Navy Sailor, Pregnant Wife Shot in Virginia While Trying to Buy Phone From Teen on OfferUp App
A Navy sailor and his pregnant wife are in the hospital Monday after being shot multiple times while trying to buy a cellphone through an app used to buy and sell personal items called OfferUp in Virginia.
The young couple, who spoke with KTLA sister station WTKR in Norfolk and asked that their last name not be used, were just starting their lives together.
Frederick joined the Navy in January at the top of his class and married his love, Emily. They were stationed in Virginia at the start of the summer.
On Saturday night, they were using the OfferUp app to buy a cellphone in Portsmouth from an 18-year-old woman.
“My son just recently joined the Navy … his wife is pregnant and they were expecting their first child. He had the whole world ahead of him and someone just took it away in a matter of seconds,” Frederick’s father said.
According to Frederick’s father, his son agreed to meet at a home where the woman said she was babysitting.
He told WTKR his son knew immediately something wasn’t right.
“When they pulled up, six individuals [came out] and then four others surrounded the car. There was one shooter and that one shooter is the one who approached the car and instantly started firing shots,” the father said.
Emily’s parents say they tried to drive away, but Frederick started screaming he couldn’t see.
He was shot through his arm, chest and temple.
Emily, who is four months pregnant, was shot through the chest.
“It missed her heart by centimeters, missed the baby and went out her right side,” the father said.
Now, the family is fighting to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
Saturday night after the shooting, the Portsmouth Police Department announced a new designated safe location for people to meet when they are buying or selling items.
The family says they were told by police that there have been several incidents reported from people using the OfferUp app. In one such incident in early May, a suburban Illinois father was shot to death after meeting up to buy a cellphone that had been listed on OfferUp.
Frederick and Emily’s family members say they wonder if their children’s injuries could have been avoided.
“That’s one of the things I feel the police department dropped the ball on. The public should’ve been made aware of this several weeks ago.”
The family told WTKR the couple refuse to be separated and have been by each other’s side since Frederick got out of surgery.
A GoFundMe page has been started to help the couple
Black Panther Excitement
With Black Panther about 3-4 months away from being released into theaters, a lot of us have very high expectations for this movie.
For me, I have nothing but high expectations for this movie. Judging from how the trailer looks i expect nothing but the best from Black Panther. One of the things that I look forward to is the technological advances of Wakanda. As we all know, if Wakanda was a real country we would all pack up and move there if we could. It is going to be very interesting to see how much vibranium has advanced the country.
The second thing I want to see are the different Black Panther suits that T’Challa has and what they can do. It has been shown That T’Challa owns more than one suit. One specifically looks like it absorbs kinetic energy then releases it. I’d love to se if the costume from Civil War has the same effect as well.
As with every super hero movie there will always be a villain, and in Black Panther’s case there’s three. I’m anxious to see what The Claw, M’Baku and Erik Killmonger bring to the table. More specifically Killmonger and his Jaguar suit. It will be great to see these rivalries on the big screen in February next year and I can’t wait for its Sequels.
How much hype do you have for Black Panther?
Masseuse put hand inside clients’s genitals because she’s attractive, prosecutor says
A masseuse at a Loop spa let his fingers go where they should not have because he thought his client was “physically attractive,” Cook County prosecutors said Wednesday.
Anthony Winters, 39, allegedly groped a 28-year-old woman during a massage appointment at Therapy For EveryBody, 111 W. Jackson, in February.
The woman “reacted in shock,” Assistant State’s Attorney Kathryn Roy said at a bond hearing at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse.
Winters apologized and told her that “he placed his hand in her vagina because he thought she was physically attractive,” Roy said.
Winters left the room, and the woman dressed. When she opened the door, Winters was waiting for her and escorted her out of the spa, Roy said. The woman called her sister, then reported the incident to police.
Winters was arrested on Tuesday.
Judge John Fitzgerald Lyke Jr. set Winters’ bail at $10,000, and declined Assistant State’s Attorney Guy Lisuzzo’s request to bar Winters from working as a masseuse if he was able to post bond.
Lyke warned Winters: “You know not to engage in (any) criminal activity as you’re working? You understand that, right?”
As of Wednesday afternoon, the spa’s website listed Winters as operations manager. State records indicate his massage therapist license was still in good standing.
No one answered the number for the spa Wednesday afternoon.
via: http://abc7chicago.com/masseuse-attacked-client-because-shes-attractive-prosecutor-says/2570698/
Teen accused of raping neighbor allegedly asked if he could do yard work to make it up to her
An 18-year-old Florida man raped his neighbor at knifepoint and then asked her if he could make it up to her by doing yardwork, authorities said.
The woman was awakened Friday by a masked man “hovering over her,” according to a probable cause affadavit.
Timothy Walding “then placed his hand tight over her mouth and told her not to scream while holding a knife to her neck.”
The woman told cops she could only see the suspect’s eyes as he tied both her hands together. Cops say that Walding spoke to the victim after sexually assaulting her, and that there was “a lot of dialogue” between them.
Fearing for her life, the woman tried to convince the suspect she did not know him. He told her that he “could not imagine leaving two kids without a mother because his mother passed away” when he was 12.
Walding would later reveal himself to her by taking off his mask, according to cops.
When she asked him how he got into the house, he said, “you really should deadbolt your door because I didn’t really want to do this, but I had to do it,” according to the affadavit.
He is facing multiple charges, including three counts of sexual assault.
via: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/man-rapes-neighbor-asks-yardwork-cops-article-1.3555625
Toronto couple took man’s baby as their own while keeping him hostage for more than 20 years
A Toronto couple is accused of keeping a homeless man with mental disabilities hostage for nearly 25 years while claiming his son as their own.
Gary Willett Sr. and his wife, Maria, are on separate trials in Canada for a slew of charges that exposed a bizarre, twisted tale involving stolen identities, beatings and an eventual escape.
The case goes back to 1989, when the couple found Tim Goldrick scrounging for food in downtown Toronto. The Willetts found Goldrick and his romantic partner, Barbara Bennett, in an apartment in their building, according to the Toronto Star, which reviewed weeks of court testimony.
In September 1989, Bennett went into the hospital to deliver her son with Goldrick. Maria Willett helped Bennett fill out the paperwork and let her use her insurance card.
“I figured if I didn’t (use Maria’s card) I’d probably get hit,” Bennett testified, according to the Star. “At that time, I didn’t know if it was wrong or not.”
Willett Sr. disagreed with the sequence of events, saying his wife wasn’t at the Toronto hospital.
The baby wound up on the birth certificate as Gary Willett Jr. and the Willetts listed as his parents.
The couple had already adopted two children, but told people Gary Jr. was their biological son.
They continued living with Goldrick and Bennett, moving around several times before settling at a home in Toronto’s North York section.
It was at that home that Willett really began abusing Goldrick and Bennett, who according to the Star had learning disabilities and collected government welfare checks.
“I would get hit and get told to do it again. Clean it up. Clean up the mess,” Bennett reportedly testified about Maria Willett’s treatment. “I would get slapped. In the face . . . Three or four (slaps) depending on how mad she was.”
She became pregnant in 1993, according to the Star, from a relationship she had with Willett Sr.’s brother.
Bennett had the baby, Billie-Jean, later that year and soon decided to leave the home.
Goldrick was forced to stay with the family, especially after they moved again.
He was made to live in a tiny section of the Willett’s basement while they raised his son, the Star reported. Willett Sr. would monitor the home through seven surveillance cameras he’d set up.
Goldrick later testified he was severely beaten, especially if he took food out of the refrigerator, which had a camera on it, according to the Star.
“Sometimes, while I was sleeping, Gary (Sr.) would come in and hit me for no reason, and I’d wake up and I wondered why he did this,” he testified. “But I never found out why.”
He told the court he was forced to eat dog food, which Willett Sr. testified he told Goldrick not to do.
The 6-foot-3 Goldrick’s weight at one point shriveled down to 106 lbs., the Star reported. His teeth also severely decayed.
Goldrick’s $900 disability check mostly went to cover rent and food, Willett Sr. testified.
Willett Jr. — who’d one seen Goldrick spitting up blood — was unaware of what was really going on, but had his own problems, according to the Star.
He left home a few years after dropping out of high school.
A visit home five years ago turned sour, and Willett Jr. was later told by relatives that Goldrick was actually his father. His parents said that wasn’t true.
Willett Jr., out driving with a friend, later spotted Goldrick walking on the sidewalk during one of his rarely allowed trips out of the home.
“And we said, ‘Listen, Tim, if you want out and you want a better life, then you come with us now,’” Willett Jr. testified.
After some slight coaxing Goldrick got in the car and left for good.
One of Maria Willett’s biological children in 2014 got in touch with Billie-Jean Bennett, the baby born to Barbara Bennett in 1993, according to the Star.
She found out what happened and connected with her half-brother, Willett Jr.
But he told the Toronto Star he no longer speaks with his biological mother because she’s not forthcoming with the facts.
“Not once did my real mother go looking for me,” Willett Jr. told the newspaper.
Goldrick now lives with his biological son in a Toronto apartment, where he still struggles with the trauma.
“I take pills for the shakes and nighttime pills for sleep,” he told the Star. “I have nightmares because of this.”
via: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/couple-man-baby-hostage-20-years-article-1.3597521
Newborn, Toddler Living in Kansas Storage Unit With Father Didn’t Have Food or Diapers
A father faces multiple charges after police found him with his two young children apparently living inside a unit of a Lenexa U-Haul in Kansas Tuesday evening, authorities said.
Officers were responding to reports of someone sleeping in a storage unit when they found Justin Rey and the two children, a toddler and an infant, police said. During the investigation they also found human remains in one of the units on the property, but officials would not say whether or not their was any connection, according to KTLA sister station WDAF in Kansas City.
Police say Rey didn’t have any food, diapers, or a place to sleep for the children. Rey was booked into jail in Johnson County on two counts of endangering a child and two counts of contributing to a child’s misconduct.
On Friday, Justin Rey appeared in Johnson County District Court, charged in the endangerment of those children found with him in the unit.
A witness, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he and his wife had given Rey a ride to the storage unit and was with him when the arrest happened.
The man said they immediately noticed Rey’s two baby girls — a newborn and a toddler, appeared to be in bad shape.
“When I saw her hair when she finally took the hoodie off, it reminded me of a cancer patient that’s been through treatment and hair loss,” the witness said.
The couple started asking questions.
“We assumed he was probably waiting on a wife or a girlfriend or whatever,” the witness said.
That woman never came because, Rey told them, she was dead.
“He told me before we left the restaurant that he lost the child’s mother during childbirth, that she’d passed. And so the story is getting sadder and sadder,” the witness said.
Rey said he was waiting for money from the military, and needed a ride to Union Station to take a train out of town, the man said. But first, Rey said, he needed to stop at the storage unit where he’d been staying since he’d been kicked out of his apartment for not paying rent.
“I said ‘we’ll take you to U-Haul, get what you need, take you to Union Station,” the witness told WDAF. The pair put the baby girls in their grandkids’ car seats and drove Rey to Lenexa. “We walked through the maze. I couldn’t get to that unit again if I had to, going in the same door today,” he said.
Rey finally opened the door to a packed storage unit and pulled out a stroller for the toddler, a gallon jug of urine, and a plastic storage bin, the witness said. “He got a big cooler … with a handle, telescopic-type handle and pushed it out.”
The witness then said he noticed a trail of brown liquid leaking from the cooler.
“I’m talking three or four puddles … on the concrete floor of some kind of moisture,” he said. “I wasn’t smelling anything foreign or foul, but I wondered about that. But like I said, my mind was racing about what’s in these containers.”
At this point, the couple wanted out.
“I’m already committed at that time; I can’t just say, ‘well, never mind, just get your stuff. My wife and I are going to head on home,'” said the witness.
They walked to the sliding glass door to leave the building and suddenly came face-to-face with Lenexa police.
“The police separated us almost immediately,” the witness said.
The man and his wife left as soon as police said they could, but they said the image of that leaking brown cooler and those little girls will haunt them.
“You don’t forget things like that. I mean, you just don’t forget things like that.”
The couple told WDAF they didn’t feel threatened, but they are “very concerned” now after police on scene told them they can’t find the girls’ mother.
Woman gets knocked out cold, bystanders stop to take selfies
Shocking surveillance video shows the moment a Pittsburgh woman was knocked out cold by a man on a busy sidewalk — but that’s not the worst of it.
The footage also shows the woman being beaten and robbed by bystanders — who proceed to take pictures of her, including selfies — as she lay unconscious on the ground. “They don’t treat animals like that. They wouldn’t treat a dog that way,” the victim’s mother told KDKA on Thursday. “It’s disgusting. My daughter needs help.”
The disturbing incident was caught on camera in the Pittsburgh neighborhood Beechview. The footage was captured more than a month ago, but wasn’t released until this week.
“She’s lying there like somebody just hit a deer,” said Dr. Capretto, a local physician at the Gateway Rehab center who has agreed to treat the victim for an apparent drug addiction.
“It’s like a sideshow in a circus,” he added. “This is a human being.”
In the clip, the woman appears to approach her attacker for a brief second right before he throws his haymaker. A group of men can then be seen walking over to her — cell phones in hand, snapping pictures and video — as she lays unconscious on the sidewalk.
“Nobody called 911 to help her,” a police source told KDKA. “They took what looks like her phone while she’s out cold.”
Shortly after leaving, the men reportedly returned and began taking even more photos.
“They actually come back,” the source said. “A kid lays beside her and takes a selfie.”
According to KDKA, the victim is a known drug addict who has been arrested several times in the past, mostly for illegal substances.
“They deserve to be helped,” Capretto said, describing residents with drug problems.
“This is my oath to help people who are sick,” he added. “I, as a physician, this is my oath to help people who are sick. She’s sick and she needs help.”
via: http://nypost.com/2017/10/26/woman-gets-knocked-out-cold-bystanders-stop-to-take-selfies/
Florida Deputy Captured on Video Allegedly Stealing From Dying Man During Hurricane Irma
A sheriff’s deputy is accused of stealing from the empty house of a dying man while Hurricane Irma put south Florida in a state of emergency. The incident was caught on security video.
Jay Rosoff called the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office on Sept. 12 and requested a welfare check for his 85-year-old father. Rosoff, who lives in North Carolina, told deputies the indoor surveillance camera in his father’s Boynton Beach home did not detect any movement, according to a document obtained by CNN. His father, Moe Rosoff, had remained alone during the hurricane.
Three deputies responded and found Rosoff, who family members say had fallen and hit his head during a power outage, on the floor of the master bathroom. He was transported to a nearby hospital, and the deputies left the home. Rosoff died the same day.
According to a probable cause affidavit, Deputy Jason Cooke, who was not involved in the initial call, later came to the home and was shown on video going through the house. Police say Cooke has confessed to taking drugs from the home. He was arrested on Oct. 19 on several charges, including burglary and larceny.
Incident recorded on security video
Here is how the affidavit describes the incident:
Cooke, in uniform, arrived at Rosoff’s home about an hour and a half after the other deputies left.
The home’s surveillance camera alerted Jay Rosoff and his brother Steven that there was movement inside their father’s home. They immediately watched the footage, and said they saw Cooke enter the home through the garage. The deputy learned the entry code by listening to the initial call, officials said.
The video shows Cooke go into the master bedroom, the documents say, but it is unknown what he did there because the camera is in the common area. He reappears a couple of minutes later as he walks from the bedroom to the kitchen. Cooke picks up an item that seems to be a container and empties it on his hand before putting it in his pocket, the documents say, adding that he does this again with a second item and proceeds to inspect the kitchen cabinets and drawers.
Cooke disappears as he goes to the rooms in the front of the house. He later reappears walking back to the garage and is seen holding his hand on his mouth as if he were consuming something, the documents say.
The deputy left the home minutes after he entered it. The Rosoff brothers reported the incident, and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office opened an investigation.
“We were outraged and disgusted when we viewed this,” a Rosoff family statement said.
‘A bad decision’
Another deputy identified Cooke on the video during the investigation. He was questioned and confessed to taking Tramadol from the home. It is a pain reliever that is a Schedule 4 controlled substance. Cooke also admitted taking some other medications from a death investigation and not submitting them to evidence, police said.
Teri Barbera, public information officer for Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, said the department “never forgets about its duty to preserve the public’s trust.”
“Unfortunately, sometimes an employee makes a bad decision, which leads to misconduct,” Barbera said. “We investigated and determined his actions were criminal in nature, resulting in the charges.”
Cooke was released on October 20 on $28,000 bond and is on administrative leave from the sheriff’s office.
The conditions of his release include receiving substance abuse treatment, random drug tests at least once a week, and the surrender of his firearms to the sheriff’s office. Cooke is due back in court on November 20.
‘A perfect example of the opioid epidemic’
Cooke’s attorney, Stuart Kaplan, told CNN this case is “a perfect example of the opioid epidemic, with respect to medication.”
The attorney said his client has faced “traumatizing” circumstances in both his personal life and in his job as a police officer.
Kaplan said he understands the gravity of the situation but that he hopes people are “compassionate” when someone steals medication for personal use because of an addiction.
“The video speaks for itself, and it highlights the epidemic we’re dealing with,” Kaplan said. “People who have good intentions, good people, can get hooked on these medications.”
The attorney would not comment on the criminal proceedings against his client.
via: http://ktla.com/2017/10/26/florida-deputy-captured-on-video-allegedly-stealing-from-dying-man/
Iowa Infant Found Dead, Severely Underweight, Infested With Maggots; Parents Charged With Murder
A northeast Iowa couple is facing homicide charges after their four-month-old son was found dead, weighing less than 7 pounds and in a diaper that hadn’t been changed in a week.
Twenty-year-old Cheyanne Harris and 28-year-old Zachary Koehn face charges of first-degree murder and child endangerment resulting in death, according to KTLA sister station WHO in Des Moines.
An ambulance was called to the couple’s Alta Vista apartment on Aug. 30 after Koehn told authorities his son Sterling Koehn had died, just a few hours after he said Harris fed the child, according to a criminal complaint filed on Tuesday.
The baby was allegedly found in a motorized swing seat in a different bedroom from where the couple and their other child slept.
An autopsy by the state medical examiner’s office found the infant measured well below the fifth percentile in size and weight for the child’s age, the complaint states. Maggots were also found in various stages of development on the child’s skin and in his clothing.
A forensic entomologist was able to determine the child “had not had a diaper change, bath, or been removed from the seat in over a week.”
The death has been classified as a homicide with the cause of death ruled as failure to provide critical care.
“The facts of this case go far beyond neglect and show circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to human life,” the criminal complaint concludes.
Harris and Koehn are being held in the Chickasaw County Jail. They are scheduled to be arraigned on Nov. 2.