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Reality TV contestant sought in model death in CA
Aug. 19, 2009, 10:35 AM EST

BUENA PARK, Calif. (AP) -- A former contestant on the reality TV show "Megan Wants a Millionaire" is being sought for questioning in the death of a woman whose body was found stuffed in a suitcase in an Orange County trash bin.

Buena Park police say they want to speak with 32-year-old Ryan Alexander Jenkins about the strangulation death of 28-year-old Jasmine Fiore. The nude body of the swimsuit model was found in a Buena Park trash bin Saturday morning.

Police say Jenkins — who may have been Fiore's boyfriend or husband — reported her missing Saturday night and then vanished.

Police say he may be heading back to his native Canada.

A spokesman for VH1 says Jenkins appeared on three episodes of "Megan Wants a Millionaire."

Man who stole Virgin Mary painting convicted
Planned to finance abortion for 14-year-old he was accused of raping
updated 5:40 p.m. PT, Sat., Aug 22, 2009

OMAHA, Neb. - A Nebraska man who stole a painting of the Virgin Mary to finance an abortion for a teen he was accused of raping has been convicted of first-degree sexual assault and felony theft.

Aurelio Vallerillo-Sanchez, 39, of Omaha pleaded no contest to the charges Friday and faces up to 70 years in prison when sentenced in October, Douglas County prosecutor Brenda Beadle said Saturday.

A call to the county public defender representing Vallerillo-Sanchez wasn't answered Saturday.

Beadle said Vallerillo-Sanchez fled to Mexico with the 300-year-old painting worth $100,000 and the pregnant teen in March 2007.

"The plan was that when they got to Mexico, she was to undergo an abortion," she said.

When an abortion wasn't possible, Vallerillo-Sanchez pushed to have the baby given up for adoption, Beadle said: "He wanted to do everything he could to get rid of this baby 'cause it was evidence against him."

The teen returned to Nebraska after giving birth, the prosecutor said.

Vallerillo-Sanchez was arrested in February after DNA linked him to the September 2006 assault of the then-14-year-old girl.

His children gave police information about the theft during the investigation into the sexual assault. His son told police he served as a lookout as his father stole the painting from St. Cecilia Cathedral in Omaha. Vallerillo-Sanchez sold the painting for $3,000 in Mexico, his daughter told police.

Vallerillo-Sanchez has been linked to at least four other thefts in the Omaha area, but charges were not filed as part of a plea deal, Beadle said.

Md. police say man tried to pay for gas with pot
Driver faces drug possession charges after his motorcycle is searched
updated 2:36 p.m. PT, Wed., Sept . 2, 2009

NEW MARKET, Md. - Frederick County sheriff's deputies have arrested a man accused of offering marijuana to store clerks in payment for gasoline.

It allegedly happened Monday about 3 p.m. at the Classic Fuels Store on Old National Pike. Deputies said a 52-year-old man offered marijuana to pay for gasoline, and a clerk in the store called authorities.

The man and his motorcycle were searched, and deputies said they found suspected cocaine, Oxycodone pills and suspected marijuana.

The man was charged with possession of cocaine, marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

Police: Student is suspect in Yale killing
Body of graduate student found stuffed in wall of lab building
Mon. Sep. 14, 2009

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Police have identified a suspect in the killing of a Yale University student whose body was found stuffed behind a wall in a high-security laboratory building at the school, law enforcement sources told NBC News on Monday.

The suspect, a student, has defensive wounds, and failed a polygraph test, the sources said.

An autopsy Monday confirmed the body found Sunday in the Yale Medical School building is that of Annie Le, a 24-year-old native of Placerville, Calif. She was last seen in the building on Tuesday and Sunday was to have been her wedding day.

Connecticut's chief medical examiner, Dr. Wayne Carver, classified Le's death as a homicide. He said he was temporarily withholding the cause of death "in order to facilitate the investigation."

"We're not believing it's a random act," said Officer Joe Avery, a police spokesman. He would not provide further details but said no one else is in danger.

No fear
Yale closed the building Monday so police could complete their investigation, according to a message sent to Yale students and staff. Scientists are being allowed in only to conduct essential research projects, and only under the supervision of a police officer.

When the building reopens, there will be extra security both inside and outside, said Linda Lorimer, Yale secretary and vice president.

Friends said the doctoral pharmacology student never showed signs of worry about her own safety at work, although she did express concerns about crime in New Haven in an article she wrote last year.

"I can't even imagine someone mad at Annie, much less wanting to hurt her," Laurel Griffeath said on the "TODAY" show on Monday.

Another friend, Jennifer Simpson said Le was friendly and affable to everyone.

"If she was concerned about (it) she would have said something to someone and they would have known," Jennifer Simpson told CBS' "The Early Show." "And Jon (her fiance) would have known, her family would have known, friends would have known."

"She was a people person," Simpson added. "She loved people. She loved life. We just can't imagine anybody wanting to harm Annie."

Police are analyzing what they're calling "a large amount" of physical evidence.

They say Le's fiance is not a suspect and has assisted in the investigation. The fiance, Jonathan Widawsky, is a graduate student at Columbia University in New York and planned to marry Le on Sunday in Syosset, N.Y., on Long Island's north shore.

ID card needed
The building where the body was found is part of the university medical school complex about a mile from Yale's main campus and is accessible to Yale personnel with identification cards. A network of some 75 video surveillance cameras are trained on every door.

Campus officials have said that the security network recorded Le entering the building by swiping her ID card about 10 a.m. Tuesday, and have been baffled before Sunday's gruesome discovery that she was never seen leaving.

The university planned a candlelight vigil Monday night at the Ivy League university. The Yale Daily News says an e-mail to the Yale community invites participants to "bring a candle and join us in solidarity."

Yale President Richard Levin offered support to Le's family and her fiance.

"The family and fiance and friends now must suffer the additional ordeal of waiting for the body to be positively identified," Levin said.

Crime and safety
Le wrote an article that was published in February in the medical school's magazine. The piece, titled "Crime and Safety in New Haven," compared higher instances of robbery in New Haven with cities that house other Ivy League schools. It also included an interview with Yale Police Chief James Perrotti, who offered advice such as "pay attention to where you are" and "avoid portraying yourself as a potential victim."

"In short, New Haven is a city and all cities have their perils," Le concludes. "But with a little street smarts, one can avoid becoming yet another statistic."

Le, who worked in a laboratory in the five-story building's basement, was reported missing last Tuesday. Her ID, money, credit cards and purse were found in her third-floor office.

More than 100 local, state and federal police had been searching the building for days, using blueprints to uncover any place where evidence or Le's body could be hidden.

Investigators on Saturday said they recovered evidence from the building, but would not confirm media reports that the items included bloody clothing.

On Sunday morning, a state police van drove down a ramp into the building's basement area. Authorities also sifted through garbage at a Hartford incinerator Sunday, looking through trash that was taken from the building in the days since Le went missing.

Yale students on Monday called the finding sad, but some said the discovery doesn't make them feel less safe at Yale.

"Obviously it's a city and there are safety concerns," said 18-year-old Peter Spaulding, a student from Maryland. "It can happen anywhere. You have to go on with life."

Law student Lindsay Nash of West Chester, Pa., said she doesn't sense a heightened level of fear on campus.

"There's always an attention to safety here," she said. "I think there's perception that you need to be careful regardless."

Student's beating death sparks outrage
3 teens are charged with first-degree murder in the slaying
Mon. Sep. 28, 2009

CHICAGO - Three teenagers were charged Monday in the beating death of a 16-year-old Chicago honor roll student on his way home from school, a melee captured on a cell phone video that shows a group striking him with boards and kicking him as he lay on a sidewalk.

The death of Derrion Albert, a sophomore at Christian Fenger Academy High School, on Thursday has reignited community outrage over chronic violence involving city students and is putting pressure on school and police officials to address gang problems that often are at the root of such violence.

The Chicago public school system is the nation's third-largest and has about 407,000 students in 666 schools. More than 30 students were killed in 2008, according to district figures, and this year's toll could be higher.

Some community members said the solution lies with parents, not the schools.

"It is our problem. We have to take control of our children," said Dawn Allen, who attended a vigil at the school Monday, where a group of residents tried to force their way into the school before being turned back by police.

Student was walking to bus stop
Albert was attacked around 3 p.m. Thursday in front of Agape Community Center in the south Chicago neighborhood of Roseland, where he was walking to a bus stop, authorities said.

Prosecutors charged Silvonus Shannon, 19, Eugene Riley, 18, and Eric Carson, 16, with first-degree murder, and they were ordered held without bond on Monday, said Andy Conklin, a spokesman for the Cook County prosecutor's office. The suspects are scheduled for preliminary hearings Oct. 19.

The violence stemmed from a shooting early Thursday morning involving two groups of students, said Tandra Simonton, a spokeswoman for the Cook County prosecutor's office. When school ended, members of the two groups began fighting.

The attack, captured in part on a bystander's cell phone video, shows Albert being struck on the head by one of several young men wielding wooden planks. After he falls to the ground an appears to try to get up, he is struck again and then kicked.

Simonton said Albert was a bystander and not part of either group. She said Albert was knocked unconscious when Carson struck him in the head with a board and the second person punched him in the face. Albert regained consciousness and was trying to get up when he was attacked a second time by five people and was struck in the head with a board by Riley and stomped in the head by Shannon, Simonton said.

‘Just a nice young man’
The Rev. Victor Grandberry told NBC Chicago that Albert "was just a nice young man that grew up in the community. Folks just bullied on him, they tried to rob him, they tried to do everything they can."

A camera attached to the Agape Community Center also captured at least part of the attack, the center's executive director, Milton Massie, told NBC Chicago.

"It was mob action, basically a bunch of kids, some coming from the east and others from the west on the street, fighting," he said.

Desiyan Bacon, Riley's aunt, attended Monday's vigil at the school and said her nephew didn't have anything to do with the beating and was a friend of the victim.

"They need to stop the crime, but when they do it, they need to get the right person," Bacon said.

Earlier, Chicago police bolstered security around Fenger High School. Police patrolled the area in squad cars and staged a visible presence at the entrance, the Chicago Tribune reported.

"We want to provide reassurance to the public that there's a police presence and they can feel safe in the neighborhood and kids can feel safe at school," Morgan Park District Cmdr. Michael Kuemmeth told the Tribune.

How the Media Treat Murder
Why isn't the story of several missing women in North Carolina getting attention?
By Krista Gesaman
Oct 21, 2009


Ten women have been found slain or have been declared missing in Rocky Mount, N.C., in recent years. But the rest of the country hasn't heard about a possible serial killer stalking the young women in this Southern town of 60,000. The latest victim, Elizabeth Jane Smallwood, was identified on Oct. 12. Why have the Rocky Mount homicides been largely ignored?

"When you think about the famous missing-person cases over the last few years it's Chandra Levy, Natalee Holloway, and Laci Peterson," notes Sam Sommers, associate professor of psychology at Tufts University. All these women had a few things in common—they were white, educated, and came from middle-class families. The victims in Rocky Mount—which residents describe as a "typical Southern town," and is about 40 percent white and more than 50 percent black—were different. They were all African-American, many were poor, and some had criminal histories including drug abuse and prostitution.



"If it was someone of a different race, things would have been dealt with the first time around; it wouldn't have taken the fifth or sixth person to be murdered," says Andre Knight, a city-council member and president of the local NAACP chapter. "All these women knew each other and lived in the same neighborhood; this is the sign of a potential serial killer. When it didn't get the kind of attention it needed, it made the African-American community frustrated."

Police have not officially linked all the murders and disappearances, but community members claim the similarities among the women, their lifestyles, and the location of their bodies make a connection all too obvious. "If you find two bodies in the same location, this could be the work of the same person or people," says Rocky Mount Police Chief John Manley, who would not comment on a connection, but implied the possibility.

Rumors are running rampant around the town about the identity of the serial killer. There is not much physical evidence, leading some to speculate it's a former law-enforcement officer or someone in the military. Others have deduced that the killer is targeting specific women as a form of revenge for contracting HIV from a prostitute. Along with Smallwood, the murders of Taraha Nicholson, 28, Jarniece Hargrove, 31, Ernestine Battle, 50, Jackie Nikelia Thorpe, 35, Melody Wiggins, 29, and Denise Williams, 21, remain unsolved. Authorities are also searching for Yolanda Lancaster, 37, Joyce Renee Durham, 46, and Christine Boone, 43.

One man is in custody for the murder of Nicholson, who was the fourth victim, discovered back in 2005. This past September, police charged Antwan Maurice Pittman, 31, with her murder. He is accused of strangling Nicholson and dumping her partially clothed body in the woods. So far, authorities have not linked Pittman to the other murders. "There's a lot of mixed sentiments about Pittman," says Knight, referring to community speculation about whether police have charged the right man.

"In this Information Age, cases get solved through sheer publicity, whether it's an Amber Alert or America's Most Wanted, anyone could have a tip or be a potential source of information," Sommers says.

But the national media did show some interest in the story after it was revealed that five women were murdered in or around the town. "Nancy Grace called and wanted to have some of us on her show, but before it aired there was a white woman from Georgia that went missing. The Nancy Grace show was canceled," Knight says. HLN network, which broadcasts Nancy Grace, confirmed that Knight was booked for the show, which was ultimately canceled to profile the disappearance of Kristi Cornwell, a white woman from Blairsville, Ga., who went missing during an evening walk. Representatives from Nancy Grace told NEWSWEEK, "The booking was changed due to news that was breaking that day," and emphasized the change had nothing to do with the race of the victim. On Aug. 12, Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees covered the story.

That bit of media exposure brought new resources to the investigation. Originally, only a small amount of reward money was collected for information about the case. After the story aired on CNN , New Jersey philanthropist Peter Pinto, of the Kefalas-Pinto Foundation, donated $10,000 from a personal trust. In late September, the city donated an additional $5,000, which was matched by a $5,000 county donation, bringing the amount of reward money to $20,000. If there were no media coverage, there might have been no reward. The money isn't just going to help with the investigation, it's helping the families of the victims, specifically their children.

The money proved to be a blessing for Jurary Tucker, the mother of Yolanda Lancaster, who has been missing since February 2008. "We were able to use some of the money to get [Yolanda's] children ready for school," Tucker says. "They have to wear uniforms to school and they are very expensive; the money came at a good time." Tucker became the primary custodian of her granddaughter and grandson after Lancaster's disappearance.

When Annie Le, a 24-year-old Yale pharmacology graduate student, went missing on Sept. 8, it only took three days for the university to offer a $20,000 reward. In the case of the Rocky Mount women, it took more than six years to raise that same amount of money for 10 women.

Concerned residents of the town tried to promote the case by distributing fliers and purchasing a billboard advertisement featuring the women, but their efforts may have backfired. Mug-shot photographs of the victims, many pictured in orange jumpsuits, sometimes appearing disheveled or under the influence of alcohol or drugs, were used in their efforts. Unlike the images of a smiling Annie Le, these images showed the women during darker times.

"Everyone has a dark side at some point, but you want to put your best out front when you are trying to appeal [to the public] for help," Chief Manley says. "When you look at obituaries in the newspaper, [the photos] show a bright time in someone's life; you really want to show the person when they are doing well."

Manley says the police department used the victims' driver's license photographs to help with search efforts. "You don't need to air dirty laundry. Seeing someone's dark side doesn't appeal to the conscience of other people," he says.

Concern over the buried headlines and lack of national media attention isn't the only thing upsetting residents; some say there are deeper festering racial tensions in the community. When a candlelight vigil was held to commemorate the murdered women, only black community officials attended. When other vigils were organized for deaths in Rocky Mount, there was no racial divide, and community members, both black and white, attended the events in droves. "When a prominent attorney's wife died, we all came together and the church was full, but when the community was coming together to share their pain and reach out to these families, only black elected officials were there," Knight says. "They [white officials] didn't have an excuse, they just didn't come."

White officials, including the mayor, say they weren't invited to the memorial. "It's hard to attend something that you don't even know is occurring," says David Combs, mayor of Rocky Mount. "I was glad that we had the vigil and had people who were involved."

For the families who just want to locate their daughters or bring closure to their murders, the investigation has been a long, drawn-out process. Tucker speaks about her daughter in the past tense, quickly catches herself, and shifts to the present tense, emphasizing her commitment to finding her daughter. "As far as the investigation goes, I just hope they continue to do the best they can to put closure to the missing girls and the girls that have been found," Tucker says. "Whatever it is, we are here waiting."

"Regardless of drug addiction or other problems, that still doesn't give a person the right to kill another," says Knight. "If we can give a terrorist a day in court, we can get these women justice."

Alleged smuggler foiled by 24 snakes, geckos
'His whole body was in constant motion,' Norwegian official says
updated 12:25 p.m. PT, Wed., Oct . 28, 2009

OSLO - He jiggled a little too much, but then who can blame him — wouldn't you if you had 14 pythons and 10 geckos taped to your body?

The jiggler, a 22-year-old Norwegian man, was arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle the two dozen snakes and geckos into Norway by hiding them under his clothes.

He was apprehended in the southern town of Kristiansand after getting off a ferry from Hirtshals, Denmark.

Customs agent Helge Breilid said the man had 14 royal pythons and 10 albino leopard geckos under his clothes.

"Customs officers quickly realized the man was smuggling animals, because his whole body was in constant motion," Breilid told Norway's VG newspaper.

Breilid said the non-venomous snakes — the smallest species in the python family — were hidden in stockings duct-taped to the man's abdomen. The geckos were in bins taped to his thighs.

Customs officials found the reptiles, which are not endangered, on Sunday during a search following the discovery of a tarantula in one of the man's bags.

A full body search revealed 14 stockings — one for each snake — taped around his torso.

When the man dropped his pants, the officers found 10 cans taped to his legs, each containing a lizard, Breilid said.

Reptile smuggling is not uncommon in Norway, which prohibits people holding many reptile species as pets, but office manager Helge Breilid at Kristiansand Customs was quoted by VG as saying that customs officers had been "horrified" by the discovery.

Kristiansand police attorney Johann Martin Kile said the man was being released upon agreeing to pay a 12,500 Norwegian crowns ($2,256) fine.

The reptiles were handed over to a security firm until Norwegian authorities decide what to do with them, Breilid said.