Convicted Abortion Doctor Given Third Life Sentence

Toddler Steals Washington Teen’s Violin

May 182013

Nichola Evans/Stockbyte(MOUNT VERNON, Wash.) — Police believe a Washington woman used her toddler to steal an antique violin from a teenager Wednesday afternoon at a local restaurant.

Mount Vernon Police Lt. Chris Cammock told ABC News that 17-year-old Kalob Tatum entered a McDonald’s with his backpack and violin after school. When he went up to the counter to order a burger, he turned around, and his 100-year-old Czechoslovakian copy of a Stradivarius violin was missing.

“When I saw the violin gone, my heart just dropped,” Tatum told ABC affiliate KOMO News. “I had this feeling that something terrible just happened.”

Tatum has been playing the violin since kindergarten, according to Lt. Cammock. The teen earned a scholarship to perform in New York this summer.

“I got a scholarship to a two-week camp and… I do not have a violin and I don’t have the money to get a new one right now,” Tatum told KOMO.

Officers searched for the violin immediately following the theft.

“On the security video that’s inside the McChevron (McDonald’s there is attached to a Chevron gas station), it showed a young girl who picked up the violin and left the restaurant with her mother,” Cammock said. “By depiction, it looks like the mother would have been aware that her daughter was taking it.”

Officers then took the footage obtained from the store and circulated the girl’s picture.

On Thursday, Cammock says an officer on patrol spotted the mother and daughter walking near a school.

“The officer stopped her, had a conversation with her and asked for the violin,” Cammock said. “The violin was then returned to the victim.”

The mother, who was not identified, faces possible charges of theft, Cammock says.

Gators, Snakes, Gila Monster Removed from Wisc. Home

May 152013

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(KENOSHA, Wisc.) — Authorities and zoologists in Wisconsin removed a throng of exotic reptiles being housed in an urban residence this week — including a Gila monster, crocodiles and snakes — as shocked neighbors looked on.

Kenosha police responding to a possible animal cruelty complaint Tuesday entered a home, situated just a few blocks from the city’s central police station, to find a 4-foot skeleton of an alligator in a large aquarium, the body of a large burned snake lying in some weeds, a dead 4- to 5-foot alligator, and the carcass of a fawn.

In the basement of the residence officers found a homemade indoor pond and several aquariums of various sizes throughout the residence with live animals. One contained a large Gila monster, and another contained a 4- to 5-foot crocodile, while one housed multiple snakes. The animals were located in containers in the basement of the residence, where two 6- to 8-foot alligators were found in a homemade indoor pond. A “very large” snapping turtle was found in a tub, police said.

Lt. Brad Kemen said that the animals that were found alive were transported out of the residence.

“They’re in the care of the Racine Zoo, and they’re in good condition,” Kemen told ABC News.

Gregory Maser, an associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Wisconsin – Parkside, said that he was in a meeting with the president of the Racine Zoo when police got in touch about their discovery.

Maser said that he helped remove the animals, including five rattlesnakes, two American alligators, a crocodile, a Gila monster and a large alligator turtle.

“We had to be careful because the Gila monster is venomous, and the rattlesnakes are venomous,” he said. “The crocodiles were pretty small, I grabbed it. The alligators were a bit bigger. We had a few people, noosed them and taped their mouth.”

Maser said that the house hadn’t been lived in for what seemed like quite a while, and that the electricity and utilities were out. He said that he believed that someone had at least been coming back to occasionally care for the animals, and that the owner had done a lot of work on the house to have ponds in the basement for the animals.

There had been a small fire in the house, Maser said. He confirmed that a snake had been burned on the property.

Where the animals care from, and who owns the residence, is still unknown, according to Kemen.

A Kenosha city ordinance bans residents from owning wild animals, or an animal that may endanger life or property. Violators are to be fined no more than $300, plus prosecution costs, according to the ordinance.

“Once we investigate what animals were there, and they’re identified by the zoo, we’ll determine what if any charges will be filed,” Kemen said. Police declined to identify the owner of the home.

Leila Fowler 911 Call Released, Brother to Appear in Court

May 152013

ABC News | Calaveras Unified School District(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — In the 911 call from the day 8-year-old Leila Fowler was stabbed to death, her father’s girlfriend, who was not home, didn’t appear to know that Leila has been hurt. She told the operator that Leila was “freaking out” after her brother said he had allegedly seen an intruder in the house.

The brother has since been arrested and charged with second-degree murder with special circumstances for using a dangerous weapon in the killing. He is expected to make his first court appearance Wednesday, though his name has not been released because he is a minor.

On April 27, Leila’s 12-year-old brother told Valley Springs, Calif., authorities that he found his sister stabbed to death after an intruder broke into their home. There were no adults at the house when the stabbing occurred. The boy said he called his parents, who alerted sheriff’s deputies.

“My children are at home alone and a man just ran out of my house. My older son was in the bathroom and my daughter started screaming,” the panicked woman said in the 911 call released by the Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office. “When he came out, there was a man outside my house. I need an officer there.”

The woman calling was Leila’s father’s girlfriend, according to ABC News’ Sacramento affiliate KXTV.

When the dispatcher asked if the children had seen the intruder, the woman said, “They did see him. My daughter is freaking out right now.”

She also said the children were “really scared” and that she was trying to get home.

The boy told authorities the intruder, whom he described as a tall man with a muscular build, fled the scene. The boy’s description launched a 15-day manhunt that included door-to-door searches and divers in a reservoir.

The Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office in Northern California announced the arrest of the 12-year-old boy on May 10.

Mark Reichel and Steve Plesser, attorneys from a firm hired by the boy’s family to represent him, told KXTV that they met with him Wednesday at a juvenile detention facility.

“He’s actually doing very well right now,” Plesser said. “As well as can be expected in these really difficult times.”

The two attorneys said they plan to ask the court to allow the boy to return to his family.

Neighbors in Valley Springs said they feared all along that Leila’s brother — not a mystery man the boy described — might be responsible for the girl’s stabbing death.

“It made us sadder, because he’s just 12 years old,” Barbara Barron told ABC News. “The family has lost two children now.”

Keene, N.H., Sues ‘Robin Hooders’ for Alleged Harassment

May 152013

Eric O’Connell/Getty Images(KEENE, N.H.) — A group of friends who call themselves the “Robin Hood of Keene” and put their name into action by feeding parking meters for strangers are now facing something much more serious than a parking ticket.

The group, part of the “Free Keene” movement in the small New Hampshire town, is being sued by the city itself, charged with harassing and taunting the city’s parking enforcement officers, and asked to stay 50 feet away from the officers at all times.

“I was definitely surprised,” Garret Ean, one of the six Keene residents named in the lawsuit, told ABC News. “The city had been talking about taking some sort of action and we didn’t know what they would be doing because we knew they couldn’t take criminal action against us.”

The lawsuit, filed by the city on May 1, alleges that Ean and his co-defendants — James Cleaveland, Kate Ager, Ian Bernard Freeman, Graham Colson and Pete Eyre — have, “regularly, repeatedly and intentionally taunted, interfered with, harassed and intimated” the city’s three officers by “following, surrounding, touching or nearly touching and otherwise taunting” them.

The six Keene residents have, since December 2012, committed themselves to “Robin Hood-ing,” their term for ensuring that at least one person is monitoring the city streets and feeding meters with donated money so that no Keene resident has to pay the $5 fine that comes when a meter expires or the approximate $20 fine if the car is left on the street for more than two hours.

“This is one instance when you can physically prevent an enforcement mechanism of government from occurring,” Ean said of the group’s motivation. “The idea that you can physically shut down an enforcement arm of government, we’re not at that level of success yet, but it’s a goal to shoot for.”

Ean estimates that his group feeds $8 to $15 a day into the meters, or about $1,700 since they started in December. Keene has a population of about 24,000, according to the 2010 Census.

The city’s lawsuit claims the group’s efforts have led to the three parking officers’ being taunted online and on their days off, having had to alter their work duties because of “harassing behavior” and, in the case of one officer, experiencing “adverse physical effects.”

“That kind of shocks me,” Ean, who posts videos of his “Robin Hood-ing” efforts online, said of the medical claim.

“It was a positive relationship at the beginning,” he said of his contact with the officer. “I tried to find common ground but within the past month or two he got more standoffish and ceased being interested in talking to us at all.”

Officials with the city of Keene have not responded to a request for comment.

Ean, who makes a living landscaping and cooking in addition to the 25 hours or so per week he volunteers with the “Robin Hood of Keene,” says he plans to defend himself against the city’s claims using video evidence.

“Any interaction that I’ve done under the umbrella of ‘Robin Hood of Keene’ has been positive and the video evidence I’ve posted immediately after demonstrates that,” he said. “I’d be interested to see what video they [the city of Keene] claim to have that shows any negative actions of anyone associated with Robin Hood-ing.”

Convicted Abortion Doctor Given Third Life Sentence

May 152013

Hemera/Thinkstock(PHILADELPHIA) — Dr. Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortion doctor convicted of first-degree murder in the deaths of three babies, was sentenced Wednesday to a third life term.

Gosnell was handed two life sentences on Tuesday after a deal was struck with prosecutors, which spared him a potential death sentence. The third sentence was handed down on Wednesday. The 72-year-old was also sentenced to 2.5 to 5 years in prison for the 2009 overdose death of a female patient.

Gosnell was accused of performing late-term abortions on four babies who were born alive, but were then allegedly killed by Gosnell who “snipped” their spinal cords with scissors. He was cleared in the death of one of the infants.

The Philadelphia clinic run by Gosnell has been described as a “pill mill” for drug addicts by day, and an “abortion mill” by night. When Gosnell aborted the fetus of a teen who was nearly 30 weeks pregnant, he allegedly joked the baby was so big it could “walk to the bus.”

The guilty verdicts against Gosnell came on Monday, the jury’s tenth day of deliberations.

As part of the deal struck with prosecutors, Gosnell will serve three life sentences without the possibility of parole or the opportunity to appeal.

For two months, the jury heard often grisly testimony, including from members of Gosnell’s staff. Eight staffers have pleaded guilty to several crimes. Prosecutors said none of the staff were licensed nurses or doctors.

Gosnell ran the Women’s Medical Society in West Philadelphia for decades until February 2010, when FBI agents raided his clinic looking for evidence of prescription drug dealing.

Instead they found, as reported in a nearly 300-page grand jury report released in 2011, a filthy, decrepit “house of horrors.”

Blood was on the floor, the clinic reeked of urine and bags of fetal remains were stacked in freezers. The clinic was shut down and Gosnell’s medical license was suspended after the raid.

Despite repeated complaints to state officials over the years — as well as 46 lawsuits filed against Gosnell — investigators said in the report that state regulators had conducted five inspections since the clinic had opened in 1979.

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