All Blog Posts from Crimesider

TEXARKANA, Arkansas - Evangelist Tony Alamo has been convicted of being a pervert pastor and taking underage girls across state lines for sex.

Now the evangelist will spend the rest of his life behind bars after being sentenced Friday to 175 years in prison for for molesting children that he took as "brides" in his ministry.

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WASHINGTON - The last time self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's alleged influence was felt in New York City, two jetliners smashed into the Twin Towers, nearly 3000 died, and a nation came to a standstill of mourning and shock.

Anger followed, as did two wars in far off lands.

Now Mohammed is coming back to the city he allegedly attacked to face a federal civilian jury. He will be tried in a courthouse just blocks from where the towers once stood.

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LOS ANGELES - It is safe to say that when Tom Sparks signed up to be a contestant on the game show "Wipeout" he had no idea what would follow his participation in the ABC primetime show.

The former radio disc jockey was hospitalized after competing in the first segment of an obstacle course Oct. 19, and ultimately died two weeks later of a stroke apparently caused by a rare condition, according to his father.

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LEHIGH ACRES, Fla. - A religious Christian in Florida tried to send Fort Hood massacre suspect Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan a bouquet of flowers and a note that calls him a "hero," but the man got a knock on his door from the FBI instead, according to a Florida television station.

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NEW YORK - Phillip Garrido, the alleged kidnapper of Jaycee Lee Dugard, apologized "to every human being for what has taken place," in a letter to NBC affiliate KCRA in Sacramento, Calif.

Garrido and his wife Nancy have been charged with kidnapping 11-year-old Dugard in 1991 and holding her hostage for 18 years. Phillip Garrido also allegedly raped Dugard, father two daughters with his victim.

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NEW YORK - Want to create your very own "balloon boy" hoax? There's an app for that!

Developer Mosa Motion Graphics LLC announced last month that they have developed a new iPhone application called "Balloon Boys" that is inspired by the televised plight of Colorado couple Richard and Mayumi Heene, who are accused of pulling a spectacular hoax by reporting their son was aboard a runaway balloon.

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LOS ANGELES - Extortion suspect Edis Kayalar was charged Thursday with trying to shake down $100,000 from former supermodel Cindy Crawford and her entrepreneur husband Rande Gerber, over a picture of their daughter bound to a chair and gagged, police said.

The 26-year-old German man has not yet been arrested. He was recently deported to Germany and is believed to be in Stuttgart, authorities said.

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CLEVELAND - "It's like it got worse," said a neighbor of suspected serial killer Anthony Sowell. "It smells bad in the air, like death."

The stench around the sex offender's home returned stronger than ever Wednesday as police searched the house next door for more bodies and carried out bags of evidence.

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CHICAGO - How do college journalism students become prosecution targets in a murder case? Here's how.

Anthony McKinney is serving a life sentence in Illinois for the 1978 murder of a security guard. Journalism students at Northwestern University are making a case that McKinney is an innocent man. And now prosecutors are claiming the student-journalists paid off two witnesses in their quest for a new trial or exoneration for McKinney.

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WASHINGTON - Whether or not it was a cry for help or a warning of violence to come, the presentation Fort Hood shooting suspect Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan made to medical colleagues a year-and-a half ago was not what it was supposed to be.


In June 2007, Hasan warned colleagues at the Walter Reed Medical Center that the U.S. military should let Muslim soldiers be released as conscientious objectors instead of fighting in wars against other Muslims, in order to "decrease adverse events," according to a report Tuesday in The Washington Post.

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