History > 2007 > USA > Crime, violence (III)

‘Preppy Killer’ at 19,

Accused of Drug Sales at 41

October 24, 2007
The New York Times
By CARA BUCKLEY

There it was again, that face. Square jaw, piercing eyes, topped by a shock of dark hair.

Robert E. Chambers Jr. was back before the cameras yesterday, looking in many ways the tabloid caricature that New Yorkers came to know 20 years ago. Handsome and menacing, he had killed a young woman in Central Park in 1986, and in the process came to symbolize a cocky male arrogance at loose in a world of privilege and excess.

Yet this time there were differences. Mr. Chambers, who has struggled to find work after serving 15 years in prison for the killing, was charged with dealing cocaine with his companion from their Midtown apartment. Now 41, he looked gaunt as officers led him on Monday night from a police station to a waiting van, his face sunken, graying stubble coating his chin.

He was alone as he appeared in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on charges that could land him back in prison for the rest of his life. There was no leader of the Roman Catholic Church to speak on his behalf, as there had been when he was charged with killing 18-year-old Jennifer Levin, whose near-naked body had been left under a tree in the park. His mother, an Irish immigrant who had sacrificed to give him an Upper East Side childhood of prep schools and the right connections, was not there either.

“Do you have a lawyer?” the judge, Charles Solomon, asked.

“No,” Mr. Chambers replied.

“Can you afford one?” the judge continued.

“No,” Mr. Chambers said.

And although Mr. Chambers had been in legal trouble since being released, sentenced to 100 days in prison two years ago after traces of drugs were found in his car, his latest arrest involves much more serious charges. According to the authorities, Mr. Chambers and his companion, Shawn Kovell, 39, who fell in love with him shortly before his trial for the Levin killing, operated a robust cocaine-dealing operation out of their 17th-floor apartment in a gray brick doorman building on East 57th Street.

After neighbors complained about a constant stream of strangers to and from the pair’s door, the police mounted an undercover operation. Over the course of three months, the authorities said, officers bought 246 grams of cocaine for $9,600 from Mr. Chambers and Ms. Kovell, an amount that could fetch $20,000 on the street.

When the police went to arrest the pair late Monday, no one answered the door, so officers used a battering ram to break it down. Once inside, the authorities said, the police found crack pipes and several grams of cocaine. Mr. Chambers struggled violently with one officer and broke the officer’s wrist, the authorities said.

If convicted, said Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, Mr. Chambers could spend the rest of his life in prison.

For people long familiar with Mr. Chambers, his latest arrest brought little surprise.

“That he’s gotten to the point of selling cocaine is not surprising to any of us who worked on the case,” said Linda A. Fairstein, who prosecuted Mr. Chambers in his murder trial. “But it is shocking in light of the opportunities that he was given to get away from his drug problems.”

Mr. Chambers struggled with drug use long before Aug. 26, 1986, when he ran into Ms. Levin at Dorrian’s Red Hand, a popular Upper East Side bar. The pair left the bar together, and around dawn, a cyclist discovered Ms. Levin’s body behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

When the police confronted Mr. Chambers, who was then 19 and living with his mother on East 90th Street, deep scratches were carved into his face and arms. He told officers that he had accidentally strangled Ms. Levin during rough sex.

His image as a cold-hearted killer was magnified after the trial with a tabloid television program’s release of a video showing him twisting off a doll’s head and saying, “Oops, I think I killed her.” Ms. Kovell was also in the video.

During his trial, Mr. Chambers pleaded guilty to manslaughter while the jury was deliberating.

Ms. Fairstein said Mr. Chambers had begun using cocaine and marijuana at 14. He was thrown out of the elite Browning School, on the Upper East Side, for stealing a wallet, she said, and later went on a spending spree using an American Express card he had stolen from a girl he knew.

Mr. Chambers’s mother, Phyllis, who worked nights as a nurse to pay for his private schooling, begged the girl’s mother not to call the police about the card, Ms. Fairstein said, and enrolled Mr. Chambers in a drug treatment center.

Yet even after he went to prison for Ms. Levin’s death, his drug use and bad behavior apparently continued. According to prison records, he was found with marijuana, heroin and, once, a “shank,” a razor fashioned into a weapon. Ms. Fairstein said that one time a visiting girlfriend took him cocaine concealed in a condom, and slipped it into his mouth when the two kissed. He accumulated 27 violations and served his full 15-year term before being freed, on Feb. 14, 2003.

After his release, he and Ms. Kovell lived together for several months in Dalton, Ga. Mr. Chambers struggled to find work as a day laborer, but was dogged by his notoriety, said someone who knew him but who would speak only on condition of anonymity. Ms. Kovell inherited the apartment on East 57th Street after her mother died, and the pair moved there in the fall of 2003. A year later, Mr. Chambers was stopped on a traffic violation, and officers found traces of heroin in his back seat, resulting in the 100-day sentence.

After their arrest on Monday, Ms. Kovell, who does not have a criminal record, was led from the police station with her head bowed, whippet thin in black jeans, a blond curtain of hair hiding her face. Mr. Chambers, who is 6-foot-4, was led out next, staring straight ahead and towering over the police officers who held his arms. She was charged with one count each of selling and possessing drugs; he faces 14 counts.

They appeared separately yesterday in State Supreme Court. No one, not a friend or a relative, seemed to be by their side.

Elias E. Lopez and Colin Moynihan contributed reporting.

    ‘Preppy Killer’ at 19, Accused of Drug Sales at 41, NYT, 24.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/nyregion/24chambers.html

Girl Fatally Stabbed, 4 Arrested in Ohio

October 22, 2007
Filed at 11:58 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

CLEVELAND (AP) -- A 15-year-old girl who had been bullied by another teen was fatally stabbed by a group armed with stun guns and knives, authorities, witnesses and her family said. Four people were arrested, including a 17-year-old girl.

The girl, Demesha Sharp, was attacked Friday night at a street corner as she, her siblings and friends were headed to a bus stop. As the group was walking, a sport utility vehicle appeared and tried to run them down, witnesses said.

The 17-year-old girl was arrested on murder charges Sunday, while her mother, grandmother and a 19-year-old male relative were being held on felonious-assault charges. Their names were not available, and police had not established a motive in the stabbing, Lt. Thomas Stacho said.

The victim's mother, Shalinda Wagner, said her daughter was a high school freshman who wanted to be a cheerleader and had been bullied by the suspect. She did not know why her daughter was targeted.

''There was no reason why,'' she said. ''A bully is a bully. ... She used to torture my daughter all the time.''

    Girl Fatally Stabbed, 4 Arrested in Ohio, NYT, 22.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Girl-Stabbed.html

Fugitive Is Held in Rape of 3-Year-Old

October 16, 2007
Filed at 7:15 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- A fugitive accused of raping a 3-year-old girl on videotape was arrested quietly during a traffic stop, telling the officer, ''I'm tired of running,'' police said.

Chester ''Chet'' Arthur Stiles, 37, was pulled over late Monday in Henderson for not having a license plate. He admitted his identity after police said his license looked suspicious.

''He said, 'I'm Chester Stiles, the guy you're looking for,''' Henderson police Officer Mike Dye said. ''He said, 'I'm tired of running.'''

Las Vegas police Capt. Vincent Cannito said Stiles has been wanted since Oct. 5 on warrants issued for 21 felony charges in connection with the acts seen on the videotape. The charges include lewdness with a minor, sexual assault and attempted sexual assault.

The videotape, found in the rural Nevada town of Pahrump last month, had prompted an equally intense search for the young girl who appeared in it. Police with little to go on had encouraged news organizations to broadcast the haunting image of the 3-year-old. When the now-7-year-old was found on Sept. 28, authorities shifted their resources to finding Stiles.

Dye said he stopped Stiles at about 7 p. m. on a busy thoroughfare just outside Las Vegas driving a white sedan with no license plates.

Stiles, who had been portrayed by authorities as a dangerous, knife-wielding survivalist, provided an expired California drivers license with a photo that Dye said looked ''suspicious.''

''The picture on the license didn't quite match the gentleman in the vehicle,'' Dye said.

After further questioning, the officer said Stiles revealed his true name. Dye said Stiles cooperated and didn't resist. Dye called for backup and another officer arrived to handcuff Stiles.

Stiles was booked at the Clark County jail. He had not yet hired a lawyer or been assigned a court date, police said.

Stiles was already wanted on state and federal warrants in a case alleging he groped a 6-year-old girl in 2003. Police had received hundreds of tips on Stiles, who they believed might be dangerous and possibly armed based on earlier arrests.

Stiles' previous arrests included charges of assault, battery, resisting a police officer, auto theft, leaving the scene of an accident and contempt of court, authorities said.

He was convicted in 1999 in Las Vegas of carrying a concealed weapon, and in 2001 of conspiracy to commit grand larceny. Police were also looking into an allegation that he had sexually assaulted a young girl in 2001.

Nye County District Attorney Bob Beckett had said he was told Stiles was a ''survivalist type'' who always carried knife and had a Navy SEAL background.

The man who turned in the videotape, Darrin Tuck, 26, was arrested on a probation violation charge, and was likely to face pornography charges, Beckett said.

    Fugitive Is Held in Rape of 3-Year-Old, NYT, 16.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Sex-Tape-Suspect.html?hp

Teen Suspects in Burning of Homeless Man

October 14, 2007
Filed at 6:19 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

NEW YORK (AP) -- A homeless man was critically injured Friday after he was set on fire outside a church where he had bedded down for the night.

Police were searching for three teenage boys in what homeless advocates say was one of the most severe and senseless attacks on a homeless victim in recent memory.

''I haven't heard of an incident like this in many years in New York,'' said Mary Brosnahan, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless.

The torching of Felix Najera, 49, bewildered and stunned residents around Bethany Christian Church in upper Manhattan's East Harlem. The victim was a heavy drinker who would bum cigarettes from passers-by but otherwise was a harmless fixture.

''It's a shame,'' said Gary Williams. ''He doesn't bother anybody.''

Najera was sleeping on a cardboard box outside the church shortly after midnight when the teens accosted him. One pulled out a lighter and set his pant leg on fire while another went through his pockets, police said.

Investigators found no evidence he was doused with a flammable liquid, as originally suspected. When the victim stood up, the flames spread across his body, and the teens fled on foot, police said.

Najera was taken to the hospital in critical condition with burns covering 75 percent of his body, including his face, chest and stomach.

Other parts of the nation have seen recent spates of violence aimed at homeless people -- what some homeless advocates see as part of national trend.

In Cleveland, at least six homeless people were attacked during the first half of the year, including one person who was killed. A social worker claimed that bands of men carrying baseball bats and pipes were confronting homeless people on the street.

Last year, Florida had the highest number of extreme attacks -- 48 -- of any state, according to one report. The same report documented 142 attacks last year nationwide, 20 of which resulted in deaths -- a 65 percent increase from 2005.

Police say many of the attacks involve robbery. But homeless advocates -- noting that the vast majority of attackers are male and under the age of 25 -- believe the main motive is pure aggression.

In most cases, it's ''kids saying they were out trying to get some kicks,'' Brosnahan said.

    Teen Suspects in Burning of Homeless Man, NYT, 14.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Homeless-Attack.html

U.S. Reports 2,002 Deaths in Arrests in 2003-5

October 12, 2007
The New York Times
By SOLOMON MOORE

At least 2,002 people died during their arrests by state and local law enforcement officers from 2003 through 2005, the Justice Department reported yesterday.

Of those suspects, officers themselves killed more than half, 80 percent of whom, the officers reported, had threatened or assaulted them with a weapon.

Drug and alcohol intoxication was the second-leading cause of death, accounting for 13 percent of the total, followed by suicide, accidental injuries, and illnesses or other natural causes.

The study, the first federal assessment of deaths related to arrests by state and local agencies, was based on responses from 47 states and the District of Columbia. It was mandated by the Death in Custody Reporting Act, which requires state agencies to complete questionnaires on the issue as a condition of receiving federal correctional grants.

In all, the study dealt with a pool of nearly 40 million arrests. So related deaths were quite rare in a relative sense, fewer than one ten-thousandth of 1 percent of the arrests.

California led the nation with 310 deaths, followed by Texas with 298 and Florida with 204. New York reported 97, New Jersey 37 and Connecticut 9.

Non-Hispanic whites accounted for 44 percent of the deaths, African-Americans for 32 percent and Hispanics for 20 percent. Nearly all of the dead were men, who averaged about 33 years of age.

Of those people killed by officers, almost all were shot to death. Three-fourths of those killed by officers were suspected of a violent crime.

For purposes of the study, the period of arrest was considered to span the time from the onset of officers’ trying to apprehend the suspect until the booking. Two-thirds of the deaths occurred at the scene of the arrest, and the remainder at a police station or a booking facility. Suicides that occurred at booking facilities were usually hangings.

Of the 252 intoxicated people who died, 198 succumbed at the arrest scene. Of those 198, a total of 157 had been handcuffed.

In all, the number of arrest-related deaths increased 13 percent over the course of the three years studied, to 703 in 2005 from 622 in 2003. The number of deaths caused by homicide and accidental injuries remained relatively steady, while intoxication deaths increased by 11 percent, to 90 from 81, and suicides by 63 percent, to 91 from 56.

While the report dealt primarily with the deaths of suspects, it did find that 380 law enforcement officers died during arrests over the three years, most by accident. Homicide was the second-leading cause.

The study also cited statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation showing 174,760 assaults on law enforcement officers during the three-year period.

    U.S. Reports 2,002 Deaths in Arrests in 2003-5, NYT, 12.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/us/12arrest.html

Town Is Shaken After Prosecutor’s Arrest in a Child-Sex Sting

September 29, 2007
The New York Times
By ABBY GOODNOUGH

GULF BREEZE, Fla., Sept. 25 — To neighbors here, J. D. Roy Atchison was a deft federal prosecutor, an involved father and a devoted volunteer, coaching girls’ softball and basketball teams year in and year out.

His wife is a popular science teacher; his youngest daughter, an honors student who was on her high school homecoming court last year. Their house, with rocking chairs on the porch, oaks in the yard and a wrought-iron fence, is among the prettiest in town.

But in an instant last week, the community pillar became an object of community loathing. Mr. Atchison, 53, was arrested getting off a plane in Detroit on Sept. 16 and charged with the unthinkable. The authorities there said he was carrying a doll and petroleum jelly, and that he had arranged with an undercover agent to have sex with a 5-year-old girl.

Now Mr. Atchison is awaiting trial in a federal prison in Michigan, and the people of Gulf Breeze, an affluent bayside suburb in the Florida Panhandle, are outraged, baffled and repulsed.

“He had an excellent reputation,” said Barry Beroset, a criminal defense lawyer in Pensacola who has known Mr. Atchison for 15 years. “He was very businesslike and appeared to be a very good man, no question about it.”

Ronald Johnson, a defense lawyer in Pensacola who has worked with Mr. Atchison, described him as “fairly intellectual,” adding, “Sometimes he was a little eccentric, but nothing perverted or weird. Just a little different.”

Pressed, Mr. Johnson could not elaborate. In fact, no one could describe Mr. Atchison in a way that transcended generalities. In interviews around this town of 6,450, the phrase “nice guy” came up a lot. Edwin A. Eddy, the city manager, said he was “no more charismatic than anybody else” and “not any quieter or more gregarious than anyone else.”

Mr. Eddy said he had scoured his memory for any clue that Mr. Atchison, who he said seemed “as straight as they come,” was not.

“I constantly think about all the interactions I had with Mr. Atchison over the years,” said Mr. Eddy, who coached softball with him, “and I think, ‘Should I have been able to see something?’ ”

What the authorities saw in the Internet sting operation that led to Mr. Atchison’s arrest was a man who led a second life as “fldaddy04,” the moniker on a Yahoo profile traced to him. “I adore everything about young girls,” the profile says, “how they talk, think, act, walk, look.”

The police in Michigan said Mr. Atchison had been chatting online for two weeks with an undercover detective for the Macomb County Sheriff’s Department, who posed as a mother offering to let men have sex with her young daughter. When she expressed concern that sex could injure the girl, according to court documents, Mr. Atchison responded, “I’m always gentle and loving; not to worry; no damage ever; no rough stuff ever ever.”

He added, “I’ve done it plenty.”

People here found that statement especially chilling, though the Gulf Breeze Police Department said that so far, no one here has come forward with accusations of abuse.

“There’s so many unanswered questions,” said Deputy Police Chief Robert Randle. “So many people had children involved with him. But unless somebody steps forward and lodges a complaint, we have nothing to go on.”

Mr. Atchison has worked at the small United States Attorney’s Office in Pensacola since the 1980s, most recently handling asset forfeitures in criminal cases as an assistant United States attorney. In one high-profile case, Mr. Atchison oversaw the government seizure of a popular beach bar at the center of a cocaine-trafficking ring.

His is considered one of the most conservative United States attorney’s offices in the country, known for refusing plea agreements and seeking the stiffest sentences.

Mr. Johnson said Mr. Atchison was close with the other prosecutors in his office, going with some on an annual lobster-diving trip in the Florida Keys. A big white fishing boat sat in his otherwise-empty driveway this week. His interests, according to the Yahoo profile that the police said was his, include “surfing, skiing, diving, boating, young girls, petite girls, skinny girls.”

The F.B.I., which is working with Macomb County in the investigation, said that in one of his last e-mail exchanges with the undercover agent, Mr. Atchison told her to tell her daughter that “you found her a sweet boyfriend who will bring her presents.”

Mr. Atchison has pleaded not guilty to charges of traveling across state lines to have sex with a child under 12, using the Internet to entice a minor and traveling to another state to engage in illicit sex. He could face life in prison if convicted.

He tried to hang himself with a bed sheet in his jail cell last week after assuring his lawyer and a judge that he would not harm himself.

The lawyer, James C. Thomas of Detroit, did not return a call seeking comment. The F.B.I. is continuing its investigation, and Mr. Atchison’s trial is scheduled to start Nov. 27.

One night this week, as evening fell on the broad playing fields at Shoreline Park, down the road from Mr. Atchison’s house, several parents expressed shock at Mr. Atchison’s arrest as their children kicked soccer balls, threw passes and learned cheerleading stunts. Richard McLeod, a father of two, said he had asked his 6-year-old daughter if she recognized Mr. Atchison’s photo to quell fears about her safety. She did not.

“They ought to torch this guy,” Mr. McLeod said.

Holly Cook, a homemaker who was watching her two sons, 3 and 1, at the park earlier in the day, wondered aloud whether the local sports association should psychologically screen coaching candidates from now on, but concluded it would be impractical.

“Coaches put in tons of time,” Ms. Cook said. “How can you ask them to take a psychological evaluation on top of that?”

Mr. Eddy said that while parents sometimes asked that their children not be assigned to certain coaches in the sports program, none had ever complained about Mr. Atchison, who was also president of the Gulf Breeze Athletic Association.

“Nobody ever had any negative comments,” Mr. Eddy said. “Nobody ever said, ‘Anybody but this guy.’ ”

Around town, praise flowed for Mr. Atchison’s wife, Barbara, who teaches anatomy at Gulf Breeze High School but took a leave of absence after his arrest. She won the town’s teacher-of-the-year award in 2004. Several people said she was as stunned as anyone by the news.

“She’s shellshocked,” said Deputy Chief Randle, who went with F.B.I. agents to execute a search warrant on the Atchison home, where they seized at least one computer. “She’s just floored.”

Randy Sansom, an accountant whose youngest child, like Mr. Atchison’s, is a senior at the high school, said townspeople were determined to support Mrs. Atchison and her three children, two of whom are away at college.

“We are here to be their friends and pray for them and know they had nothing to do with this,” Mr. Sansom said. “They are victims as well.”

Terry Aguayo contributed reporting from Miami, and Mari Krueger, from Gulf Breeze, Fla.

    Town Is Shaken After Prosecutor’s Arrest in a Child-Sex Sting, NYT, 29.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/29/us/29florida.html

Violent Crimes on the Rise, FBI Reports

September 24, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:08 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Violent crime rose nearly 2 percent last year, the FBI reported Monday in nationwide data that show a slightly higher increase than expected.

The number of big-city murders also increased, by 1.8 percent -- the same rate as homicides nationwide. Robberies and arson also rose in large population centers, but the number of rapes and car thefts dropped, FBI data show.

The new numbers confirm that crime rates continued on a two-year upward trend after a relative lull in violence between 2002 and 2004.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse cast the report as a good news in the effort to combat gangs, guns and violence, pointing out that the rate of crimes per 100,000 people had declined to its lowest level in 30 years.

''While there's encouraging news in the latest crime rates from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program, violent crime remains a challenge for some communities,'' Roehrkasse said in a statement.

The Bush administration has pledged to spend $50 million this year to combat gangs and guns, and is pushing Congress for new laws to let the federal government better investigate and prosecute violent crime.

Overall, violent crime rose by 1.9 percent in 2006 -- slightly higher than the 1.3 percent increase reflected earlier this summer in preliminary FBI data.

A five-year look at crime rates show that the number of murders, robberies, rapes and other violent offenses committed in 2006 is returning to the peak reached in 2002. Crime dropped dramatically after that, the FBI data show.

In 2006, for example, an estimated 1,417,000 violent crimes were committed across the country. That was a sharp rise from the 1,360,000 crimes reported in 2004 and approaches the estimated 1,425,000-mark reached in 2002.

------

The 2006 FBI Uniform Crime Report can be found at: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/index.html

    Violent Crimes on the Rise, FBI Reports, NYT, 24.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Crime.html

Undercount of Violence in Schools

September 20, 2007
The New York Times
By ELISSA GOOTMAN

A sampling of large New York City high schools showed that the schools failed to notify the state of a significant number of violent or disruptive episodes in the 2004-5 school year, the city comptroller announced yesterday.

The comptroller, William C. Thompson Jr., said an audit showed that the city had not ensured that all principals accurately report violence in their schools, making it difficult for the public to assess their safety.

The audit examined an array of records in 10 schools, comparing them with computerized data sent to the state. It found, for example, that officials at Brooklyn’s Boys and Girls High School informed the state of 14 cases of violence or misbehavior through a special computer system, which the state uses to comply with reporting obligations under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

But the audit also found that in 41 additional cases the state was never informed, including one rape and an instance outside the school in which two students were “about to be jumped” by gang members.

At Alfred E. Smith Career and Technical Education High School in the Bronx, 133 cases, ranging from graffiti to the removal of six students from a particularly disruptive class, were noted in school records but not placed in the computer system and sent to the state, the audit found.

On average, more than one in five episodes at the 10 schools were not reported to the state, the audit found. Reporting varied widely among the schools; some reported most incidents, while others did not.

Although the audit examined only a tiny slice of New York City’s more than 300 high schools during a year in which the specialized computer system was new, Mr. Thompson said it still showed that principals had too much discretion over how to categorize and report incidents.

“Failure to report paints an artificial and illusory picture of what’s actually going on in our schools,” Mr. Thompson said, suggesting that principals may sugarcoat what erupts in their hallways, classrooms and cafeterias. He called on the city Education Department to more thoroughly monitor how schools report safety data, saying its “lax attitude has allowed for a disturbing trend.”

City officials discounted Mr. Thompson’s audit as misleading. Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein said the school system had “one of the most comprehensive reporting systems in the country.” While principals have some discretion over how to categorize violence, he said, “I believe principals and school personnel faithfully monitor it and report it in a professional way.”

Still, Mr. Klein, speaking to reporters yesterday, acknowledged that in the vast school system, it was impossible to guarantee that every disruption was appropriately documented.

“You’re talking about thousands of incidents in the city,” he said, “so we follow up and do some checking, but by and large you have to rely on the good-faith effort of the principals.”

Ernest A. Logan, president of the principals’ union, the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, said principals at the audited schools were “not intentionally underreporting.”

“The comptroller is right when he says guidelines and instructions can be vague and open to interpretation,” Mr. Logan said. “A lot of work is already being done on that end.”

In announcing his findings, Mr. Thompson referred to an April memorandum, first reported in The Daily News, in which an assistant principal at Jamaica High School in Queens forbade all deans from making 911 calls, presumably in an effort to keep serious disturbances under the radar. The Education Department has condemned the memo and removed the school’s principal.

“Recently,” Mr. Thompson said, “we’ve heard from school officials who don’t alert proper authorities when incidents occur because they want to decrease their schools’ crime statistics.”

Elayna Konstan, chief executive of the city Education Department’s Office of School and Youth Development, said the system for reporting safety data to the state had greatly improved since the period the audit covered, saying, “What we see in ’04-5 is not what we have now.” She noted that the Police Department also collects data on school violence.

Brian Fleischer, the Education Department’s auditor general, said the state did not even require that schools report on some of the minor incidents cited in the audit.

A spokesman for the State Education Department said it was still reviewing the audit.

In his yearly Mayor’s Management Report, a set of statistics on government performance that was released yesterday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg reported that major felony crime was down 2 percent in schools, to 1,164 instances in 2007 from 1,187 in the 2006 fiscal year. Major felony crimes, he reported, were down 22 percent in a group of schools that got extra police attention after being identified as violent.

Merryl H. Tisch, a member of the Board of Regents from New York City, said that while she believed that the procedures for reporting school crimes had tightened in recent years, “to the extent that any audit shows that there was a discrepancy, we need to investigate, ask really tough questions and make sure that the discrepancy is understandable.”

Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, said in a statement that the audit confirmed the union’s own contention that some schools underreport violence.

“Making schools seem safer than they really are does a disservice to parents, students and educators because those schools don’t get the attention and resources they need to be made safer, putting everyone inside at risk,” she said.

    Undercount of Violence in Schools, NYT, 20.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/nyregion/20schools.html

Victim Tells Police of Possible Motive for Abduction

September 20, 2007
The New York Times
By IAN URBINA

The authorities provided new details yesterday of the ordeal and a possible motive in the case of the 20-year old West Virginia woman who they say was raped and tortured at a ramshackle trailer about 30 miles south of Charleston.

In an interview with the police at the hospital after her rescue on Sept. 8, the victim said she believed that Bobby Ray Brewster, 24, with whom she had a romantic relationship, thought that she had led the police to seek an arrest warrant for his mother, Frankie Lee Brewster, 49.

“He said I had put a warrant out on his mom,” the victim told the police, who then asked what type of warrant Mr. Brewster believed had been issued. “Attempted murder,” the victim said, adding that she had not, in fact, gone to the police.

Mr. Brewster and his mother are among six people charged in the case.

The victim, who was in court on Tuesday to face charges of writing bad checks, described in the police interview being tied up with duct tape in a shed, being forced to eat animal and human feces and being guarded and kept away from the telephone to prevent her from calling for help.

“He was drinking a fifth of liquor that he stole from 7-Eleven,” the victim said, describing one of Mr. Brewster’s fits of rage, during which he reached onto the trailer’s roof and grabbed a butcher knife.

“I tried to get away but he charged at me,” she said, adding that she passed out while Mr. Brewster kicked her in the head. When she woke up, she had five stab wounds in her leg and was lying in a pool of blood on the trailer’s bathroom floor, she said. Mr. Brewster then came into the bathroom and forced her to lick her blood, she said.

In a preliminary hearing on Tuesday, a Logan County deputy sheriff, J. S. Robinette, said investigators now believed that the victim went to the remote trailer willingly on Aug. 2. At some point after Aug. 2, although the police are not clear when, the victim began being held against her will and was threatened with death if she tried to leave, the deputy said.

Aug. 2 was the day Mr. Brewster was released from jail after being arrested on July 18 on charges of domestic battery in an incident also involving the kidnapping victim, the police said.

The Logan County prosecutor, Brian Abraham, said he was not sure what role, if any, Mr. Brewster had on Aug. 2 when two people picked up the victim in Charleston and took her to the trailer.

But as a result of new testimony and evidence, Mr. Abraham said, he was upgrading the charges against the defendants. All six now face charges of first-degree sexual assault and kidnapping, which carry maximum terms of 35 years and life in prison, among other charges.

In a statement taken by the police soon after she was arrested, Ms. Brewster said that she had seen a defendant, Danny Jay Combs, 20, sexually assault the victim in the bathroom while holding a knife to her throat.

He then pointed the knife at Ms. Brewster, and told her it was none of her business, and, “to get gone or he was going to kill me,” Ms. Brewster’s statement said.

The six defendants are white and although the victim told the police that her captors said they were torturing her because she is black, the federal authorities decided not to press charges of hate crimes.

In a separate courtroom, the victim appeared at her own hearing. Seated with her parents and her sister, a sling on her arm and clutching a stuffed bear, the victim faced charges of writing bad checks in three counties.

She was released on $8,000 bond.

Chris Stratton contributed reporting.

    Victim Tells Police of Possible Motive for Abduction, NYT, 20.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/us/20captive.html

Dallas police: 3 slain, 2 bound, suspect at large

16 September 2007
USA Today

DALLAS (AP) — A woman and two boys were found stabbed to death at a Dallas home and two teenage girls were found bound and gagged in a closet, police said. The suspect remained at large Sunday.
A capital murder warrant was issued Saturday for Robert Sparks, 33, who is believed to be related to the victims, said Lt. Vernon Hale, a police spokesman.

The girls were taken to a hospital and believed to be in good condition, police said. They did not release their names or the nature of their injuries.

"They have been through an extremely traumatic experience," Hale said.

Authorities identified the victims as Chare Agnew, 30; Raeqwon Agnew, 10; and Harold Sublet, 9.

Hale told The Dallas Morning News the woman was believed to be the mother of all four children.

Sparks has previously been arrested in Dallas County on suspicion of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon, assault and evading arrest, according to county records.

    Dallas police: 3 slain, 2 bound, suspect at large, UT, 16.9.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-09-16-dallas_N.htm

Suspected Murder-Suicide in Brooklyn

September 16, 2007
The New York Times
By CARA BUCKLEY and DARYL KHAN

A woman was shot to death by her companion on a Brooklyn street early yesterday as she tried to flee their burning apartment with her 4-year-old daughter, the police said. The man, who had set the apartment ablaze, then fatally shot himself.

The woman, identified by the police as Christina Scarabaggio, and the man, Christopher Flynn, both 27, were declared dead where they fell, across the street from their second-floor apartment on 62nd Street in Borough Park.

The girl was unharmed and found weeping over her mother’s body. She was taken to Lutheran Medical Center for observation, the police said. She was later released to her father.

The police said that Mr. Flynn had been arrested on Aug. 8 in connection with the assault of Ms. Scarabaggio. She then obtained a restraining order against him, according to the police and court papers.

Neighbors said they heard shouts coming from the couple’s apartment about 4 a.m. It was then, the police believe, that Mr. Flynn set two fires, igniting a dish towel and a teddy bear. Ms. Scarabaggio picked up her daughter and ran across the street to her car, a Nissan, the police said.

She set her daughter down and opened the car door, but Mr. Flynn was right behind her, the police said. He held out a .380-caliber pistol and shot her once in the face, the police said, and then fired three more times before turning the gun on himself. It was not clear where the other bullets went; the police were still collecting ballistic evidence yesterday. One bullet was left in the gun’s chamber, the police said.

Neighbors called 911, and the police arrived moments later and found the bodies and the child. Firefighters quickly extinguished the blaze.

A woman who lives nearby, Phong Duong, said she heard shots and the girl’s cries, but was too frightened to leave her house.

“I heard bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. After that I heard a little girl crying,” Ms. Duong said.

“I ran to the window. I saw her right there next to her mother,” Ms. Duong said. “She was screaming, ‘Mommy, mommy!’ ”

Shortly before noon yesterday, the girl’s father picked her up at the hospital, and ran to a waiting police car after draping a white sheet over her head. They were driven to the 68th Precinct station house.

The father, who did not give his name, said in an interview outside the station house that Ms. Scarabaggio, a nursing student, had often complained about Mr. Flynn being violent.

He said that Mr. Flynn was a construction worker and had been seeing Ms. Scarabaggio for about two years.

They moved to Borough Park from Mr. Flynn’s parents’ house in Brighton Beach three months ago, he added.

“He’s a violent guy. That’s what she told me,” the father said. “Thank God my daughter’s O.K.”

    Suspected Murder-Suicide in Brooklyn, NYT, 16.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/nyregion/16boropark.html

Tenn. Men Accused of Vigilante Justice

September 14, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:48 p.m. ET
The New York Times

HELENWOOD, Tenn. (AP) -- Everybody in this little mountain community knew that Timothy Carl Chandler had been arrested on child pornography charges. It was in the newspaper and all over the TV news.

Two of Chandler's neighbors decided to do something about it, police say. They're accused of trying to scare him off by setting fire to his tiny house tucked away in a hardscrabble Appalachian hollow.

Chandler, 53, escaped from the flames. But his wife was killed in what authorities are calling an example of vigilante justice.

''I really wish it wasn't me who got out,'' Chandler told Knoxville television station WBIR. ''I wish it was her. She didn't deserve that.''

Robert ''Bobby'' Bell, a 37-year-old construction worker, and Gary Lamar Sellers, a 39-year-old coal-mining equipment mechanic, are jailed on $1 million bond, charged with first-degree murder and arson.

After losing all his possessions in the Sept. 2 fire, Chandler was living in a Knoxville homeless shelter. His attorney, public defender Larry Bryant, said Chandler expects to enter a plea next month to charges he downloaded more than 100 pornographic pictures of young girls.

His mother-in-law found some of the pictures on a disk he had given her to copy computer programs in May. She tipped off police, and Chandler was arrested Aug. 20. Released on $100,000 bond, he came home a few days before the fire.

Sellers and Bell told police they did not intend for anyone to die. They just wanted to get Timothy Chandler out of the neighborhood because he was ''a pervert,'' Chief Deputy Bill Lane said.

Sellers admitted driving the pickup truck used that night, but he claimed Bell set the fire, according to an affidavit. After lighting the blaze, the pair ''drove to a close location where both men watched the residence burn.''

Bell ''feels like it was a very unfortunate incident, just like everybody else,'' said his court-appointed lawyer, Lief Jeffers. ''This was not anything that was intended by any of the parties.''

Sellers' attorney Jimmy Logan did not return a call for comment.

The fire is one of many examples of suspected vigilantism against sex offenders, ranging from harassment and arson to more violent crimes. A Nova Scotia man used Maine's sex offender registry last year to find and fatally shoot two registered sex offenders. Two convicted child rapists were killed in Washington state.

Helenwood, some 15 miles south of the Kentucky border, is a mountain community of about 800 people with an average household income of $17,700 -- less than half the state average.

The Chandlers and both suspects all lived on Butler Lane, a twisting one-lane country road that runs past small fields, weathered houses, outbuildings and trailers, and rusting farm machinery. Homes are clustered so closely together that neighbors can keep an eye on each other from their back porch swings.

Oma Butler lives on a hill overlooking the now-charred one-bedroom home, which she rented to the Chandlers. She knows everyone involved and blamed the fire on a combination of alcohol, drugs and ''no sense.''

The Chandlers were a little secretive, Butler recalled, and covered their windows with plastic bags. But they were good renters for nearly eight years.

''They have always been real nice to me,'' she said. Timothy ''seemed the happiest guy when I would see him.''

Records indicate Chandler served 18 months in prison in Ohio for a 1990 conviction for gross sexual imposition, which typically involves fondling. But he's had no problems since.

Bell and Sellers have had frequent run-ins with the law over relatively minor offenses, including drinking and driving on a revoked license.

Detective Don Laxton said several people were ''hollering names and so forth'' outside the Chandlers' house a few hours before the fire began.

Butler didn't think anything of the noise then, but awoke later to the sound of a truck spinning its wheels ''like it was in a deep mud hole.'' She saw the red pickup drive to a nearby hill, park and turn off its lights.

Soon after, her son came running in. ''Mom, mom, the house is on fire!'' he yelled. The house's porch ''was burning from one end to the other. It was a-flaming,'' she said.

Her son ran to the house. He smashed a window to get Chandler out. Then they broke open a door so Chandler could race inside for his wife. She was unconscious when Chandler brought her out. He tried CPR, but Melissa ''Missy'' Chandler, 37, died at the emergency room.

    Tenn. Men Accused of Vigilante Justice, NYT, 14.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Child-Porn-Vigilantes.html

Correction: Girl Dead Story

September 13, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:26 p.m. ET
The New York Times

CORSICANA, Texas (AP) -- In a Sept. 12 story about a 6-year-old girl found hanged in a garage behind her home, The Associated Press erroneously reported the girl's first name and the title of a Navarro County official who provided autopsy results. The hanging victim was Hanna Mack, not Hannah. Vicki Gray is the Navarro County justice of the peace, not the county judge.

    Correction: Girl Dead Story, NYT, 13.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Girl-Dead-CORRECTIVE.html

Cops Have Suspect in Hanging of Girl, 6

September 13, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:12 p.m. ET
The New York Times

CORSICANA, Texas (AP) -- A 6-year-old girl who had been sexually assaulted was found hanged inside her family's garage, and authorities on Thursday described her mother's boyfriend as the primary suspect.

The boyfriend was arrested Wednesday on a charge of possession of child pornography and remained in the Navarro County Jail on Thursday.

Sheriff's deputies have not charged him in the death of young Hanna Mack, but they identified him as the primary suspect, Chief Deputy Mike Cox said Thursday.

Dana Mack discovered her daughter missing Monday morning about the time the first-grader should have been getting ready for school. The little girl's body was found in a rust-covered garage behind her home in Navarro Mills Lake, about 65 miles south of Dallas.

The mother last saw Hanna sleeping on the couch around 1 a.m., according to Jean Langford, the girl's great-grandmother.

''(Dana) is just devastated. We all are,'' Langford said. ''This is the worst thing that's ever happened to this family. Hanna was our pride and joy. She was our little sweetheart.''

In a letter to the sheriff's department, Navarro County justice of the peace Vicki Gray said an autopsy of the body showed ''a multitude of events that together caused the death of this child.'' No other details were released.

Neighbors gathered Wednesday evening outside the garage in Navarro Mills, a rural lakeside community in east Texas, and prayed during a vigil. They donated money to the family, held a moment of silence and released balloons into the air.

Many worried that a predator could be on the loose.

''My kids sleep in the bed with me,'' said Pam Gray, who lives next door and whose children rode the school bus with Hanna. ''They get off of school and they've heard all the rumors and wild things, and they're terrified.''

Police asked state caseworkers to not say if Hanna's family had been investigated by child welfare officers, said Marissa Gonzales, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. She characterized the request as uncommon.

    Cops Have Suspect in Hanging of Girl, 6, NYT, 13.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Girl-Dead.html

Tortured Woman Had Told of Abuse by One Suspect

September 13, 2007
The New York Times
By IAN URBINA

A 20-year-old woman who the authorities say was tortured and sexually assaulted for more than a week at a ramshackle mobile home in Logan County, W.Va., knew at least one of her assailants and had accused him of abuse before, the police said yesterday.

That suspect, Bobby R. Brewster, one of six arrested in the torture case, had a previous relationship with the victim and was charged in July with domestic battery and assault after a dispute between them, Sheriff Eddie Hunter said.

Court documents show that on July 18, officers responded to a 911 call concerning a domestic disturbance at the mobile home, where Mr. Brewster, 24, lives with his mother in far southwestern West Virginia. The documents do not make clear who called the police, but when they arrived, the papers say, they asked Mr. Brewster about the young woman, and he said he had not seen her in several days.

Upon searching the premises, though, the officers found her behind the trailer, and she told them she was hiding from Mr. Brewster and his mother. The complaint says the police determined that he had “verbally threatened and physically hit” her.

On Saturday the police were called to the home again, after an anonymous tip that a woman was being held there against her will. Officers arrived to find the victim with signs of having been sexually assaulted, stabbed, beaten and burned.

The woman told the police that she had been held for more than a week, threatened with death if she tried to leave and taunted with racial epithets during multiple sexual assaults by various men and women. The victim is black, and the three men and three women under arrest, including Mr. Brewster’s mother, Frankie Lee Brewster, 49, are all white. In addition, Sheriff Hunter said the authorities were investigating two other suspects.

Krysti Sumpter, 17, who lives about 200 yards down the road from the Brewsters, recalls trouble between the young woman and Mr. Brewster about the time of the July police report.

Ms. Sumpter said that about a month and a half ago, the woman arrived at the Sumpter family’s home about 10 p.m. asking for help. The woman told her, Ms. Sumpter said, that Mr. Brewster was her boyfriend and that he had threatened her with a gun.

Ms. Sumpter let her call her mother in Ashland, Ky., and then offered her a ride to the police station. The victim said yes to the offer and went back to the Brewster residence to retrieve her belongings, Ms. Sumpter said. When she returned, Ms. Sumpter’s mother drove her to the police station, according to Ms. Sumpter’s account.

“She was a tiny girl, and real scared,” Ms. Sumpter said. “She seemed normal-acting, not mentally impaired or anything, just very frightened.”

Ms. Sumpter said that when she saw pictures of the woman in reports of the new abduction case, she knew it was the same person. Asked why her account differed from the July 18 police report — most glaringly, she says the woman went to the police, rather than the other way around — Ms. Sumpter said they might have involved separate incidents.

“Police were called up there pretty often,” she said.

Mr. Brewster and his mother were the ringleaders of the abduction, the police say. When he was 12, Mr. Brewster shot and killed his stepfather at the mobile home and served time in a juvenile detention center. Mrs. Brewster, convicted of voluntary manslaughter, served five years in the fatal 1994 shooting of an 84-year-old woman who the police now say was her mother-in-law.

In fact, court documents indicate that all six of the accused have extensive criminal histories, with dozens of charges among them filed by the authorities over the last 10 years.

Chris Stratton contributed reporting from Logan, W.Va.

    Tortured Woman Had Told of Abuse by One Suspect, NYT, 13.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/13/us/13captive.html

Deputies: Woman Was Tortured, 6 Charged

September 11, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:47 p.m. ET
The New York Times

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) -- Authorities said Tuesday they are considering hate crime charges in the case of a woman who was tortured while being held captive for at least a week, and they are investigating the possibility that she was lured by a man she met on the Internet.

The victim was repeatedly called a racial slur while her captors sexually abused, beat and stabbed her, her mother said.

Six people, all white, including a mother and son and a mother and daughter, were arrested in connection with the alleged abduction of the 23-year-old black woman.

''Every one of these people who were arrested are no strangers to law enforcement,'' Logan County Sheriff W.E. Hunter said.

Deputies interviewed the victim Tuesday morning. State, local and federal officials planned to meet later in the day to decide whether to file hate crime charges, Logan County sheriff's Sgt. Sonya Porter said. An FBI spokesman in Pittsburgh, Bill Crowley, confirmed that the agency is looking into possible civil rights violations.

Authorities were still looking for two people they believe drove the woman to the house where she was abused, said Logan County Chief Deputy V.K. Dingess.

The woman's abductors called her the N-word ''every time they stabbed her,'' the woman's mother told The Charleston Gazette.

The woman underwent surgery for leg wounds, Dingess told the paper.

Deputies found the woman Saturday when they went to the house in Big Creek, about 35 miles southwest of Charleston, to investigate an anonymous tip from someone who had witnessed the abuse, Porter said Tuesday.

One of the suspects, Frankie Brewster, was sitting on the front porch and told deputies she was alone, but moments later the woman limped toward the door, her arms outstretched, saying ''Help me,'' the sheriff's department said in a news release.

Logan County Prosecutor Brian Abraham said police are investigating the possibility that the woman had been lured to the house by a man she met on the internet.

Besides being sexually assaulted, the woman had been stabbed four times in the left leg and beaten, Porter said. Her eyes were black and blue. The wounds were inflicted at least a week ago, deputies said.

The woman was forced to eat rat and dog feces and drink from a toilet, according to the criminal complaint filed in magistrate court. She also had been choked with a cord, it alleges.

The case is ''something that would have come out of a horror movie,'' Hunter said.

One of those arrested, Karen Burton, is accused of cutting the woman's ankle with a knife. She used the N-word in telling the woman she was victimized because she is black, according to the criminal complaint.

Deputies say the woman was also doused with hot water while being sexually assaulted.

''She wakes up in the middle of the night screaming 'Mommy,''' the mother told the paper. ''What's really bad is that we don't know everything they did to her. She is crying all the time.''

The Associated Press normally does not name victims of suspected sex crimes, and is not identifying the mother to protect the identity of her daughter.

The six suspects were arrested Saturday and Sunday. Deputies were still trying to determine whether the woman knew her assailants, Porter said.

Brewster, the 49-year-old who owns the home where the alleged attacks occurred, is charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, malicious wounding and giving false information during a felony investigation.

Her son, Bobby R. Brewster, 24, also of Big Creek, is charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, malicious wounding and assault during the commission of a felony.

Burton, 46, of Chapmanville, is charged with malicious wounding, battery and assault during the commission of a felony.

Her daughter Alisha Burton, 23, of Chapmanville, and George A. Messer, 27, of Chapmanville, are charged with assault during the commission of a felony and battery.

Danny J. Combs, 20, of Harts, is charged with sexual assault and malicious wounding.

All six remained in custody Tuesday in lieu of $100,000 bail each, and all have asked for court-appointed attorneys.

    Deputies: Woman Was Tortured, 6 Charged, NYT, 11.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Woman-Tortured.html

Admitted Killer Escapes From Hospital

September 11, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:21 a.m. ET
The New York Times

MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. (AP) -- A confessed killer who had privileges to walk the grounds of the psychiatric hospital where he was being held apparently escaped with a backpack full of survivalist equipment, and police were searching for him Monday.

Authorities looked for William Enman near Ancora Psychiatric Hospital in southern New Jersey and other areas where he was thought to have contacts. He had been allowed to take a walk on the grounds shortly after 2 p.m. Sunday and had been expected back by 3 p.m.

''As far as we're concerned he's still a danger to others,'' said Robyn D'Onofrio, a spokeswoman for the Morris County prosecutor's office.

Enman is believed to own property in Nova Scotia, Morris County prosecutor Robert A. Bianchi said. The office did not have information about the type of gear he was carrying.

Enman, 64, has been in state psychiatric hospitals since 1975, when he was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the killing of his roommate and the man's 4-year-old son in northern New Jersey the year before. He confessed to the killings.

At the time, he was found to have paranoid schizophrenia; he maintained that he killed because of a psychosis induced by drugs he was given during a stint at the Morris County jail just before the killings.

Enman, 5-foot-9 and a slight 145 pounds, has disappeared from hospitals before. Over the years, he has also been caught with a crossbow and with marijuana.

A judge once reprimanded him for getting married and fathering a child when he was allowed to visit people outside the hospital. Those privileges have since been revoked.

However, Enman was allowed to walk the grounds of Ancora without an escort. A judge reaffirmed those rights at a hearing in August 2006.

Ellen Lovejoy, a spokeswoman for the state health services department, which runs the hospital, said one factor judges weigh when considering extending such privileges is whether patients might be considered dangerous to themselves or others.

Over the years, Enman has frequently told judges that he should no longer be kept at the psychiatric hospital. His next court hearing on his rehabilitation was scheduled for Thursday.

Enman now faces criminal charges of escape.

(This version CORRECTS that the killings were in 1974, not 1975.)

    Admitted Killer Escapes From Hospital, NYT, 11.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Psychiatric-Hospital-Escape.html

Police Allege Hate Crime in Deaf Beating

September 10, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:04 p.m. ET
The New York Times

ANTIOCH, Calif. (AP) -- Police have arrested two teenagers on suspicion of hate crimes after they allegedly taunted a group of deaf people at a party and later attacked them.

Witnesses told police that Phillip Hale, 18, and an unnamed 17-year-old approached the group in a garage early Sunday and began mocking and mimicking them, police Cpl. Michael Hulsey said.

The pair was asked to leave but later returned with a stick, a hoe and a brick, and a fight broke out, Hulsey said. One deaf victim suffered a minor head injury.

Hale also suffered a head injury and was treated before being booked at a jail on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, conspiracy and committing a hate crime, according to jail records. He remained in custody Monday on $135,000 bail.

The 17-year-old was taken to juvenile hall.

    Police Allege Hate Crime in Deaf Beating, NYT, 10.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-BRF-Bay-Deaf-Beating.html

Pregnant Woman Stabbed at Shelter

September 8, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:28 p.m. ET
The New York Times

NORTH BAY SHORE, N.Y. (AP) -- A pregnant woman stabbed another pregnant woman to death after a brawl at the homeless shelter where they were living, police said.

Shantelle Scruggs, 21, was arraigned Saturday on manslaughter charges in the killing of Barbara Santos, 26. Both women were eight months pregnant and lived at the Project ReDirect homeless shelter with about 20 other people.

Scruggs fought with Santos in another resident's bedroom about 10 p.m. Friday night and stabbed her in the chest, police said. Santos died at a nearby hospital about an hour later; attempts to save her baby were not successful.

Police did not say why the two women were fighting.

Telephone and e-mail messages left at Project ReDirect's offices weren't immediately returned Saturday.

The agency was founded in 1996 ''to assist the rapidly growing population of young parents without a place to go home,'' according to its Web site.

    Pregnant Woman Stabbed at Shelter, NYT, 8.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Pregnant-Woman-Stabbed.html

U of Ariz Student Killed; Roommate Held

September 6, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:25 a.m. ET
The New York Times

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) -- A University of Arizona student whose roommate had recently accused her of stealing from her is suspected of killing the woman during a fight in their dorm room Wednesday, authorities said.

Galareka Harrison, 18, has been released from a hospital and was to be booked on a charge of first-degree murder in the death of Mia Henderson, also 18, university spokesman Johnny Cruz said.

Cruz said he did not have any details on the fight between Harrison and Henderson, of the Navajo Nation. He did not say how Henderson died, but university police Sgt. Eugene Mejia said she had injuries ''consistent with stabbing.''

Mejia and jail spokesmen said they did not know whether Harrison has been appointed a lawyer. She denied all media requests for interviews, a jail spokesman added. Harrison was not listed in the university's phone directory, and attempts to reach her family were unsuccessful.

Campus police were called to the Graham-Greenlee residence hall shortly before 6 a.m. because of a fight involving injuries, Mejia said. They found Henderson and Harrison and took them to the hospital.

Henderson had filed a police report Aug. 28 saying that she had been the victim of a property theft and that she suspected her roommate, University Police Chief Anthony Daykin said.

The roommate had also been named as a possible suspect in a theft report filed by another student in the Graham-Greenlee residence hall, Daykin said.

Henderson had told officers she would not stay in the dorm room until her roommate was moved, he said. The university offered her alternative housing, but she declined, and Daykin said he doesn't know when she went back to the room.

Lee Ann Dejolie, a Northern Arizona University student who described herself as a close friend of Henderson's, said that she had spoken with Henderson this week and that the subject of her roommate came up.

''She said her roommate was going through her purse and taking stuff out of her purse. So Mia was really ticked off,'' Dejolie said.

The university did not institute a lockdown after the fight but did send e-mails to students, staff and faculty members advising them of the incident and the investigation.

University President Robert Shelton issued a statement later Wednesday, calling Henderson's death ''a terrible tragedy that saddens everyone'' at the school.

''At no time today was there a threat to anyone else on campus,'' the statement said. ''Our police were on the scene within two minutes of the 911 call, provided medical treatment and secured the area.''

The university has had stricter security since a student flunking out of the nursing school went on a shooting spree in October 2002, killing three members of the nursing faculty before committing suicide.

Since then, the university has conducted annual emergency readiness drills. Residence halls are locked 24 hours a day. Some buildings have camera security systems, and residence halls, as well as fraternity and sorority houses, have police liaisons.

    U of Ariz Student Killed; Roommate Held, NYT, 6.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Dorm-Death.html

Sex Offender Charged in NYC Hotel Death

September 1, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:15 p.m. ET
The New York Times

NEW YORK (AP) -- A fugitive sex offender wanted in two states was charged Saturday with strangling a woman and leaving her body beneath a bed at a Times Square hotel.

Police detained the 35-year-old suspect, Clarence Dean, on Friday night after announcing he was wanted for questioning.

The unemployed drifter abruptly checked out of his room at the Hotel Carter on Wednesday after a stay of nearly two weeks. A chambermaid cleaning the room the next morning found the rigid corpse, wrapped in plastic and shoved beneath a bed.

Investigators were still trying to determine the woman's identity Saturday, but some details emerged about the man now charged with second-degree murder.

Dean has been in and out of trouble with the law for years and was required to register as a sex offender because of a lewd act involving a child in the mid-1990s in Palm Beach, Fla.

Sheriff's deputies in Alabama issued a warrant for his arrest last spring after learning that he had moved out of a motel in Alabaster, Ala., without informing authorities.

Police in Clarksville, Tenn., began looking for Dean, too, this month after a woman he met over the Internet complained that he had taken her car, cleaned out her bank account and disappeared.

A spokesman for the Montgomery County Sheriff's Department in Tennessee confirmed that a warrant had been issued for his arrest on theft charges on Aug. 23, about 10 days after he skipped town. By then, Dean had already arrived in New York.

An autopsy concluded that the woman found in Dean's hotel room was beaten and strangled. Police said she didn't appear to have been a registered guest at the hotel.

Police were unsure Saturday whether Dean had a lawyer.

    Sex Offender Charged in NYC Hotel Death, NYT, 1.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Hotel-Body-Found.html

Police Arrest Suspected Serial Killer

August 31, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:31 a.m. ET
The New York Times

LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- A suspected serial killer has been arrested in the deaths of five women in the city in just over a month -- and he is also connected to an assault on a woman whose dog ran the attacker off, police said.

Local, state and federal investigators ''have taken a collective sigh of relief,'' police Lt. Judy Horning said.

The man, whose name was not released, was not expected to be charged or arraigned until at least Friday.

''The despicable individual responsible for this heinous rampage through our community has been captured,'' Mayor Virg Bernero said. ''Our nightmare is over.''

Police had been looking for clues and help from the public in five homicides since late July, including two this week, in the state capital, a city of 114,000 about 75 miles northwest of Detroit.

A 56-year-old woman was attacked Tuesday in her home, but her dog heard the commotion and charged the man, who fled. Her injuries were not life threatening.

Police credited her with providing key details that helped focus their investigation and led to a sketch of a suspect, but they declined to discuss the circumstances of the arrest or any motive.

Investigators had noted similarities between several of the slayings and a series of unsolved 2003 assaults. The 2003 victims were middle-aged or older women who lived alone, as were a number of the recent homicide victims.

Carol Wood, a Lansing City Council member, said her first reaction was one of ''guarded relief'' that police had identified a suspect in the death of her mother, Ruth Hallman, a 76-year-old community activist who was the first of the five women to be killed.

''I'm very hopeful,'' Wood said.

Hallman was found beaten in her home July 26 and died later. The other victims are Deborah Cooke, 36; Debra Renfors, 46; Sandra Eichorn, 64; and Karen Yates, 41.

Yates was found Wednesday afternoon by people who had come looking to buy a house. She died two days after Eichorn was found dead in the house she rented. Cooke's body was found Aug. 6 in a park, and Renfors was found dead Aug. 9 in a house.

Associated Press writer Tim Martin contributed to this report.

    Police Arrest Suspected Serial Killer, NYT, 31.8.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Michigan-Killings.html

Teen Brother Charged With Stabbing Twins

August 29, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 8:55 a.m. ET
The New York Times

PENN HILLS, Pa. (AP) -- Police on Wednesday were searching for an 18-year-old man charged with stabbing his 11-year-old twin brothers, killing one of them and leaving the other seriously injured.

The boys' grandfather, Lovett Williams, said he found Tyron Hill dead and Tyrel Hill wrapped in a blood-soaked blanket in the attic of their suburban Pittsburgh home when he went to check on the boys Tuesday.

''There was blood everywhere,'' Williams said. ''Everywhere. Blood all over the house. Downstairs, up the steps.''

The surviving twin identified his older brother, Troy Lavalle Hill, as the attacker, police said.

Allegheny County Police Assistant Superintendent James Morton said authorities believe Troy Hill has emotional problems, but he stopped short of suggesting a motive for the attacks. Police charged the teenager with criminal homicide and attempted homicide and said he should be considered armed and dangerous.

Searchers combed the neighborhood and nearby woods with dogs and thermal imaging devices Tuesday in the search for Troy Hill.

The surviving twin, Tyrel, was in satisfactory condition at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and was expected to recover, Morton said.

    Teen Brother Charged With Stabbing Twins, NYT, 29.8.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Twins-Stabbed.html

4 Bodies Found in Texas Home

August 27, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:34 a.m. ET
The New York Times

AUSTIN (AP) -- Authorities found the bodies of four people in a home northwest of Austin Sunday evening, a sheriff's spokesman said.

Travis County Sheriff's spokesman Roger Wade said the cause of death had not been determined but was believed to be ''homicide times four.''

Sheriff's investigators were assisting the Jonestown Police Department in securing the area and had attained a search warrant to enter the house late Sunday, Wade said.

Officers responding to a welfare check found the bodies in the home in a Jonestown subdivision, about 15 miles northwest of Austin.

''Some people called the Jonestown Police Department to see if they could check on the welfare of a family member,'' Wade said.

The people were pronounced dead at about 8:30 p.m. Wade did not have information on the identities, age or gender of the dead. He said it has not been determined when the people died.

Authorities had not announced any suspects in the case.

''They want to look at the evidence before we start announcing suspects,'' Wade said.

Wade described the area as ''a subdivision with large lots, lot of trees, in the hills between Lago Vista and Jonestown. It's got some high-dollar houses up in here. It's all houses in among the cedar trees of northwestern Travis County.''

    4 Bodies Found in Texas Home, NYT, 27.8.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bodies-Found.html

Trial Shows Mob Aging but Still Around

August 25, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:16 p.m. ET
The New York Times

CHICAGO (AP) -- Jurors have heard testimony about a Judas kiss like the one Michael Corleone gave his brother Fredo in ''The Godfather.''

They're heard about mobsters initiated as ''made guys'' by getting their fingers cut and having holy pictures burned in their bare hands in secret ceremonies.

And they've heard about how those who crossed the ''Chicago Outfit'' sometimes ended up in the trunk of a car.

The city's biggest mob trial in years, involving five men in their 60s and 70s accused of crimes ranging from loan sharking to 18 long-unsolved murders, has lifted the curtain on the secrets of the mob -- as it was decades ago. Most of the allegations date to the 1970s and '80s.

But what about today? Experts say the mob is alive and well in the town that was Al Capone's.

''People say, 'Look at how old these guys are on trial, it's a geriatric organization,''' said John Binder, author of ''The Chicago Outfit.''

''What you're seeing is just part of the organization,'' he said. ''They're still doing gambling, they've still got some labor racketeering, they've got their hooks into some unions (and) they're still doing juice lending.''

A few years ago, plans for a casino in the suburb of Rosemont were derailed amid concerns about mob ties in the village. And in the late 1990s, one of the nation's largest unions, Laborers International, publicly launched an effort to drive organized crime out of its Chicago District Council.

Jurors in the latest trial heard a secretly recorded tape of one of the defendants, Frank Calabrese Sr., talking about collecting ''recipes,'' code for payoffs, in the late 1990s -- while he was behind bars.

''What the trial has made clear is even when they are in prison they continue to exert influence and control,'' said James Wagner, the head of the Chicago Crime Commission, who investigated the mob for years when he was an FBI agent.

And although the current trial's defendants are aging, others point out that the Outfit still has people ready to step in and take over for the old mobsters, known as ''Mustache Petes.''

''They're still there, there's still young guys coming up,'' said Jack O'Rourke, a retired FBI agent who also spent years investigating the Chicago mob. ''And they're still powerful enough to kill guys.''

Binder compared the mob to a corporation.

''It's important in management to groom people,'' he said. ''The Outfit is good at it; they've shown the ability to bring people up.''

Still, the Chicago Outfit is showing its age, say some who have studied it.

''The Chicago mob used to be big time, and now it's just local thugs like Tony Soprano,'' said Gus Russo, author of a best-selling book about the Chicago mob titled ''The Outfit.''

''There's no doubt they still have some cops on the take, some lawyers, a judge here and there and labor unions. But now they are just a local mob,'' he said.

Chicago's mob probably lost some of its power because many of the illegal activities it once made money from are now legal, like casinos and state-run lotteries.

In addition, Russo said: ''They had pornography, and now that's big business.''

The Outfit has other opportunities, however.

''They've still got the sports betting,'' O'Rourke said. ''They've controlled that forever and it is illegal.''

But even that business has changed, O'Rourke said, because they way they collect the money has gotten a bit more genteel than in the old days.

''Now with the gamblers, they don't get tough any more and extort them,'' he said. ''Instead, they're saying, 'You can't play any more.' To the gamblers, that's worse than getting beat up.''

Even though some of its influence may be waning, the trial suggests the mob can still pull off the kind of tricks that made it infamous.

After rumors that he would testify at the trial, reputed mobster Anthony Zizzo vanished last year.

Then in January, a deputy U.S. marshal was charged with leaking information to reputed mob boss John ''No Nose'' DiFronzo about the cooperation and travel plans of Nicholas Calabrese, a key government witness and the brother of defendant Frank Calabrese Sr.

''Now they are more surreptitious than ever before, more cunning and intelligent in the way they operate,'' Wagner said. ''They're not less dangerous or influential.''

Trial Shows Mob Aging but Still Around, NYT, 25.8.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Aging-Mobsters.html