#news stories
A Seattle-area man was given a 26 ½-year prison term for waging a 17-year campaign of harassment against a former classmate he met in middle school. Prosecutors are calling this the longest sentence forstalking in memory.
Shawn Moul, 31, passively accepted the sentence last week which came about six months after being convicted on two felony counts of stalking and 19 counts of violating anti-harassment orders.
Moul began stalking classmate Tracy Lundeen in 1994, shortly after Lundeen saw him at the school library struggling with his homework and offered to help him. Lundeen said Moul began following her and wrote her more than 100 letters, alternately threatening her and vowing to kill himself. He also contacted Lundeen’s family members, demanding that she contact him.
https://www.detectiveservices.com/2012/02/man-gets-26-year-jail-term-for-17-years-of-stalking/
Guan Wen Brian Tan, 33, repeatedly struck Sherry Cheung with the 36-centimetre-long tool without warning before then stabbing her with a knife in his Airbnb rental at Norman Park on May 8, 2017.
The Supreme Court in Brisbane heard the pair had been playing computer games before Mr Tan asked the 20-year-old Hong Kong woman if she thought they “would ever be together” and she allegedly replied, “no, never”.
Crown prosecutor Mel Wilson said after hitting her with the hammer, he allegedly grabbed her by the arms as he asked her: “How could you be so cruel?”
Authorities say Domingo Spinney, of Milford, used a bogus profile on the dating website PlentyOfFish to arrange meetings with the women at restaurants last December–but the person the women were expecting never showed up.
Instead, they say Spinney hit on them at the bar when they thought they were being stood up. They say he used a different name and asked for their phone numbers, and was rejected each time.
Police say he stalked the women who turned him down, slashing tires and throwing a brick through a window of a woman’s home.
A Massachusetts handyman pleaded innocent Friday to charges he used a packaged pipe bomb to murder a waitress who refused to date him.
Steven S. Caruso, 44, showed no emotion when he was arraigned in Malden District Court for first-degree murder in the Jan. 20 death of Sandra Berfield, 32, of Everett, Mass.
Berfield died when she opened a package authorities allege Caruso left on her front porch. Authorities said the device was triggered by a battery that activated a switch when the package was opened.
“My sister was stalked relentlessly for over two years,” Darisse said. “Unfortunately, she didn’t qualify for a 209A (protective restraining order) because she had no prior relationship. This left her without the protection she needed and deserved, which left police unable to stop her stalker.”
Certain states require that a credible threat be made before any action can be taken, Darisse explained.
“How do you prove a credible threat? It’s a matter of interpretation,” she said. “When you receive dead roses in the mail, like my sister did, how do you interpret that any other way?”
https://www.lowellsun.com/2008/03/06/hudson-woman-tells-story-of-attack/
https://www.upi.com/Archives/2000/02/25/Man-arraigned-for-bomb-slaying/2306951454800/
A teenager is in the hospital and the 41-year-old man who attacked her with a car before stabbing her is behind bars at a North Carolina jail, the Archdale Police Department reported on Facebook.
The 19-year-old was stabbed multiple times because she refused to date Tyvonne Quantaine Upshur, WXII reported. Upshur knew the teen from church, according to WFMY.
Jilted, the “obsessed” Greensboro man followed the teen and her family from church to a Taco Belland tried to run them over but missed and crashed into utility poles, WGHP reported. Upshur then got out of the car and stabbed the teenager in the back, according to the TV station.
https://www.thestate.com/news/state/north-carolina/article228715659.html
Amber Kyzer said her marriage to Tim Jones started out well but became increasingly abusive. Tim would regularly beat her, spit on her, and threaten to chop her up and feed her to the pigs. Once he even broke her back teeth out by throwing a phone at her head.
After Amber left in a bid to dispel the toxic tension between them and preserve Tim’s relationship with their five children, he routinely sent her short videos of the children crying for her in an attempt to lure her back under his control. His efforts failed. Tim murdered all five children in cold blood and drove their bodies around for nine days before dumping them in rural Alabama. The children were aged between eight and one years old. He expressed no remorse during his trial.
https://www.thestate.com/news/local/crime/article231423713.html
#violenceagainstchildren
It was supposed to be a family gathering on the northeast side of Fresno, Calif. When reporters arrived at the putty-colored ranch house on Monday, coolers were still sitting in the front yard, and a pink-and-blue banner was tacked to the window. “Happy Birthday!” it said in looping letters.
But according to the Fresno Police Department, the weekend celebration turned tragic when a 23-year-old man couldn’t take no for an answer and opened fire after a young woman rejected his advances. One of the bullets hit her 10-month-old daughter in the head, and the child has been hospitalized ever since.
“We are hoping and praying that baby Fayth is able to survive this injury as well as make a full recovery,” Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said at a Sunday news conference hours after the shooting.
As it turned out, Echartea was already wanted in another shooting “over a female,” Dyer said. On the night of May 27, he allegedly fired numerous shots into the house where his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend was living. One of the bullets penetrated the wall and nearly struck a 1-year-old who was inside, coming within approximately one foot of the baby.
Court records show that at the time of the shooting, Echartea was out on bond while awaiting sentencing in a domestic violence case.
The Florida woman killed by a man who had allegedly stalked her since her Hooters waitressing days had tried to get an order of protection against him, but a judge refused the request.
Alissa Blanton, 23, of Cocoa, Fla., was shot and killed Monday in the parking lot near her new job at an AT&T call center in Orange County, Fla. Police said her killer, 61-year-old Roger Troy, fatally shot himself immediately afterward.
About a week before she died, Blanton asked a judge for an order of protection against Troy, whom she said had been stalking her for two years. Despite the evidence she presented – her petition contained more than 70 pages of harassing e-mails Troy sent to her – Brevard County Circuit Court Judge Dean Moxley said he didn’t have enough information to rule on the petition.
Melania Geymonat and her girlfriend were on a 2:30 a.m. bus returning back home after a date on May 30 when they were approached by four men who demanded that the two women kiss in front of them.
When they refused, both women were verbally abused before being severely beaten. The males ran off the bus before authorities could intervene. A phone and bag were stolen during the assault. Both women were taken to a hospital for treatment to facial injuries.
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/gay-couple-beat-up-refusing-kiss-onlookers-153832889.html
The family of a 5-year-old boy who was thrown from the third-floor balcony at the Mall of America released a hopeful update on Friday, saying that despite “a long road ahead,” the boy is “showing real signs of recovery.”
The incident occurred on Friday, April 12, when Emmanuel Aranda, 24, grabbed the child and tossed him down nearly 40 feet, leaving the boy with life-threatening injuries, including multiple broken bones and severe head trauma, according to charging documents.
Aranda told investigators he was “looking for someone to kill, but it did not ‘work out,’” according to a probable cause document released Monday. He said he came up with a plan to “kill someone at the mall” on Thursday and indicated that he was angry because women at the mall had rejected him.
“He said he planned to kill an adult, because they usually stand near the balcony, but he chose the victim instead,” the document said. “[He] indicated he had been coming to the mall for several years and had made efforts to talk to women in the mall, but had been rejected, and the rejection caused him to lash out and be aggressive.”
https://abcnews.go.com/US/man-threw-year-mall-america-balcony-tells-police/story?id=62423602
After deliberating less than four hours Wednesday, an Anoka County jury convicted Patrick Walsh of first-degree murder in the slaying of Pamela Sweeney, a coworker. Walsh, 39, of Coon Rapids, was immediately sentenced to life in Stillwater state prison. Sweeney, 35, was found shot and stabbed to death in her home in Andover May 31. Walsh was convicted of three counts: premeditated murder, murder in the course of a sexual assault and murder connected with a burglary. He’ll be eligible for parole in 30 years.
Sweeney and Walsh had been acquaintances and occasionally shared rides to Unisys Corp. in Roseville, where both worked. In his closing argument yesterday, Alan Pendleton, an assistant Anoka County attorney, called Walsh a “cold-blooded killer” and accused him of concocting a series of lies to explain away the prosecution’s evidence. Pendleton suggested that Walsh grew increasingly angry as Sweeney rejected his romantic advances and eventually began ignoring him. He said in the weeks before her death, Sweeney told friends and family that Walsh had been showing up at her home uninvited, driving by her house and making harassing phone calls.
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/28936116/star_trib_19_dec_1991/
https://law.justia.com/cases/minnesota/supreme-court/1993/c9-92-522-2.html
A woman discovered romance really is dead when a man asked her to pay him £3.50 for a coffee after she declined his offer of another date.
Dating blogger Lauren Crouch, from Islington, London, shared the interesting message exchange with the man on her website No Bad Dates, Just Good Stories.
The 28-year-old, who describes herself as a romantic, met the man for a coffee.
He invited her back to his home after 20 minutes - because he needed to get back for his Ocado shopping delivery - which Ms Crouch declined.
After they parted, he messaged her asking if she would like to meet again. But when she politely said no twice, he asked her for his money back.
At 5-foot-2 with auburn hair, the young woman, whom friends described as bubbly, attracted attention from her male customers. One of her admirers, Robert Gene Pilcher, 27, an exterminator from Ottumwa, was a regular at Henry’s and was known for making unwanted and lewd advances to many of the waitresses. He kept nagging Jones for a date. No one remembers her ever taking him up on it.
Although the dead girl was found in Pilcher’s favorite party spot, no reliable evidence turned up to connect him to the murder. One detective, Wayne Shelton, was so certain of Pilcher’s guilt that he continued to follow leads after his retirement and up until his death in 2007. Jones’ sister, Judith Cabanillas, who was 13 when her older sibling died, also continued to press for answers. But as years passed, hope faded.
Then in 2010, the cold case unit plugged a DNA sample retrieved from the blanket into the national felons DNA database and got a hit — a match to Pilcher.
… A second trial, in September 2014, ended abruptly when Pilcher pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to a decade in prison. With time served and good behavior, Pilcher, now 68, could be out as early as 2019.
“He put both hands on my arms and threw me against the window of the restaurant hard. So my head banged against the window hard, in a way I thought people inside were going to think something terrible had happened to me,” she said, adding, “This was rough, and hard, and violent. And not in a seductive way – in a way that telegraphs some anger and meanness.”
“And he lunged at me,” she continued, “with his body pressed against mine against the window and came at me with his open mouth.”
The woman said she was able to avoid his attempt to kiss her, get out from under him and walk away. About 10 minutes later, she said, he called her.
“I was really hoping he would be calling to apologize. And he said something to the effect of, ‘You are never going to get a job. You’re never going to be hired in politics or media. Why would anyone ever hire you?’ And that’s when I broke down and started crying,” she told CNN.
https://money.cnn.com/2017/10/27/media/mark-halperin-new-accusations/index.html
”Her courage in speaking out against sexual assault, her death five days after being set alight and everything that happened in-between has gripped Bangladesh and brought attention to the vulnerability of sexual harassment victims in this conservative South Asian country.
Nusrat, who was 19, was from Feni, a small town 100 miles (160km) south of Dhaka. She was studying at a madrassa, or Islamic school. On 27 March, she said the headmaster called her into his office and repeatedly touched her in an inappropriate manner. Before things could go any further she ran out.”
“On 27 March, after she went to the police, they arrested the headmaster. Things then got worse for Nusrat. A group of people gathered in the streets demanding his release. The protest had been arranged by two male students and local politicians were allegedly in attendance. People began to blame Nusrat. Her family say they started to worry about her safety.”
“According to a statement given by Nusrat, a fellow female student took her to the roof of the school, saying one of her friends was being beaten up. When Nusrat reached the rooftop four or five people, wearing burqas, surrounded her and allegedly pressured her to withdraw the case against the headmaster. When she refused, they set her on fire.
Police Bureau of Investigation chief Banaj Kumar Majumder said the killers wanted “to make it look like a suicide”. Their plan failed when Nusrat was rescued after they fled the scene. She was able to give a statement before she died.”
“In the ambulance, fearing she might not survive, she recorded a statement on her brother’s mobile phone.
“The teacher touched me, I will fight this crime till my last breath,” you can hear her say.
She also identified some of her attackers as students at the madrassa.”
“"When a woman tries to get justice for sexual harassment, she has to face a lot of harassment again. The case lingers for years, there is shaming in society, a lack of willingness from police to properly investigate the allegations,“ said Salma Ali, a human rights lawyer and former director of the Women Lawyers’ Association.
"It leads the victim to give up on seeking justice. Ultimately the criminals don’t get punished and they do the same crime again. Others don’t fear to do the same because of such examples."“
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47947117
A man is now behind bars in Tennessee after being charged with multiple counts of domestic violence, assault, and aggravated burglary.
The domestic-violence offender was found hiding in the crawl space of a home belonging to a woman he briefly dated.
According to court records, DeYoung had previously been arrested for harassment and domestic violence against this same woman two weeks earlier, on March 25.
DeYoung bonded out of jail and the court ordered him to stay away, but he violated that order of protection.
WKRN has learned that DeYoung was living in the crawl space under the woman’s trailer.
For how long is not known. But according to police, the Gainesboro, Tennessee man had a sleeping bag, spare clothes, a pair of shoes, as well as food and trash in the space under the trailer.
A track athlete warned the police about her ex-boyfriend six times in the space of just 10 days before he murdered her.
Lauren McCluskey, a 21-year-old University of Utah student, was fatally shot by 37-year-old Melvin Rowland on 22 October.
Rowland, a convicted sex offender who had spent more than a decade in prison, killed himself hours later after a police chase.
Reports by the University of Utah Department of Public Safety and the Utah Department of Public Safety, along with publicly released 911 calls, now reveal that Ms McCluskey voiced concerns to police officers six times in the 10 days before she was murdered.
A former boyfriend of a young bookstore clerk whose body was stuffed into a suitcase and dumped in a wooded lot in Greenwich, Conn., has been arrested in connection with her death, the police said on Tuesday.
The man, Javier da Silva, was taken into custody at his home in Queens on Monday night after he used an A.T.M. card that belonged to the victim, Valerie Reyes, 24, of New Rochelle, N.Y., the authorities said.
Ms. Sanchez said she was aware that her daughter had recently broken up with a boyfriend, and she specifically asked if she feared him. “No,” her daughter replied. Ms. Reyes lived in the basement apartment of a home that contained several other tenants, including her father, Ms. Sanchez noted.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/12/nyregion/greenwich-suitcase-murder-valerie-reyes.html
MAN KILLS WOMAN WHO REJECTED HIM; Then Takes Own Life After Pre-Dawn Raid on House and Chase Into Snow ALSO SHOOTS HER SON Boy Is Wounded Trying to Aid Mother, Divorcee, Who Had Fled Through a Window
A rejected suitor broke into the home of a middle-aged divorcee today, shot the woman to death as she tried to escape over a snowcovered yard, seriously wounded her son, 16, then killed himself with a shotgun.
After a package bomb killed a California day spa owner last May, investigators arrested her business partner and ex-boyfriend Stephen Beal and accused him of possessing an unregistered destructive device.
The charge was dropped two weeks later. But on Sunday, after a 9-month follow-up investigation, authorities arrested Beal again and charged him with carrying out the fatal bombing as part of a targeted attack against his former girlfriend.
The powerful package bomb blew out the windows and walls of the Magyar Kozmetika day spa in Aliso Viejo, California, Hanna said in a press conference on Monday. Ildiko Krajnyak, the spa’s owner, was killed in the blast after opening a cardboard box, and two customers were seriously injured, Hanna said.
The complaint cites comments from Krajnyak’s spa clients who said that the owner was afraid of her boyfriend, identified as Beal. One witness said that Krajnyak said her boyfriend was jealous, controlling and possessive and that he would threaten her and randomly come to the spa, according to the complaint.
In the months before the bombing, Krajnyak had told Beal that she was in a relationship with another man, and her relationship with Beal ended, Hanna said. Beal admitted to feeling “hurt and betrayed” when she told him this, the complaint states.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/04/us/california-explosion-arrest/index.html
