Society's ChildS


Bad Guys

Ohio man indicted in rape and death of girl, 9


The Guardian
Sat, 21 Dec 2013 00:00 UTC
metsker
© Wayne County Sheriff's OfficeJerrod Metsker, 24, has been arrested on a murder charge in the death of a 9-year-old Reann Murphy in Ohio.
— An Ohio man who authorities say raped and strangled a 9-year-old girl before dumping her body in a trash bin at the trailer park where they were neighbors has been indicted by a grand jury.

The grand jury in Wayne County returned an indictment Friday against Jerrod Metsker, 24, in the death of Reann Murphy. The grand jury charged him with two counts of aggravated murder, three counts of kidnapping and two counts of rape.

Authorities say the death penalty would be available as punishment if Metsker is convicted of murder. He is being held on $1 million bond. An attorney for Metsker previously said he couldn't comment on the case.

Murphy's body was found in the trash bin early last Sunday after a frantic search by neighbors and law enforcement after she was reported missing the previous day. Metsker was the last person seen with the girl at the trailer park in Smithville, 30 miles southwest of Akron, a sheriff's investigator said. Metsker later joined neighbors and relatives in a search for her, a neighbor said.
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Newspaper

Dispute over Indian diplomat: Big rift and many unanswered questions

Karen DeYoung and Sari Horwitz
The Washington Post
Thu, 19 Dec 2013 00:00 UTC
Image
© Washington PostOutrage in India over diplomat’s arrest: India has alleged that a U.S.-based diplomat was mistreated after her arrest in New York on fraud charges. The reported incident has sparked protests in front of the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi and other places in India. On Wednesday, Indian officials said they are transferring the deputy consul general, putting her in a post with full diplomatic immunity.
What began last week as an apparently minor New York arrest on visa fraud charges has become a major diplomatic row between the United States and India, and law enforcement officials and the State Department have clashed over whether U.S. legal or diplomatic concerns should prevail.

At the end of another day of testy U.S.-India exchanges, spokeswoman Marie Harf reiterated the State Department's "regret" over the way the arrest of an Indian diplomat was handled and said that "what we're focused on right now is working to move the relationship forward."

Forward movement seemed unlikely, however, as India on Thursday urged the United States to drop the charges against Devyani Khobragade, India's deputy consul general in New York, and insisted that she was the victim, not the perpetrator, in the case.

She was arrested last week and charged with underpaying an Indian household worker and lying about her wages to obtain a U.S. visa for the woman. The story has dominated Indian news media and led to anti-­U.S. demonstrations Thursday in the cities of Kolkata and Hyderabad, where an effigy of President Obama was burned.
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Cardboard Box

Pneumonia ends homelessness 'experiment' for Queens councilman Ruben Wills

Danielle Schlanger
New York Daily News
Fri, 20 Dec 2013 02:13 UTC
councilman homeless
© Anthony Delmundo/New York Daily News
A Queens politician cut short his self-imposed bout of homelessness after catching pneumonia.

Our Clare Trapasso follows up on her earlier report: City Councilman Ruben Wills had vowed to spend three days on the streets pumping gas for change, sleeping on subways and navigating the city's shelter system to understand what it's like to be homeless in New York City.

But Wills, who went to court last year for not paying his own rent, walked home Wednesday night after just two days as a bum.

"There are lot of holes in the system," said Wills (D-Jamaica), who went unrecognized in a camouflage jacket and baggy jeans. "There's this huge segment of the population that has less than what they need to survive."
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Dollars

Vancouver 'homeless' man turns out to be wealthy benefactor who rewards kind strangers

Ishmael N. Daro
Canada.com
Sat, 21 Dec 2013 19:55 UTC
Homeless Man
© Michael Kolbe/Fotolia.comA homeless man panhandling in winter.
A wealthy Vancouver man has been playing secret Santa to strangers on the street, giving away hundreds of dollars for acts of kindness.

The anonymous benefactor, described as a white man in his 50s, has been disguising himself as a homeless person, surprising those who dig into their wallets by rewarding them instead.

Yogi Omar is one Vancouverite who met the do-gooder, but he initially declined to donate any of his change with a reflexive "Sorry, no."

Describing his encounter on Facebook later, Omar said "for some reason I was compelled to follow up" with an offer to help with food or clothing.

"I don't have any change, but have you eaten? I can buy you food. Or I can get you a coat or socks. What do you need?" he said.

Omar's kindness led the "homeless" man to explain that he and his family traditionally practice random acts of kindness around the holidays and that he wanted to reward his good deed. It turns out Omar had just spent a lot of his savings buying a plane ticket to China to visit his ailing father, and upon hearing this, the Good Samaritan decided to pay Omar's rent for January totalling $469.
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Bad Guys

Interstate child porn ring: Alabama man raped, videotaped his son with other man

Sasha Goldstein
New York Daily News
Mon, 16 Dec 2013 11:11 UTC
dunnavant
© SARAH COLE/AL.COM/LandovCharles Dunnavant was charged with sodomy, sexual torture, aggravated child abuse and exposing person to an STD for his connection to the Huntsville child sexual abuse and pornography case.

Two Alabama men kept a 9-year-old boy captive for months as they sexually tortured him and filmed it as part of a larger child porn ring, prosecutors in Huntsville say in a disturbing case.

So disturbing were the more than 100 photographs police found that officers could not even positively identify the boy because they could not bear to look, cops said in court on Monday, AL.com reports.

Charles Dunnavant is charged with sexual torture, sodomy, aggravated child abuse and exposing a person to an STD.

Carl Philip Herold, the boy's father, is charged with sodomy, sexual abuse, aggravated child abuse, child pornography production, distributing child pornography and with allowing his child to be depicted in pornography.

"He has the means of travel, family out of state and some of the allegations are there was much travel in the lives of Dunnavant and Herold," Madison County Assistant District Attorney Gabrielle Helix said at a bond hearing Monday. "They held the child captive for eight months and there are no standards, taboos or lines this defendant and his co-defendant hesitated to cross."
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Black Cat 2

20 Cats found tortured, burned and murdered in Santa Fe, Texas

Judy Molland
Care2.com
Sat, 21 Dec 2013 07:00 UTC
Cat
© Care2.com
Warning: this is the most sickening story of cruelty to animals that I have ever written about.

Last Friday, police in Santa Fe, Texas raided a house with the intention of finding drugs. They succeeded: during the search of the home of 39-year-old Brain Cheek and his 38-year-old wife Veronica Springer, investigators found roughly nine grams of crystal methamphetamine, a scale for measuring the drugs, packaging materials for sales and a stolen all-terrain vehicle (ATV) valued at $14,000.

That wasn't all they found.

From WebProNews:
Unfortunately, as the search went on, investigators later found a grueling and morbid discovery: 20 dead cats, ranging from kittens to fully grown mature cats. Police stated that the dead cats had all appeared to undergo various forms of torture before their demise.

Investigators stated that there was evidence of blunt force trauma, disemboweling, strangulation, and burning as well as evidence of cats being burned. One of the murdered felines was found in a box in the bed of Cheek's truck.

Galveston County Sheriff's Office Animal Cruelty investigators picked up the remains of many of the cats which will be later examined by necropsy, thus finding out the actual causes of the cats' death.
So far, Cheek has been charged with the first-degree felony of manufacturing and delivering controlled substances, and is being held on a $300,000 bond, while Springer has been charged with possession of controlled substances and her bond set at $20,000.

As the investigation continues, felony charges related to animal cruelty are expected to be imposed on the couple who committed such heinous acts. Of course, animal cruelty charges must be brought against these disgusting human beings.
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Wolf

Torturing animals: USDA fines Harvard $24,000 after research monkey deaths

John David Kahn
Breitbart
Thu, 19 Dec 2013 00:00 UTC
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© Boston Globe/Tom Landers
One died of an overdose. Two from water deprivation. And one was unintentionally strangled while playing with a toy designed to enrich the lives of research animals. The means varied but the results were the same: 4 monkey deaths at Harvard Medical School research centers since 2011. After a lengthy investigation, the Department of Agriculture fined Harvard $24,000 for repeated animal welfare violations, specifically the mistreatment of primates at its animal research labs in Massachusetts.
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Arrow Up

Update: Pennsylvania pastor defrocked over gay wedding offered job


The Guardian
Sat, 21 Dec 2013 00:00 UTC
frank schaefer
© Matt Rourke/Associated Press
A United Methodist pastor from central Pennsylvania who was defrocked after officiating his son's gay wedding has been invited by a California Methodist bishop to serve in her region.

Frank Schaefer says he is deciding whether to accept the offer from Bishop Minerva G. Carcano (car-CAHN'-yo) to join the California-Pacific Annual Conference. The region includes California, Hawaii, and the Pacific Islands.

Carcano does not have the authority to restore his credentials but he says he would have the same rights. Schaefer on Friday appealed the decision of the church's regional Board of Ordained Ministry to defrock him.

A church jury suspended him for 30 days last month and told him to decide whether he would uphold the church's Book of Discipline or resign. Schaefer refused to surrender his credentials.

Source: Associated Press
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Card - VISA

Target security breach affects up to 40 million cards

Bree Fowler
WTOP
Fri, 20 Dec 2013 00:06 UTC
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© AP/Phil CoateIn this Jan. 18, 2008 file photo, a customer signs his credit card receipt at a Target store in Tallahassee, Fla. Target says that about 40 million credit and debit card accounts customers may have been affected by a data breach that occurred at its U.S. stores between Nov. 27, 2013, and Dec. 15, 2013.

Target's data-security nightmare threatens to drive off holiday shoppers during the company's busiest time of year.

The nation's second-largest discounter acknowledged Thursday that data connected to about 40 million credit and debit card accounts was stolen as part of a breach that began over the Thanksgiving weekend.

The theft marks the second-largest credit card breach in U.S. history, exceeded only by a scam that began in 2005 involving retailer TJX Cos. and affected at least 45.7 million card users.

Target's disclosure came a day after reports that the company was investigating a breach.

Customers who made purchases by swiping their cards at its U.S. stores between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15 may have had their accounts exposed. The stolen data included customer names, credit and debit card numbers, card expiration dates and the embedded code on the magnetic strip on back of the card, Target said.

There was no indication that the three- or four-digit security numbers visible on the back of the card were affected.

The data breach did not affect online purchases, the company said.
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Books

The looting of Naples' Girolamini 16th Century library

Alan Johnston
BBC News
Wed, 18 Dec 2013 20:14 UTC
Book-lovers around the world have been helping investigators trace thousands of rare volumes looted from one of Italy's oldest libraries by a gang of thieves including the librarian himself. While most have been recovered, a number of invaluable 15th and 16th Century books are still missing
Image
© BBCNaples' Giroamini Library
Inside a 16th Century church complex in the heart of Naples, the Biblioteca Girolamini's wooden shelves rise up and up towards richly decorated walls and vaulted ceilings.

They once held works of extraordinary value. There was a 1518 edition of Thomas More's brilliant and mysterious Utopia. Galileo's 1610 treatise Sidereus Nuncius, containing more than 70 drawings of the moon and the stars. And Johannes Kepler's study of the motions of Mars, Astronomia Nova, described as one of greatest books in the history of astronomy.

But this magnificent piece of Italy's cultural heritage was methodically plundered. Thousands of antique texts disappeared.

"Our investigations found that there was a true criminal system in action," says Major Antonio Coppola, a police chief who is leading the operation to recover the stolen texts. "A group of people... carried out a devastating, systematic looting of the library."
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