Tragedy struck Scott Ponder’s motorcycle shop in a small South Carolina town when a gunman opened fire and killed Scott, his mother, his best friend, and a bike mechanic. Their deaths remained a mystery for over a decade, until detectives discovered a missing woman in a container, who changed everything.
Source: True Crime Daily
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (TCN) — A 50-year-old man was captured in Kansas after he allegedly shot and killed his girlfriend, two of her family members, and a dog after the girlfriend told him to leave.
Platte County Prosecutor Eric Zahnd spoke at a press conference Monday, Feb. 3, and outlined the “horrific” sequence of events that left three women and a dog dead and one person injured.
According to Zahnd, on Sunday, Feb. 2, at 12:41 a.m., the Kansas City Police Department received a call from a resident on the 4100 block of Northwest 65th Street who said a woman knocked on her door and claimed her mother’s ex-boyfriend opened fire in her home. Officers responded to the area and found 49-year-old Jodie Hopcus, 73-year-old Sherri Duncan, and 24-year-old Hailey Hopcus deceased from gunshot wounds.
The surviving victim told police that she lived in the home with her mother, grandmother, sister, and the suspect, Armando Navarro. On the night of the incident, Navarro and Jodie Hopcus got into an argument and she allegedly told him to leave. Navarro said he did not have anywhere to go, then reportedly walked back and forth between the kitchen and his bedroom.
The victims thought Navarro was collecting his belongings, but he reportedly came out of his room with a handgun and shot Jodie Hopcus in the arm multiple times until he ran out of bullets. The surviving victim tried to help her mother, but Navarro reportedly threatened her with a knife.
Zahnd said Navarro left and returned shortly thereafter with a larger firearm. He reportedly “held it under his chin like he was going to shoot himself,” but he then shot Jodie Hopcus in the face. The surviving victim said her grandmother was on the ground “staring at the ceiling, motionless” and was already dead. Hailey Hopcus reportedly told her sister to get out the house, which allegedly caused Navarro to shoot Hailey Hopcus and fire at her sister. The survivor “felt the projectile hit her hair and saw some of her hair on the floor.”
According to Zahnd, the survivor ran to a neighbor’s house for help as Navarro yelled her name. Navarro reportedly took Jodie Hopcus’ SUV and fled. Kansas City Police detectives tracked the vehicle to Abilene, Kansas, in Dickinson County, so they contacted the sheriff’s office for assistance.
As it turns out, the sheriff’s office had already been in communication with Navarro because on the morning of Feb. 2, deputies responded to Kansas Highway 15 for a motorist needing assistance. They spoke with Navarro and saw his car was stuck in a ditch. He said he was waiting for a tow truck, and the deputy told him he would follow up with him later.
The sheriff’s office learned that Navarro was wanted in Platte County, so deputies and Kansas Highway Patrol went back to the area where Navarro was waiting for the tow truck. As officials waited for an armored vehicle from a neighboring police department, Navarro fled the area, leading to a “brief foot pursuit.” Deputies deployed a K-9, and Navarro surrendered.
Navarro’s son also called the Kansas City Police Department and requested a welfare check at the home because Navarro allegedly called him and said he “killed them all.”
Navarro was arrested and is in custody in Kansas as he awaits extradition to Missouri.
He is charged with three counts of first-degree murder, four counts of armed criminal action, one count of first-degree assault, and one count of animal abuse. Zahnd announced he will review the case to determine if he will bring the death penalty against Navarro.
Zahnd said at the press conference, “This is a horrific crime. It’s one of the worst crimes that I’ve prosecuted in my 22 years. Three women are dead, and a surviving victim lost her mother, her grandmother, and her sister. My prayers are with the entire family.”
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Source: True Crime Daily
President Trump’s temporary funding freeze to reign in Biden’s spending binge has ignited outrage among the left and an ongoing Judicial Watch case that has already exposed $505 million dollars (and counting) in government waste helps illustrate why the new order is vital to protect American taxpayers. It involves awarding billions of dollars to a “grassroots network of community leaders people know and trust” to propagandize and politicize the controversial COVID vaccine by, among other things, increasing vaccine uptake in vulnerable and minority communities. It was part of a $3 billion program to support outreach efforts in states by using a specially created COVID-19 Community Corps operated by leftists. Judicial Watch requested records from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and was forced to sue in federal court because the government failed to provide the documents, which are still trickling in under the terms of the lawsuit.
It is likely that the scandal-plagued program, which was only exposed because Judicial Watch litigated to obtain records, would receive scrutiny under the new Trump rules aimed at cutting government waste. The policy has caused outrage among many Democrats as well as liberal groups that benefitted financially from Biden’s government cash giveaway. The brouhaha was triggered by a memorandum issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which oversees the performance of federal agencies and administers the federal budget, to the heads of executive departments and agencies calling for a temporary pause of grants, loans and other financial assistance programs. “Financial assistance should be dedicated to advancing Administration priorities, focusing taxpayer dollars to advance a stronger and safer America, eliminating the financial burden of inflation for citizens, unleashing American energy and manufacturing, ending ‘wokeness’ and the weaponization of government, promoting efficiency in government, and Making America Healthy Again,” the memo reads. It also says that the use of federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that fails to improve the lives of those they serve.
To implement the new policy each agency is asked to complete a comprehensive analysis of programs to identify those that may be implicated by any of Trump’s executive orders. “In the interim, to the extent permissible under applicable law, Federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal,” the OMB memo states. “This temporary pause will provide the Administration time to review agency programs and determine the best uses of the funding for those programs consistent with the law and the President’s priorities.” Federal agencies are also directed to pause all activities associated with open federal funding announcements officially known as Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO).
The funding pause is necessary because the administration must review federal programs to ensure that they are being executed in accordance with the law and the new president’s policies, a White House statement explains. One mainstream newspaper reported that the move to crack down on waste “caused mass chaos and confusion across Washington.” Another major paper referred to it as an “explosive Trump administrative order that froze trillions of dollars of federal grants and loans” and received “widespread condemnation and confusion.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified to a hostile mainstream media that specializes in trashing all things Trump that efforts to “end the egregious waste of federal funding” will continue.
Judicial Watch’s COVID-19 Community Corps case is one of many that can be used to demonstrate why the new Trump order is essential to evaluate future expenditures. The records we obtained reveal that one notable recipient of taxpayer dollars to promote vaccines under Biden’s multi-billion-dollar plan is the Washington D.C. Episcopal Diocese, whose leftist bishop, Mariann Edgar Budde, politicized her recent presidential inauguration sermon at the National Cathedral by urging Trump to show mercy to illegal immigrants as well as LGBTQ+ individuals.
Source: Judicial Watch
HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. (TCN) — A 42-year-old man is in custody after allegedly concealing his wife’s death and living with her body for days.
According to the Highland Heights Police Department, on Feb. 3, officers responded to a home on Grey Stable Lane to a report of an unresponsive person. At the scene, authorities found 37-year-old Laura Hern deceased.
Police found the victim on her bed with “obvious signs of decomposition,” the Cincinnati Enquirer reports.
Laura Hern’s husband, Tyler Hern, reportedly told officers he discovered his wife deceased, but he didn’t contact law enforcement. He said he lived with her body for around seven to 10 days.
According to a citation reviewed by the Cincinnati Enquirer, Tyler Hern said he used the victim’s “phone to text family members when they were checking on her well-being in an attempt to conceal her death.”
Tyler Hern was booked into the Campbell County Jail on a charge of abuse of corpse. He remains held on $500,000 bond.
The circumstances surrounding Laura Hern’s death remain under investigation.
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Source: True Crime Daily
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that a federal court ordered the Department of Justice to provide information on communications between Special Counsel Jack Smith and District Attorney Fani Willis regarding the prosecution of then-former President Donald Trump. The Justice Department had continued to object to providing any information even after its prosecutions against Trump were shut down.
Judge Dabney L. Friedrich of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that because the cases against Trump were closed, the Justice Department’s arguments against disclosure were no longer applicable:
Since DOJ filed its motion for summary judgment and supporting Declaration in March 2024, the Special Counsel’s criminal enforcement actions have been terminated…. The cases are “closed—not pending or contemplated—and therefore are not proceedings with which disclosure may interfere.” … Thus, the agency’s sole justification for invoking the Glomar doctrine under Exemption 7(A) is no longer applicable.
Accordingly, the Court will deny DOJ’s motion for summary judgment and grant the plaintiff’s cross motion. DOJ is directed to process the plaintiff’s FOIA request and either “disclose any [responsive] records or establish both that their contents are exempt from disclosure and that such exemption has not also been waived.”
Judicial Watch sued in October 2023 after the Department of Justice failed to comply with an August 2023 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records detailing the “Fulton County District Attorney’s Office’s requesting or receiving federal funds or other federal assistance … regarding the investigation of former President Donald Trump” and others (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Justice (No. 23-cv-03110).
On December 18, 2023, the Justice Department issued its final response to this request, refusing to confirm or deny the existence of responsive records. It argued that releasing the records could be reasonably expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings. The Justice Department refused to change its position or inform the court in light of the “proceedings” against Trump that were shut down.
The court has now ordered the Justice Department to meet with Judicial Watch on or before February 21, 2025, and to report the status of the discussion to the court.
“President Trump truly needs to overhaul the Justice Department from top to bottom. It is a scandal that a federal court had to order the Justice Department to admit the truth that their objections to producing records about collusion with Fani Willis had no basis in reality,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said.
Judicial Watch has several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits related to the prosecutorial abuse targeting Trump:
In January 2025, the Superior Court in Fulton County, GA, issued an order granting $21,578 “attorney’s fees and costs” in the open records lawsuit for communications Willis had with Special Counsel Jack Smith and the House January 6 Committee. Judicial Watch recently received payment.
In February 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice asked a federal court to allow the agency to keep secret the names of top staffers working in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office that is targeting former President Donald Trump and other Americans.
(Before his appointment to investigate and prosecute Trump, Specia Counsel Jack Smith previously was at the center of several controversial issues, the IRS scandal among them. In 2014, a Judicial Watch investigation revealed that top IRS officials had been in communication with Jack Smith’s then-Public Integrity Section about a plan to launch criminal investigations into conservative tax-exempt groups. Read more here.)
In January 2024, Judicial Watch filed lawsuit against Fulton County, Georgia, for records regarding the hiring of Nathan Wade as a special prosecutor by District Attorney Fani Willis. Wade was hired to pursue unprecedented criminal investigations and prosecutions against former President Trump and others over the 2020 election disputes.
Through the New York Freedom of Information Law, in July 2023, Judicial Watch received the engagement letter showing New York County District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg paid $900 per hour for partners and $500 per hour for associates to the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher law firm for the purpose of suing Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) in an effort to shut down the House Judiciary Committee’s oversight investigation into Bragg’s unprecedented indictment of former President Donald Trump.
In his new book Rights and Freedoms in Peril Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton details a long chain of abuses officials and politicians have made against the American people and calls readers to battle for “the soul and survival of America.”
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Source: Judicial Watch
This Week on True Crime News The Podcast: MIT graduate Qinxuan Pan pleaded guilty to gunning down Yale graduate student Kevin Jiang the middle of the street while Kevin was on his way home. Investigators learned the killing wasn’t quite so random: Qinxuan had a secret obsession with Kevin’s fiancée, Zion Perry, who briefly shared a platonic relationship with Qinxuan years before the fatal shooting.
Robert Corbett joins host Ana Garcia.
YouTube: Ivy League grad gunned down by fiancée’s secret stalker after posting engagement pics
Source: True Crime Daily
Criminal defense attorney Joshua Ritter and civil rights attorney Areva Martin join “True Crime News” host Ana Garcia to discuss some of the biggest trials and cases happening across the country, including the ones involving rapper A$AP Rocky and real estate tycoons Oren, Alon, and Tal Alexander.
Source: True Crime Daily
Amina and Sarah Said were brutally murdered by their father, Yaser Abdel Said, after he lured them into his taxi under the pretense of taking them out to eat. Believing they had dishonored the family by dating American men, he fatally shot them and abandoned their bodies in his cab before evading law enforcement for over a decade. Did his daughters ever find justice?
Source: True Crime Daily
POTTAWATOMIE COUNTY, Okla. (TCN) — A 33-year-old man will spend the rest of his life behind bars for killing his wife and leaving her body in a drainage ditch near her home.
The Pottawatomie County Sheriff announced Jan. 31 that Frank Byers pleaded guilty to murder over a year after he claimed his wife, Makayle Meave, went missing. As a result of his plea, a judge sentenced him to life in prison.
Meave was reportedly last seen in the early evening of Sept. 15, 2023, at her home in Macomb. The sheriff’s office said she “left voluntarily” with a tall, bearded man in a white Chevy pickup truck. According to KFOR-TV, the Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office received a call on Sept. 20, 2023, about a body wrapped in carpet in a drainage culvert near Oklahoma Highway 59B and Hamilton Road. The remains were positively identified as Meave’s on Sept. 22, 2023.
KFOR reports the medical examiner found Meave sustained two gunshot wounds to the head.
Investigators reportedly searched Byers’ property and found a receipt that showed he purchased bleach, ammonia, and a mop the same day Meave disappeared. Detectives also discovered Byers’ boots had “a blood-like substance on them” that matched Meave’s DNA. Officials believe Byers killed his wife to “establish a relationship” with a different woman.
Deputies arrested Byers Oct. 24, 2023, on charges of first-degree murder, unauthorized removal of a dead body, and desecration of a human corpse.
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Source: True Crime Daily
ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Minn. (TCN) — A 56-year-old man has been convicted of raping and killing a 38-year-old mother of two in her home nearly 39 years ago.
The St. Louis County Attorney’s Office announced that on Jan. 31, a jury found Michael Carbo guilty of two counts of first-degree murder while committing first-degree criminal sexual conduct in connection with the death of 38-year-old Nancy Daugherty. He is scheduled to be sentenced in March. The charges carry a mandatory life sentence with parole eligibility after 17 years.
In 1986, Carbo, who was 18 at the time, reportedly entered Daugherty’s home at around 3 a.m. and raped and fatally strangled her in her bed. Investigators worked on the case for years, but it went cold.
The Star Tribune reports that using advancements in testing, investigators found Carbo’s DNA in semen and skin samples at the scene. Authorities also discovered the defendant’s fingerprint on the toilet lid.
A jury initially convicted Carbo in 2022, but he appealed. In May 2024, the attorney’s office said the Minnesota Supreme Court reversed Carbo’s conviction, “finding that Mr. Carbo should have been allowed to present alternative-perpetrator evidence.” According to the Star Tribune, Daugherty’s friend Brian Evenson was a suspect in the case, but he was never charged.
The second and most recent jury trial began on Jan. 13.
In a statement, County Attorney Kim Maki said, “Our thoughts go out to the family of Nancy Daugherty. This has been a long road to justice. The family of Ms. Daugherty has shown the utmost strength, and we thank them for their support from the beginning to the end.”
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Source: True Crime Daily