The group was founded in Iran in the 1960s and moved to Iraq in the early 1980s to base its activities against Iran's government. The group had sided with Iraq in its 1980-88 war against Iran.

The State Department says the MEK groups were funded by
Saddam Hussein, supported the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and are responsible for the deaths of Americans in the 1970s.

Taleb-Jedi was discovered by coalition forces at a camp called Ashraf Base about 40 miles northwest of Baghdad, the U.S. attorney's office statement said. It was unclear when.

U.S. forces took control of the camp and sent many members back to Iran on condition that they leave MEK, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the attorney's office.

"An investigation reveals that she played an active role at the camp," Mrozek said.

Taleb-Jedi was indicted by a federal grand jury in New York City on one count of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. She faces up to 15 years in federal prison if convicted.

She was being prosecuted in New York because her plane landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport on March 31 upon her return from Iraq. The case was handled by Los Angeles-based prosecutors who have been involved in MEK-related investigations since the 1990s.

She was assigned a public defender in New York and released on bond.

Taleb-Jedi immigrated to the United States from Iran in 1978 and became a U.S. citizen in 1996, the government said. Her aliases include Nayer Taleb-Jedi or Nire Taleb-Jedi, according to the two-page indictment.

The attorney's office did not release any information on the woman's occupation.

Some members of Congress in recent years have advocated the group's removal from the terrorism list because of its stance against the Iranian regime and because it doesn't pose a direct threat to the U.S.

Yet this is what happened when he travelled back from a business trip to the Turks and Caicos islands via New York on 22 May. Still traumatised by his ordeal, the 47-year-old is furious that the airline failed to protect him from the gung-ho actions of an over-zealous passenger who claimed to be a police officer. He has now instructed a team of top US lawyers to act for him.

The London-based interiors guru, whose clients have included Peter Mandelson and the husband-and-wife design team Suzanne Clements and Ignacio Ribeiro, said he felt compelled to speak out to protect other innocent travellers from a similar experience.

"This man could have garrotted me and what was awful was that one or two of the passengers went up afterwards to thank him," said Mr Stein. He has since been told by airline staff he was targeted because he was using an iPod, had used the toilet when he got on the plane and that his tan made him appear "Arab".

"I was terrified but am fortunate in that I was able to contact a lawyer. Yet someone else who is not assertive could be left completely traumatised."

The incident highlights the increased likelihood of innocent passengers being picked on because they are perceived as "suspicious" or "foreign-looking", especially following the alleged plot to blow up airliners with liquid explosives.

Earlier this month, a plane from London to Washington DC made an emergency landing, escorted by fighters, after passengers alerted crew to the behaviour of a female traveller. It later emerged she had suffered a panic attack. And in August, two innocent Asian students were escorted off a flight from Malaga to Manchester because other passengers thought they were terrorists.

In Mr Stein's case, he was pounced on as the crew and other travellers looked on. The drama unfolded less than an hour into the flight. As he settled down with a book and a ginger ale, the father-of-three was grabbed from behind and held in a head-lock.

"This guy just told me his name was Michael Wilk, that he was with the New York Police Department, that I'd been acting suspiciously and should stay calm. I could barely find my voice and couldn't believe it was happening," said Mr Stein.

"He went into my pocket and took out my passport and my iPod. All the other passengers were looking concerned." Eventually, cabin crew explained that the captain had run a security check on Mr Stein after being alerted by the policeman and that this had cleared him. The passenger had been asked to go back to his seat before he had restrained Mr Stein. When the plane arrived in New York, Mr Stein was met by apologetic police officers who offered to fast-track him out of the airport.

Mr Stein said: "The other passengers looked and me and said, 'What did you do?' It was so humiliating. The fact is he [the police officer] was told I was OK and should have left me alone. The airline had a duty of care. I've got to travel to the US soon, but I'm paying an extra £500 to travel in business class."

American Airlines apologised to Mr Stein, who was born in New York, but withdrew an initial offer of $2,000 compensation on the grounds it would be an admission of liability. In a letter dated 30 May, the airline said it had done everything possible to try and protect Mr Stein.

It read: "Unfortunately, as in any public gathering, there may be occasions when a conflict arises between people or when one individual's actions bother another... As our crew members may not always be witness to the inappropriate acts of a particular passenger, there may be a limit to what our crews can do to improve behaviour that is perceived as a nuisance."

In a twist to the story, Mr Stein has since discovered that there is only one Michael Wilk on the NYPD's official register of officers, but the man retired 25 years ago. Officials have told the architect that his assailant may work for another law enforcement agency but have refused to say which one.

Both the US and EU sides stressed that they were close to an agreement and that discussions would continue this week, with EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini and US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff likely to speak by telephone on Sunday.

"There is no deal. It's a shame because we are 90 percent there," EU spokesman Jonathan Todd told AFP in Brussels on Sunday. "The EU team has flown out of Washington but talks will continue this week."

Finnish EU presidency spokesman Marko Ruonala echoed that "we are close to a deal" but added that "some new elements" introduced in the talks had hampered completion of an agreement.

"The presidency will consult other member states and negotiators will come back to the issue" later this week, he added, without specifying a timetable.

The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, will also take up the matter.

A spokesman for transatlantic carrier Air France assured that the lack of an agreement had had "no impact on Air France flights to the United States".

"In the absence of an agreement by September 30, and like all the other airlines, we are continuing to transmit the passenger data," he said.

Asked about the possible illegality of doing so he voiced the safety in numbers principle. "It's what all the other airline companies are doing."

Chertoff remained upbeat, saying that the US side had sent an initial draft to the Europeans which he felt satisfied fulfilled their fundamental data protection requirements.

"I am pleased to announce that following our negotiations with representatives of the European Union, I have initialed a draft formal US/EU agreement regarding the sharing of Passenger Name Record data," Chertoff said in a statement from Washington on Saturday.

"We expect that planes will continue to fly uninterrupted and our national security will not be impeded," he added.

"The proposal ensures the appropriate security information will be exchanged and counter-terrorism information collected by the department will be shared, as necessary with other federal counter-terrorism agencies."

US Homeland Security Department spokesman Jarrod Agen described the EU announcement that the talks had broken up without agreement as "not accurate".

However the expiration of Saturday's deadline, set by the European Court of Justice, leaves transatlantic air travel in a legal limbo.

In the name of the "war on terror", US authorities in 2003 demanded that airlines transmit their passengers' personal data to US security officials for all US-bound flights.

Airlines must provide the US authorities with dozens of details about passengers and crew -- including credit card information, addresses and telephone numbers -- 15 minutes before departure of a flight.

In its ruling in May, the European Court of Justice objected to the way the original agreement was reached in 2004, but not what was contained in it. It set a deadline of September 30 for a new deal to be reached.

Now if European airlines don't provide the info required by the US authorities they could be denied entry to the States. If they do then they would be breaching EU rules.

EU and US negotiators had resumed last-gasp talks in Washington on Saturday aimed at avoiding any air traffic chaos.

The two sides are trying to reach agreement on the PNR data after Europe's top court quashed their previous accord on a legal technicality but allowed them to continue using it until September 30.

The talks have stumbled previously over US demands that the content of the agreement also be renegotiated, something Brussels is reluctant to do.

That case and other factors are heightening concerns about a real-life episode of the Sopranos teaming with Osama bin Laden's followers.

"We are continuing to look for a nexus," said Joseph Billy Jr., the FBI's top counterterrorism official. "We are looking at this very aggressively."

The new strategy involves an analysis of nationwide criminal investigations, particularly white collar crime, side by side with intelligence and terrorist activity.

"We have developed an ability to look harder and broader in a greatly enhanced way to see if there is any crossover," Billy said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Organized crime syndicates could facilitate money transfers or laundering, human smuggling, identification fraud or explosives and weapons acquisitions, officials said.

The options are many for terrorists groups.

There are the five reputed La Cosa Nostra families in New York, Russian criminal enterprises from Brighton Beach in the New York borough of Brooklyn to Moscow, and the emerging Asian crime syndicates that operate in many Islamic countries with al-Qaida offshoots.

A contract study produced recently for the Pentagon and obtained by the AP warned that the potential for organized crime assisting terrorists is growing.

"Although terrorism and organized crime are different phenomena, the important fact is that terrorist and criminal networks overlap and cooperate in some enterprises," the study said. "The phenomenon of the synergy of terrorism and organized crime is growing because similar conditions give rise to both and because terrorists and organized criminals use similar approaches to promote their operations."

The traditional mafia has highly developed networks for acquiring goods and services and money, all for a price.

The mob's potential interest in helping a terrorist has nothing to do with ideology or sympathy but with greed, said Matt Heron, head of New York FBI's organized crime unit.

"They will deal with anybody, if they can make a buck," Heron said. "They will sell to a terrorist just as easily as they would sell to an order of Franciscan monks. It's a business relationship to them."

"If the mob has explosives and a terrorist wants them and they have the money, they could become instant friends," he said.

Pat D'Amuro, a retired senior FBI official and now chief executive of Giuliani Security, said a Mafia boss once acknowledged that the mob would help terrorists.

"I am aware of a high-level Mafia figure, who was cooperating with authorities, being asked if the Mafia would assist terrorists in smuggling people into Europe through Italy," D'Amuro said. "He said, 'The Mafia will help who ever can pay.'"

Officials said they have no specific evidence that such a relationship has been cemented. But concerns were heightened last year after an Armenian immigrant was arrested in New York for allegedly leading a plot to sell military weapons to an FBI informant posing as a middleman for terrorists.

Arthur Solomonyan had claimed to be able to deliver shoulder-fired missiles from his connection in Russian organized crime to the informant, who claimed to have ties to al-Qaida, federal prosecutors said. Solomonyan and 17 others in New York, Florida and California were charged in the case.

Solomonyan is scheduled for trial this month. His lawyer, Seth Ginsberg, said he plans to "vigorously contest" the charges and call the government's confidential informant to the stand to challenge his motives. The Italian, Russian, and Asian mafia remain active, particularly in New York, even though the government has successfully prosecuted numerous figures in recent years.

In the past three years, well over 100 associates from all five La Cosa Nostra families have been arrested in New York, Heron noted.

While the potential of a gangster-terrorist marriage is on the FBI's radar, homegrown terror cells and weapons of mass destruction are also big concerns for those in the FBI given the job of stopping the next terrorist attack.

"We are not only aware that they want to come across the ocean to attack us but they may be physically here developing in our own homeland," Billy said.

The Internet has become the new Afghanistan, allowing terrorist sympathizers to promote their radical ideas and to recruit and train followers right their home computers. That makes it far more difficult for investigators to identify them.

Billy said his biggest concern remains weapons of mass destruction. While Hezbollah and Hamas are more defined terrorist groups, with a territorial focus and a political platform, al-Qaida is more unpredictable.

"We know they were trying to acquire it prior to 9/11, bin Laden's own words said that," said Billy. "What makes us think they are still not trying?"

Angilo Freeland - who was suspected of fatally shooting the deputy after being pulled over for speeding Thursday - was hit 68 times by the SWAT team members' shots, the examination showed.

He also was suspected of wounding a deputy and killing a police dog.

Freeland's death ended a nearly 24-hour manhunt that forced schools to lock down and families to stay indoors as about 500 officers scoured the woods.

The wounded deputy had pulled Freeland over for speeding and became suspicious of his identification. The suspect got nervous and bolted into the woods, officials said.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said he was not concerned by the number of shots fired.

"You have to understand, he had already shot and killed a deputy, he had already shot and killed a K-9 and he shot and injured another deputy," Judd said by phone Saturday. "Quite frankly, we weren't taking any chances."

Ten SWAT officers surrounded Freeland on Friday as he hid beneath brush and a fallen tree in a rural area. Authorities say he raised the gun belonging to the deputy he had killed, prompting nine officers to fire.

"I suspect the only reason 110 rounds was all that was fired was that's all the ammunition they had," Judd said. "We were not going to take any chance of him shooting back."

The SWAT officers who shot Freeland have been placed on paid administrative leave, standard procedure in all police shootings.

Also released Saturday were autopsy results for the deputy, Vernon Matthew Williams, 39, which showed he had been shot eight times. He was not wearing a protective vest, but shots hit him in his right leg and behind his right ear, among other places.

Diogi, his German shepherd police dog, was also killed. The dog had been shot once in the chest.

Authorities said deputy sheriff Doug Speirs, also 39, was fired at several times and shot once in the leg. A sergeant and an officer from the Lakeland Police Department were also fired at, authorities said.

"They're sick people; they need mental health counseling," Foley said.

But, according to several former congressional pages, the congressman used the Internet to engage in sexually explicit exchanges.

They say he used the screen name Maf54 on these messages provided to ABC News.

Maf54: You in your boxers, too?
Teen: Nope, just got home. I had a college interview that went late.
Maf54: Well, strip down and get relaxed.

Another message:

Maf54: What ya wearing?
Teen: tshirt and shorts
Maf54: Love to slip them off of you.

And this one:

Maf54: Do I make you a little horny?
Teen: A little.
Maf54: Cool.

The language gets much more graphic, too graphic to be broadcast, and at one point the congressman appears to be describing Internet sex.

Federal authorities say such messages could result in Foley's prosecution, under some of the same laws he helped to enact.

"Adds up to soliciting underage children for sex," said Brad Garrett, a former FBI agent and now an ABC News consultant. "And what it amounts to is serious both state and federal violations that could potentially get you a number of years."

Foley's resignation letter was submitted late this afternoon, and he left Capitol Hill without speaking to reporters.

In a statement, he said he was "deeply sorry" and apologized for letting down his family and the people of Florida.

But he made no mention of the Internet messages or the pages.

One former page tells ABC News that his class was warned about Foley by people involved in the program.

Other pages told ABC News they were hesitant to report Foley because of his power in Congress.

This all came to a head in the last 24 hours. Yesterday, we asked the congressman about some much tamer e-mails from one page, and he said he was just being overly friendly. After we posted that story online, we began to hear from a number of other pages who sent these much more explicit, instant messages. When the congressman realized we had them, he resigned.

Reynolds, R-N.Y., was told about e-mails sent by Rep. Mark Foley and is now defending himself from Democratic accusations that he did too little. Foley, R-Fla., resigned Friday after ABC News questioned him about the e-mails to a former congressional page and about sexually suggestive instant messages to other pages.

The boy who received the e-mails was 16 in the summer of 2005 when he worked in Congress as a page. After the boy returned to his Louisiana home, the congressman e-mailed him. The teenager thought the messages were inappropriate, particularly one in which Foley asked the teen to send a picture of himself.

The teen's family contacted their congressman, Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., who then discussed the problem with Reynolds sometime this spring.

"Rodney Alexander brought to my attention the existence of e-mails between Mark Foley and a former page of Mr. Alexander's," Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a written statement Saturday.

"Despite the fact that I had not seen the e-mails in question, and Mr. Alexander told me that the parents didn't want the matter pursued, I told the speaker of the conversation Mr. Alexander had with me," Reynolds said.

Hastert said he does not remember talking to Reynolds about the Foley e-mails, but did not dispute Reynolds' account.

"While the speaker does not explicitly recall this conversation, he has no reason to dispute Congressman Reynolds' recollection that he reported to him on the problem and its resolution," Hastert's aides said in a preliminary report on the matter issued Saturday.

The report includes a lengthy timeline detailing when they first learned of the worrisome e-mail in the fall of 2005, after a staffer for Alexander told Hastert's office the family wanted Foley to stop contacting their son. Alexander's staffer did not share the contents of the e-mail, saying it was not sexual but "over-friendly," the report says.

Hastert's aides referred the matter to the Clerk of the House, and "mindful of the sensitivity of the parent's wishes to protect their child's privacy and believing that they had promptly reported what they knew to the proper authorities," they did not discuss it with others in Hastert's office - including, apparently, their boss.

After the issue was referred to the clerk, it was passed along to the congressman who oversees the page program, Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill.

Shimkus has said he learned about the e-mail exchange in late 2005 and took immediate action to investigate.

He said Foley told him it was an innocent exchange. Shimkus said he warned Foley not to have any more contact with the teenager and to respect other pages.

Democrats charged Reynolds did far too little and said more digging should be done.

"Congressman Reynolds' inaction in the face of such a serious situation is very troubling, and raises important questions about whether there was an attempt to cover up criminal activity involving a minor to keep it from coming to light before Election Day," said
Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Karen Finney.

New York Democrats hoping to unseat Reynolds blasted the congressman, saying they call into question the Republican's values.

"Mr. Reynolds knew about these allegedly inappropriate e-mails from a fellow congressman to a minor for months and didn't lift a finger," said Blake Zeff, a spokesman for the state Democrats.

Click for larger image

According to the reports, the incident took place on Sept. 15.

An American colonel who came to the Defense College for a conference began a lecture on technology.

However, a few minutes later he presented a map that showed Turkey as separated, and included an "independent Kurdistan" on Turkish territories.

In reaction to the U.S. colonel's elaboration on the map, previously characterized by U.S. authorities as not reflective of the American view, the Turkish officers left the conference room.

The Belgian commander of the College was then informed about the incident.

The commander reacted, saying that academic freedom did not mean everybody could say anything he wanted, and cited the incident as unacceptable.

Turkish officers also briefed Ankara about the developments relevant to the incident.

The U.S. State Department assured Ankara that the map did not reflect the official American view, and denounced it as unacceptable.

The new Middle East map, prepared by retired Col. Ralph Peters and published in the Armed Forces Journal in June, had sparked reactions in Ankara.

What I wanted to talk about, after watching the film, was the odyssey you underwent. When you describe it to people who haven't seen the film, or even those who have, how do you sum it up? How do you explain what you encountered en route during this trip?

I sometimes struggle with synthesizing it all into a few sentences. I guess that the best way I can put it is that I went out and came face to face with an emerging theocracy in America, an emerging theocratic worldview, based on certain people's conception of Christianity here.

But it's not just theocratic, it also ties into issues like race and white privilege. There was a lot of talk, I thought, about defending what we've got, that sort of thing.

Certainly, if I were to attempt to psychoanalyze my experience, I would say that there are a lot of people who don't like America changing to a multicultural society, and are afraid of where we're going as a country culturally, and want it to stop, want it to reverse to a simpler time. The '50s seem to be a big iconic time for them. They just want life to be how they feel it once was.

Sort of this mythical Golden Era that actually never existed, right?

Yeah, exactly. These people seem to long for this time that from my understanding never existed.

Or if it existed, it also had certain features that I don't think any of us would accept today, including all the racial prejudice. And yet that was kind of explicitly what at least one of your interviewees [Gladys Gill] seemed to long for.

Yeah, absolutely. There were people -- Gladys in particular -- who were longing for a time when white people could pretty much do what they wanted institutionally, and the other people -- women and minorities -- knew their place.

It seemed like there was a trajectory to the interviews too, where initially a lot of the interviews, except for Dennis Mansfield, were people who were reachable. As you say later in that clip from the radio show you were on, some of these people you can't help but be impressed by their dignity and decency, even when they're suckering for the whole morals/values schtick that conservatives have mastered.

The film and my experience definitely kind of illustrates that that has happened -- that people are being marketed their worldview. And they are almost using their decency against them, in a way. They are preying upon the notion of this golden time, and they're preying upon people's nostalgia and longing for that to get them to oppose other groups.

It seems like the key to that has been this propaganda mill has been pretty incessant out there in rural America for the last 15 years -- you know, Rush Limbaugh and all his wannabees. You kind of noted the effect on one of your interviewees -- someone who had voted Democratic for years but didn't like Democrats now because they were just too liberal, but couldn't say why thought so.

I felt like I was speaking with people who were, for lack of a better term, parroting the media they were consuming -- Rush Limbaugh, local conservative talk radio which is similar to him, Fox News -- that there is indeed a concerted effort, and it's very well organized and intricate and total, to convince these people to think they want, to respond the way that they want them to.

I mean, look at the gay marriage issue. In a time when American soldiers are dying in various places around the globe, I went out to talk to people about the state of the country and why they voted for whom they voted for, and most of them want to talk about gay marriage. Which couldn't possibly really affect their lives. But it's become the issue for them, and that was absolutely based on the marketing campaign that the administration and its media arm put forth.

They wrap themselves in this blanket of morality and value, but at their core they are deeply amoral. I think that's been revealed by the torture issue.

That was one of the main conflicts for me personally was that I was having trouble reconciling any notion of morality with many of the folks that I spoke with. While they were waving about this moral superiority, this moral high ground.

And then there were people at the other end of the spectrum, the people who were clearly theocratic authoritarians -- kind of glassy-eyed ideologues almost. Those people just seem to me impossible to reach.

One of the great contradictions of my experience was that I would be talking to people and having a great time with them, enjoying them as people -- when we were talking about a ball game or the weather or our trip or whatever. But when we'd move into the political arena, I often felt like I wasn't speaking to a human being anymore, I was listening to the recitation of the programming.

It looked in at least a moment there like -- I couldn't tell whether you were dumbfounded or upset, maybe both, with the fellow you interviewed at the giant cross memorial. The associate pastor.

I was actually upset. I'd been doing it for a long time at that point, and you know, I had just been hearing this hatred being put forth as faith, and I couldn't take it anymore. I was quite upset with that gentleman. He was advocating torture and saying that God would advocate that. Yeah, I was angry.

You talk about how people like that scare you, and I think that's true for a lot of people, that they would scare us.

It is scary. It's chilling. I think there's that phrase, "the dead eye" -- to be looking into someone's eyes and to see no humanity there, to see no compassion for others. It's scary. It freaked me out. I talk about that in the film, how I would be at times freaked out by these people, and how I struggled with that.

Because of the gay marriage issue, the film became kind of a gay rights film in a way, and that wasn't my intention. But for me the logic of the gay marriage issue is just so easy to digest that I couldn't believe that I couldn't have a conversation with folks and have them agree.

It seems like if you try to talk logic with these people, especially on an issue like gay marriage, they often just shut down. Logic and reason are no longer operative things.

It certainly isn't logic the way you or I would understand it. I'd guess you could, if you were being generous, a logic borne of their faith. But it certainly wasn't logic as I know it.

I guess the lingering question is: What next? Now that we have this kind of insight into the state of the nation, how should we act? What should we be doing?

I made the film without any knowledge of where it was going to end, and of where to go after. And in many ways, I still am in that place. I think it's truly for us to begin asking these questions. Calling things what they are and then trying to see what makes sense from there.

First of all, we have to recognize and repeat that there are people who arguably are in power in this country, and that they have been put in power by these people who are inclined to think theocratically. What are going to do about that?

Well, I guess what I would tell you is that my film, I hope it can have some impact on Republicans. And by Republicans I mean these people who were Republican before the theocrats took power, the people who were Republican for economic reasons. People who were Republican and might have been just fine with the Clinton economy. I think there is room to have these people, these Republicans, see the danger posed by the folks that they're sharing this party with. And I think we ought to do all that we can do to educate them on what their party has become.

I didn't think of Republicans as wrong dangerous 20, 30 years ago. I thought at that time I disagreed with them, but I don't know that they were necessarily dangerous to our way of life. I think the Republican Party has become dangerous to our way of life, and that we need to act as if that were the case.

It seems that what the film also did -- at least what I came away from it with -- was this sense you were also pointing to ways that we can find common ground with some of these people. I think when we speak from a moral center of our own, we do well -- and I think the torture issue is a perfect example of that. I think the reason that a lot of people don't vote Democrat now is that they don't believe we have a moral center.

I think that's absolutely right. I think that morality, and values, have not been heeded by the left, because we've bought into this language that make radical Christians the "values voters" -- as if we don't have values of our own. And I think that that kind of propaganda that uses language is something that the left has really been asleep about. In the way that the word "liberal" was demonized, that's an example of what has happened in many different areas, with many different words and phrases.

In the film, I proclaim that I am a liberal. And I'm proud of being a liberal. Liberals are responsible for nearly all the cultural growth that we've had. We need to take it back. We can't allow our values and our society to become marginalized just because of the propaganda being put forth by the other side.

Part of what I was looking for in my project was two kinds of understanding, like I said. While I don't feel I found a way to have the common ground with the Christianists, that doesn't mean there isn't possibility for common ground with some on the right. We need to find a way to peel away some of those votes, and then we can begin repairing the damage that's been done.

The victims had been shot with a handgun sometime between 3 a.m. and 5:45 a.m., the affidavit said. Simmons was not the children's father, Charleston County Coroner Rae Wooten said.

Simmons and Detra Rainey Simmons had been married for more than a year, authorities and her relatives said.

"This appears to have been a domestic situation that turned deadly," said Spencer Pryor, a North Charleston police spokesman.

Melba Rainey Thompson said her sister worked at a hospital, was attending nursing school and was undergoing the second phase of chemotherapy for colon cancer.

"Her children were always there for her to comfort her when she went through the pain," Thompson said.

The coroner had earlier identified the victims as Detra Rainey, 39, and her children William Rainey, 16, Hakiem Rainey, 13, Malachia Robinson, 8, and Samenia Robinson, 6. Rainey Simmons had a fifth child, 21-year-old Christan, who attends Southern University in Louisiana, relatives said.

The family belonged to St. Andrews Episcopal Mission, where the children attended vacation Bible school and sang in the choir, relatives said.

"Words can't express the impact this has had on our family," relative Gene Fanning said at the bond hearing. "It's a devastating loss. We want him held fully accountable for his actions."

Fanning said later that Simmons was disabled and unemployed.

The jail did not have any attorney information for Simmons.

Monique Singleton, who lives across the street in the subdivision of about two dozen mobile homes, said that four children lived in the home and that her children occasionally played with them.

"They were nice people; they seemed fine," she said.

It happened around noon on Thursday on 4th Avenue West in Everett. This area is already the focus of police after two murders and a stabbing just this year.

Joani says she was pulling into a parking lot at her mother's apartment complex with her 10 month hold son in the back. But the entrance was blocked by a large group of teenagers from Mariner High School, which was across the street.

"Right when I pulled up, (there was) profanity. They wouldn't move," Joani said. "They said they are on their own time."

She hit her horn. That's when witnesses say the group turned violent.

"And when I looked over, three girls pulled me out by my hair, and all the sudden I just have six girls on top of me stomping on me, kicking me," she said.

Some people nearby broke up the fight. Police came and two girls were arrested.

"These kids, that's their motto," said Miguel Ashby, Joani's brother. "They try to jump you. They are like a mob almost."

But an hour and a half later, the mob spotted her again up the street picking up her 4-year-old at pre-school. By then, the mob was over 50 teenagers.

"As soon as they got to me, they said, 'You're going to get what you have coming to you,' " Joani said.

Joani was knocked to the ground and beaten again. The pre-school called police, and Joani was rescued.

But she still wonders,"What if they had stomped me in my face or my head or something? I didn't even know. I don't even know what I did. All I did was honk to get them out of my way."

Snohomish County sheriff's deputies arrested three girls. Two will face assault charges.

Neighbors say the mob of teenagers always hangs out around Mariner High School, and Joanie is afraid they will attack her again if they see her.