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Man Accused Of Taking Gingerbread Men

Police Say Man Sold Decorations To Get Money For Drugs

Monday, November 23, 2009

October 7, 2009 11:22 AM

Last Updated November 23, 2009 7 09AM On CBS Early Show

Colton Harris-Moore: “Catch Me If You Can” Teen Eludes Detectives

Ryan Smith

(AP PHOTO)Photo: Colton Harris-Moore in July 2009 self-portrait provided by the Island County Sheriff’s Office.

EASTSOUND, Wash. (CBS/AP) It is a scene straight out of the movie "Catch Me If You Can."

In the darkness of this sleepy island town, the beam of a deputy's flashlight caught the back of a lanky teenager wanted in a notorious 18-month burglary spree.

The teen glanced over his shoulder, and then vanished into the woods. "He virtually vaporized in front of me," deputy Jeff Patterson recalled.

Such encounters have become all too common on the bucolic islands north of Seattle as police hunt for an elusive thief whose crime spree is quickly becoming a local legend. Colton Harris-Moore is suspected in about 50 burglary cases since he slipped away from a halfway house in April 2008.

Now, authorities say, he may have moved on to a more dangerous hobby: stealing airplanes.

The saga continues, as Harris-Moore keeps finding new ways to embarrass police by slipping through their grasp.

The 18-year-old typically breaks into businesses or unoccupied vacation homes, lies down on the couch and then dashes into the woods if confronted. He earned himself the nickname of "the barefoot burglar" by committing some of his crimes without wearing shoes.

But authorities say the case has taken on a dangerous new dimension now that Harris-Moore is apparently joyriding in small aircraft.

(AP PHOTO)Photo: Pat Gardiner, Oct. 5, 2009, in his empty airplane hanger in Bonners Ferry, Idaho. Gardiner's Cesna T182T, shown in the photo he is holding, was stolen by Colton Harris-Moore.

He is suspected of taking three planes from rural airports and crash-landing them. There were bare footprints inside and outside some hangars that had been broken into. In one, police said, footprints were on the wall, indicating that the suspect put his feet up, apparently while eating.

His mother said she doesn't see anything wrong with what he's suspected of doing.

"I hope to hell he stole those airplanes, I would be so proud," Pam Kohler told a reporter, noting her son's lack of training. "But put in there that I want him to wear a parachute next time."

Over the weekend, someone took blankets, shoes and food from a home near the site where a stolen Cessna crash-landed north of Seattle on an apparent path toward Harris-Moore's hometown on Camano Island. SWAT teams were called out after a shot was fired from the woods, but whoever was responsible got away.

The teen may be motivated by a strong interest in aviation, but police say he does not discriminate in his choice of stolen vehicle: A boat stolen from the island was found last month on the mainland.

Police believe Harris-Moore also recently took thousands of dollars from safes and ATMs at businesses in the Orcas Island hamlet of Eastsound.

The teen has exploited the fact that the police do not have the manpower to mount an all-out hunt in a property crime case. Sheriff's offices on some of the islands do not even have tracking dogs.

Frustrated residents wonder how hard it is to find a 6-foot-5, 200-pound teenager in the confines of an island, while red-faced cops bristle at what they see as attempts to romanticize the fugitive.

A Harris-Moore fan club has emerged on Facebook, and a Seattle man started selling T-shirts bearing his picture and the words "Momma Tried."

Island County Sheriff Mark Brown, whose office has dealt with Harris-Moore at least since he was 11, said he recently blew up at a "Today" show producer who wanted to ask him about the made-for-Hollywood aspect of the story.

"He is an adult felon!" Brown said. "I will not have him made into some kind of folk hero."

(AP PHOTO)This Nov. 2007 photo provided by the Island County, Wash. Sheriff’s Office shows Colton Harris-Moore.

Harris-Moore grew up in the woods of Camano, a piece of land shaped like a backwards question mark in Puget Sound, 30 miles north of Seattle. A long gravel drive lined with thick vegetation and "no trespassing" signs leads to the property. His home is a tarp-covered, single-wide trailer surrounded by tall cedar trees and decommissioned pickup trucks.

The teenager's mother recently greeted a reporter and photographer by promising to chase them off the property with a shotgun. Then she granted a lengthy interview.

Listen To Audio Interview With Mother of Colton Harris-Moore

http://www.mynorthwest.com/resources/audio_headlines/audio_player.php?a=11042&f=/kiro/2009/10/10062009120809.mp3

She said her son's father left when he was about 2, his stepfather died when he was about 7, and from the time Harris-Moore was in first grade, she knew there was something off about him — "sort of a disconnection."

He wouldn't listen to his teachers, started altercations at school and sometimes deliberately broke things around the house, Kohler said. And sheriff's deputies sometimes accused him of stealing things even when he hadn't, she added, such as a $300 bicycle she said she bought him for his birthday one year.

"Every time he had anything any good, everyone thought he stole it," she said. "What does that do to a kid?"

Harris-Moore had his first conviction, for possession of stolen property, by age 12. Within a few months of turning 13, he had three more. Each brought a 10-day stint in detention or community service.

An Island County sheriff's deputy on Camano once caught him by posing as a pizza delivery guy after noticing a multitude of empty pizza boxes at a campsite he used. Another time, deputies saw him jump out of a stolen Mercedes. They later found his self-portrait on a stolen digital camera, posing in a black, collared shirt with a Mercedes logo.

In 2007, he was sentenced to nearly four years in juvenile detention after being caught in an unoccupied home when a neighbor noticed the lights on. But he did well enough at the detention center that he was transferred to a halfway house, where he sneaked out an open window.

He's been playing cat-and-mouse with authorities ever since. His mother said she has reason to believe he linked up with a small group of other people who have safe-houses protected by high-tech surveillance systems, but she said she doesn't know anything else about them.

"We haven't caught him, but neither has anybody else," said San Juan County Sheriff's Sgt. Steve Vierthaler. "You always get caught eventually."

Kohler hopes her son makes his way to a country that won't extradite him. She said she sometimes talks to him on the phone, but she won't let on if she knows where he is.

"I figure I'll spend my time with him in a positive way," she said, "because who knows if he'll be shot tomorrow?"

This picture provided on Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009 by the Cole County Sheriff's Department shows Alyssa Bustamante. 

Juvenile Justice

What do you do with a teenage girl who stabs and cuts the throat of a 9-year-old?

We're not sure, says Missouri's juvenile justice system according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The case involves Jefferson City’s Alyssa Bustamante, 15, who’s in jail awaiting trial for allegedly murdering her neighbor, Elizabeth Kay Olten, 9, on Oct. 21.

It was ruled on Wednesday that Bustamante will be tried as an adult and that the prosecutor will be seeking life in prison without parole.

Missouri's justice system is trying to determine whether to send Bustamante to youth services for mental health rehabilitation or to adult prison where her attorney thinks she will be unable to survive.

But an added complication was introduced Wednesday when it was revealed that the state's juvenile justice system does not have a secure place for a teen girl accused of a violent crime.

“This is real different for all of us,” says Bill Heberle, deputy director of the Division of Youth Services. He says that the state does have a secure facility with fences and locked gates, but only for boys.

"We simply don't receive that many young girls that are committed to us for a heinous crime," Heberle responded. "Our girls tend to be more violent toward themselves."

It turns out Bustamante fits into this category as well. She was placed in a mental hospital two years ago after a suicide attempt in which she cut herself with her fingernails. Court testimony has revealed she tried to kill herself a second time after her arrest. She is allegedly still battling depression, despite having been through therapy and taking Prozac.

However, Bustamante's Internet personality appears to project violence outward rather than at herself.

She used her recently disabled YouTube page to talk about her hobbies - "killing people" and "cutting." One video shows her touching an electric fence just to see what it feels like.

An investigator testified that Bustamante dug two graves and killed her 9-year-old neighbor for the same reason.

 "She wanted to know what it felt like," said Missouri Highway Patrol Sgt. David Rice.

If Bustamante is convicted of first-degree murder, that does not mean she will not end up with youth services.

Missouri is one of 22 states with a "dual jurisdiction" system. That means a judge could decide to keep her in the juvenile system until she turns 21. At that point, another hearing would decide if Bustamante would be released or sent to adult prison.

Heberle said the Division of Youth Services would make appropriate changes if Bustamante ends up in their care.

"If it's the wishes of the court to commit this girl to us, we would make whatever modifications necessary," he says. "It's a very difficult and stressful case. If I could have magically said in court that I had a 10-bed secure facility for girls, I still don't know whether he would have committed her to us."

Bustamante is not the only one in her family behind bars, her father is also in jail in Missouri on an assault conviction. 

Her next court date is Dec. 7.

Nathalie Blanchard loses benefits over Facebook beach photos

Nathalie Blanchard lost Manulife benefits when she posted this and other photos of herself on Facebook.

Faking sick usually means avoiding public places. These days that includes the Internet.

Mass. woman seeks funds for turkey's eye surgery

Boston Globe

November 23, 2009

REHOBOTH, Mass.—A Massachusetts woman is seeking donations from fellow pet lovers to help pay for eye surgery for her turkey named Jerry. Lyndsey Medeiros and her husband adopted three-year-old Jerry and another turkey from a Rhode Island farm last week. But Jerry has cataracts, and the eye problems mean he can't eat independently or join his female companion, Penelope, in flying.

Medeiros has posted an ad on Craigslist seeking donations for the surgery. She said the procedure could cost up to $2,600. Her farm in Rehoboth, Mass., cares for other animals with health problems.

Published November 17, 2009 07:46 pm - Two guards at the State Correctional Institution at Mercer thought they caught something criminal in a long kiss between an inmate and visitor. They had to wait three days, but they got their evidence in the end.

UPDATE: Woman accused of slipping inmate drugs in her kiss


Matt Snyder
Herald Staff Writer

MERCER COUNTY — Two guards at the State Correctional Institution at Mercer thought they caught something criminal in a long kiss between an inmate and visitor. They had to wait three days, but they got their evidence in the end.

On Oct. 19, the guards spotted inmate Otis McKinzie sharing a long kiss with Michele Dionne Jordan, 41, of 633 Darr Ave., Farrell, state police said. Afterward, McKinzie appeared to tilt his head back and swallow something.

They asked McKinzie if he swallowed something, but since the inmate wouldn’t say, McKinzie was put in a “dry cell” and so his feces could be checked, police said.

The evidence passed Oct. 22, when authorities at the prison in Findley Township found a balloon filled with marijuana in McKinzie’s feces, police said. McKinzie admitted he obtained the balloon from Ms. Jordan when she kissed him during their visit.

Later the same day, police said, McKinzie denied knowing anything about the marijuana until he felt something enter his mouth during the kiss. He said they were “nickel bags” of marijuana.

Police said they found about 6.6 grams of marijuana in balloons while sorting through McKinzie’s bodily waste.

The next day, Ms. Jordan initially denied knowing about the marijuana, but later admitted that she passed it to him. She said she hid it in her bra, went to the restroom to transfer the balloons to her mouth, and kissed McKinzie to pass the drugs.

She said a girl from Pittsburgh had given her the marijuana to move along to McKinzie.

Ms. Jordan had charges of contraband and possession of a small amount of marijuana and drug paraphernalia held to court this week by District Judge Lorinda L. Hinch, Mercer.

Pricing an Afghanistan troop buildup is no simple calculation

The White House estimate is twice the Pentagon's. Some see politics at play.

Christi Parsons and Julian E. Barnes

 Chicago Tribune

November 23, 2009

Woman Denied Credit, Told She's Dead

A Seattle, Wash., woman trying to refinance her mortgage got the shock of her life when she learned her credit report listed her as deceased. The news came after she had ...

http://www.wbaltv.com/video/21692628/

Nov 22, 2009 11:00 am US/Eastern

Pa. Couple Arrested For Failing To Pay Tip

College Students, Among Group Of 8, Refuse To Leave Gratuity Due To Poor Service At Lehigh Pub; Business Has Mandatory 'Service Fee' For Large Parties

BETHLEHEM, Pa. (CBS)

 

A pair of college students were arrested for failing to leave a tip at a Pennsylvania restaurant.

Two Pennsylvania college students were arrested after staff at a restaurant where they dined called police about the couple's refusal to leave a mandatory tip.

Leslie Pope and John Wagner were dining with about six other people at Lehigh Pub in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in October when the incident occurred.

The pair insists service was so horrible that the last thing on their mind was leaving any kind of tip.

They claim they had to wait at least an hour for their order, fetch their own silverware and beg the barkeep for drink refills.

"Gratuity is thanking you for your service," Pope, 22, told the The Express-Times online newspaper. "You can't give us terrible, terrible service and expect a tip."

The business reportedly charges a required 18 percent gratuity fee for parties of a certain size.

But Pope told The Express-Times that they were being told to pay $16.35 in addition to their $73.87 bill -- pointing out that the calculated service charge was much higher than 18 percent.

It was unclear why Pope and Wagner were the only ones of the group cited for theft of service. They pleaded not guilty to the charge and are awaiting their trial date.

The Express-Times say management for Lehigh Pub refused to comment on the story.

Doctor's diagnosis of patient: You're unemployed and fat

"When I got home, I was very upset about the way I was treated by him," the patient wrote in a private complaint to the board. Efforts to contact the patient were not successful.

Sunderhaus, who describes himself as a plain-spoken old German, escalated the conflict by later writing the patient to drive home his points using numbered paragraphs and signing it "sincerely." Then, he fired off opinionated missives to the board, which called him to Raleigh on Thursday for a closed-door meeting.

Sunderhaus' point — that doctors need to advise patients to lose weight, because obesity is not just a personal issue, it's a $147 billion public health crisis — may have gotten lost in the delivery.

The board, which licenses and disciplines doctors, has not decided whether to charge Sunderhaus over the patient's complaint. The worst that could happen is he'd lose his license.

Most problems arising from an insensitive comment are handled with a quiet tut-tut by the board — perhaps a recommendation that the practitioner take a refresher course in effective doctor-patient communication, said Jean Fisher Brinkley, the board’s spokeswoman.

Usually, doctors appreciate the confidentiality.

Sunderhaus, by contrast, stormed the beaches in defending his honor.

He wrote North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue, referring the patient's "irresponsible orgasm" that resulted in children whose medical care is provided by Medicaid.

He fired off numerous letters to the medical board, noting that its rules make him nauseous and, among other things, that "the biggest hoax on mankind" is the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Sunderhaus notified McClatchy that he was about to be "screwed" by the medical board, admitting he told the patient that thick eyeglasses would not cause her to go blind, "but her thick thighs and diabetes would."

"I poked her thigh to emphasize that diabetes is the leading cause of blindness," he said Thursday. "People have got to accept criticism without getting their bowels in an uproar."

Sunderhaus, a trim man who appeared before the board wearing cargo pants and sporting a backpack, makes no apologies for his actions. He blew off a psychiatric test the board arranged and flouted protocol by talking about his case, which the board likes to keep secret.

At the end of a conversation with this reporter, Sunderhaus offered $20 for her efforts. She returned it, but not before he tucked it in her sweater.

After 30 years of practice, Sunderhaus said, he is prepared to take whatever discipline the board issues, even the loss of his license.

Cops: Man Hits Girlfriend With Frozen Turkey

 BOSTON -- A Dorchester man was arrested Saturday for assault and battery with a deadly weapon after he hit his girlfriend with a frozen turkey, The Boston Herald reported.

The victim said her boyfriend, Mark Woodward, accused her of talking with her mother on the phone for too long. Woodward then took the turkey out of the freezer and threw it at her, hitting her in the hip, police said.

The victim told police she had received the frozen turkey and other holiday groceries from her church.

Woodward denied the charges, but a frozen turkey was found on the porch of his home, with apparent damage to the packaging, police said. 

The victim was treated at Boston Medical Center.

Ventura County man arrested for reportedly paying teens to spit on him

LA Times

November 20, 2009 |  8:52 am

A 39-year-old Thousand Oaks man has been arrested for reportedly paying teens to spit in his face, slap him and yell profanities at him, a spokesman for the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department said today.

Charles Hersel, who was arrested on child annoyance charges and released on his own recognizance, reportedly sought out young male Westlake High School students on the MySpace social networking website, said Capt. Frank O’Hanlon.

“It didn’t take long for word to spread among local teens that they could get paid to spit in a man’s face,” O’Hanlon said.

Teens also reported that Hersel asked them to urinate and defecate on him. He was arrested Wednesday after an undercover sting operation at the Westlake Promenade mall, where he paid a teen $31 to spit in his face.

-- Seema Mehta

Police accuse bank robbery suspect of gobbling up note (with dashcam video)

Gina Mace
Special to the Beacon Journal

06:58 p.m. EST, Nov 20, 2009

Police believe they have their man.

But they fear their suspect in a bank robbery may have eaten some of the evidence — the note handed to a Streetsboro bank teller demanding cash — while he was handcuffed and leaning over the hood of a police cruiser.

Twinsburg police Patrolman Daniel Biada said a dash cam video of Thursday's arrest of John H. Ford, 35, of Cleveland, shows Ford gobbling a piece of paper while officers searched his pockets.

"As we're searching him, officers are removing items and throwing them on the cruiser [hood],'' Biada said. ''We're searching him for weapons. We're not looking at his head.''

The whereabouts of the note demanding money came into question after Biada was taken into custody and Streetsboro investigators asked whether officers had found the piece of paper.

Twinsburg police reviewed the images captured on camera and said they observed Ford leaning over to eat something off the hood of the cruiser.

''He grabbed it in his mouth, just like Pacman,'' Biada said. ''He just ate it right there.''

Authorities said they found a .38-caliber pistol on the driver's side floor of Ford's car and a wad of cash covered in red ink on the passenger side of the vehicle.

Ford is also a suspect in bank robberies in Stow and Akron.

In the Streetsboro case, a man walked into the FirstMerit branch on state Route 14 around 10 a.m. and handed a teller a note that demanded money. The robber did not produce a gun inside of the bank.

Witnesses say he fled in a dark Ford Escort.

Twinsburg police stopped Ford, who was driving a black Ford Escort, on Interstate 480 shortly after the robbery was reported and turned him over to Streetsboro police.

LINK TO VIDEO

http://www.ohio.com/news/70663697.html

Fingerprints, camera image lead to teenage bank-robbery suspect

01:00 AM EST on Saturday, November 21, 2009

Amanda Milkovits

Journal Staff Writer

WARWICK –– Perhaps he should have attended his English class.

A local 17-year-old boy skipped school on Thursday to rob a bank –– but the police said his misspelled note to the teller led to his arrest that afternoon.

Capt. Sean Collins said the teen walked into the Coastway Community Bank branch at 2089 Warwick Ave. Thursday morning and handed a note to the teller. The handwritten note, riddled with misspelled words, demanded money or “everyone will be shot,” Collins said.

The teller didn’t see a weapon, the police said, but gave the youth some money.

But the note held the youth’s fingerprints, the police said, and his image had been captured by the bank’s surveillance cameras — leading to his arrest six hours after the crime.

The boy, whose name has been withheld because he is a juvenile, was charged with first-degree robbery and is being held at the Rhode Island Training School.

10:19 a.m. Nov. 18, 2009 | Updated: 2:30 p.m. Nov. 18, 2009

Dad arraigned in son's killing; mom says she sought help for teen

Jamar Pinkney Sr. stood stoically in a Highland Park courtroom today, silent as a judge ordered him back to jail without bond, accused of shooting his 15-year-old son in the head execution-style.

With waist-long dreadlocks, the postal carrier didn't flinch as his son's great-aunt wailed and had to be led from 30th District Court.

"This is the most horrible thing that's ever happened to him," Pinkney Sr.'s lawyer, Corbett O'Meara, said after the hearing, not addressing whether Pinkney feels any remorse about Monday's shooting. Pinkney Sr.'s preliminary exam is scheduled for 9 a.m. Dec. 1 in 30th District Court in Highland Park.

"He's calm," O'Meara added. "He appears to understand what's going on."

Investigators say Pinkney was reacting with rage when he stripped his son naked, marched him outside the home of the boy's mother and executed him Monday afternoon.

Lazette Cherry, Jamar Jr.'s mother, said she wanted to get her 15-year-old son help when he came to her and said he had acted inappropriately with his 3-year-old half-sister.

There wasn’t a rape, Cherry said her son told her. But he confessed to his mother that he knew lying on top of the baby was wrong, she said.

So she called her son's father and told him what she believed happened in his home on Newport on Detroit’s east side.

“I called and told his father this isn’t something you sweep under the rug,” the devastated mother said today.

His father showed up at the house Monday afternoon with a gun, she said.

“He started beating him right here,” Cherry said from her living room. “I said, ‘No, please stop!’ ”

But the father marched Jamar Jr., a sophomore at Martin Luther King High School, outside.

“He got on his knees and begged, ‘No, Daddy! No!’ and he pulled the trigger,” she said. “There wasn’t nothing that my son wouldn’t do for his father. He loved his father so much."

The Wayne County Prosecutor's Office charged Pinkney Sr. with first-degree murder, punishable by up to life in prison. He's also been charged with three counts of felonious assault for pointing the gun at Cherry and two other people at her home before the shooting.

"No individual has the right to exact the death penalty on another no matter how reprehensible the behavior -- that is why we have laws," Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said today in a statement announcing the charges.

“I hope he rots in jail,” Cherry said of the man she met while they worked at the post office. “He did not deserve that,” she said of her son.

As white teddy bears with red silk hearts bearing the words "I love you" sit on the grass next to her home where her son died, candle wrappers from a vigil held Tuesday night scattered around, Cherry still can't believe what happened.

"There's no justification for what he did, you know, downright shoot your child," she said, wondering aloud about her ex. "He didn't rape her or anything. So why did you have to come and take matters into your hands? We said we were going to get him help."

A fund has been set up to help the family with burial expenses for Jamar Jr. Donations can be made at the Charter One Bank branch in Highland Park

Lazette Cherry, 36, holds her 1-year-old son, Quran Stewart, and a photo of her 15-year-old son Jamar Pinkney Jr. who police say was shot in the head execution-style by his father in a Highland Park field on Monday after confessing to molesting his 3-year-old half-sister. (TAMMY STABLES BATTAGLIA/DFP)

Jamar Pinkney Sr. appears before Chief Judge Brigette R. Officer in 30th District Court in Highland Park today (PATRICIA BECK/Staff Photographer

Lazette Cherry talks this morning. (TAMMY STABLES BATTAGLIA/Detroit Free Press)