Michael Mele pleaded guilty to manslaughter and evidence tampering in the killing of 25-year-old Laura Garza.

The plea came Monday just before the start of his murder trial in Orange County.

Mele confessed he suffocated Garza in his Wallkill apartment. He says she became upset when she learned he had a girlfriend. He says that after he killed her, he stuffed her body in a laundry basket, drove to Pennsylvania and dumped it in a wooded area.

Garza had moved to Brooklyn from McAllen, Texas, just five months before she disappeared in December 2008. She had dreams of making it as a dancer.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/01/23/convicted-sex-offender-admits-killing-texas-dancer-met-at-new-york-city-club/?intcmp=obinsite#ixzz1lY3AokqC

Samantha Koenig was taken Wednesday evening from Common Grounds Espresso in Anchorage by an armed man, KTUU-TV reported. The abduction was captured on surveillance video.

Her family is offering a reward of more than $12,500 for her return. Speaking Saturday at Common Grounds, her father James Koenig offered her kidnappers “anything in this world” for her return.

“I want to ask for her captors that they will please send my daughter home,” he said. “Call me anonymously, you don’t have to go through the police, I will meet you, I will give you whatever you want.”

Koenig urged his community to “go door-to-door, every neighborhood” and report “anything suspicious, no matter how small you think it is.”

He believes his daughter likely knew her kidnapper…..

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/02/05/alaska-father-pleads-for-return-abducted-teenage-daughter/#ixzz1lY1NoOQ5

Lindsay Wood, 32, of Shelby, N.C., had just arrived home from Bible study on Wednesday. Wood asked her 15-year-old son to collect the trash can from the curb. During this time, Wood’s attacker walked into her home and slashed her neck.

“She told him please not to hurt her, that she loved the Lord and her son,” neighbor Faye Cooke told ABC affiliate WSOC.

Police said Wood’s son heard what was happening and hid in the backyard out of sight while Wood continued to reason with the man.

“She offered her car up, as well as money,” Rick Stafford, a captain in the Shelby Police Department told WSOC.

But the man took none of those things.

Despite her injuries, Wood opened her Bible and read to her attacker.

He listened. She even invited him to her church.

After an hour and a half, her attacker apologized and left.

Wood is in the hospital recovering from her injuries, which required 20-25 stitches and staples in her neck.

Meanwhile, police are hoping to apprehend the man, who didn’t seem to want anything more than to hurt an innocent person.

“We want him off the street,” Stafford said….
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SANGER, Calif. -

A Sanger woman used mixed martial arts skills on a man claiming to be a door-to-door salesman.

It was around noon Thursday, when Mayra Villanueva heard the doorbell ring. She looked out and saw it was a man dressed as a Dish Network consultant.

She opened the door and that’s when he threw a punch, and tried to get into the house.

Mayra says, “After he said how are you doing, I said fine, he tried to punch me in the face, and he grazed my nose but I reacted well to the hit because I moved back.”

Ironically, Mayra had in her coat pocket pepper spray, a recent Christmas gift from a relative, who’s a sheriff’s deputy.

She sprayed the attacker and then gave the guy an uppercut to the jaw and a kick to the stomach. He fell to the ground.

The guy got away, but Mayra was able to call police and was not hurt.

She plans to continue her mixed martial arts, and she plans to get a gun to protect her family…
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Burl Towles, 44, was arrested and charged with assault, threatening and disorderly conduct.

On Jan. 28, police received an anonymous complaint that a woman was screaming for help.

Officers knocked on Towles door where they found him and his live in girlfriend. The woman told officers Towles had instructed her to hide when the police arrived.

She said she and Towles had gotten into a fight that turned physical. She stated that Towles punched her in the face several time and kicked in her rib area after he had poured boiling water on her exposed skin several time.

She was transported to the hospital for treatment.

Towles bond was set at $400,000 and was scheduled to appear in court on Jan. 30.
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Darren J. Kirkland, 26, of Endicott, N.Y., was being held in lieu of $100,000 bond on charges of domestic battery and aggravated criminal sexual abuse. He was charged Monday.

According to Naperville police, Kirkland had struck up an online relationship with a Naperville woman and had traveled to stay with her this weekend at her apartment. While there, he had allegedly had inappropriate contact with the woman’s daughter, who is a student at a Naperville high school, Sgt. Greg Bell said Wednesday.

Police declined to disclose her age, but the charging documents said she is between 13 and 16.

The girl brought her allegations to a police officer stationed at the school. When police went to the apartment for a well-being check, they found evidence that Kirkland had physically abused the mother, and they charged him with domestic battery, Bell said…
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He wrapped her with duct tape so she couldn’t open her mouth, pulled off her pajama bottoms, threw her into the snow and made her sleep on the dog’s bed.

He held her captive in their St. Paul home from Saturday until she got help Tuesday.

Those were the allegations against Branden Joshua Fourre, 22, laid out in a criminal complaint filed Thursday. The document explains the case this way:

St. Paul police were called to Woodwinds Hospital on Tuesday about an assault that had taken place in the 900 block of Conway Street. A 20-year-old woman was “covered from head to toe with severe bruises,” the complaint said.

The woman said Fourre, her live-in boyfriend and father of her child, arrived home about 10 a.m. Saturday after he’d been drinking and out all night with friends. He accused her of having sex with his co-workers. She denied it, and he hurled insults.

“He took duct tape and wrapped it around her jaw and over the top of her head so that her mouth would not open,” the complaint said. “He bound her wrists in front of her with duct tape. He bound her ankles with duct tape. He told her, ‘Nobody loves you. You’re a bitch. You’re a liar.’ ”

After confining the woman this way in the basement, Fourre brought their 2-year-old daughter to her and told the girl “that her mother had been bad,” the complaint said. The complaint does not otherwise detail what
the child saw.

Fourre struck the woman with a pool cue in the head and knocked her out. He hit her with a hanger.

Fourre beat her from 10:45 a.m. Saturday until it was dark outside. At one point, he held a shotgun to her head, told her “she’s not worth living and that he was going to kill her,” the complaint said.

After he threw her outside, naked from the waist down, the woman tried to flee to get help. Fourre dragged her back inside and continued the verbal and physical assaults.

On Sunday, Fourre demanded her Facebook password. He logged onto her account, deleted all of her male friends and posted derogatory comments about her on her page.

On Monday, Fourre took the day off work and continued the confinement. “He called a male friend and asked him to bring tea, honey, water and ibuprofen because his voice was hoarse from yelling at her and his foot was swollen from kicking her,” the complaint said.

Fourre went to work Tuesday. He took the house keys, both sets of car keys, their only cellphone and both laptop computers so she couldn’t call for help. When she was sure he was gone, the woman went to a neighbor’s house for help. She used the neighbor’s phone to call her family, who took her to the hospital.

At the hospital, she told a police officer that she believes Fourre will kill her and that the abuse had been going on since their relationship started five years ago. When the officer asked her to sign a medical release for her records, he saw her hand was so swollen and bruised that she could barely hold the pen.

The woman told another officer that Fourre hit her hundreds of times, enough to break the pool stick. He used his hands to squeeze her throat, causing her to pass out.

Police arrested Fourre at his home. They found a broken chair and pool cue inside, and a shotgun under the bed, they said.

At the jail, Fourre told police he wanted to talk to an attorney….

Amber Henry, 16, and Kirsten Kamradt, 14, went missing from their homes early Wednesday, said Capt. Todd Pippin of Lamar County Sheriff’s Department.

According to Pippin, U.S. marshals and the FBI found the girls in Tennessee.

“Amber was released at a gas station and called for help,” Pippin said. “Kirsten was still in the suspect’s vehicle. Detectives found the vehicle in Hamblen County and pulled it over moments ago.”

Kirsten was picked up by Joshua Crowe, 19, in a white Buick around 1 a.m. Wednesday, Pippin said. Dustin Elliot, 19, was with Crowe at the time. Detectives said what started off as a joy ride turned ugly when the men forced the girls across state lines.

“We are just happy they’ve been found and the families can have peace,” Pippin said.

Kirsten’s mother, Jennifer Kamradt, discovered her daughter missing when she woke up.

“I woke up to get her to school at about 7 in the morning — she wasn’t there,” Kamradt said.

The girls know the two men through social networking websites, said Sgt. Mark Barry, also with Lamar County Detective Unit. According to Barry, one of the men may have a psychological condition that put the girls in danger.

Both men face kidnapping charges and remain in custody at this time.
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eford@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY, NC — Take threats seriously.

That’s the lesson authorities say Rowan County can learn from the murder Friday of a 49-year-old woman who was beaten to death, allegedly by an estranged ex-boyfriend with a history of domestic violence who had been threatening her for weeks.

“Domestic violence is very dangerous and can escalate very rapidly,” said Detective A.D. Loflin of the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office, who investigated the killing.

Joan Marie Lark had removed former boyfriend Gary Cureton, 54, from her house in January when she suspected he was stealing and using drugs. When Cureton began calling her repeatedly, day after day, and leaving threatening messages, Lark did not seek a domestic violence protective order.

Protective orders are issued by the court to protect victims of abuse, harassment or stalking from further violence at the hands of an aggressor. Also called a 50-B, the order allows a judge or magistrate to tell an abuser to stop or face legal consequences.

Some people don’t bother taking out an order “because it’s just a piece of paper,” Detective Carl Dangerfield said. “But at least it’s something.”

With a 50-B in place, authorities could have arrested Cureton for calling Lark or driving by her East Spencer house.

Lark was concerned about Cureton but didn’t think he would really do anything, authorities said.

Recovering from a serious illness, Cureton “doesn’t look like a physical powerhouse,” Dangerfield said. “But even his family says he was smoking crack, and in that state, people can do things they don’t seem capable of.”

Even if threats seem like a harmless nuisance, a life may be at stake, said Lucretia Trent, executive director for the Family Crisis Council.

“Be mindful that if threats are made, you need to pay attention and not minimize these things,” Trent said….
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Mark Berndt, 61, a teacher with over 30 years experience at Miramonte Elementary School in south Los Angeles, is charged with molesting 23 children, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Police began the investigation after a photo processing facility passed along suspicious images depicting students blindfolded with their mouths covered in tape. Female students were depicted with a blue plastic spoon containing “an unknown clear/white liquid” in front of their mouths, while other students were pictured with live cockroaches on their faces. In some photos, Berndt had his arm around the children or his hand over their mouths.

Police found the spoon, along with an empty container in the trash in Berndt’s classroom and, through DNA testing, determined that both contained Berndt’s semen.

The students were between the ages of 7 and 10 years old when the alleged crimes occurred, police said.

Authorities launched a widespread sex crime investigation, interviewing current and former students and school employees and searching Berndt’s home. They recovered a total of 390 photographs….
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