Forensics Talk

The Worst Predator

The horrifying, true story of the man police believe is the worst sexual predator of our time — and how he kept getting away

By John Larson

Correspondent

NBC News

Updated: 8:18 p.m. ET Aug 12, 2006

For generations parents have warned their children about “the stranger”: Don’t take candy, accept a ride, or even talk to somebody you don’t know.

But what if that somebody is a family friend? Somebody parents know and trust?

Dean Arthur Schwartzmiller, a suspected child molester, made a point of befriending parents to gain access to their children.  When he was arrested last year in San Jose, Calif. last year, police found ledgers and diaries detailing thousands of sexual assaults against children...

Full Article

Beware The Killer Nurses

 

 ImpactEDNurse

    John Field is a senior academic, lawyer and Senior Lecturer in Nursing at Charles Cook University, who has recently completed a comprehensive study on nurses who have murdered their patients.

     His study examines 48 cases from around the world involving nurses that have intentionally killed their patients [26 came from the United States, six from the United Kingdom, and the rest from Austria (4), Germany (3), The Netherlands (2) and one each from Canada, Egypt, France, Hungary, Italy, Japan, South Africa and Switzerland].

    Over 750 patients were killed by lethal injection, suffocation or abuse. Often the nurses involved were serial killers who due to a their assumed positions of trust combined with a stereotyped public perception, went undetected for many years.

      One example was Charles Cullen, a Navy veteran and registered nurse in New Jersey who murdered between 40 and 80 patients over a 16-year period by administering overdoses of drugs. He worked in 10 different health facilities during that time. In 2006 he was sentenced to 18 consecutive life sentences, with a non parole period of 397 years.

The motives varied between cases but most of the nurses killed for the pleasure of killing.... Read More

Parents Charged After Boy Tied To Tree Dies

 

 

Dad reportedly told police 13-year-old was being punished

MSNBC

Associated Press

updated 11:56 a.m. ET, Fri., June. 13, 2008

     RALEIGH, N.C. - A couple accused of tying their 13-year-old son to a tree for two nights to punish him for disobedience has been charged with murder in his death, authorities said Friday.

Brice Brian McMillan, 41, of Macclesfield, told a deputy that the child was being disobedient and was forced to sleep outside Tuesday while tied to a tree, the Edgecombe County Sheriff’s Office said. The teenager was released Wednesday morning but again tied up that night for bad behavior, authorities said.

The boy was left tied to the tree until the following afternoon when his stepmother found him unresponsive, Sheriff James Knight said in a statement.

   Dwight Jefferson, an emergency responder with Pinetops Rescue Squad who was first on the scene, said he did not know the cause of the child’s death... Read More

2 Girls Found Dead in a Ditch Along Rural Oklahoma Road

 

FoxNews.com                            

        Oklahoma police are searching for a motive in the double slayings of two young girls found dead Sunday night in a ditch along a rural road.

The girls, friends aged 13 and 11, were discovered by a relative after they failed to return from an afternoon walk on the county road south of Interstate 40 in Okfuskee County near Weleetka, Okla.

The deaths of the girls, whose names have not been released by the medical examiner, were labeled "double homicide" by investigators, according to News9.com in Oklahoma City.

The Oklahoman identified the elder girl as Taylor Placker and said the girls were found clothed in T-shirts and shorts with multiple gunshot wounds. Taylor's father discovered the bodies.

KOCO-TV identified the 11-year-old as Skyla Whitaker.

Okfuskee County Sheriff Jack Choate told the paper that they have a suspect in the case, but no motive.

"They were little girls," Choate told the paper. "What possible motive could there be? You have to wonder, did they see something they were not supposed to? Were they at the wrong place at the wrong time?"  Read More

Coroner Seeks Identities of Killer's Victims

AOL News

     By MONICA RHOR,

AP

Posted: 2008-06-09 13:22:36

Filed Under: Crime News, Nation News

HOUSTON (June 8) - One after another, as a steamy summer evening faded from dusk to darkness, the bodies of young boys were pulled from the dirt floor of boat stall No. 11.

By night's end on Aug. 8, 1973, eight corpses had been recovered from makeshift graves. The next day, nine more were discovered inside the corrugated metal shed in southwest Houston.

     Another 10 bodies were found on remote High Island beach, 80 miles east of Houston, and in a wooded area near Lake Sam Rayburn in East Texas.

Twenty-seven dead. Some as young as 13, none older than 21. All victims of one killer, Dean Corll, and his two teenage accomplices, Elmer Wayne Henley and David Owen Brooks.

The term serial killer had not yet been coined, so this unfolding horror was simply called the Houston Mass Murders - at the time, the worst in U.S. history... Read More

College Students Using Prescription Drugs Without A Prescription Are Prone To Drug Abuse

Medical News Today
Article Date: 08 Mar 2008 - 0:00 PST

    

A recent article published in journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine reports that compared to college students taking prescription drugs for medical reasons, those who use medications without a prescription are more likely to abuse drugs.

Motivation for the study comes from recent research that shows an increase in prescription rates of medications - such as stimulants, opioids, and benzodiazepines - that are likely to be abused in the United States. Author Sean Esteban McCabe, Ph.D., M.S.W. (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) adds, "These increases are likely the result of many factors, including improved awareness regarding the signs and symptoms of several disorders, increased duration of treatment, availability of new medications and increased marketing. The increases in prescription rates have raised public health concerns because of the abuse potential of these medications and high prevalence rates of non-medical use, abuse and dependence, especially among young adults 18 to 24 years of age." More