Dad PABLO-BICENTE has been found "not competent" to stand trial in the death of his 3-month-old son. And I've always been told that only abusive moms use the "mental health excuse." WRONG.
ttp://www.kwch.com/Global/story.asp?S=11010628
Dodge City Man Found Not Competent to Stand Trial
by Angela Smith (DODGE CITY, Kan.)
A Dodge City man accused of killing his 3-month old son last July is found not competent to stand trial.
The mental evaluation was performed at the Larned State Hospital.
The Ford County attorney's office says this does not mean the trial is over.
Pablo-Bicente will be sent back to Larned for further evaluation.
The county attorney's office expects to have results back in another 90 days.
Pablo-Bicente is charged with second degree murder, child abuse and identity fraud.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Dad pleads guilty to beating newborn daughter (Jefferson City, Missouri)
Dad ALLEN RAGAN has pleaded guilty to beating his infant daughter, who suffered from head injuries and a broken leg in the assault.
http://www.connectmidmissouri.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=343455
Man pleads guilty to beating newborn
JEFFERSON CITY -- A Jefferson City man charged with beating his newborn daughter has pleaded guilty and will spend the next seven years behind bars.
A judge sentenced Allen Ragan to seven years in prison on Wednesday. Ragan was 18 when he attacked his infant daughter on Super Bowl Sunday back in February.
The little girl, Kira Ragan, survived but spent more than two weeks in a St. Louis hospital recovering from head injuries and a broken leg.
Online court records show that Ragan pleaded guilty to three felony charges: second-degree assault, endangering the welfare of a child and child abuse.
The prison terms will be served concurrently for a total of seven years.
http://www.connectmidmissouri.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=343455
Man pleads guilty to beating newborn
JEFFERSON CITY -- A Jefferson City man charged with beating his newborn daughter has pleaded guilty and will spend the next seven years behind bars.
A judge sentenced Allen Ragan to seven years in prison on Wednesday. Ragan was 18 when he attacked his infant daughter on Super Bowl Sunday back in February.
The little girl, Kira Ragan, survived but spent more than two weeks in a St. Louis hospital recovering from head injuries and a broken leg.
Online court records show that Ragan pleaded guilty to three felony charges: second-degree assault, endangering the welfare of a child and child abuse.
The prison terms will be served concurrently for a total of seven years.
Dad charged with beating, sexually assaulting teenage daughter (Sheboygan, Wisconsin)
UNNAMED DAD has been charged with beating and sexually assaulting his teenage daughter.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-wi-incestcharge,0,3657508.story
Wis. man accused of incest with teenage daughter
The Associated Press
6:26 p.m. CDT, August 29, 2009
SHEBOYGAN, Wis. - A 40-year-old Sheboygan man has been charged with three felonies for allegedly beating and sexually assaulting his teenage daughter on multiple occasions.
The man was charged Friday with felony counts of second-degree sexual assault, incest and physical abuse of a child. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 35 years in prison.
The Associated Press is withholding the man's name to protect the identity of his daughter.
The girl told police that her father forced her to have sex with him on multiple occasions over the past three months. She said he would hit her in the head when she cried out.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-wi-incestcharge,0,3657508.story
Wis. man accused of incest with teenage daughter
The Associated Press
6:26 p.m. CDT, August 29, 2009
SHEBOYGAN, Wis. - A 40-year-old Sheboygan man has been charged with three felonies for allegedly beating and sexually assaulting his teenage daughter on multiple occasions.
The man was charged Friday with felony counts of second-degree sexual assault, incest and physical abuse of a child. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 35 years in prison.
The Associated Press is withholding the man's name to protect the identity of his daughter.
The girl told police that her father forced her to have sex with him on multiple occasions over the past three months. She said he would hit her in the head when she cried out.
Stepdad arrested for abuse of 8-month-old stepson; baby was shaken and suffered brain injury (Fort Myers, Florida)
Stepdad SHAJUAN CADNEY has been arrested for the assault of his 8-month-old son. The baby was apparently violently shaken, and suffered a head injury including bleeding on the brain.
http://www.abc-7.com/Global/story.asp?S=10970613
Fort Myers man charged with child abuse
Posted: Aug 21, 2009 1:45 PM CDT
Updated: Aug 21, 2009 4:23 PM CDT
FORT MYERS: An eight month old is in the intensive care unit at All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg after allegedly suffering from a head injury. Police say his stepfather is responsible for the infant's injuries
Doctors said the infant's injury was consistent with what is known as "shaken baby syndrome."
"A lot of force, going back and forth- very violent type of shaking," said Detective Audenia Thomas of the Fort Myers Police Department.
Police arrested the infant's stepfather, 28-year-old Shajuan Cadney, and charged him with aggravated child abuse on Friday.
Detectives say Cadney and the baby's mother had just moved from Tennessee to Fort Myers so she could be a teacher. The family was staying at a local hotel when the infant's mother noticed he was sick.
"He has old injuries and new injuries," said Thomas.
Doctors said there were old injuries which were also allegedly from shaken baby syndrome.
According to doctors, the bleeding on the infant's brain has stopped.
Cadney remains in the Lee County Jail.
http://www.abc-7.com/Global/story.asp?S=10970613
Fort Myers man charged with child abuse
Posted: Aug 21, 2009 1:45 PM CDT
Updated: Aug 21, 2009 4:23 PM CDT
FORT MYERS: An eight month old is in the intensive care unit at All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg after allegedly suffering from a head injury. Police say his stepfather is responsible for the infant's injuries
Doctors said the infant's injury was consistent with what is known as "shaken baby syndrome."
"A lot of force, going back and forth- very violent type of shaking," said Detective Audenia Thomas of the Fort Myers Police Department.
Police arrested the infant's stepfather, 28-year-old Shajuan Cadney, and charged him with aggravated child abuse on Friday.
Detectives say Cadney and the baby's mother had just moved from Tennessee to Fort Myers so she could be a teacher. The family was staying at a local hotel when the infant's mother noticed he was sick.
"He has old injuries and new injuries," said Thomas.
Doctors said there were old injuries which were also allegedly from shaken baby syndrome.
According to doctors, the bleeding on the infant's brain has stopped.
Cadney remains in the Lee County Jail.
Sentence hearing comes to close for Katron Walker, dad convicted of killing 4-year-old son (Terre Haute, Indiana)
This is a reporter's account from the sentencing hearing for dad KATRON WALKER, who has been convicted of murdering his 4-year-old son and attempting to murder his 2-year-old son. The children were quite literally slaughtered with a butcher knife. Mental illness issues and drugs were partly blamed for Walker's actions, but it's also suggested that some people are just plain evil and without a shred of conscience. We've posted on this case before.
http://www.tribstar.com/opinion/local_story_241222739.html
Published: August 29, 2009 10:27 pm
Stephanie Salter: Notes from three sad, intense days in the county courthouse
By Stephanie Salter
The Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE — Friday afternoon, the three-day sentence hearing for Katron Walker came to a close. Judge David Bolk ordered him to serve 95 years in prison for the June 2006 murder of his 4-year-old son, Collin, and the attempted murder of his younger son, who was not yet 3 at the time of the crimes.
The sentence was only five years short of the maximum Bolk could have pronounced.
Throughout the intense and often dramatic hearing in the Division 3 courtroom, I sat a few rows behind the defense table and took 28 pages of notes on a legal pad. This handful of vignettes is from those pages.
Over the three days, wrenching testimony was presented, from detailed descriptions of Walker’s butcher knife assault on his little boys to his half-sisters talking about the sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of Walker’s biological father. But the most moving incident I observed during the entire hearing took place outside the courtroom after the second day of testimony.
Nancy McClaine, Walker’s mother, had delivered long and painful testimony for the defense about her son’s mental and emotional problems and what came to be referred to by all parties, including Bolk, as Katron Walker’s “dysfunctional family life.”
In an effort to get her son’s sentence decreased, McClaine allowed her parenting to be opened, examined and eviscerated by defense witnesses. At one point, she was so distraught in her testimony, the judge called a recess so she could compose herself.
After court adjourned for the day, McClaine and her third husband, Don McClaine, walked toward the stairs to leave, but she began to sob again, her cries echoing off the courthouse rotunda. Teresa Dwyer, Walker’s ex-wife and mother of his children, was perhaps 100 feet away from her former mother-in-law. The two have barely spoken for more than a year, and the division between them had been almost palpable in the courtroom.
But, as if in a trance, Dwyer walked the distance of the hall to McClaine, then wrapped her arms around her. The two women — mothers with broken hearts — wept together as one.
Because of the configuration of the courtroom, it was almost impossible to see Walker’s face throughout the proceedings. Occasionally, I noticed the back of his neck grow very red, but he was remarkably unanimated most of the time, even as his attorneys questioned defense witnesses about his mental instability, drug use, inability to keep a job and bizarre religious beliefs.
Walker’s face was observable during a prolonged review of his paintings and drawings that required a projection screen.
An art therapist from Florida testified that the mostly abstract pictures — created from the mid-1990s to Walker’s present-day incarceration — showed that he suffered from schizo-affective disorder. Echoing psychiatrists before him, the art therapist defined that disorder as schizophrenia combined with a mood disorder, primarily depression.
The Florida therapist described the works as “beautiful” or “wonderfully rendered.” He said “professional fascination” inspired him to repeatedly review them.
After two days of exhaustive defense testimony, much of it by expert psychological witnesses, Katron Walker was allowed on the last day to make a statement. In his rust-orange jail jumpsuit, his waist encircled by a huge chain, he rose and began to read from his legal pad.
His phrases and word choices were like oratory from another century. His voice choking, he spoke of hearing “the rhythm of my life through the stethoscope of others’ testimony” and of “the sea of sorrow I’ve inflicted on Teresa.”
That extreme emotion, as well as the wedding ring Walker continues to wear, was in ironic contrast about two hours later. After his sentencing, which includes a no-contact order with Dwyer and their living child, Walker passed his ex-wife on his way out of the courtroom. Sneering, he told her to tell their son, “I’ll be waiting for him.”
If ever the term “vigorous defense” was warranted, it is for that put on by Jessie Cook and Joe Etling. For the past three years they have been preparing for a capital murder case, amassing evidence and testimony from doctors, Walker family members, former teachers and friends, the art therapist, a police practices and tactics specialist, and a mitigation specialist who investigated Katron Walker’s life history.
In May, however, Walker’s plea bargain took the death penalty off the table: The least he could have received was 45 years for both crimes, the most 100.
In cross-examinations, Prosecutor Terry Modesitt and Deputy Prosecutor Rob Roberts frequently asked the expert defense witnesses how much they were paid for their services. Dr. Robert Smith, a psychiatrist from Ohio, topped the list at $250 per hour. He testified he had traveled seven times to various jails to meet with Walker for a total of 35.5 hours.
The cost of Walker’s entire defense, including his attorneys, will be paid by public funds from Vigo County and the State of Indiana.
During cross-examination of the mitigation specialist, Michael Dennis, Modesitt questioned his qualifications to do something that lies at the heart of an ancient, and ongoing, debate among civilized people — “distinguish between someone who has mental health problems and someone who is just mean and evil.”
U.S. law regarding insanity is fairly narrowly prescribed: You knew what you did was wrong. Mental illness, such as that displayed by Katron Walker over most of his sorry 36 years can weigh as a mitigating factor in verdicts and sentencing — but it doesn’t tend to weigh much.
My own definition of insanity is broader. I do not believe a sane man can take a knife to his own little boys, as Walker did. Due to meth-induced psychosis or lousy DNA, his was an insane act. That said, the warped brain that guides Walker’s actions has to be contained, for the good of Teresa Dwyer, her son and society.
I have never believed in the death penalty and I still don’t. (God’s job, not the state’s.) Dwyer’s decision to agree to a plea bargain that would spare her former husband’s life was one of the most courageous — and intelligent — I’ve ever seen. She knew that killing Walker, if he’d been convicted, would not return Collin to her or restore her surviving child’s innocence. Enduring a capital murder trial, however, might have done them both in.
Some people feel better chalking up Walker’s mess of a life to inherent evil and meanness. I’ve always had a problem with that concept — and the more we discover about genetics, neuroscience and the power of learned behavior, the less “just evil” explains anything for me.
Do I think Walker will be rehabilitated in prison and, when he’s 80 or so, be paroled as something he never before managed to become — a productive member of society? No.
But I do think he still possesses a right to seek and find redemption, from the God I believe in and from his fellow human beings. What that might look like, I have no idea.
http://www.tribstar.com/opinion/local_story_241222739.html
Published: August 29, 2009 10:27 pm
Stephanie Salter: Notes from three sad, intense days in the county courthouse
By Stephanie Salter
The Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE — Friday afternoon, the three-day sentence hearing for Katron Walker came to a close. Judge David Bolk ordered him to serve 95 years in prison for the June 2006 murder of his 4-year-old son, Collin, and the attempted murder of his younger son, who was not yet 3 at the time of the crimes.
The sentence was only five years short of the maximum Bolk could have pronounced.
Throughout the intense and often dramatic hearing in the Division 3 courtroom, I sat a few rows behind the defense table and took 28 pages of notes on a legal pad. This handful of vignettes is from those pages.
Over the three days, wrenching testimony was presented, from detailed descriptions of Walker’s butcher knife assault on his little boys to his half-sisters talking about the sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of Walker’s biological father. But the most moving incident I observed during the entire hearing took place outside the courtroom after the second day of testimony.
Nancy McClaine, Walker’s mother, had delivered long and painful testimony for the defense about her son’s mental and emotional problems and what came to be referred to by all parties, including Bolk, as Katron Walker’s “dysfunctional family life.”
In an effort to get her son’s sentence decreased, McClaine allowed her parenting to be opened, examined and eviscerated by defense witnesses. At one point, she was so distraught in her testimony, the judge called a recess so she could compose herself.
After court adjourned for the day, McClaine and her third husband, Don McClaine, walked toward the stairs to leave, but she began to sob again, her cries echoing off the courthouse rotunda. Teresa Dwyer, Walker’s ex-wife and mother of his children, was perhaps 100 feet away from her former mother-in-law. The two have barely spoken for more than a year, and the division between them had been almost palpable in the courtroom.
But, as if in a trance, Dwyer walked the distance of the hall to McClaine, then wrapped her arms around her. The two women — mothers with broken hearts — wept together as one.
Because of the configuration of the courtroom, it was almost impossible to see Walker’s face throughout the proceedings. Occasionally, I noticed the back of his neck grow very red, but he was remarkably unanimated most of the time, even as his attorneys questioned defense witnesses about his mental instability, drug use, inability to keep a job and bizarre religious beliefs.
Walker’s face was observable during a prolonged review of his paintings and drawings that required a projection screen.
An art therapist from Florida testified that the mostly abstract pictures — created from the mid-1990s to Walker’s present-day incarceration — showed that he suffered from schizo-affective disorder. Echoing psychiatrists before him, the art therapist defined that disorder as schizophrenia combined with a mood disorder, primarily depression.
The Florida therapist described the works as “beautiful” or “wonderfully rendered.” He said “professional fascination” inspired him to repeatedly review them.
After two days of exhaustive defense testimony, much of it by expert psychological witnesses, Katron Walker was allowed on the last day to make a statement. In his rust-orange jail jumpsuit, his waist encircled by a huge chain, he rose and began to read from his legal pad.
His phrases and word choices were like oratory from another century. His voice choking, he spoke of hearing “the rhythm of my life through the stethoscope of others’ testimony” and of “the sea of sorrow I’ve inflicted on Teresa.”
That extreme emotion, as well as the wedding ring Walker continues to wear, was in ironic contrast about two hours later. After his sentencing, which includes a no-contact order with Dwyer and their living child, Walker passed his ex-wife on his way out of the courtroom. Sneering, he told her to tell their son, “I’ll be waiting for him.”
If ever the term “vigorous defense” was warranted, it is for that put on by Jessie Cook and Joe Etling. For the past three years they have been preparing for a capital murder case, amassing evidence and testimony from doctors, Walker family members, former teachers and friends, the art therapist, a police practices and tactics specialist, and a mitigation specialist who investigated Katron Walker’s life history.
In May, however, Walker’s plea bargain took the death penalty off the table: The least he could have received was 45 years for both crimes, the most 100.
In cross-examinations, Prosecutor Terry Modesitt and Deputy Prosecutor Rob Roberts frequently asked the expert defense witnesses how much they were paid for their services. Dr. Robert Smith, a psychiatrist from Ohio, topped the list at $250 per hour. He testified he had traveled seven times to various jails to meet with Walker for a total of 35.5 hours.
The cost of Walker’s entire defense, including his attorneys, will be paid by public funds from Vigo County and the State of Indiana.
During cross-examination of the mitigation specialist, Michael Dennis, Modesitt questioned his qualifications to do something that lies at the heart of an ancient, and ongoing, debate among civilized people — “distinguish between someone who has mental health problems and someone who is just mean and evil.”
U.S. law regarding insanity is fairly narrowly prescribed: You knew what you did was wrong. Mental illness, such as that displayed by Katron Walker over most of his sorry 36 years can weigh as a mitigating factor in verdicts and sentencing — but it doesn’t tend to weigh much.
My own definition of insanity is broader. I do not believe a sane man can take a knife to his own little boys, as Walker did. Due to meth-induced psychosis or lousy DNA, his was an insane act. That said, the warped brain that guides Walker’s actions has to be contained, for the good of Teresa Dwyer, her son and society.
I have never believed in the death penalty and I still don’t. (God’s job, not the state’s.) Dwyer’s decision to agree to a plea bargain that would spare her former husband’s life was one of the most courageous — and intelligent — I’ve ever seen. She knew that killing Walker, if he’d been convicted, would not return Collin to her or restore her surviving child’s innocence. Enduring a capital murder trial, however, might have done them both in.
Some people feel better chalking up Walker’s mess of a life to inherent evil and meanness. I’ve always had a problem with that concept — and the more we discover about genetics, neuroscience and the power of learned behavior, the less “just evil” explains anything for me.
Do I think Walker will be rehabilitated in prison and, when he’s 80 or so, be paroled as something he never before managed to become — a productive member of society? No.
But I do think he still possesses a right to seek and find redemption, from the God I believe in and from his fellow human beings. What that might look like, I have no idea.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Dad arrested for using stun gun on two children (Campbell, Missouri)
Dad CLARENCE LEE CAMPBELL has been arrested on child abuse charges for using a stun gun on his two children. One of his sons has also been arrested for using a stun gun on one of his siblings. Nothing like good old dad modeling abusive behavior, is there?
http://www.dddnews.com/story/1565517.html
Two men face felony charges in stun gun case
Thursday, August 27, 2009
George Anderson
CAMPBELL, Mo. -- Two men are currently facing up to seven years in the state penitentiary on each of three charges stemming from an investigation into a stun gun being used on minors.
Clarence Lee Riddell, 48, of Campbell, and James Steven Riddell, 22, of Texas, were recently arrested following an investigation by the Campbell Police Officer David Dillard, the Dunkin County Juvenile Office, and the Division of Family Services in reference to a report of child abuse in which a stun gun was used.
According to Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Jonce Chidister, Clarence Riddell is being charge with two counts of abuse of a child for allegedly using a stun gun on his two minor children.
James Riddell, son of Clarence Riddell, is facing one count of second degree domestic assault for allegedly using a stun gun on one of his minor siblings.
Malden, Mo., police arrested James Riddell on Tuesday, Aug. 25, and transported to the Campbell Police Department. He is currently being held at the Dunklin County Justice Center on a $15,000 cash only bond.
A warrant has been issued for Clarence Riddell with a bond set at $25,000.
http://www.dddnews.com/story/1565517.html
Two men face felony charges in stun gun case
Thursday, August 27, 2009
George Anderson
CAMPBELL, Mo. -- Two men are currently facing up to seven years in the state penitentiary on each of three charges stemming from an investigation into a stun gun being used on minors.
Clarence Lee Riddell, 48, of Campbell, and James Steven Riddell, 22, of Texas, were recently arrested following an investigation by the Campbell Police Officer David Dillard, the Dunkin County Juvenile Office, and the Division of Family Services in reference to a report of child abuse in which a stun gun was used.
According to Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Jonce Chidister, Clarence Riddell is being charge with two counts of abuse of a child for allegedly using a stun gun on his two minor children.
James Riddell, son of Clarence Riddell, is facing one count of second degree domestic assault for allegedly using a stun gun on one of his minor siblings.
Malden, Mo., police arrested James Riddell on Tuesday, Aug. 25, and transported to the Campbell Police Department. He is currently being held at the Dunklin County Justice Center on a $15,000 cash only bond.
A warrant has been issued for Clarence Riddell with a bond set at $25,000.
Dad shoots mom to death in front of 3 children; 11-year-old son injured (Los Angeles, California)
Dad CARLOS ANIBAL LOPEZ is wanted for shooting his wife in the head and killing her. Mom was holding their 3-year-old daughter at the time. An 11-year-old son was grazed by a bullet and is in stable condition. A 7-year-old girl daughter witnessed the shooting and was able to tell police what happened. Still think domestic violence only concerns the wife and not the children?
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=6989271
Man kills wife, wounds 11-year-old son
Saturday, August 29, 2009
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Police say three young children watched their father shoot their mother to death. Now police are looking for the man after he fled the scene.
The shooting was reported just before midnight on Kenwood Avenue in the West Adams District.
Investigators said Carlos Anibal Lopez got into an argument with his wife, Xiomara Lopez, just before he shot her. Their 11-year-old son was grazed by a bullet. The child is now in the hospital in stable condition.
Police said the man's wife was holding their 3-year-old daughter when she was shot in the head. The child was not injured. The couple's 7-year-old daughter also witnessed the shooting and gave police and account of what happened.
County child welfare authorities were called to take care of the children.
Lopez is believed to have fled the scene in a late 80's model Toyota Corolla. He is described as a Hispanic man, about 5 feet-4 inches tall and weighing 124 pounds.
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call the Northwest Police Division at 213-485-2582.
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=6989271
Man kills wife, wounds 11-year-old son
Saturday, August 29, 2009
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Police say three young children watched their father shoot their mother to death. Now police are looking for the man after he fled the scene.
The shooting was reported just before midnight on Kenwood Avenue in the West Adams District.
Investigators said Carlos Anibal Lopez got into an argument with his wife, Xiomara Lopez, just before he shot her. Their 11-year-old son was grazed by a bullet. The child is now in the hospital in stable condition.
Police said the man's wife was holding their 3-year-old daughter when she was shot in the head. The child was not injured. The couple's 7-year-old daughter also witnessed the shooting and gave police and account of what happened.
County child welfare authorities were called to take care of the children.
Lopez is believed to have fled the scene in a late 80's model Toyota Corolla. He is described as a Hispanic man, about 5 feet-4 inches tall and weighing 124 pounds.
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call the Northwest Police Division at 213-485-2582.
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