Parents shackle their 13 children to beds, hold them captive
Two California parents were arrested after authorities found a dozen children and adults shackled to beds with chains and padlocks in their home, officials said Monday.
The 13 victims held captive in the home in Perris, California range in age from 2 to 29, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.
Authorities started investigating after a 17-year-old girl managed to escape from the residence on Sunday and called 911. The girl claimed her 12 brothers and sisters were being held captive inside the home by her parents, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said.
Police initially believe the 17-year-old girl who’d escaped was just 10 because she was emaciated.
Sheriff deputies responded and identified the 13 victims. They were “in dark and foul-smelling surroundings,” police said. Deputies initially thought all of the victims were children based on their size and were shocked to discover that seven of them were actually adults, ranging in age from 18 to 29. All of the victims were malnourished and dirty.
The vitims were given food and drinks “after they claimed to be starving,” police said.
David Allen Turpin, 57, and Louise Anna Turpin, 49, face charges of torture and child endangerment. Bail was set at $9 million for each.
“The parents were unable to immediately provide a logical reason why their children were restrained,” officials said.
The six children are being treated at Riverside University Health System Medical Center in Moreno Valley. The seven adults are being treated at Corona Regional Medical Center in Corona, authorities said.
via: http://pix11.com/2018/01/15/parents-shackle-their-13-children-to-beds-hold-them-captive-police-say/
Man guilty of photoshopping stepdaughter’s head onto porn
A man who photoshopped his teenage stepdaughter into pornographic photos involving himself said he did so because he was morally outraged about her blossoming sexuality.
However, Brisbane District Court Judge Leanne Clare on Monday dismissed his claims as “implausible,” saying his sexual obsession with the girl he had raised since she was two warranted 12 months behind bars.
The court heard the creation of the images took place in late 2014, just months after he was given a suspended sentence for touching the same girl’s genitals while she slept.
He used Photoshop to digitally add images of the girl when she was about 13 onto the bodies of adult women engaged in sexual acts with himself. He also created an image of her engaged in bestiality with a dog. The man, now 51, was arrested in September 2015 after being caught with around 100 images on hard drives in his luggage as he returned to Brisbane from a trip to South Africa.
He described the photos as “artworks” and said there was no sexual motivation behind their creation.
However, he pleaded guilty to four charges including possessing or producing child pornography material outside Australia, and importing and exporting objectionable goods without approval.
His lawyer, Colin Reid, urged the court to accept the man’s claims, saying he had “unusual beliefs” about promiscuity.
He told the court his client created the photos after his stepdaughter, then aged 16, told him she was becoming sexually active with her boyfriend. Judge Clare was sceptical.
“On material that I currently have before me, I find your client’s explanation not credible,” she said.
“Perhaps you were jealous of her interest in other people, but what you did was hardly an act of parental concern.” She sentenced the man to two years’ jail but ordered he be released on a good behaviour bond after serving 12 months.
The 51-year-old was arrested in September 2015 after being caught by customs officers with around 100 images on hard drives in his luggage as he returned to Brisbane from a trip to South Africa.
He is being sentenced on Monday in the Brisbane District Court on four charges including possessing or producing child pornography material outside Australia, and importing and exporting “tier two goods” without approval.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/01/15/man-guilty-of-photoshopping-stepdaughters-head-onto-porn/
Ohio Teacher Reprimanded After Telling Student He Will Be Lynched if He Didn’t Do Better in Class
The mother of an African-American teenager who was told by his teacher that other students would lynch him if he didn’t do better in class said a reprimand of the Ohio educator is not sufficient.
“She should not be in the classroom,” Tanisha Agee-Bell said of the white middle school teacher in Mason. The teacher needs to demonstrate she understands the context in which her words were taken, Agee-Bell told CNN on Friday.
Agee-Bell said her son Nathan told her that his eighth-grade social studies teacher last month said he was not pulling his weight in classroom group work.
Mason City Schools spokeswoman Tracey Carson on Friday said the teacher told Nathan: “Your classmates are tired of you costing them points. When you come in tomorrow without your homework completed, your classmates are going to be angry and become a mob who will want to lynch you.”
Carson told CNN on Friday that the teacher “was reprimanded and is required to have cultural proficiency training.”
“I didn’t understand how she could say that to any child, much less my black child in her white classroom,” Agee-Bell said, referring to the teacher.
CNN is not naming the Mason Middle School teacher because there is no evidence she has been investigated by law enforcement.
The mother said the teacher apologized to the 13-year-old in front of the class, saying she did not mean any harm.
According to the Ohio Department of Education, just 4% of the Mason school district student body is black. Just over 63% of district students identify as non-Hispanic white.
Agee-Bell, who serves on the Mason City Schools’ Diversity Council, said Nathan is the only black student in the class.
Agee-Bell said that she and representatives of the Diversity Council approached the district last month regarding the incident, but that the district only responded after the story received local media attention.
The mother said she hoped the teacher would educate herself further on African-American history, “so she can know what pictures her words put in [Nathan’s] head.”
“My son knows his history,” she said.
In a statement, Superintendent Gail Kist-Kline acknowledged problems within the school system.
“We have seen an uptick in the number of racially and culturally insensitive comments in our schools and community,” she wrote. “We will continue to invest in training and resources on culturally proficient practices for administrators, educators and classified staff members that lift up our district’s values.
Son shoots mom to death during dispute over broken video game headset
CERES, Calif. – A Northern California man has been arrested for homicide after police say he killed his mom during a dispute over a video game headset.
Around 9:50 p.m. Thursday, authorities responded to a home on River Valley Circle in Ceres for reports of a victim suffering from a gunshot wound to the head.
The 68-year-old woman later died from her injuries at the hospital, according to KTXL.
During their investigation, police determined 28-year-old Matthew Nicholson had been in his bedroom playing video games when he became upset and started yelling.
When the victim went to check on Nicholson, the pair began to argue.
During the argument, Nicholson broke his video game headset and blamed his mother.
After threatening to kill both his mother and father, police say Nicholson used a handgun to shoot two rounds into the wall and then shot his mother in the head.
Nicholson fled to a relative’s house in Riverbank after his father wrestled the gun from him.
Police located his car in Riverbank and took him into custody without further incident.
Nicholson was booked into the Stanislaus County Jail for homicide where he is being held without bail.
Mom who beat ‘possessed’ daughter and shoved crucifix down her throat is found guilty
An Oklahoma City mom who fatally forced a crucifix and medallion down her daughter’s throat because she thought the woman was possessed by the devil was convicted of first-degree murder Thursday.
Juanita Martinez Gomez, 51, was found guilty in the death of her daughter, Geneva Gomez, 33. The jury only deliberated for 20 minutes. Jurors recommended a sentence of life in prison without parole. Juanita Gomez did not display any emotion when the verdict was read, The Oklahoman reported.
“We think it was a just verdict,” Suzanne Lavenue, the assistant district attorney, told the media after the trial. “It was an incredibly heinous murder. The victim suffered quite a bit before her life was ended. The crime scene was horrific. It was obvious that there’d been an extensive struggle all over the house.”
Juanita Gomez said she punched her daughter multiple times and shoved a crucifix and medallion down her throat and watched her die. Police believe the murder occurred Aug. 27, 2016.
When police arrived at the scene, they found Geneva Gomez lying on the ground inside her mother’s Oklahoma City home with her arms spread out as if she had been crucified. A large crucifix had been placed on her chest.
The medical examiner’s office ruled Gomez died from “blunt force trauma to the face and head.” She also had “puncture wounds to her throat and her hair had been pulled out,” court documents stated.
Geneva Gomez’s boyfriend, Francisco Merlos, who found her body, said during the trial his girlfriend’s face was unrecognizable, CBS News reported.
“You couldn’t recognize her face at all,” Merlos said.
Police said Juanita Gomez’s hands were swollen and she had bruises on her arms. She reportedly told officers the marks were from her daughter after they fought while she was attempting to “rid Satan from her body.”
Police said Gomez attempted to clean the house following the slaying to rid it of “evil blood.” Investigators found hair that belonged to the victim and cleaning wipes in the trash.
A psychologist found her competent to stand trial and said she was feigning memory problems to appear incompetent. She did not testify. The trial began Monday.
Woman reportedly returns dead Christmas tree to Costco, gets full refund
SANTA CLARITA, Calif. — Costco is known for it’s generous return policy.
The warehouse club allows members to return almost anything they’ve purchased at any time for a full refund (there is a 90-day limit on electronics).
A woman in California put that return policy to the test when she reportedly returned her dead Christmas tree and got a full refund.
Indianapolis radio host Dave Smiley posted screen grabs from a Facebook page of a California man who claimed to have witnessed the entire incident.
“I CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP…” the post started.
“Woman in line at Costco, totally nonchalant, to return her Christmas Tree ‘because it is dead’ on January 4th. I saw the whole thing go down with my own two eyes about 30 minutes ago. If I didn’t see it, I wouldn’t believe that someone had so little moral values or lack of conscience.”
The man claimed that Costco employees did confirm she bought the tree at their store and gave her the refund. He said she was “shamed to a small degree,” but wrote, “I don’t think it fazed her because she has no conscience.”
A picture accompanying the post showed a woman with a red “X” over her face standing with a dead Christmas tree at the Costco customer service counter.
The man wrote that the woman didn’t seem to mind that he took her picture.
via: http://pix11.com/2018/01/11/woman-reportedly-returns-dead-christmas-tree-to-costco-gets-full-refund/
Video shows sobbing patient left in cold at bus stop, wearing only a gown
BALTIMORE, Md. – A viral video of a recently discharged patient left at a bus stop at night in Baltimore has inspired widespread outrage and prompted an investigation at the hospital where she was treated.
The video is distressing to watch — both for its contents and for the questions it raises about the events leading up to it.
A young woman, wearing only a hospital gown and socks, is left standing by a bus stop Tuesday night or early Wednesday as four men in uniforms, possibly security guards, walk away. The man who filmed it, Imamu Baraka, follows them as they leave the stop with an empty wheelchair.
“Wait, so you all are just going to leave this lady out here with no clothes on?” he says. “That is not okay.”
One of the men replies it was “due to the circumstances of what happened.”
The young woman barely speaks and seems dazed, occasionally crying out. Baraka urges her sit at the bus stop, where two plastic bags full of the woman’s belongings lie on the ground next to a pair of shoes. As she approaches the cold bench, the thin gown exposes her bare skin.
According to weather reports, the temperature in Baltimore was in the 30s the night the video was filmed.
‘I am disgusted’
Baraka’s Facebook posts about the incident, published early Wednesday morning, have almost 40,000 shares combined and thousands of comments expressing disbelief. His initial video has 1.2 million views.
In a follow-up video, Baraka explains that he called an ambulance to come pick up the young woman and take her back to the hospital.
Baraka, who says he works as a psychotherapist in the Baltimore area, acknowledges the woman could have been “unruly,” and that one of the men who dropped her off seemed to imply as much.
He muses that the hospital staff should have perhaps committed her “until they are clear about what’s happening.”
“You can’t expect those with mental health issues to be pleasant. Because they’re ill,” he says. “I am disgusted by the lack of empathy that I am seeing displayed.”
Hospital responds
The incident happened outside the University of Maryland Medical Center.
“We share the shock and disappointment of many who have viewed the video showing the discharge of a patient from the Emergency Department of UMMC Midtown the night of January 9. This unfortunate event is not representative of our patient-centered mission,” reads a statement issued by the UMMC.
“While there are many circumstances of this patient’s case that we cannot address publicly, in the end we clearly failed to fulfill our mission with this patient, no matter the circumstances of her case or the quality of the clinical care we provided in the hospital (which is not depicted in the video). We are taking this matter very seriously, conducting a thorough review, and are evaluating the appropriate response, including the possibility of personnel action.”
Many who watched the video wondered what happened to the patient after she was taken back to the hospital. When asked about this Karen Lancaster, a spokeswoman for the University of Maryland Medical System, said “patient privacy regulations restrict us from providing any details.”
Doctors warn teens not to eat laundry detergent pods for new internet challenge – Tide Pod Challenge
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — It’s the latest social media challenge that comes with some dangerous risks: participants recording themselves eating Tide laundry pods after social media memes compared the cleaning product to food.
A quick YouTube search returns a thread of videos showing people eating the pods and gagging.
“I think it’s kind of foolish because, No. 1, I think most of the problem comes from the coating itself. If you look at data for liquid soap ingestion, just liquid soap ingestion by itself doesn’t cause too many problems,” Dr. Joe Krug of St. Vincent Health told WXIN.
Krug said eating the pods can cause “burns to the skin, burns to the eye, a lot of problems that are more severe burns to the respiratory tract, burns to the esophagus.”
Tide’s parent company, Procter and Gamble, emailed WXIN a statement on the trend:
“Our laundry pacs are a highly concentrated detergent meant to clean clothes and they’re used safely in millions of households every day. They should be only used to clean clothes and kept up, closed and away from children. They should not be played with, whatever the circumstance is, even if it is meant as a joke,”
In recent years, the company even made the pod containers more childproof after reports of children mistaking them for candy and eating them unknowingly.
Krug said once you eat it, the damage is done.
“There’s nothing you can do once you ingested the issue or the substance, so it’s more of supporting whatever symptoms they have afterward and then hopefully educating them about trying to do more intelligent things in the future,” he said.
Rapper with song ‘Sell Drugsz’ gets prison for selling drugs
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A Rhode Island rapper whose songs include “Sell Drugsz” has been sentenced to three years in prison for doing just that.
Federal prosecutors say 30-year-old Michael Persaud, of Johnston, was sentenced Tuesday in federal court in Providence for trafficking heroin and fentanyl. His stage name is Montana Millz.
Prosecutors say an East Providence undercover detective bought nearly three-quarters of an ounce (22 grams) of fentanyl and a small amount of heroin from Persaud over a four-month period beginning in October 2016. Authorities also say they seized 1½ ounces (44 grams) of fentanyl from his home.
Persaud’s lawyer, Matthew Smith, calls the sentence “fair and just.” Prosecutors had asked for a six-year prison term.
Persaud also awaits sentencing in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, where a jury convicted him of drug charges.
via: http://pix11.com/2018/01/10/rapper-with-song-sell-drugsz-gets-prison-for-selling-drugs/
Man accused of killing wife for changing TV channel from a football game
CARLISLE, Ark. — Investigators say a central Arkansas man fatally stabbed his wife after she changed the TV channel from a football game he was watching while he went outside to smoke.
Tony Thomas, 58, of Carlisle, was charged Monday with capital murder. Investigators said he admitted killing his wife, Elke, during an argument after she switched the TV channel in November. He’s been jailed since the incident.
“He went outside to smoke and upon returning, he discovered that Elke had changed the channel. He asked about the score and she began yelling at him and got in his face,” Lonoke County Sheriff’s Detective Anthony Counts wrote in an affidavit.
Thomas said he blacked out and came to while standing over the woman with a knife in his hands, according to the affidavit. Court records show his bond is set at $1 million.
Deputies were already responding to the scene because a woman who had been at the home flagged down someone passing by to report the stabbing. A man who identified himself as “Tony” later called the sheriff’s office and “asked the dispatcher for a ‘meat wagon and police’ because he’d killed his wife,” Counts wrote.
The affidavit says the stabbing occurred Nov. 19 in the home’s living room, where blood was found on the floor, the walls, a table and the TV. Counts wrote that it appeared the woman’s body was dragged through the dining room to the back yard, where it was found beneath a blanket and a tarp.
Court records don’t list an attorney for Thomas. The local public defender’s office didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment about the case Tuesday. A court hearing in the case is scheduled for Jan. 22.
Carlisle is about 35 miles (56 kilometers) east of Little Rock.