All Blog Posts from Crimesider

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - Alyssa Bustamante pleaded not guilty Tuesday to killing her 9-year-old neighbor, Elizabeth Olten, who police say was slain because the teen wanted to know what it felt like to kill someone.

The 15-year-old Missouri girl sat silently as an attorney entered a not guilty plea on her behalf to first-degree murder and armed criminal action in Olten's Oct. 21 death.

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TACOMA, Wash. - A procession of 2,000 cars followed the flag-draped caskets of four slain police officers to a memorial service Tuesday as thousands of mourners, mostly members of law enforcement from across the country, lined the streets.

They came to honor Sgt. Mark Renninger and Officers Ronald Owens, Tina Griswold, and Greg Richards, who were gunned down in a Seattle-area coffee shop at the end of November.

Lori Lightfoot and Sheila Chandler, police detectives from Fresno, Calif., were among officers who traveled from as far away as New York, Chicago and Canada.

The pair said the deaths of the four Lakewood officers brought back memories of four Oakland police officers killed during a traffic stop and a shootout in March.

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ROLLING HILLS ESTATES, Calif. - Jeffrey Tidus, a well-known Los Angeles attorney with a long list of high profile clients including a defunct subprime lender and Isuzo Motors, died Tuesday after he was shot in the head outside his California home.

Tidus was shot Monday around 8:30 p.m. as he was getting a laptop from his car.

His wife heard a single gunshot ring out and rushed outside to find him lying in the driveway behind his blue Toyota Prius, sheriff's homicide Lt. Dave Dolson said.

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YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - Jamie Serich and Colin Hart were two Ohio high school seniors, found shot to death as they lay next to each other in a local cemetery.

But was this tragedy a murder or a suicide-pact?

That is what police are trying to figure out in the small city of Boardman, Ohio, just outside of Youngstown.

Serich, 17, and Hart, 18, were both students at Cardinal Mooney High School, whose football team just won the Ohio Division III championship Friday - its seventh state title.

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JUPITER, Fla. - Paul Merhige, the man police believe shot and killed four members of his extended family on Thanksgiving day and has since been on the run, was seen on surviellance video inside a gun shop a day before the killings.

Police say Merhige murdered his aunt, two twin sisters, one of whom was pregnant, and a 6-year-old girl, at a Jupiter, Fla. Home, after a family meal on Thanksgiving day.

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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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NEW YORK - Paul Cortez, who in 2007 was convicted of murdering dancer Catherine Woods in her upper East Side apartment, wants his conviction reversed and is requesting a new trial because of "inept" representation, according to an appeal which notes that his lawyers didn't show up until the fourth day of his trial.

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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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NEW YORK - As a child of thirteen, Sanford Clark was sent from his home in Canada to live with his uncle, Gordon Stewart Northcott, on a chicken ranch in Wineville, California. It was there that Sanford discovered that his uncle was evil and a rapist and murderer.

Written by acclaimed crime writer Anthony Flacco, with Jerry Clark, Sanford Clark’s son, providing a primary resource, The Road Out of Hell reveals the untold story of the Wineville murders that are featured in the Clint Eastwood and Angelina Jolie film, Changeling.

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