Society's ChildS


Handcuffs

Man who burned woman in elevator gets 50-year sentence

Tim Stelloh
NY Times
Fri, 11 Jan 2013 15:36 UTC
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© Robert Stolarik for The New York TimesAt Brooklyn Supreme Court on Friday, Jerome Isaac was sentenced to 50 years in prison for killing an elderly woman by setting her on fire in an elevator in December 2011.
Calling the crime one of the most brutal he had seen in his judicial career, a Brooklyn Supreme Court judge on Friday sentenced a man who burned an elderly woman to death in an elevator to 50 years in prison.

On Dec. 17, 2011, surveillance footage showed the man, Jerome Isaac, who was wearing a gas canister and a surgical mask, cornering the woman, Deloris Gillespie, 73, in the elevator of Ms. Gillespie's apartment building in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Mr. Isaac doused Ms. Gillespie with accelerant, then tossed a Molotov cocktail into the elevator.

"This has to be one of the most horrific crimes I have ever seen," the judge, Justice Vincent Del Giudice, said. "I had to review that video of the horrible death of that woman suffering."

Justice Del Giudice added, "That is not something one can take from one's mind."

Wearing an orange jumpsuit, Mr. Isaac, 48, said nothing during the hearing. He tilted his head down and closed his eyes for much of it.

Mr. Isaac was sentenced to prison despite recent questions about his mental health.
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Christmas Lights

Man jumped into Arizona Meteor Crater - He liked to "appease the gods"


abc15.com
Fri, 11 Jan 2013 14:57 UTC
Arizona crater
© Unknown
Winslow, AZ - A man who jumped into a mine shaft at the Meteor Crater tourist attraction 35 miles east of Flagstaff Thursday has been pulled out, according to authorities.

He was rescued from the 100 foot deep hole early Friday morning.

Coconino County Sheriff's spokesman Gerry Blair said the sheriff's office got a call around 4 p.m. Thursday afternoon saying a man had made his way into the bottom of the crater where people are not permitted.

When the first deputy arrived he was told the man had just jumped feet first into the mine shaft, sheriff's officials said.

Additional resources were called in and the first rescuers to make it down to the bottom of the crater had to cut through a seven foot fence topped by barbed wire to get access to the mine shaft.
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Heart

Honesty of the long-distance runner

Carlos Arribas
elpais.com
Fri, 11 Jan 2013 14:55 UTC
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© CALLEJA (DIARIO DE NAVARRA)Fernández Anaya helps Mutai toward the line
Is winning all that counts? Are you absolutely sure about that?

Two weeks ago, on December 2, Spanish athlete Iván Fernández Anaya was competing in a cross-country race in Burlada, Navarre. He was running second, some distance behind race leader Abel Mutai - bronze medalist in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the London Olympics. As they entered the finishing straight, he saw the Kenyan runner - the certain winner of the race - mistakenly pull up about 10 meters before the finish, thinking he had already crossed the line.

Fernández Anaya quickly caught up with him, but instead of exploiting Mutai's mistake to speed past and claim an unlikely victory, he stayed behind and, using gestures, guided the Kenyan to the line and let him cross first.

"I didn't deserve to win it," says 24-year-old Fernández Anaya. "I did what I had to do. He was the rightful winner. He created a gap that I couldn't have closed if he hadn't made a mistake. As soon as I saw he was stopping, I knew I wasn't going to pass him."
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Eye 1

Police trick entire high school into signing 'anti-violence pledge' to gather handwriting samples


Daily Mail
Fri, 11 Jan 2013 14:32 UTC
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© FacebookNorthampton High
Police are accused of tricking students at a high school into signing their names on a fabricated 'anti-violence pledge' so they could gather handwriting samples and match it with a threatening note found in the school shortly after the Sandy Hook shootings.

Northampton High School was evacuated on December 19 when the note was found in the bathroom - just five days after Adam Lanza gunned down 20 elementary school students and six teachers before turning the gun on himself.

Authorities are now hoping the handwriting samples taken from the students will give them a new lead in their investigation as they hope to match it to the threatening note.

The statement has been described as a joint effort by police, the high school administration and the Northwestern District Attorney's Office, according to The Republican.

Police Chief Russell P. Sienkiewicz said District Attorney David E. Sullivan have confirmed the method is valid and legal - despite the handwriting samples being taken from the students under false pretenses.
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Heart - Black

Decorated emergency medical technician who 'used his FDNY key to shut down elevators to trap and rape young girls' faces first victim in court

Nina Golgowski
Daily Mail
Fri, 11 Jan 2013 14:26 UTC
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A decorated former emergency medical technician accused of using his FDNY key to shut down elevators to trap and rape young girls appeared in court on Wednesday to face testimony by the first of his five alleged victims. Among Angus Pascall's alleged victims, prosecutors say the 35-year-old raped an 11-year-old girl after using his fireman's key to stop her elevator. Another similarly alleged victim was aged 19.

He is now charged with five sexual assaults carried out in Brooklyn between 2001 and 2010, all of which he has pleaded not guilty to. Prosecutors say DNA evidence, however, connects him to every single crime.

On Wednesday one of his first victims who was 22-year-old at the time of her alleged attack offered the first harrowing testimony against him.

Trembling before the court, the woman claimed Pascall approached her at her apartment's door in Flatbush in 2001 while asking if he could leave a package with her for her next door neighbour.
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Heart

Indiana boy abducted in '94 found in Minnesota


Salon
Fri, 11 Jan 2013 14:28 UTC
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© Credit: AP
Authorities have identified a 24-year-old man recently discovered living in Minnesota under an assumed name nearly two decades after his grandparents abducted him from Indiana.

The Todd County Sheriff's Office says Richard Wayne Landers Jr. now lives in the small northern Minnesota town of Long Prairie under the name Michael Jeff Landers.

Indiana State Police announced Thursday that Landers had been found, but didn't give his new name. They said Landers' paternal grandparents took him because they were upset over custody arrangements.
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Arrow Down

Rhino poaching at record high in South Africa


LiveScience
Thu, 10 Jan 2013 17:13 UTC
Dead Rhino
© Michel Gunther / WWF-CanonDehorning of a rhinoceros by a field researcher
Rhinoceros poaching soared to a record high level in South Africa last year. The country's government said 668 rhinos were killed within its borders in 2012, up from 448 in 2011, according to the World Wildlife Fund, an international conservation group.

A whopping 425 of those deaths last year occurred in Kruger National Park, a top safari destination and home to South Africa's largest population of both black and white rhinos. That figure marks a sharp increase from the 252 rhinos killed in the park in 2011.

The poaching boom is largely due to heightened demand for rhino horns in Asia, where the grim prizes are believed to have medicinal properties and are seen as highly desirable status symbols, especially in Vietnam. TRAFFIC, a nongovernmental global network that monitors wildlife trade, recently issued a report describing how some affluent Vietnamese individuals often use the horn as a hangover cure and general health tonic, grinding it up and mixing it with water or alcohol.
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Pistol

Ohio school board votes to arm janitors, who are not exactly armed guards

Alexander Abad-Santos
Atlantic Wire
Fri, 11 Jan 2013 10:40 UTC
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© Shutterstock
The White House may be signaling to gun-rights advocates that it will offer funding for police in schools, and more teachers may be signing up for gun training, but this could not be what anyone had in mind, could it? The school board in charge of a large K-12 school in northwestern Ohio has voted unanimously to allow its four custodians to carry firearms. As Montpelier superintendent Jamie Grime told The Toledo Blade, the board sees the move as a way to prevent incidents like the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut: "Sitting back and doing nothing and hoping it doesn't happen to you is just not good policy anymore. There is a need for schools to beef up their security measures," Grimes said. "Having guns in the hands of the right people are not a hindrance. They are a means to protect."

But are custodians "the right people," the kinds of "good guy with a gun" pushed by the NRA in its plan to put armed guards in every school in America? In nearby Lima, Ohio - about two hours away - an editorial letter pushing the idea of arming custodians ran in The Lima News on Tuesday. Loyd Harnishfeger pointed out the idea:
Why the custodian? The choice is obvious. First, they do not have a classroom full of children as their first responsibility as teachers do. Secondly, they are free to roam the halls and have the keys necessary should the need arise to enter a locked down room or area. Thirdly, unlike the administrators, they are not needed for quick decisions regarding evacuation, coordination with first responders, etc.
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Health

Lap-dancing Cleveland stripper dies after balcony fall, donates organs

Alyssa Newcomb and Christina Ng
ABC News
Thu, 10 Jan 2013 10:30 UTC
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© Lauren Block/FacebookLauren Block is seen in this undated Facebook profile photo
A Cleveland stripper died after attempting a tricky move during a lap dance that caused her to fall 15 feet from a balcony, according to MetroHealth Medical Center.

Lauren Block, 22, died Wednesday from major head trauma. She'd been in critical condition since her Jan. 2 fall, said the medical center.

Block's family released the following statement:

"We would like to thank the community for their outpouring of support and prayers for Lauren. She ... is an organ donor, and we hope this will enable her to save many lives and live on through others. We would like to express our gratitude to the staff at MetroHealth. They worked tirelessly to do all they could to save her life. We ask that the media respect our privacy during this difficult time. We know that she's in God's hands."
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Heart - Black

Pictures found on cellphone show two more girls semi-naked and face down in basement where 16-year-old was 'raped by Ohio school football stars'

Laura Collins In Steubenville, Ohio
Daily Mail
Fri, 11 Jan 2013 09:01 UTC
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© FacebookSickening: A Big Red footballer was told by a judge that he only escaped charges because he deleted incriminating photos of the alleged assault... but others didn't and shared them on social networking sites
Shocking images have been found on a cellphone showing two more girls, facedown and partially naked on the floor of the same basement where the Ohio rape of a 16-year-old girl allegedly took place, it can be revealed today. The photographs were stored on a cellphone belonging to a teammate and friend of the Steubenville case accused, Ma'lik Richmond and Trent Mays - and raise the chilling possibility of two more, as yet unknown, victims.

The images were not taken on the night under investigation and it is not clear whether their subjects were conscious or aware of being photographed.

The friend, a fellow wrestler and footballer, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was present on the night in August when the girl was allegedly raped by the two.

He provided eyewitness testimony at the probable cause hearing last October at which the rape charges were upheld.

MailOnline has seen the 300-page transcript of the hearing in which the full horror of that night in Steubenville is revealed.

The existence of these earlier photographs, retrieved by forensic analysts, emerged only under cross-examination and the witness repeatedly denied all knowledge of them in spite of their presence on his phone.

In a tense courtroom exchange Walter Madison, Richmond's attorney questioned the witness: 'There is a photograph here of a woman on the same carpet as the carpet in xxxx's basement. Do you recall that photo on your phone?'

The witness replied 'No sir.' Asked about a second picture the witness claimed, 'I have never seen those pictures in my life.'

Additional images
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