was this was what was best for us because we couldn’t afford an ambulance,” Black told CNN affiliate WFTS.
“They never did a medical evaluation, they never took her blood pressure or temperature. They came up, looked at her and said it is going to be $600 to take her to the hospital,” said Chris Jayson, Black’s attorney. Jayson added the family does have insurance.
“They first treated them like they were drunk, because it was early in the morning of the 4th of July. In reality, she was a new mother who spent the entire day at home taking care of her kids and she didn’t feel well and wasn’t sleeping with this new baby.”
In a July 23 press conference, Hillsborough County Administrator Mike Merrill confirmed that the crew did fail to take Galloway’s vitals and they also failed to do a medical evaluation, according to an internal investigation. The medics “did not do their job” and violated standard procedure, Merrill said.
With Galloway in the car, Black rushed her daughter to an urgent care center three blocks away. The center did a CT scan and decided Galloway should be transported by helicopter to Tampa General Hospital. There Galloway slipped into a coma.
That same day, a recording shows the nurse supervisor on duty at the hospital called the Hillsborough County dispatch to relay a complaint from the family about the way they were treated by rescue personnel. When the Hillsborough County dispatcher called Black back later that same day to respond to the complaint, Black’s distress can be heard in the department’s recording of the call.
“My daughter was a good girl. She graduated with her Bachelor’s degree. She doesn’t drink or smoke or anything and she was 120 pounds soaking wet and your fire department denied her services, and she’s in a coma,” she told the dispatcher.
Galloway died five days later, on July 9.
In the July 23 press conference, the county administrator Merrill said the crew violated three major department procedures. In addition to not taking Galloway’s vitals, they also failed to get an “informed refusal,” meaning the rescue crew didn’t get any signed paperwork that said the family refused an ambulance.
Merrill said the investigation found that there was “some confusion about transport.” There was some discussion on the scene about Black taking her daughter to the hospital, but Galloway also “nodded” in the affirmative when asked if she wanted them to take her to the hospital. “So there was some confusion,” Merrill said twice. At the press conference, Merrill did not address Black’s claim that the crew wouldn’t take Galloway because of money.
The union president that represents Hillsborough County Fire employees spoke for the medics and said that the mother is telling an “absolute lie.” “We would never talk to someone about how expensive an ambulance ride is, that’s an absolute lie,” said Derrik Ryan. Ryan said that the crew didn’t take the woman’s vitals in her home because the place was small and dark. He said they planned to take them once they got her downstairs, but the mother took off too fast in the car for them to get all the information.
The four rescue workers say in their written statements to the department that the mother said she would get her daughter to the hospital.
The third violation, Merrill said, was to falsify the nature of the call. The crew filled out paperwork after their call that said the patient could not be found. One of the rescue workers said the call was labeled as such because “there was no patient information to input and it was a lift assist only,” according to the letter Andrew Martin wrote to the county about the call. Martin says in the letter that Black only wanted help getting her daughter down the stairs and that Black said she would take her to the hospital.
Ryan added that because the crew didn’t have the family’s details, the code to describe the call was the only one they could pick in the system.
Michael Lozano Jr., a medical director for the fire department who reviewed the incident concluded he “cannot trust” the workers who “failed to perform the essential elements of their job,” according to an email he sent to the department. After the disciplinary hearing Tuesday, Merrill will decide how to proceed.
“At this point there is a real absence of information about why the fire medics performed, or failed to perform in this case, the way they did,” Merrill said. “This is clearly unacceptable.”
Black’s lawyer said people have asked Black if she thinks her race was an issue in the crew’s response.
“She says she doesn’t know what’s in their heart, but at the minimum they came in their house and treated them differently and assumed they couldn’t afford their help,” Jayson said.
Jayson said it is too early to tell if the family will file a lawsuit. He’s still collecting medical records and they don’t have the death certificate yet.
“If the delay caused this failure and led to her demise, we will take appropriate action,” Jayson said.
The family has set up a GoFundme page to help care for Galloway’s children. In addition to her newborn son, Galloway has two young daughters who will remain in Black’s care.
“My daughter begged for her life, she begged,” Black told CNN’s Tampa affiliate WFTS. “You can tell me ‘you’re sorry,’ you can give me your condolences, but you still have to work this out with God.”
Teen busted for breaking into home for Wi-Fi
A California teen broke into a home through an open window this week — to ask residents if he could use their Wi-Fi, cops said.
The Palo Alto couple in their 60s woke up around 12:30 a.m. Sunday to see the stranger standing in their bedroom, police said.
Instead of ransacking the joint, the intruder, a 17-year-old boy wearing a T-shirt around his face, asked the couple if he could hop on their Wi-Fi network, cops said.
But the homeowner threw up a firewall — bolting out of bed, and pushing the wannabe web-crawler outside.
Cops quickly arrested the teen, whose name wasn’t released because he’s a juvenile, and charged him residential burglary, a felony, as well as prowling and providing false information to an officer — both misdemeanors, authorities said.
The teen’s networking may have been a ruse — the couple reported that two kitchen knives were missing from a drawer.
Meanwhile, police said it wasn’t the teen’s only Wi-Fi request of the night.
About 45 minutes earlier, a Palo Alto woman in her 20s spotted the teen outside her bedroom window, standing in the yard and motioning that he wanted to talk to her.
When she approached, he asked for permission to use her network because he was out of data.
She refused and he sped off on a bicycle — which police believe may have been stolen.
He may face an additional misdemeanor petty theft charge.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/07/27/teen-busted-for-breaking-into-home-for-wi-fi/