All Blog Posts from Crimesider

WASHINGTON - Days after American Amanda Knox was sentenced to 26 years in an Italian prison for murdering her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says she'll meet with anyone who has concerns about the case.

Knox, of Seattle, and her ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were found guilty Dec. 4 of murdering Kercher in what the prosecution has called a sex game gone wrong. All three were college students in Perugia, Italy, when the 2007 slaying occurred.

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PERUGIA, Italy - American college student Amanda Knox was found guilty of murdering her British roommate and sentenced to 26 years in prison early Saturday after a year-long trial that gripped Italy and drew intense media attention.

Her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito was also convicted and sentenced to 25 years.

They were also convicted of sexual assault in the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old student from England.

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PERUGIA, Italy - An Italian jury has reached a verdict in the trial of American Amanda Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, who are standing trial for the murder of Knox' British roommate Meredith Kercher.

The court is expected to announce the verdict at 6 p.m. EST, from the eight members of the jury, including two judges, who were sequestered in a room in the Perugia courthouse.

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SALT LAKE CITY - Abducted from her bedroom at knifepoint when she was just 14, Elizabeth Smart was whisked away from her family to a campsite in the mountains above her Salt Lake City home in 2002.

While the whole world searched and prayed, Smart endured nine months of brutal rape and torture.

Now, seven years after it began, Wanda Barzee, one of the two defendants charged in the case, has pleaded guilty and begged forgiveness.

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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Will a Little Rock jury deliver a death sentence to the killer of Arkansas news anchor Anne Pressly?

The jury convicted Curtis Lavelle Vance of murder, rape and other charges on Wednesday. It is now weighing whether to impose the death penalty on Vance, who police say admitted to beating the KATV anchorwoman with a wood-handled garden tool.

The attack shattered Pressly's face and sent her into a coma. She never regained consciousness and died five days after the Oct. 20, 2008 attack.

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MIAMI - A computer hacker accused of masterminding one of the largest cases of identity theft in U.S. history agreed Friday to plead guilty and serve up to 25 years in federal prison for his crimes.

Albert Gonzalez of Miami was charged with conspiracy, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft charges in federal courts in New York and Boston. Court documents filed in federal court in Boston indicate the 28-year-old Gonzalez agreed to plead guilty to 19 counts and combine the two cases in federal court in Massachusetts.

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LOS ANGELES - Will Chris Brown soon be picking up your trash or will he be given celebrity treatment during his six months of community labor?

A judge on Tuesday sentenced Chris Brown, 20, to five years' probation and six months' community labor for the beating of Rihanna and ordered the R&B singer to stay away from his former girlfriend for the next five years.

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WASHINGTON - A judge found a District of Columbia woman guilty Wednesday of killing her four daughters.

Thirty-four-year-old Banita Jacks was convicted of four counts of felony murder, three counts of premeditated first-degree murder and four counts of first degree child cruelty. She was acquitted of one count of premeditated first-degree murder.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Frederick H. Weisberg decided the case himself after Jacks waived her right to a jury trial.

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WASHINGTON - A Washington woman accused of killing her four daughters created a "prison of torture" in her own home, and long planned how she would carry out the murders and get away with it, prosecutors said Monday.

The decomposing bodies of Banita Jacks’ four girls were found by U.S. Marshals serving an eviction in her southeast D.C. home in January 2008. The girls are believed to have been ages 5 to 16 when they died.

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LONDON - A judge acquitted Amy Winehouse on Friday of assaulting a fan who asked to take her picture.

District Judge Timothy Workman found the 25-year-old singer not guilty of punching dancer Sherene Flash in the eye after the fan asked to take her picture following a charity ball in September.

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