All Blog Posts from Crimesider

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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PERUGIA, Italy - The murder charges against Amanda Knox are "pure fantasy" according to the American student, who addressed an Italian court over the weekend.

Knox, along with two others, is accused in the fatal stabbing of her British roommate Meredith Kercher.

Italian prosecutors, in their closing arguments, said Knox and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, should be convicted on charges of murder and sexual violence for the 2007 slaying.

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BOSTON - Convicted killer Michelle Kosilek has hairy legs and wants you to pay for the electrolysis treatments needed to make them as smooth as a baby's behind.

Born as Robert Kosilek, Michelle Kosilek has been waiting for years for a judge in Boston to rule on a request for a taxpayer-funded sex-change operation in order to complete the prisoner's transformation into a woman.

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NEW YORK - They call him Friar Nip-and-Tuck.

And now a New York pastor has been ordered to serve five years probation for dipping into his church's coffers to pay for his for plastic surgery bills.

But boy does his face look great!

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PARIS - Daul Kim, a top model who graced Fashion Week runways from New York to Milan, has been found hanged in her Paris apartment, a police official said Friday.

The 20-year-old South Korean stunner was known for her thick mane of hair - sometimes dyed blond - and her quirky sensibility.

The 5-foot-10 model has strutted the runway for the likes of Louis Vuitton, Alexander McQueen, and Dolce & Gabbana.

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PERUGIA, Italy - Minutes before her death, British student Meredith Kercher was fighting with her American roommate Amanda Knox, according to Rudy Hermann Guede, the man already convicted of killing her.

There was a loud scream and Kercher ended up dead, the Ivory Coast native said at the opening of his appeal in a Perugia, Italy court.

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