Society's ChildS


Sherlock

US: Home owner shocked after FBI, sniffer dogs and a helicopter scour his property in pointless hunt for 30 dead children...all on a tip from one deluded psychic

Paul Bentley
The Daily Mail
Wed, 08 Jun 2011 06:48 UTC
The man whose property was at the centre of a massive - but utterly pointless - FBI and police hunt for 30 dead children has told reporters he is 'no killer'.

The home of Joe and Gena Bankson was raided by FBI agents, 15 car loads of local police, sniffer dogs and a helicopter last night - all acting on the tip of a local psychic the couple later referred to as 'mentally unstable'.

Earlier in the day, investigators had found blood and a 'foul odour' at the Hardin house where the 'psychic' woman claimed the dismembered remains of dozens of children were buried.

But while news teams gathered to report the shocking discovery, it emerged the 'odour' was rotting garbage, the blood belonged to a family friend's failed suicide attempt and the 'psychic' tipster was - unsurprisingly - wrong.

Image
© EPAFruitless: Quiet Liberty County became the scene of a huge search before officers abandoned their investigation
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Laptop

US: FBI Busts Man Duped In Facebook Ploy


The Smoking Gun
Tue, 07 Jun 2011 00:00 UTC
Image
© unknown
Former wife posed as 17-year-old in online scheme

Embroiled in a contentious child custody fight, an Indiana woman decided last month to pose on Facebook as a comely teenage girl in a bid to surreptitiously extract damaging information from her ex-husband.

The scheme proved so successful, in fact, that FBI agents last Friday arrested Angela Voelkert's former spouse on a felony charge for allegedly installing a listening device in her vehicle, according to court records.

Voelkert's Facebook plot--detailed by FBI Agent Robert Dane in a sworn affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in South Bend--began in late-May when she opened a Facebook account in the name of "Jessica Studebaker."

The purported 17-year-old's profile--which remains online, but locked--includes the photo of "Studebaker" seen at right. The true identity of the girl seen in the photo is unknown, nor is it clear where Voelkert got the image.

Voelkert, 29, used the bogus Facebook profile to "friend" her former husband David, 38. Angela Voelkert then asked a pal to e-mail her former spouse through the Facebook account since she was concerned that he might recognize her "style of writing." Voelkert though, Dane noted, "monitored the emails on 'Jessica Studebaker's' Facebook account."
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Cell Phone

US, Pittsburgh: Local High School Teacher Accused Of Sexting Students


CBS News
Tue, 07 Jun 2011 08:18 UTC

A Steel Valley high school teacher is accused of sexting her male students.

Many of the messages 29-year-old Jennifer Smith is accused of sending to students are just too graphic to outline.

Police say she asked the five male students to erase the photos and the messages.

The evidence and accusations are substantial, but her attorney, David S. Shrager, shed no light on her side of the story.

"In terms of talking about what the potential defense is, is premature for me to talk about it," he told reporters. "At this point in time, we've just had an arraignment and a waiver of the preliminary hearing."
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Bizarro Earth

Giant rats eat two babies in South Africa townships in separate attacks


Mail Online
Fri, 03 Jun 2011 16:24 UTC
Child attacked by Rat
Lunathi Dwadwa, three, was the victim of a giant rat attack

'I can't forget how ugly my child looked after her eyes were ripped out' says dead baby's mother
The rats can grow up to three-foot long

Giant rats as big as cats have killed and eaten two babies in separate attacks in South Africa's squalid townships this week.

Lunathi Dwadwa, three, was killed as she slept in her parent's shack in the Khayelitsha slum outside Cape Town and another girl was killed in Soweto township near Johannesburg the same day.

Little Lunathi was sleeping on a makeshift bed on the floor of her family's breeze block and corrugated iron home on Sunday night when she died. Her puzzled parents didn't even hear her scream.

When her mother discovered her lifeless body, she saw that her daughter's eyes had been gouged out.
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Stormtrooper

Best of the Web: US Police State: Memory card in mouth saves police shooting video

Suzanne Choney
MSNBC
Wed, 08 Jun 2011 15:03 UTC
A police shooting of a man in Miami Beach on Memorial Day was terrifying, but when it was over, officers turned their attention to a man filming the violent scene with his cellphone. They demanded the device, smashed it and probably thought that was that; no video anymore. It was not: Narces Benoit had had the presence of mind to pull the phone's memory card with the video on it from his cellphone and put the card in his mouth.


That action saved the video you see above, showing the police shooting dead a suspect at the end of a chase, and some of what happened to Benoit. It was after the shooting ended that police turned their sights on Benoit, who had been darting behind trees and stop signs, filming with his HTC Evo phone.

At about 1:38 into the video, we see and hear a police officer turn to Benoit and shout: "Gimme the phone now!"
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Dollar

Bank Not Responsible for Letting Hackers Steal $300K from Customer


Wired
Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:53 UTC
A judge in Maine has ruled that a bank that allowed hackers to steal more than $300,000 from a customer's online account isn't responsible for the lost money, saying the customer should have done more to protect the account credentials.

Magistrate Judge John Rich sided with Ocean Bank in recommending that the U.S. District Court in Maine grant the bank's motions for a summary dismissal of a complaint filed by Patco Construction Company. The ruling was reported Monday by BankInfoSecurity.

The case raises questions about how much security banks and other financial institutions should be reasonably required to provide commercial customers and could set a precedent for liability in circumstances where customer systems are hacked and banking credentials are stolen. Small and medium-sized businesses around the U.S. have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years to such activity, known as fraudulent ACH (Automated Clearing House) transfers.
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Bizarro Earth

US: Random Attacks Cause Concern in Chicago

Jason Meisner and Jeremy Gorner
Chicago Tribune
Mon, 06 Jun 2011 09:26 UTC
Image
© Stacey Wescott, Chicago TribunePortrait of Krzysztof Wilkowski outside his home in a Northwest suburb of Chicago on Monday. Wilkowski was one of the men mugged by a mob of teens this weekend near the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.
Mob attacks create a sensitive issue for city officials eager to boost tourism and convention business

No one was seriously hurt in the flurry of five random attacks by a mob of young men on Chicago's lakefront over the weekend.

But the feeling among many visitors and residents that the popular Near North Side stretch where the attacks occurred is safe for strolling on a summer night may have taken a hit.

"I think it reflects badly on Chicago," said Dr. Jack Singer, 68, a Seattle oncologist who was one of two victims in town for a convention of cancer specialists at McCormick Place. "I've been coming to the convention every year, and this is the first time I've felt threatened downtown."

The outbreak of random violence along a busy stretch of Chicago Avenue and the lakefront creates a sensitive issue for city officials eager to boost tourism and convention business.

"No matter what, we have to remember this isn't just about downtown residents, but our tourism economy," said Ald. Brendan Reilly, whose 42nd Ward encompasses most of the downtown business district. "Perception is reality in tourism world. There are economic consequences if people think downtown isn't safe."
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X

Texas, US: Mystery surrounds death of Aryan Brotherhood boss


The Sydney Morning Herald
Wed, 08 Jun 2011 03:16 UTC
Image
© (Texas Department of Criminal JusticeFrank E. Roch Jr., 54, was found dead in his truck beside Highway 59 the night of May 19.
The death of Frank E. Roch jnr has been a mystery for US police from the moment Houston officers found the heavily tattooed man dying slumped in his pick-up truck that had crashed beside a Houston freeway.

First, there were all of the different identification cards he had on and around him - so many, in fact, that investigators had trouble identifying him. Indeed, it would be hours before they learnt the man had headed the largest faction of one of Texas's most infamous criminal gangs.

Roch, 54, commanded about 1500 members of the white-supremacist Aryan Brotherhood of Texas inside prisons and outside, investigators said.
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Black Cat

Texas, USA: Despite tip-off from psychic about mass grave, police raid turns up no bodies


The Guardian
Wed, 08 Jun 2011 03:01 UTC
Image
© Nick De La Torre/APTexas police outside a house in Hardin after receiving an anonymous tip, reportedly from a psychic, that multiple dismembered bodies were buried there. Police later confirmed no bodies had been found.
Woman faces false reporting charges after police, FBI and dog search of rural home beamed live to millions ends in red faces

Police in Texas are investigating whether a tip-off from a woman claiming to be a psychic that sparked a hunt for a mass grave of dismembered bodies, including children, was a hoax.

Officers raided a rural farmhouse in Hardin, north-east of Houston, after receiving a report that up to 30 bodies were hidden inside. But, hours later, after nothing untoward had been found, police gave up the search.

"There's no crime scene," said Liberty County judge Craig McNair as deputies, Texas Rangers and FBI agents ended their fruitless search that was beamed live to millions on national TV.

Captain Rex Evans, spokesman for the Liberty County Sheriff's Office, said the woman, who twice called in the tip, would now be investigated for making a false report.
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Passport

US: Cruise passengers tell of seven-hour security 'revenge' nightmare

Andy Bloxham, and John Bingham
The Telegraph
Tue, 07 Jun 2011 08:45 UTC
cruise ship
© ALAMYSetting off from Southampton on April 12, the cruise has taken in stops in Europe, the Caribbean, Central America, crossing the Panama Canal to travel up the west coast of the United States to Alaska

Elderly passengers on board a luxury cruise have criticised US immigration officials after they endured a seven-hour security check.

It was billed as a chance to taste the "glitz and glamour" of Hollywood or enjoy VIP treatment in some of the most exclusive shopping areas in the world.

But when a group of 2,000 elderly British cruise ship passengers docked at Los Angeles for a short stop-off during a five-star cruise around America it was, in the words of one of them, more like arriving at Guantanamo Bay.

During their £10,000, two-and-a-half month "Alaska Adventure" tour from the Arctic to the Caribbean, the passengers on the luxury P&O liner Arcadia had become more than accustomed to passing US immigration with little formality.

By the time they docked at Los Angeles on May 26, for a one-day visit it was their 10th stop on US soil.
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