Society's Child
Highly Unorthodox Arrangement Is Growing In Popularity Among Americans
You fall in love, get married, and move into separate homes?
Believe it or not, such an arrangement is growing in popularity with couples who say living apart is what's keeping them together, CBS 2's Maurice DuBois reported Tuesday night.
"We decided right away that we were going to keep our own places," Allen Sheinman said.
Sheinman and his wife, Collette Stallone, wanted to get married, but neither wanted to give up their Manhattan apartments, so they didn't.
"What it would mean is that we could be married and still feel like we're dating," Sheinman said, "and it actually wasn't a bad way to go."
The same was true for Lisa Haisha. She lives in one home, and her husband of seven years lives a few blocks away.
"We want to be the wind beneath each other's wings, not clip each other's wings," Haisha said.
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Ariel Castro, seen here in this undated photo, has been accused of kidnapping and raping three women who'd been missing for a decade.
Ariel Castro, seen here in this undated photo, has been accused of kidnapping and raping three women who'd been missing for a decade.
The women, individually abducted a decade ago, were kept bound by chains in the home's cellar until their "spirits were broken" and they were allowed access to the rest of the house, a police official told ABC News.
A decade of torment ended on Monday when the women escaped, and charges today were brought against Castro, 52, including four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape, prosecutors said.
Castro's two brothers, Onil Castro, 50, and Pedro Castro, 54, who were arrested with him, were not charged, officials said.
"There is nothing that leads us to believe that they were involved or they had any knowledge of this," Cleveland Police Deputy Chief Ed Tomba told reporters.
Ariel Castro is expected to be arraigned in a county court on Thursday. Following a grand jury hearing, Castro may face additional charges, Cleveland Chief Assistant Prosecutor Victor Perez said.
All three women -- Michelle Knight, 32, Gina DeJesus, 23, and Amanda Berry, 27 -- were abducted within miles of each other between 2002 and 2004.
© Cleveland Dept. of Public Safety
Ariel Castro is shown in a booking photo by the Cleveland Department of Public Safety following his arrest Monday in connection with allegedly abducting three women for up to a decade and holding them captive in his Cleveland house.
Ariel Castro is shown in a booking photo by the Cleveland Department of Public Safety following his arrest Monday in connection with allegedly abducting three women for up to a decade and holding them captive in his Cleveland house.
Three young women, reunited with their families for the first time in nearly a decade, were talking to investigators Tuesday about their life in captivity amid reports that the women were forced to endure years of sexual abuse and beatings inside a rundown house on Cleveland's west side.
Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight bolted to freedom Monday after Berry's screams alerted a neighbor who helped her break free.
Police have arrested three brothers, Ariel Castro, 52, the owner of the house and a former Cleveland school bus driver; Pedro Castro, 54; and Onil Castro, 50, in connection with the alleged abductions.
A law enforcement official told USA Today there is evidence that the victims were held in chains during at least part of their captivity.
The official, who is not authorized to comment publicly, did not elaborate on other conditions of their confinement or whether they were ever moved from the home.
Khalid Samad, a former assistant safety director for the city, said law enforcement officials told him that the women were beaten while pregnant, with unborn children not surviving, and that a dungeon of sorts with chains was in the home. Samad, who works with a crime prevention non-profit group, said he saw the women at the hospital Monday night.
Jodi Arias: I'd prefer death penalty
Jurors will return to court Thursday for the aggravation phase of the trial -- an important step in the next key decision they face: determining whether Arias lives or dies.
"Now the odds, I think, shift somewhat in her favor, because it's a very different thing to sentence someone to die than to convict them," CNN senior legal analyst Jeffery Toobin said.
In a television interview minutes after the verdict was announced, Arias said she'd prefer a death sentence.
"I said years ago that I'd rather get death than life, and that still is true today," she told Phoenix television station KSAZ. "I believe death is the ultimate freedom, so I'd rather just have my freedom as soon as I can get it."
The comments prompted authorities to place Arias on suicide watch in an Arizona jail, according to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office.
"Until she is released from suicide protocol by Sheriff's officials no further media interviews of inmate Arias will be permitted," the office said in a statement.
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Amanda (top right) with her sister. Below right - Amanda as a teen and Gina DeJesus
Amanda (top right) with her sister. Below right - Amanda as a teen and Gina DeJesus
Three women held captive in a dungeon for a decade gave birth to five babies during the ordeal.
Gina DeJesus, 23, Michelle Knight, 30, and Amanda Berry, 26 , and her six-year-old daughter fled the house in Cleveland, Ohio.
Ariel Castro, 52, and his two brothers have been arrested.
Frantic Amanda choked back tears as she told police "I'm free" after she escaped the dungeon.
Amanda fled the hell-hole thanks to a hero neighbour before her dramatic 911 call ended the victims' ordeal .
It had been feared that Amanda and the other captives - Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight - had been murdered.
After escaping the house on Monday just three miles from where they each went missing between 2002 and 2004, they named their captor as 52-year-old Ariel Castro, who tonight was in custody with his two brothers.
The women, who were aged between 14 and 22 when they disappeared, spent today in hospital before being given the all-clear by doctors and returning to their overwhelmed families.
Ever since the disaster at the Rana Plaza textile factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, some commentators have been trying to guilt-trip cash-strapped western consumers for the terrible conditions of workers in Bangladesh's Ready-Made Garment (RMG) sector, where wages are as low as £27 a month.
We've been told that our insatiable desire for cheap clothing is what keeps wages down, and working conditions so poor that factory fires are endemic and corners cut so badly that buildings collapse, as Rana Plaza did.
But we think cash-strapped consumers aren't the problem, and the TUC have researched and published a quick graphic to explain:
We've been told that our insatiable desire for cheap clothing is what keeps wages down, and working conditions so poor that factory fires are endemic and corners cut so badly that buildings collapse, as Rana Plaza did.
But we think cash-strapped consumers aren't the problem, and the TUC have researched and published a quick graphic to explain:
© goingtowork.org.uk
© Look Die Bildagentur Der Fotogra/Alamy
Palermo police have found the bodies of two Canadian-Sicilian mobsters after 'a traditional gangland hit'.
Palermo police have found the bodies of two Canadian-Sicilian mobsters after 'a traditional gangland hit'.
Two senior members of the Canadian mafia have been murdered in Sicily and their bodies incinerated, victims of what police suspect is a vicious turf war in Canada which has spilled over into the Cosa Nostra's Italian heartland.
After an anonymous tip-off, the bodies of Juan Ramon Paz Fernandez and Fernando Pimentel were discovered near a rubbish dump in the countryside outside Palermo on Thursday. Police described the double killing as an "old-fashioned" gangland hit.
Spanish-born Fernandez, 57, a notoriously tough enforcer for Montreal's Rizzuto clan, was expelled from Canada last year for the third time after serving a 10-year sentence for conspiracy to murder a fellow mobster. He resurfaced in Palermo, where he was suspected of teaming up with the Cosa Nostra to build drug-trafficking links between Sicily and Canada.
Pimentel arrived in Palermo a few weeks ago to join Fernandez, who was allegedly working as a martial arts instructor as cover for his mob activities.
© Unknown
Deputy Matt Campoy said the woman, Etta Mae Lopez, 31, blocked his way as he left his shift at the Sacramento County Jail, CBS 13 reported this week.
"All of a sudden, she stepped into me and slapped me in the face," he was quoted by the TV station as saying.
The incident occurred on Tuesday. Lopez was detained at once. She apparently wanted to use California's ban on tobacco in prisons to kick the habit.
"She told us that she needed to quit smoking," Campoy said.
Lopez allegedly admitted having waited in front of the county jail for hours to hit an officer, get arrested and be put in jail, where she would not be allowed to smoke cigarettes.
"She explained it with great detail as to why," Campoy said.
A first responder to the huge explosion last month at a Texas fertilizer plant was arrested Friday for possessing a pipe bomb - but officials aren't linking his arrest to the deadly incident. The probe, however, is now a criminal matter, they said.
The arrest Friday of a first responder to the deadly April 17 fertilizer plant blast in West, Texas, on explosives charges, is a new wrinkle that may call into question whether the incident that killed 14 people - including 12 firefighters and paramedics - was in fact a tragic industrial accident, as most people in the area believed.
Texas authorities arrested Bryce Reed, a paramedic with West Emergency Medical Services, at 2 a.m. Friday and have since charged him with possession of a pipe bomb. Mr. Reed was among those who responded first to the fertilizer plant explosion and served for a time as incident commander at the site. He was also shown giving a taped eulogy for explosion victim Cyrus Reed at an April 25 memorial in Waco, Texas, attended by President Obama.
Police have neither confirmed nor denied that Reed's arrest is tied to the plant explosion. However, authorities said Friday that the Texas Rangers and the McLennan County Sheriff's Department have launched a new criminal probe into the incident, with Texas Department of Public Safety chief Stephen McCraw pledging that the state will "leave no stone unturned."
© McClennan County Sheriff's Office/Handout via Reuters
Bryce Reed, a paramedic in West, Texas, is shown in a McClennan County Sheriff's Office booking photo taken on May 10, 2013.
Bryce Reed, a paramedic in West, Texas, is shown in a McClennan County Sheriff's Office booking photo taken on May 10, 2013.
Texas authorities arrested Bryce Reed, a paramedic with West Emergency Medical Services, at 2 a.m. Friday and have since charged him with possession of a pipe bomb. Mr. Reed was among those who responded first to the fertilizer plant explosion and served for a time as incident commander at the site. He was also shown giving a taped eulogy for explosion victim Cyrus Reed at an April 25 memorial in Waco, Texas, attended by President Obama.
Police have neither confirmed nor denied that Reed's arrest is tied to the plant explosion. However, authorities said Friday that the Texas Rangers and the McLennan County Sheriff's Department have launched a new criminal probe into the incident, with Texas Department of Public Safety chief Stephen McCraw pledging that the state will "leave no stone unturned."
Berry, 27, DeJesus, 23, and Knight, 32, are believed to have been held captive by three brothers in small, modest home only miles from their families, according to authorities. Berry ended the nightmare Monday when she escaped by breaking through a locked door with the help of a passing neighbor.
But if that was the first attempt to escape while being held captive, it would follow a common thread of other surviving kidnap victims who decided to stay put, remain silent for a long period of time and in some cases, have a personal relationship with the abductor.
"The common modus operandi of a kidnapper or kidnappers is to create an extraordinary amount of fear that they have a capacity either to kill the abductee or to kill their family," forensic psychiatrist Dr. Michael Welner said today on "Good Morning America."
"Very quickly after the abduction the captor will do a variety of things physically, sexually to dehumanize the victim and it's the dehumanization that's the beginning of the process where a person loses their identity," he said.
Comment: Curious. However, this report, as any other we have seen so far from the mainstream media, fails to mention that videos of the explosion show a bright light hitting the site an instant before the explosion. See:
Something impacted the fertilizer plant in West, Texas... most likely a Comet fragment!
Symbolic Universe - Boston, Waco, Oklahoma, Revolution
Was the West, Texas Explosion a Meteorite Impact?
We also find it interesting that this incident has been 'criminalized' in the same manner as the explosion in Indianapolis last year...
Prosecutors say Southeastside Indy explosion was set to collect insurance money