Paradise News

Tag: Americas

  • Texas man sentenced for fatally shooting his mother and father, a retired district court judge

    GEORGETOWN, Texas (TCN) — A 47-year-old man will spend the rest of his life behind bars for killing his father, a former judge, and his mother last year.

    The Williamson County District Attorney’s Office announced March 31 that Seth Carnes pleaded guilty to capital murder in connection with the deaths of his father, 74-year-old retired District Court Judge Alfred Carnes, and his mother, Susan Carnes. He received a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

    According to prosecutors, on the night of Jan. 8, 2024, Williamson County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to a call made by the defendant’s 19-year-old daughter, who said her dad had shot her grandfather. Responding deputies found Alfred Carnes and his wife deceased with gunshot wounds. They recovered the weapon used to kill the victims.

    The district attorney’s office said Seth Carnes lived in a converted garage next to his parents’ home and admitted to killing the victims at the scene. Authorities immediately took him into custody.

    In an initial release, the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office said investigators believe the shooting “resulted from a disagreement, escalating into family violence and death.”

    According to prosecutors, Alfred Carnes presided as a district judge in Williamson County from 1989 to 2013.

    In a statement, District Attorney Shawn Dick said, “Judge Carnes and his wife Susan were beloved members of the community where they lived and served. The loss of their lives in this manner devastated not only their family but many within the community who loved and respected them. While nothing can undo the profound loss suffered by the family of Judge and Mrs. Carnes, this outcome brings a measure of justice and finality to a deeply tragic situation. We hope this resolution can offer some small degree of peace to the family members as they continue to heal.”

    • Seth Carnes Pleads Guilty to Capital Murder in Death of Parents – Williamson County District Attorney’s Office
    • Former Texas judge and his wife allegedly killed by son in their home, 1/10/2024 – TCN
    • Media Release Shooting in Georgetown, TX, 1/9/2024 – Williams County Sheriff’s Office

    Source: True Crime Daily

  • Md. man allegedly hid in closet and killed his elderly grandmother

    POTOMAC, Md. (TCN) — A 27-year-old man was taken into custody on suspicion of murder after he allegedly confessed to killing his grandmother over the weekend.

    On Sunday, March 30, just after 8 a.m., Spencer Hamilton reportedly walked into the Montgomery County Police Department’s Rockville City station and said he killed one of his family members. Emergency responders went to a home on Tribunal Lane and found 87-year-old Pauline Titus-Dillon in a bathroom. Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service officials declared her deceased at the scene.

    Detectives from the department’s Major Crimes Unit responded and identified Hamilton as the suspect in Titus-Dillon’s death. He was arrested at the police station and charged with first-degree murder.

    According to WTTG-TV, Hamilton allegedly hid in his grandmother’s closet until about 4 a.m. when she came back to her room from the bathroom. He reportedly stabbed her in the face and back, then strangled and punched her several times. Afterward, he allegedly moved her body to the bathroom and tried to clean up the area. He allegedly left her house with her phone, credit card, and laptop.

    WTTG reports Hamilton said at his court hearing Monday that he planned on representing himself even though the judge, defense attorney, and his family tried to advise him otherwise.

    • Potomac Man Arrested for Grandmother’s Death – Montgomery County Police Department
    • Maryland man turns himself in after brutally murdering his grandmother in her home, police say – WTTG

    Source: True Crime Daily

  • Mom arrested for allegedly leaving 4 kids alone in feces-covered home with a bucket of urine

    LAKE CHARLES, La. (TCN) — A mother faces charges after allegedly leaving several children home alone in dirty conditions in the middle of the night and falling asleep at a friend’s house.

    According to the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office, on March 28 at approximately 10 a.m., deputies performed a welfare check at an apartment on Winterhalter Street after receiving a report of four unsupervised children under 6 years old. Detectives arrived and noticed the home was “covered in feces with a bucket of urine inside.”

    Authorities said the children were soiled, and the youngest victim had severe diaper rash.

    The children’s mother, 25-year-old Daionjanee Young, returned to the residence around two hours into the investigation. She reportedly told detectives that she left at around 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. to pick up food while her kids were asleep. Young allegedly said the restaurant was closed, and she went to a friend’s house but fell asleep there.

    Officials arrested Young and booked her into the Calcasieu Correctional Center on four counts of cruelty to juveniles and four counts of child desertion.

    Sheriff Stitch Guillory said, “It is heartbreaking to see children living in these conditions. We appreciate the community members who alerted us to this situation. The children have been placed in state custody by the Department of Child and Family Services.”

    • CPSO Arrests Woman for Child Desertion – Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office
    • Calcasieu Correctional Center

    Source: True Crime Daily

  • D.C. Anti-Crime Program: Bribed Officials, Ex-Con Hired as Violence Interrupter Charged with Murder

    The scandals keep piling up in the District of Columbia’s ill-fated program to curb violence with an ex-con charged with two felonies since D.C. officials hired him to be a violence interrupter, a disgraced councilman—Trayon White—busted for taking tens of thousands of dollars in cash bribes to help extend violence prevention and youth services contracts and another high-ranking official pleading guilty to bribery for using her official government position to help a friend get contracts and grants. As millions of taxpayer dollars pour into D.C.’s questionable anti-violence initiative fraud and corruption continue to rock the program, and crime remains high in the neighborhoods it is supposed to help.

    The repeat criminal works for Cure the Streets, a public safety program launched by former D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine to reduce gun violence by treating it as a disease that can be interrupted and stopped from spreading. Cure the Streets typically hires people with criminal histories as violence interrupters because they know first-hand about the challenges that residents of crime-infested communities live with. Racine, a two-term D.C. Attorney General who is currently a partner in a major corporate law firm, claimed the “transformed criminals” hired by his program perform community-driven public safety work that can avoid using police by interrupting potentially violent conflicts because they have relationships and influence within targeted neighborhoods. The program operates in notoriously high-crime sections throughout D.C., which are broken down by wards, including Eckington/Truxton and Trinidad in Ward 5, Marshall Heights/Benning Heights in Ward 7 and Bellevue, Washington Highlands, and Congress Heights in Ward 8.

    A Cure the Streets employee, Cotey Wynn, was recently arrested and faces a first-degree murder charge related to a nightclub shooting in which a 31-year-old former college basketball player was killed. Wynn has an extensive rap sheet and had served ten years in prison when Racine, D.C.’s then chief legal officer, hired him as a violence interrupter. His record includes felony murder, first degree murder, possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine, and distribution of a controlled substance, according to the Metropolitan Police Department. The most recent criminal charge is not the first since becoming a D.C. violence interrupter. In 2020 Judicial Watch reported that Wynn got arrested and charged for fatally shooting a 53-year-old man in 2017 near the Trinidad neighborhood in Northeast Washington. At the time of that arrest Wynn was under the supervision of the Pretrial Services Agency for the District of Columbia, a federal agency that believes preventative detention should only be a last resort for defendants, who should live in the least restrictive conditions while awaiting court.

    The public officials embroiled in bribery scandals are part of the D.C. Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (ONSE), the umbrella agency that more broadly focuses on reducing violence in the nation’s crime-infested capitol area. White, recently expelled by the D.C. Council and scheduled to be tried in 2026, took $156,000 in cash payments in exchange for using his position as a D.C. councilman to pressure government employees at ONSE and the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS) to extend several contracts. “The contracts at issue were valued at $5.2 million and were for two companies to provide Violence Intervention services in D.C.,” according to the Department of Justice (DOJ), which reveals that the disgraced lawmaker took payments of $35,000 in cash on four separate occasions. Just a few days ago, the agency disclosed the most recent ONSE official nabbed in a bribery scheme, a former deputy director named Dana McDaniel who has pleaded guilty to accepting at least $10,000 in exchange for using her position to award contracts and grants to businesses owned by a Maryland-based associate. As ONSE deputy director, McDaniel managed agency programming and community-based services focused on providing resources and interventions for at-risk individuals in at-risk communities impacted by violence in D.C. She faces 15 years in prison.

    Source: Judicial Watch

  • Nurse allegedly convinces friend she’s terminally ill and kills her for insurance payout – TCNPOD

    This Week on True Crime News The Podcast: Meggan Sundwall allegedly spent years convincing her friend Kacee Terry that Kacee was terminally ill, then injected her with a lethal dose of insulin to “end her suffering.” Police say Kacee never had cancer, and that Meggan was motivated by a $1.5 million life insurance policy she thought she would receive after her friend’s death.

    Alison Triessl joins host Ana Garcia.

    YouTube: Nurse allegedly convinces friend she’s terminally ill and kills her for insurance payout

    Source: True Crime Daily

  • Man convicted of stalking ex-girlfriend, hiding in storage room, and killing her friend

    ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (TCN) — A 39-year-old man could spend over three decades behind bars for fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend’s friend nearly two years ago.

    The Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office announced March 28 that a jury convicted Chase Cuffie of second-degree murder and three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. His sentencing will be set for a later date, and he faces over 33 years in prison.

    According to prosecutors and the Albuquerque Police Department, on July 15, 2023, officers responded to a shooting at an apartment, where they found Craig Dixon deceased with gunshot wounds. They also found shell casings in the living room.

    Cuffie had allegedly been stalking his ex-girlfriend for several months. She reportedly told police that she and two friends were having drinks and went to the patio to smoke cigarettes. Cuffie reportedly hid and then “emerged from an outdoor storage room with a black handgun.”

    According to police, Cuffie “yelled at the women and pushed them at gunpoint,” and he forced them to go inside the apartment. Dixon reportedly tried to run to the door, but Cuffie fatally shot him.

    Cuffie’s ex-girlfriend went to a neighbor’s home and called police. Authorities arrested Cuffie on July 17, 2023, in Phoenix.

    • Jury Convicts Man of Second-Degree Murder After Stalking Ex-Girlfriend Then Killing Her Friend – Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office
    • DV murder suspect arrested in Phoenix – Albuquerque Police Department

    Source: True Crime Daily

  • N.J. police chief allegedly put Viagra in coffee pot, exposed himself, and defecated on floors

    NORTH BERGEN, N.J. (TCN) — A police chief is facing a lawsuit from multiple officers for allegedly fostering a “workplace environment characterized by inappropriate behavior,” including exposing himself and mistreating police staff.

    According to NJ.com, five officers from the North Bergen Police Department intend to sue Chief Robert Farley in civil court. One of the officers, Special Capt. Michael Derin, said Farley “created a hostile work environment” after Farley reportedly found out that another employee planned to file a suit against the department. Derin reportedly wrote in a court document that Farley “chases me around his office. After cornering me in the filing area with no further room for retreat, he sticks a hypodermic needle through my jeans into the tip of my penis.”

    The needle poke reportedly caused him to bleed.

    Derin claimed Farley “would shave his body hair on people’s property, their persons, and their food,” and that the chief was “fond of scraping fluids from his underwear onto people seated in the chief’s office.”

    NJ.com reports Derin was fired when he went to file a complaint against Farley.

    North Bergen Police Lt. Alex Guzman is another plaintiff in the case. In a letter from Guzman’s attorney to the North Bergen Township Attorney, Guzman laid out his allegations against Farley, saying the “practical jokes” Farley claims he’s playing are “demeaning, demoralizing, and targeted.”

    Guzman claimed in his letter that Farley “has exited the bathroom in his office and exposed himself to others in the room, making inappropriate comments such as, ‘Hey, look, it’s bigger than you thought, right?’”

    Guzman alleges Farley placed hot peppers in an officer’s food in the microwave, which created fumes that led to physical illness. One officer reportedly needed EMS treatment. He allegedly “instructed everyone to report the incident as a malfunctioning pepper spray canister in the armory if anyone asked.”

    Farley has also allegedly “defecated on the floor in front of his entire staff,” as well as in a trash can near Derin and Guzman. Another time, he reportedly “left feces on the bathroom floor, apparently with the intent of having someone unknowingly step on it.”

    According to the letter, Farley would allegedly break pens and smear ink on officers’ uniforms and faces, leave spray-paint cans under cars, causing them to explode on the vehicles, throw staplers across the room, and poke holes in a chief’s coffee cup. Guzman said the alleged harassment targeted his family, too. He says Farley sent gay pride flags, dildos, and masturbation cream to his house, and his wife opened the package in front of their children.

    Another time, he reportedly put Viagra and Adderall into the office coffee pot, “causing staff to inadvertently experience the effects of these substances without their consent.” The letter claims he poisoned a corporal’s fish, killing all of them.

    Guzman purported there were “deliberate efforts to conspire against me in an attempt to undermine my civil lawsuit,” including intimidating witnesses and retaliating against other officers who associated with him.

    NBC News reports North Bergen officials said it was “highly suspicious” that officers were coming forward against Farley after he cut overtime pay.

    A statement from the town read, “The Township of North Bergen has full confidence in Chief Robert Farley’s leadership of the North Bergen Police Department and we strongly deny these false and outrageous allegations made by disgruntled officers who are resorting to attacking the reputation of a dedicated public servant to further their own selfish goals.”

    The township referred the claims to the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office in order to avoid a conflict of interest.

    The attorney representing the officers, Patrick Toscano, told NBC News, “I have represented thousands of police officers over the years. I have never seen anything like this. There’s just no other way of saying it.”

    • Police chief pooped by desks, spiked coffee with Viagra, cops say in list of assault complaints – NJ.com
    • Lieutenant Alex Guzman v. Township of North Bergen
    • N.J. police chief accused of turning department into ‘Animal House’ – NBC News

    Source: True Crime Daily

  • Karen Read shares her side of the story ahead of her second trial

    Karen Read’s trial shocked the nation and left true crime fans riveted as she waited to learn her fate. Prosecutors allege Karen hit her boyfriend, Boston Police officer John O’Keefe, with her car and left him to die in the snow, but she claims she was framed. Now, she’s sharing her side of the story in a new Investigation Discovery documentary ahead of her retrial.

    Source: True Crime Daily

  • Teen convicted of girlfriend's murder serves 40 years but maintains his innocence

    Jesse Barnes was just 17 when his 15-year-old girlfriend, Cynthia Vaughn, was found dead with multiple stab wounds in 1971. Jesse was interrogated and asked again and again if he killed Cynthia, to the point where he eventually confessed. There was nothing to corroborate his confession, and Jesse maintains his innocence despite the admission. After serving 40 years in prison, Jesse was released based only on a sentencing error. He shares his side of the story with “True Crime News.”

    Source: True Crime Daily

  • Ex and accomplice sentenced after beating pregnant woman and leaving her to drown in R.I. pond

    COVENTRY, R.I. (TCN) — Two men will spend the rest of their lives behind bars in connection with the death of a pregnant woman who was found dead in a body of water.

    The Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office announced March 28 that a judge sentenced 48-year-old Michael Lambert and 37-year-old Gary Gromkiewicz to life in prison with an additional 10 years for murder and conspiracy to murder Leila Duarte DaLuz. A jury found the defendants guilty in January.

    According to prosecutors, in the early hours of Dec. 21, 2022, Gromkiewicz and Lambert drove to Brockton, Massachusetts, to pick up DaLuz from her home. DaLuz, who was pregnant at the time, was reportedly Gromkiewicz’s ex-girlfriend. The defendants allegedly drove the victim around Rhode Island and made multiple stops, according to digital data and video surveillance.

    The attorney general’s office said a fisherman later found DaLuz’s body in Carbuncle Pond beneath the ice. She had reportedly sustained lacerations to her head. The medical examiner determined she had suffered blunt force trauma and there was water in her lungs, suggesting she was alive when she was in the pond.

    According to prosecutors, investigators concluded that the defendants “viciously assaulted” the victim and “left her to drown.”

    Attorney General Peter Neronha said, “Leila’s life ended under horrible circumstances, but her life is not defined by her death. As National Crime Victims’ Rights Week nears, we must all recommit ourselves to centering victims, including the families of victims, within our understanding of true justice. While nothing can bring Leila back to her loved ones, I hope that these life sentences bring them a sense of closure and peace. I am very grateful to both juries for getting this right, and to the Rhode Island State Police for their hard work on this complex case.”

    • Two men responsible for Carbuncle Pond murder to serve life in state prison – Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office

    Source: True Crime Daily