After a night of drinking and arguing with her boyfriend, Joy Hayward checked into a hotel but never check out. She was eventually found naked and strangled to death in the bath. Another sexual assault matched DNA found at the scene of Joy’s death, and investigators released a composite sketch of the suspect. Decades later, the killer remains unidentified and on the loose.
Source: True Crime Daily
Seven-year-old Kendra Page left her Austin, Texas, home to go on a bike ride with a friend, but she was never seen alive again. Authorities pinned Raul Meza with her murder, but after spending only 11 years behind bars, he went free on good behavior. That good behavior hardly lasted because Meza continued to kill again and again over the next several decades.
Source: True Crime Daily
SAN JOSE, Calif. (TCN) — A man who sexually abused several children under 13 will spend the rest of his life behind bars in connection with a kidnapping that occurred more than 30 years ago.
The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office announced March 25 that a judge sentenced 68-year-old Thomas Loguidice to life after a jury found him guilty of kidnapping.
According to prosecutors, on the morning of Jan. 13, 1994, a 21-year-old woman began her shift at the President Tuxedo store in Oakridge Mall. As she was opening the store, Loguidice reportedly entered the showroom area and held the victim at knifepoint, forcing her into the back storage room.
The district attorney’s office said the defendant then placed the woman on the floor, bound her wrists, and tied her to a pipe before stealing cash from the register. Loguidice allegedly went back to the storage area and sexually assaulted the victim and fled on foot.
Despite an investigation and multiple leads, the case went cold for decades. In 2022, investigators learned that DNA collected from the 1994 crime scene matched Loguidice, who was convicted in 2012 of continuous sexual abuse of four children under 13 in San Benito County. He was already in the California Department of Corrections serving a 40-year sentence for the crimes.
According to prosecutors, Loguidice was not indicted for the 1994 sexual assault “because the statute of limitations for that crime expired in 2000.”
Prosecutors said the woman made a “powerful victim impact statement.”
District Attorney Jeff Rosen commented on the courage of survivors, stating, “They can’t forget what was done to them and neither should we. I am grateful for the terrific work of our Crime Lab, investigators, and prosecutors to bring this perpetrator to justice.”
Source: True Crime Daily
Democracy by its nature is a messy business and the fight for clean and honest elections never ends. Judicial Watch has risen to the vanguard of voting integrity and voter rights reform with legal actions that include ending discriminatory elections in Hawaii, stopping extreme partisan gerrymandering in Maryland, and cleaning four million and counting dirty names from voter rolls around the country. And there’s more to come.
In recent weeks, Judicial Watch notched three significant election integrity wins. In Mississippi, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit sided with Judicial Watch, declining to revisit an earlier ruling that it was unlawful for the state to count ballots arriving after Election Day. In California, Judicial Watch filed a federal lawsuit to prevent state officials from extending Election Day for seven additional days. And in Maryland, following a separate Judicial Watch court victory opening voter rolls to public scrutiny, a federal judge struck down a state board of elections regulation criminalizing the use of voter registration lists for election integrity investigations.
This week, as well, President Trump signaled his support for election integrity action with a sweeping executive order that reinforces “a uniform Election Day across the nation,” requires “documentary proof of United States citizenship” to vote, and directs the attorney general to increase efforts to ensure state compliance with the National Voter Registration Act.
In the Mississippi case siding with Judicial Watch, the full Fifth Circuit court let stand an appellate panel ruling that ballots arriving after Election Day cannot be counted. The appellate panel had ruled that “Congress statutorily designated a singular ‘day for the election’ of members of Congress and the appointment of presidential electors. Text, precedent, and historical practice confirm that this ‘day for the election’ is the day by which ballots must be both cast by voters and received by state officials.”
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton hailed the full Fifth Circuit action as “a historic victory for honest elections,” noting that federal law “sets ‘Election Day’ not ‘Election Week.’”
Judicial Watch’s new lawsuit against California counting ballots up to seven days after Election Day “has even more urgency and strength,” Tom noted.
In the California case, Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit on behalf of U.S. Representative Darrell Issa to prevent state election officials from extending Election Day for seven days beyond the date established by federal law. “Despite Congress’ unambiguous and longstanding statement regarding a single and uniform national Election Day,” the JW brief said, “California modified and extended Election Day by allowing seven additional days after Election Day for receipt of vote-by-mail ballots.”
The lawsuit notes that late-arriving ballots can “change electoral outcomes in California.” Two of Issa’s Republican colleagues were leading on Election Night 2024 “but ultimately lost reelection due to late-arriving [vote-by-mail] ballots.”
Issa called on the state to fix its “broken systems of elections.” In California, he told Breitbart, “Election Day has become Election Month and ballots are counted until Democrats are declared the winner.”
In the Maryland case, the National Voter Registration Act—a key weapon in Judicial Watch’s legal arsenal of electoral reform—was under attack. The NVRA directs the states to make “a reasonable effort” to remove from voting rolls the names of ineligible voters disqualified from voting due to death or change of residence. Dirty voter rolls—rolls that carry many ineligible voters—create opportunities for election fraud.
Judicial Watch fought hard and ultimately won a legal battle to make Maryland voter rolls more transparent. But the Maryland State Board of Elections fought back, issuing a regulation that sought to criminalize the use of voter registration lists for investigations into NVRA violations. Judicial Watch filed a friend of the court brief in the case noting its extensive role in the Maryland NVRA litigation.
Earlier this month, a federal judge in Maryland struck down the Board of Elections regulation. The court concluded that, “as a matter of law,” the regulation “presents an obstacle to accomplishing and executing the purposes and objectives of the NVRA.”
The Maryland case is a win for transparency and accountability, a win that may echo across other states. “This new federal court ruling affirming transparency requirements for voter registration lists is an important victory for Maryland voters and election integrity,” Tom Fitton said. “It was truly outrageous that Maryland election officials tried to criminalize voters asking questions about election integrity.”
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Micah Morrison is chief investigative reporter for Judicial Watch. Tips: mmorrison@judicialwatch.org
Investigative Bulletin is published by Judicial Watch. Reprints and media inquiries: jfarrell@judicialwatch.org
Source: Judicial Watch
From Life News:
The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) has become one locus of concern about the use of baby parts in medical research. Evidence of this concern has arisen on several occasions.
This article claims that a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Pitt project even involved grafting aborted baby scalps onto rats; see the article’s link to published study. Reader beware: the study contains very disturbing graphics. And in the fall of 2021, the Center for Medical Progress published Pitt grant records it obtained with the assistance of Judicial Watch that suggested Pitt was altering abortion methods in order to maximize usable human fetal tissue for its so-called “Tissue Hub.” (Altering abortion methods for profit is a violation of federal laws.)
Following up on an April 2022 record production from NIH that revealed a hurried Zoom call requested by Jeremy Berg, Pitt’s Associate Senior Vice Chancellor for Science Strategy and Planning in Health Sciences, Judicial Watch Senior Investigator Bill Marshall filed another FOIA on May 15, 2023.
NIH failed to respond and the request was subsequently litigated by Meredith DiLiberto (also from Judicial Watch; she provided the interpretations of the FOIA documents throughout this article). As a result of the litigation, NIH produced records. See JW-v-HHS-Univ-Pitt-docs-03045.pdf.
Read more here…
Source: Judicial Watch
CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (TCN) — A 41-year-old woman faces murder charges after she allegedly killed her mother several weeks after the victim bailed her out of jail.
According to WBOY-TV, on Saturday, March 22, Clarksburg Police Department officers were called to a home on Laurel Drive regarding a disturbance and found 64-year-old Elaine Labenne with stab wounds. Medics pronounced Labenne deceased at the scene. Police arrested Labenne’s daughter, Shanna Vannorman, at the residence and took her into custody on suspicion of murder.
West Virginia News reports the two women lived together.
Vannorman has faced other criminal charges in the past, including an arrest for disorderly conduct and assault of government representatives, health care providers, utility workers, or law enforcement on Jan. 16. She pleaded not guilty to the charges. A judge set her bond at $2,000, and she was released the next day after Labenne posted her bond.
Vannorman is in custody at the North Central Regional Jail.
Source: True Crime Daily
HONOLULU (TCN) — Police arrested a 46-year-old doctor who allegedly tried to kill his wife on a hiking trail this week.
The Honolulu Police Department alleges that on the morning of March 24, Gerhardt Konig tried to throw his wife off Pali Lookout, and then hit her in the head with a rock. The victim was transported to a hospital and remains in critical condition.
Konig allegedly assaulted his wife after she declined to take a photo with her husband, KGMB-TV reports. Law enforcement officials reportedly told the news station that Konig is also accused of attempting to poke his wife with syringes during the incident. The victim sustained multiple facial and head injuries during the attack.
Police posted a bulletin asking the public to be on the lookout for Konig. Officers located him later that day near Pali Highway and arrested him following a short foot pursuit. Charges are pending.
According to WTAE-TV, Konig worked as an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh and anesthesiologist. Per KGMB, he was most recently a doctor with the Anesthesia Medical Group but has been suspended pending the investigation.
Source: True Crime Daily
NEW YORK (TCN) — A 43-year-old woman will spend the next two decades behind bars for abusing and torturing her autistic cousin over the span of about a month, ultimately killing him.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced Monday, March 24, that a judge sentenced Johnette Booker to 20 years in prison after she was convicted last month of first-degree manslaughter, first-degree assault, first-degree gang assault, second-degree gang assault, second-degree assault, and endangering the welfare of a child in connection with the death of 15-year-old Jallen McConnie.
According to the district attorney’s office, McConnie lived with his adoptive sister, his legal guardian, in North Carolina and Georgia. In May 2021, the sister sent McConnie to New York City for “cousin boot camp” as a form of “punishment for what she believed to be misbehavior at home.” The statement said McConnie was a “special needs child who the defendant believed to be autistic.”
McConnie stayed at Booker’s Upper West Side apartment, where Booker reportedly “physically and emotionally tortured” him.
Bragg said McConnie was “physically assaulted multiple times with belts, forced to sleep on the floor, forced to sit facing the wall with his legs crossed for the majority of the day, forced to do intensive exercises, hold heavy books over his head, scrub her floor, stand in the corner touching his toes, and was denied his prescription medications.”
On June 28, 2021, Booker used a belt to hit McConnie’s arms, face, legs, and body for over an hour. She also brought another relative in to whip him with the belt and punch him. The attack reportedly “left Mr. McConnie’s body covered in welts and bruises, including on the chest, back, face, both arms, and both legs.”
Booker reportedly brought McConnie to a bathroom and “forced water down his throat.” He then collapsed in the bathtub and died.
Bragg said Booker waited a long time to call 911, and when she did, she lied about what happened. She reportedly claimed McConnie got jumped by boys in a nearby park, then said her cousin died by suicide. She also said she was “in her bedroom when the incident occurred and could not hear what was happening.”
The medical examiner determined McConnie died from homicidal asphyxia.
Bragg said, “Johnette Booker stands convicted of killing her younger, vulnerable cousin through her vicious and cruel behavior. For over a month, Booker knowingly put Jallen McConnie through an excruciating level of abuse and trauma, up until the final moments of his life. Booker will serve a significant prison term for this utterly horrific conduct and my thoughts remain with Mr. McConnie’s loved ones, who continue to grieve this devastating loss.”
Source: True Crime Daily
SUWANEE, Ga. (TCN) — Police recently arrested a 20-year-old man on suspicion of fatally stabbing another man nearly three years ago.
According to the Gwinnett County Police Department, on the morning of Sept. 5, 2022, officers responded to Ridge Oak Drive, where they found a man, identified by WAGA-TV as 44-year-old Matthew Jones, deceased outside his parents’ home with an apparent stab wound.
Police later said they obtained surveillance footage showing a man walking toward and away from the scene in a black hoodie wearing a reflective strip, black pants, and white shoes, and carrying a two-strap backpack.
In December 2024, the New York Police Department contacted Gwinnett County Police, pointing to Delano Hill as a possible suspect after he had allegedly “provided intimate details about a homicide case that were not made public.”
On March 21, authorities arrested Hill at his home, and he was booked into the Gwinnett County Jail on charges of aggravated assault, felony murder, and malice murder.
The victim reportedly worked at a local Kroger, and family members said he was involved with a church.
Source: True Crime Daily
TOLEDO, Ohio (TCN) — A 33-year-old man wanted for allegedly killing his missing daughter and leaving her body in a burned house was shot by a SWAT team in Columbus following days of surveillance.
Keimani Latigue was reported missing to the Toledo Police Department on March 18. Missing People in America said in a bulletin that Latigue lived with her grandmother, and on March 18, the grandmother came home to find the house “in complete disarray.” The door was reportedly unlocked, the stove smelled like gas, and Latigue’s clothes were found in different rooms. Her glasses were also left at the house, and she cannot see well without them. Latigue reportedly contacted her father not long before her disappearance and said she was “afraid to be home alone because it seemed like somebody was trying to break into the house.”
According to the Toledo Blade, Latigue’s grandmother reported the teen missing because she failed to show up to school, and her phone went straight to voicemail. Her grandmother told police that the “behavior is out of the norm for her.”
On Monday, March 24, Toledo Police discovered Latigue’s body in a vacant, burned-out house in the 1100 block of Miami Street. Police filed a warrant for her father Darnell Jones’ arrest for abduction, but on Tuesday, March 25, there was an additional warrant for murder.
WTVG-TV reports the Lucas County Coroner determined Latigue’s cause of death was “incised wounds of the neck.”
Police said in the warrant that Jones “gave officers inconsistent statements about his activity with the victim, and their whereabouts.” Investigators were searching for him following the issuance of the warrants.
Columbus Division of Police Sgt. James Fuqua said in a news briefing March 25 that SWAT learned that a “dangerous individual” was in the area, so once they confirmed his identity, they made contact with Jones. One of the officers discharged his weapon at Jones during their interaction, and Jones was hospitalized in stable condition. Officials reportedly discovered a firearm that did not belong to any of the SWAT officers at the scene. They had reportedly been surveilling Jones for about two days.
He is expected to survive his injuries.
Fraternal Order of Police City Lodge #9 President Brian Steel told reporters Latigue’s death was “one of the most horrific” cases he had ever heard of. He said, “This is a 14-year-old that was murdered, raped, had her hands cut off, and her throat almost cut off.”
She was just days away from turning 14.
Steel added, “We sent a message: You murder someone, do not come to this town.”
Source: True Crime Daily