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Dad kills man who molested his son 1
Teacher caught in bushes with student gets 20 years 2
DNA match solves 2004 rape, murder 3
By Pete Kotz in Child Abuse, Creeps, Sex crimes, homicide
Monday, Jan. 4 2010 @ 1:15PM
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​Chris Hartsell knew his friend Williams Ballance was a registered sex offender. In 1998, Ballance was placed on five years of probation for taking indecent liberties with a minor. Still, Hartsell was comfortable enough to move his family into Ballance's trailer home...

By Pete Kotz in Stupid Criminals, robbery
Monday, Jan. 4 2010 @ 12:03PM
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​In today's episode of the Beginner's Guide to Crime, we examine one of the basic theories on making your getaway. As a general rule, try to avoid taking flight in a work van that loudly advertises where to find you should police wish to make your acquaintance...

By Pete Kotz in Police bungling, assault, bizarre
Monday, Jan. 4 2010 @ 11:26AM
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​It's one of those minor nuisances in life -- the store that decides to card everyone, regardless or age, for liquor and tobacco purchases. Better to torture your customers that run afoul of the company lawyer, the logic seems to go. But suburban Philly cop Brian Decker considered this practice a mortal sin...

Tags: Pennslyvania
Monday, Jan. 4 2010 @ 10:46AM
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​It seemed rather funny when we first reported this back in September -- at least in a perverse sort of way. Police in Meridian, Idaho had been called about something suspicious happening in the bushes not far from the town middle school...

Tags: Idaho
By Denise Grollmus in Child Abuse, Sex crimes, cold cases, homicide
Monday, Jan. 4 2010 @ 9:00AM
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​Martin Solis Mendiola was just six days away from freedom. An inmate at the Buena Vista Correctional Complex in Colorado, Mendiola had been serving time for a felony conviction after he was caught attempting to sexually abuse a child...

Tags: Colorado
By Pete Kotz in Child Abuse, Creeps, Sex crimes
Monday, Jan. 4 2010 @ 8:03AM
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​Reader Dana responds to Dr. Earl B. Bradley Turned His Pediatrics Practice into a Child Rape Center. She wonders why any parent would leave a young child alone with a doctor...

By Pete Kotz in assault, bizarre
Monday, Jan. 4 2010 @ 6:03AM
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​This morning's Breakfast Reading: A man is booted from his ritzy island golf course community after renting his condo to a porn crew. A woman attacks her beau's testicles in a domestic beef. And in a surge of ball related crime, a 78-year-old man kicks a cop on in the nuts...

By Pete Kotz in Heroes, Video archives, robbery
Monday, Jan. 4 2010 @ 4:21AM

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​Here's a great video from China. A bicyclist sees two men on a scooter snatch a woman's purse. So he calmly gets off his bike, then chucks it at the fleeing assailants, causing them to crash. A beautiful moment in vigilante heroics...

By Pete Kotz
Thursday, Dec. 24 2009 @ 5:31AM
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​Sorry, fair readers, but we're taking an undeserved break for the holidays. We'll be back in action Monday, January 4. In the meantime, the best of wishes to you and yours this Christmas season. We thank you for reading. --Pete
Wednesday, Dec. 23 2009 @ 3:22PM
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​In September, Craig Lynch escaped from the Hollesley Bay prison in Suffolk, England, where he was doing seven years for burglary. But unlike most escapees, who make themselves scarce, Lynch still felt compelled to keep his Facebook fans apprised of his exploits...

Tags: Britain
By Pete Kotz in Stupid Criminals, robbery
Wednesday, Dec. 23 2009 @ 2:50PM
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​As the old saying goes, you have to get up pretty early to get drunk and still rob a bank by 8:30 a.m. Or something like that. But while we may have butchered the axiom, it appears to be the abiding principle of Tornondo A. Pugh of Akron, Ohio...

Tags: Ohio
Wednesday, Dec. 23 2009 @ 2:25PM
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​UPDATE: In what can be considered nothing short of a miracle, Michael Brewer is feeling good enough to be checked out of a Miami hospital, and is heading home for Christmas. See update after the jump...


Wednesday, Dec. 23 2009 @ 1:47PM

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​From a purely depraved perspective, Anthony R. Stancl's plot was simple and effective. He went on Facebook posing as a girl named "Kayla," then chatted up his male classmates at Eisenhower High School in New Berlin, Wisconsin. The fictitious "Kayla" had a way with the boys, convincing 31 to send Stancl pictures of themselves naked...

By Pete Kotz in Creeps, Sex crimes
Wednesday, Dec. 23 2009 @ 12:49PM
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​If you're a serial child rapist, there's likely no better cover than operating your own pediatrics practice. According to police, that's how Dr. Earl B. Bradley found his victims, raping kids as young as 6-months-old while filming it all with covert cameras...

Tags: Delaware
By Pete Kotz in missing persons, unsolved
Wednesday, Dec. 23 2009 @ 11:47AM
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​UPDATE: Susan Powell expressed fear of her husband more than a year ago, and took pains to mention that she'd never commit suicide so people would know if she ended up dead. See update after the jump...



Tags: Utah
By Pete Kotz in missing persons, unsolved
Wednesday, Dec. 23 2009 @ 11:31AM
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​UPDATE: Katie O'Connell has been found alive and well, as some of our readers have already astutely noted. It appears she wasn't a victim of foul play, just a victim of excess partying...


Tags: Illinois
By Denise Grollmus in Child Abuse, cold cases, missing persons, unsolved
Wednesday, Dec. 23 2009 @ 9:00AM
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​It was November 24, 1997 when five-month-old Sabrina Aisenberg disappeared from her crib. Her mother, Marlene, said that when she went to check on Sabrina the next morning, the baby was gone along with her yellow blanket...

Tags: Florida
Wednesday, Dec. 23 2009 @ 8:00AM

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​Claudia Lawrence, 35, was last seen leaving work at Britain's University of York in March. Although police considered her disappearance suspicious during the early days of their missing persons probe, they soon feared that she came to harm after meeting up with someone she knows...

Tags: Britain
By Pete Kotz in drugs, missing persons, unsolved
Wednesday, Dec. 23 2009 @ 7:00AM
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​Reader "Shell" responds to Mom Angela Hook Goes Missing While Christmas Shopping. Despite past drug addiction, her coworkers at the nursing home describe her as hard working and a wonderful woman...


Wednesday, Dec. 23 2009 @ 6:07AM
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​Breakfast Reading from around the Village Voice Empire: Elderly man shoots rival after thinking he paid for sex from the nurse he loved. America's worst sheriff forces inmates to listen to Christmas tunes. And a Republican activist is out of prison after a pedophilia conviction...