All Blog Posts from Crimesider

TAMPA, Fla. - The way Kathleen Heide tells it, a prison movie she watched on TV as a kid back home in New Jersey started it all.

The 1950 film "Caged" was about a naive 19-year-old woman who becomes hardened after going to prison for a robbery. Heide figures it was about 9 when she saw it on TV in the early 1960s and found herself thinking for the first time about "why people got in trouble." It's a theme she would end up exploring for much of her life.

Read full post…

NEW YORK - "Courage" may not be a stone cold killer living on death row, but he was slated for execution anyway -- that is, until President Barack Obama gave this lucky bird a second chance.

After 10 months in office, Obama granted his first pardon — to Courage, a turkey spared the Thanksgiving table.

Read full post…

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - A team of about 20 people continues to investigate the rape and slaying of Shaniya Davis, a 5-year-old girl who was allegedly sold into sexual slavery by her mother before she was murdered.

"There are a plethora of leads that we're following up on," said Chief Tom Bergamine of the Fayetteville police department, which is leading the probe.

Read full post…

NEW YORK (CBS) - Three members of the elite Navy SEALs, who were hailed as heroes for capturing one of Iraq's most wanted terrorists, are now being court martialed for roughing him up, according to Fox News.

The detainee claims he was punched during the operation and suffered a bloody lip, reports Fox, who said the complaint was made by Ahmed Hashim Abedm, the alleged mastermind of the gruesome 2004 murder and mutilation of four American contractors in Fallujah. The four worked in the security division of Blackwater USA. The bodies of two were hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River.

Read full post…

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - Bradley Lockhart, the father of Shaniya Davis, the North Carolina girl who was kidnapped, raped, and murdered in early November, said he made the best decision he could at the time when he let the girl live with her mother, who has since been charged with prostituting her own daughter.

Lockhart said during a Tuesday interview on NBC's "Today" show that he regrets how the decision turned out, but thought he was making the right choice for the daughter he had raised himself.

Read full post…

DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla. - Six weeks after a group of Florida teens doused 15-year-old Michael Brewer in rubbing alcohol and lit him on fire, burning over 65 percent of his body, one of the teens initially accused is speaking out and he claims he was "best friends" with the victim.

"I'm Jeremy Jarvis; I want to read something I wrote last night," the 13-year-old said Tuesday during a press conference.

"I want to express my deepest sympathy for Mikey and his family," he said. "I will pray for Mikey to grow stronger every day and have a speedy recovery."

Read full post…

NEW YORK - Alyssa Bustamante, the teenager who allegedly killed Missouri 9-year-old Elizabeth Olten, grew up in a turbulent household, say friends, and may not be the only Bustamante disposed to violence. Records show her father is a convicted felon.

Police say Alyssa Bustamante strangled, stabbed and cut her next door neighbor Elizabeth Olten's throat in October, then, two days later, led police to the wooded grave where she allegedly buried her.

Read full post…

PITTSBURGH - Getting a $50,000 payment after flipping the bird at a police officer?

That may sound out of hand, but if a tentative settlement approved by the Pittsburgh City Council stands, that is how much David Hackbart stands to gain after filing a free speech lawsuit against the city.

Hackbart says that he was attempting to parallel park in April 2006 when he used his middle finger "to express his frustration" at a driver who pulled behind him and blocked his entry into the space.

Read full post…

FRANKFORT, Kentucky - It looked like a viscious anti-government murder. U.S. census worker Bill Sparkman was found naked, bound with duct tape, hanging from a tree with "fed" scrawled on his chest in rural Kentucky.

But authorities said Tuesday that Sparkman's death was not the work of an anti-government anarchist, it was his own. He staged his death to make it look like a homicide, they say.

Read full post…

MADISON, Wis. - Kevin Derks turned his Wisconsin apartment into a pornographic shrine to young girls, police say, where every surface of the residence, including cupboard doors and shelves, was covered with posters, photos and computer printouts of girls in various poses, states of undress or engaged in sex acts.

No expense was spared.

His pin-up interests included the Olsen twins, Miley Cyrus, Dakota Fanning, and even kidnap victim Elizabeth Smart, investigators said Monday.

Read full post…