Sarasota parents zip-tied daughter, confined her to ‘playhouse’ inside home, investigators say
The parents of a 12-year-old girl in Sarasota have been arrested after it was discovered she was routinely restrained by zip ties and confined to a “playhouse.”
Eugenio Erquiaga, 51, and Victoria Erquiaga, 53, are charged with aggravated child abuse, according to detectives from the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office.
Investigators said the two would restrain their daughter’s hands and ankles with zip ties when she got angry and regularly locked her in a playhouse in a loft area of their home. Investigators said it was also used as her bedroom.
On Dec. 27, deputies were called to the area for a possible kidnapping after the 12-year-old went to a neighbor’s front porch with her hands and ankles tied.
Deputies investigated and the girl showed them the “playhouse.”
According to the affidavit, the room was 5 feet by 7 feet wide and 7 feet tall. The door could be barred shut by a large piece of wood and all but one of the windows had been screwed shut. The playhouse reeked of urine and the wooden floor was discolored. The girl said she was often forced to soil herself because she couldn’t get out of the playhouse.
The room also contained an “eye hook.” The Erquiagas told deputies they would secure the girl’s zip ties to the hook to keep her from kicking the playhouse apart. They also stated that while the child is allowed to eat dinner with the family, which includes seven other children, she is sometimes forced to sit on the floor to eat.
The Erquiagas said their daughter has behavioral issues, which is why they took the actions they did.
The couple’s other children have been taken into protective custody.
Mother tried to poison daughter who has Down syndrome
An Upstate mother is accused of trying to murder her daughter who has Down syndrome by poisoning her with medication.
Pamela Ann Contreras, 68, of Spartanburg, has been charged with attempted murder and abuse of a vulnerable adult. Contreras put prescription drugs in her daughter’s drink in an attempt to kill her, according to arrest warrants.
A police officer responded to an attempted suicide on Dec. 7.
The officer arrived to Contreras’ apartment and found her daughter in the kitchen holding a glass of orange liquid with a powdery substance along the edge, according to an incident report.
The officer took the drink from the victim, who would not speak. Contreras later told the officer that her daughter does not talk.
Contreras said she used a pill grinder to grind up medication that she placed in her daughter’s drink. She then planned to stab her to death when she passed out, the report states.
Contreras told the officer that she feared no one would care for her daughter after she died. She claimed she also drank a similar mixture, but an officer noted in the report that Contreras’ glass was mostly full, while her daughter’s large glass only had around two inches of liquid left in the bottom.
Both women were taken to the hospital for treatment.
Contreras was booked into the Spartanburg County Detention Center on Tuesday.
Florida father becomes so upset at son watching him play video games, he smothers him.
SARASOTA, Fla. (WFLA) — Deputies say a 270 lb. Sarasota father played a video game and at the same time used his body weight to smother his 6-year-old son.
Sarasota County Sheriff’s Deputies say the dead boy’s 7-year-old sibling watched the horrific Christmas Eve incident unfold.
The sibling reported seeing the father, James “Rick” Dearman, 31, smother the boy on the couch, as Dearman played a video game with his live-in girlfriend.
Deputies responded to a home in Englewood at about 10:10 p.m. They arrived to find paramedics performing CPR on a 6-year-old boy in the living room. One of the deputies said he saw a bruise on the boy’s back.
The 6-year-old boy was transported to Englewood Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Detectives later interviewed Dearman’s girlfriend, Ashley Cole, who said that she and Dearman live together at the home. Cole told detectives that at 7:30 p.m., the couple told the two children to go to bed. The children sleep on the floor with blankets in a separate bedroom.
Cole said the children would not go to sleep and ran around the bedroom. She said that Dearman got up from the couch and forced both children to stand facing the wall. Cole said that the 6-year-old boy was caught watching her and Dearman play video games. Dearman then became angry and put the boy on the couch.
Cole said Dearman forced the boy to lie on his side on the couch with his face against the rear couch cushions. She said Dearman then pinned the boy against the couch using his bodyweight. The boy was screaming that he could not breath and was trying to free himself.
Detectives say Dearman ignored the boy’s pleas and he and Cole continued to play video games.
After 5 minutes, the boy became motionless. Dearman and Cole then went to the garage to smoke a cigarette and left the boy on the couch.
Ten minutes later, the pair returned from the garage and saw the boy lying on the couch. Cole saw that the boy’s lips were blue and he was not breathing. Cole ran into the garage to pray, according to an arrest affidavit.
Dearman called 911 and attempted to perform CPR until paramedics came.
Detectives later interviewed the dead child’s sibling, who witnessed the alleged abuse. When asked about the victim, the sibling responded, “When dad squished him, he got dead,” according to the affidavit.
The sibling demonstrated to detectives how the victim was pinned in the couch and said the victim was crying and needed to use the restroom, but was denied by Dearman.
Dearman was arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse. On Thursday afternoon the charge was changed to Aggravated Manslaughter of a Child. Dearman is being held without bond in the Sarasota County Jail.
The medical examiner is conducting an autopsy to determine the cause of death of the child.
The case has left its mark on the sheriff’s office staff.
“There’s not a detective or anybody who isn’t pretty upset about this and finds it egregious and malicious, the treatment of a six-year-old child,” said Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office Captain John Walsh.
via: http://wfla.com/2015/12/31/deputies-270-lb-sarasota-father-played-video-game-smothered-son-6-at-same-time/
Dutch driving instructors can trade lessons for sex beginning Jan. 1.
(CNN)It brings a whole new meaning to the expression “going Dutch.”
Government ministers in the Netherlands have confirmed that it is legal for driving instructors to offer lessons in exchange for sex.
Prostitution is legal and regulated in the country, where sex workers are considered “self-employed” and can openly advertise in newspapers and online.
The Dutch government tackled the issue head on after Gert-Jan Segers, of the socially conservative opposition party ChristenUnie (Christian Union), tabled a question in parliament in November.
Segers described such transactions as “illegal prostitution” and called for them to be banned. He argued that student drivers would not have the requisite escort license, and so would not be declaring any sexual acts for tax purposes.
But Melanie Schultz van Haegen, the country’s minister of infrastructure and the environment, and Security and Justice Minister Ard van der Steur said that while the practice — widely dubbed “ride for a ride” — may be “undesirable,” it is not against the law, provided both parties are over 18 and the instructor suggests it.
They said that if the transaction were reversed, with students proposing “personal services” in return for lessons, then this would be unlawful.
“It’s not about offering sexual activities for payment, but offering a driving lesson,” the two ministers said in a letter sent to parliament on December 8.
“It is important that the initiative lies with the driving instructor, and focuses on offering lessons, with the payment provided in sexual acts.
“When a sexual act is offered as a commercial business, that is prostitution.”
Sentina van der Meer, a press officer for the Ministry of Security and Justice, told CNN: “It is important to know that it is not known as a common phenomenon.”
However, little data is publicly available, and a recent investigation by Rotterdam police into so-called “sex exchanges” has not been published.
via: http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/21/europe/driving-lessons-sex-netherlands/
Woman claims her body brews alcohol, has DUI charge dismissed – suffers from “auto-brewery syndrome”
That’s what happened to an upstate New York woman when she blew a blood alcohol level more than four times the legal limit. Just before Christmas in Hamburg, New York, a judge dismissed the charges after being presented with evidence the woman suffers from “auto-brewery syndrome.”
“I had never heard of auto-brewery syndrome before this case,” attorney Joseph Marusak told CNN on the condition his client’s identity remain anonymous. “But I knew something was amiss when the hospital police took the woman to wanted to release her immediately because she wasn’t exhibiting any symptoms.”
“That prompts me to get on the Internet and see if there is any sort of explanation for a weird reading,” adds Marusak. “Up pops auto-brewery syndrome and away we go.”
“I’m in touch with about 30 people who believe they have this same syndrome, about 10 of them are diagnosed with it,” said Panola College Dean of Nursing Barbara Cordell, who has studied the syndrome for years. “They can function at alcohol levels such as 0.30 and 0.40 when the average person would be comatose or dying. Part of the mystery of this syndrome is how they can have these extremely high levels and still be walking around and talking.”
Extremely rare condition
Also known as gut-fermentation syndrome, this rare medical condition can occur when abnormal amounts of gastrointestinal yeast convert common food carbohydrates into ethanol. The process is believed to take place in the small bowel, and is vastly different from the normal gut fermentation in the large bowel that gives our bodies energy.
First described in 1912 as “germ carbohydrate fermentation,” it was studied in the 1930s and ’40s as a contributing factor to vitamin deficiencies and irritable bowel syndrome. Cases involving the yeast Candida albicans and Candida krusei have popped up in Japan, and in 2013 Cordell documented the case of a 61-year-old man who had frequent bouts of unexplained drunkenness for years before being diagnosed with an intestinal overabundance of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or brewer’s yeast, the same yeast used to make beer.
It was a beautiful fall afternoon in 2014 when Marusak’s client met her husband at a restaurant for food and drinks. She consumed “four drinks between noon and 6 p.m.” says Marusak, “less than one drink an hour. We hired a local pharmacologist who said that a woman of her size and weight having four drinks in that period of time should be between 0.01 and 0.05 blood alcohol levels.” That would be beneath the legally impaired level of 0.08 BAC in New York state.
And here’s the “crazy thing,” says Marusak. “Her husband drives to meet friends and she is driving home. She gets a flat close to home but doesn’t want to change the tire so keeps on driving. Another driver sees her struggling with the car and calls it in as an accident. So if she hadn’t had that flat tire, she’d not know to this day that she has this condition.”
Because she blew a blood alcohol level of nearly 0.40, police procedure is to take the accused to a hospital, as that level is considered extremely life-threatening.
Instead of allowing his wife to be released as the hospital recommended based on her lack of drunken symptoms, the husband asked for tests to be run. Sure enough, Marusak says, the results showed a blood alcohol level of 0.30, hours and hours after her last drink. That prompted Marusak to do his own sleuthing.
“I hired two physician assistants and a person trained in Breathalyzers to watch her and take blood alcohol levels over a 12-hour period and had it run at the same lab used by the prosecution,” said Marusak. “Without any drinks, her blood level was double the legal limit at 9:15 a.m., triple the limit at 6 p.m. and more than four times the legal limit at 8:30 p.m., which correlates with the same time of day that the police pulled her over.”
Even more strange, says Marusak, is the fact that the woman exhibited no signs of the levels until she reached a blood alcohol level of between 0.30 and 0.40.
“That’s when she started to feel a bit wobbly on her feet.” Marusak explains that by pointing to the world of alcoholism, where the bodies of “functioning alcoholics” adapt to the high levels of booze in their blood.
Even though the Hamburg judge dismissed the case against his client, Marusak says it’s not over yet.
“I’ve heard the DA’s office says they plan to appeal. I’ll know more by the middle of January.”
Assistant Erie County District Attorney Christopher Belling confirmed a review of the judge’s decision is underway but declined to comment further.
In the meantime, Marusak’s client is treating her condition with anti-fungal medications and a yeast-free diet with absolutely no sugar, no alcohol and very low carbs. While that works for some, Cordell says, others relapse or find little relief.
via: http://fox2now.com/2016/01/01/woman-claims-her-body-brews-alcohol-has-dui-charge-dismissed/
Fake Craigslist movers steal everything from St. Louis County couple
ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI) – A St. Louis County couple used Craigslist to hire a company to help them move to Charlotte, NC. Police say the men loaded their belongings into a U-Haul truck, got paid, and then stole everything.
The victim hired Robinson Moving LLC after seeing an ad posted to Craigslist. Three movers showed up at his home at the 1200 block of Pinecrest Lane on on July 25, 2015. He paid one of the men $1,100 in cash to for the move. Another $300 was to be paid upon delivery.
The three men loaded the household items of the victim and his wife into the truck and drove away. The couple later received a phone call from the driver of the truck. He said they needed to load the property onto a different truck but delivery was still expected as scheduled.
Police say that after the victim and his wife flew to Charlotte they received another phone call from the driver. He said the truck was experiencing mechanical problems and was stopped on the highway near their new home.
That is the last time the victim and his wife heard from the movers. The property was never delivered to the victim’s new home. The Craigslist ad, to which the couple had initially responded, was taken down.
The victim estimates the value of the property taken from his home to be nearly $30,000.
Police have identified a suspect in this case based on the phone number in the Craigslist ad. Deandre Robinson, 33, was identified by the victim in a photo lineup as, “The man that seemed in charge.”
Robinson was arrested several months later. He is no longer in police custody. He is facing felony stealing charges.
via: http://fox2now.com/2015/12/28/fake-craigslist-movers-steal-everything-from-st-louis-county-couple/
Fight over frequent flatulence lands Florida woman in jail *strange news*
PORT ST. LUCIE, FL – A Florida woman landed in jail after fighting with her husband who kept passing gas.
Police tell WPEC-TV that Dawn Meikle, 55, elbowed her husband after he passed gas in bed early in the morning on December 11th. She eventually kicked him out of bed after the flatulence wouldn’t stop.
Donald Meikle says he eventually was allowed back in bed. Dawn started to kick and elbow him again after he kept passing gas.
Meikle tells police that he held his wife down for her own safety during the struggle. Dawn split her lip during the fight. He has scratches across his chest and a ripped shirt. She eventually called 911 at 3:30am.
Police say Dawn also used pepper spray to keep her husband out of the bathroom.
Dawn Meikle has been arrested on a domestic battery charge.
via: http://fox2now.com/2015/12/22/fight-over-frequent-flatulence-lands-florida-woman-in-jail/
Ethan Couch, the drunken driving ‘affluenza’ teen, missing from probation
To the families of his victims, Texas teen Ethan Couch got off easy with 10 years’ probation after killing four people while driving drunk. Now his probation officer can’t find him, Couch’s attorneys said.
“The juvenile probation officer has been unable to make contact with Ethan or his mother with whom he has been residing,” attorneys Scott Brown and William Reagan Wynn said this week.
Part of Couch’s defense two years ago was that he was the product of wealthy, privileged parents who never set limits for the boy. A psychologist said in court that Couch, who was 16 at the time, suffered from “affluenza.”
The term triggered widespread outrage.
Arrest order
Couch’s attorneys argued back then that his parents, because they spoiled him, were partly to blame for the crash on a road in Burleson, south of Fort Worth.
Prosecutors had asked for 20 years behind bars, but in December 2013, a Tarrant County juvenile court judge sentenced Couch to 10 years’ probation. Couch was ordered into long-term mental health treatment away from his parents’ influence.
After his recent disappearance, a court ordered Couch arrested. At the time of his conviction,prosecutors said Couch could face up to 10 years of incarceration if he violated the terms of his probation.
Recently, a video turned up on social media that allegedly showed Couch at a party where alcohol was served, CNN affiliate KTVT reported.
Drunken crash
On the night of June 15, 2013, Couch and some friends stole beer from a Walmart.
And Hollie Boyles, and her daughter, Shelby, left their home to help Breanna Mitchell, whose SUV had broken down by the side of a road. Brian Jennings, a youth pastor, was driving past and also stopped to help.
Couch plowed into them, killing them all. The crash sent two passengers riding in the bed of Couch’s truck airborne, injuring both severely.
The parents of one of the teens, who suffered debilitating brain injuries, sued Couch’s family for $2 million.
Three hours after the crash, tests showed that Couch had a blood alcohol content of 0.24, three times the legal limit. Couch’s vehicle also struck a parked car, which then slid into another vehicle headed in the opposite direction.
Eric Boyles, who lost his wife Hollie and daughter Shelby, felt the judge—with the probation sentence—had doled out no consequences to Couch for his actions.
“The primary message has to absolutely be that money and privilege can’t buy justice in this country,” he said then. He felt Couch’s sentence sent the opposite message.
via: http://www.kmov.com/story/30767247/ethan-couch-the-drunken-driving-affluenza-teen-missing-from-probation
Man Sentenced to 158 Years to Life in Prison for Murdering South L.A. Mother Over $10 Cable Bill
A man who fatally shot a South L.A. mother of two and wounded her boyfriend over a $10 cable bill was sentenced to 158 years to life in state prison, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said Thursday.
A jury convicted 57-year-old Kenneth Theodrick Parks of one count each of first-degree murder and attempted murder on Sept. 10, according to a news release from the DA’s Office.
Parks had rented out rooms to 42-year-old Terri Smith at a South L.A. home. He had an ongoing dispute over an unpaid cable bill with the victim when the shooting occurred, Deputy DA Joshua Ritter said in the release.
On April 14, 2014, Parks fatally shot Smith and injured her boyfriend at the house, according to the release.
The boyfriend was struck twice by the gunfire, but still managed to disarm Parks and hit him with the weapon, Ritter said.
At the time of her death, Smith’s two children were 11 years old and 20 months old, police said.
The Los Angeles Police Department’s South Bureau Homicide Division investigated the case.
Murrieta Teacher Arrested on Suspicion of Having Sexual Relationship With Underage Student
A former Murrieta Valley High School teacher was arrested Friday on suspicion of having a sexual relationship with an underage male student, authorities said.
Shannon Fosgett, 44, turned herself in to Murrieta Police Department detectives and was booked on multiple charges, all felonies: one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor under 18 and two counts of oral copulation with a minor, according to a news release.
Fosgett had resigned her teaching position on Wednesday, the Police Department said, citing the Murrieta Valley Unified School District.
The investigation began earlier this week when police were informed of an alleged inappropriate relationship involving a Murrieta Valley High teacher and a male student, the news release said. The case was subsequently turned over to the Police Department’s detective bureau.
Investigators interviewed the boy, who told them that one of his instructors “began showing interest in him over a year ago,” which began with after-hours texting, according to authorities.
“As the relationship grew, the minor and the teacher engaged in oral sex and ultimately sexual intercourse,” the police statement said. On Monday, other students notified school administrators of the alleged relationship, prompting a report to authorities.
The teacher was then identified as Fosgett, a Murrieta resident, the Police Department said.
Before she resigned her position as an earth sciences teacher, Fosgett had been placed on indefinite administrative leave by the school district. A statement was posted on Murrieta Valley High’s website regarding the matter.
A former student described Fosgett as a “really good teacher” who helped her get her grades back up last year when she was struggling academically.
She added she was “shocked” by the allegations.
“I heard rumors, but I didn’t really want to believe them … I still kind of don’t want to believe them, because it seems really out of character for her,” said the student, who declined to be identified publicly.
Fosgett’s bail was set at $40,000. She was released from custody on Friday, Riverside County sheriff’s online records showed, and was scheduled to appear in court Jan. 29.
Anyone with information about the case has been asked to call Murrieta police at 
951-696-3615.