Category: Metro

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (TCD) — A former professional boxer was sentenced last week for killing a woman pregnant with his child by drugging her, tying her to a block, and pushing her into a lagoon, where she died.

In a statement, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Puerto Rico announced a federal judge in San Juan sentenced Félix Verdejo-Sánchez to life in prison for the 2021 murder of Keishla Rodriguez Ortiz and her unborn child. Verdejo-Sánchez was convicted in July of committing a kidnapping resulting in death and intentionally killing an unborn child.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, on April 29, 2021, Verdejo-Sánchez “executed a premeditated plan” to kill Rodriguez Ortiz, who was pregnant. She got into his Dodge Durango, and while in the car, Luis Antonio Cádiz-Martínez and Verdejo-Sánchez pumped her with drugs, then tied her to a cement block. They drove to the Teodoro Moscoso Bridge, and the two men threw Rodriguez Ortiz into a lagoon below.

Verdejo-Sánchez “later jumped into the lagoon in order to finish murdering both victims.”

Rodriguez Ortiz was reported missing to Puerto Rico Police on April 29, 2021. Her body was found two days later. The two men were indicted May 6, 2021, and were eligible for the death penalty.

According to The Associated Press, Cádiz-Martínez pleaded guilty last year and testified against Verdejo-Sánchez during his trial. Cádiz-Martínez revealed he called police and informed them where he and Verdejo-Sánchez left Rodriguez Ortiz’s body. She was reportedly still alive when they tossed her into the water.

The Associated Press reports Rodriguez Ortiz had fentanyl and a horse sedative in her system. Prior to the murder, Verdejo-Sánchez reportedly told Rodriguez Ortiz to get an abortion.

Verdejo-Sánchez competed in the 2012 Olympics in London and later became a professional boxer in the lightweight division.

U.S. Attorney for Puerto Rico W. Stephen Muldrow said following the sentence, “Today’s life sentence rightly holds Verdejo-Sánchez responsible for the pain and suffering he inflicted on his victims. To this day, the defendant maintains his unrepentant attitude. Like Verdejo-Sánchez now knows, anyone who commits cold-blooded crimes of violence in violation of federal law will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law by the Justice Department and this office.”

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HOUSTON (TCD) — A 31-year-old woman will spend 30 years in prison for breaking into her mother’s home and killing her in 2021.

On Friday, Nov. 3, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced that Ericka McDonald pleaded guilty to the 2021 murder of 51-year-old Terri Mendoza at her apartment on Willow Place Drive.

On Aug. 16, 2021, McDonald reportedly broke into her mother’s apartment through a window, wearing a mask and black clothes. Ogg said McDonald fatally stabbed Mendoza before leaving, changing her clothes, and returning to the scene.

When McDonald came back to her mother’s home, she “pretended she did not know what happened.”

According to Ogg, a witness identified the suspect as McDonald, and Houston Police apprehended her.

McDonald cannot appeal the conviction and will have to serve at least half of her sentence before she will be eligible for parole.

Ogg said in a statement, “This is a tragic case and should not have happened, but prosecutors with our Homicide Division were able to get justice for the victim.”

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FORT MYERS, Fla. (TCD) — A woman at a local antique store found much more than a good deal while looking through the shop’s Halloween section over the weekend.

According to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, on Saturday, Nov. 4, a woman perusing the store, who coincidentally is an anthropologist, noticed a skull and “recognized it to be human.” She contacted the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, and detectives from the Major Crimes Unit arrived at the establishment to investigate.

Detectives at the scene also confirmed the skull belonged to a human.

The owner reportedly told officials the skull was previously in a storage unit and had been purchased several years ago.

The Lee County Sheriff’s Office said the situation is “not suspicious in nature.”

Lee County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Anita Iriarte spoke with Newsweek and said this case was “definitely different” because the office does not typically get contacted by an antique store “that there’s a human skull on the floor.”

Iriarte said the skull will undergo testing at the local medical examiner’s office, then will be transported to Gainesville for additional analysis.

Iriarte told Newsweek, “It was found in a Halloween section. What’s been described is that the antique shop was having a fossil day, so this female, an anthropologist, was shopping and noticed the skull and then was like, ‘This is definitely not a Halloween decoration.’”

Preliminary analysis shows the skull is about 75 years old and there does not appear to be any trauma to the bones.

She said, “There’s nothing that leads them to believe that this skull has been preserved by suspicious means of any sort.”

The woman who found the skull reportedly thinks the skull might be that of a Native American.

The managing partner of Paradise Vintage Market, Beth Meyer, told Newsweek, “The anthropologist came into the store, and gave a very informative and educational explanation as to why she thought it was Native American. The medical examiner came in, bagged and tagged the skull, and took it to the lab for testing. If it is Native American, it will be returned to one of the local tribes and we will have a ceremony.”

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MONCKS CORNER, S.C. (TCD) — Two people are in custody after a dog attack left a 65-year-old man dead this week.

On Tuesday, Oct. 31, the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office responded to a home on Ayers Drive to a report of a dog attack. Medical personnel performed lifesaving measures on the victim, David Eller, but he was ultimately pronounced dead at the scene.

According to the sheriff’s office, further investigation revealed that two unprovoked pit bulls fatally attacked Eller. Deputies noted that the dogs were not “contained properly.”

Officials arrested 45-year-old Shannan McCrackin and Kenneth Swayne on charges related to the deadly attack.

McCrackin faces one count of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of dangerous animals unconfined on premises, while Swayne faces two counts of dangerous animals unconfined on premises.

McCrackin remains held on $45,000 bond, and Swayne remains held on $20,000 bond, records show.

Berkeley County Sheriff Duane Lewis said in a statement, “This was a vicious attack on an unsuspecting victim, and this should have never occurred.”

Lewis continued, “If the owner of the dogs would have taken the proper responsibility for the safe keeping of the animals, the attack could have been prevented.”

The investigation is ongoing.

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KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (TCD) — A judge upheld the sentence of the only woman on Tennessee’s death row almost 30 years after she killed a 19-year-old because she “just felt mean that day.”

According to the Nashville Tennessean, 47-year-old Christa Pike’s attorneys cited a recent Tennessee Supreme Court case, Tennessee v. Tyshon Booker, in the hope it would sway the judge to overturn the ruling.

The Tennessee Supreme Court wrote in the Booker ruling, “In fulfilling our duty to decide constitutional issues, we hold that an automatic life sentence when imposed on a juvenile homicide offender with no consideration of the juvenile’s age or other circumstances violates the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

Pike was 18 years old when she killed Colleen Slemmer in January 1995.

The Nashville Tennessean reports Pike’s attorneys said her sentencing should be amended because there “is no hard line of maturity or difference between the brain development of a 17-year-old and 18-year-old.”

WBIR-TV reports Judge Scott Green wrote in his decision, “This ruling applies only to juvenile homicide offenders — not to adult offenders.”

Pike was convicted of murder in 1996 and sentenced to death. According to the Nashville Tennessean, due to Pike’s age at the time of the murder, she is the only person left on death row who was 18 years old when they committed the crime. She is also reportedly the only female on Tennessee’s death row.

Following this week’s decision by the Knox County judge, Pike’s attorneys said in a statement, “At the time of the crime nearly 30 years ago, Christa Pike was a teenager, just 18, with untreated severe mental illness and a history of severe, repeated physical and sexual abuse, violence, rape, and neglect that began when Christa was very young. Christa’s co-defendant, who was 17, will be eligible for parole soon. Yet Christa, who was just a few months older, may be executed.”

According to Pike’s appeal filed to the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2018, on Jan. 11, 1995, Pike told her friend she wanted to kill Slemmer because she “had just felt mean that day.”

On Jan. 12, 1995, the friend saw Pike with Slemmer, Pike’s boyfriend, and another student from the Job Corps Center. The group walked away at approximately 8 p.m., and they returned about two hours later without Slemmer.

The same night, Pike reportedly went to her friend’s room and said she slit Slemmer’s throat multiple times with a box cutter, hit her with asphalt, and cut her back with a meat cleaver. She then carved a pentagram into Slemmer’s forehead and chest.

The appeal says Pike kept a piece of Slemmer’s skull “as a souvenir,” and even brought it to breakfast with her the next morning.

She reportedly had a difficult upbringing, which included reportedly being sexually abused by her grandmother’s boyfriend and neglect by her parents. Her father reportedly tried to put her up for adoption right before she turned 18. When Pike was young, her mother reportedly stayed at a bar to drink even though Pike was a having seizures and needed to go to the hospital.

The appeal said in part, “All in all, the jury heard a clear story: Pike’s childhood and upbringing were very difficult and, in some ways, explained how she became a person capable of such a brutal murder.”

According to the court document, Dr. Eric Engum said at her trial he “examined Pike and, although she suffered from no symptoms of brain damage or insanity, she did suffer from ‘very severe borderline personality disorder’ and exhibited signs of cannabis dependence and a depressive disorder.”

Another forensic psychiatrist, Dr. William Bernet, said Slemmer’s murder included “satanic elements,” but it “appeared more indicative of ‘an adolescent dabbling in Satanism.’”

The Tennessee Supreme Court justices rejected her 2018 claim because Pike’s case was not an exception of a “heinous and inexplicable crime.”

They wrote, “”But in sentencing Pike to death, we rule out the possibility that her crime was a product of the immature mind of youth rather than fixed depravity. And we presume that she is incapable of reform even though the stories of other teenage killers, many of whom have been rehabilitated behind bars, reveal other possibilities.”

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