Testimony: Woman killed grandfather after catching him peeping on her girlfriend

4-29-2014 Pennsylvania:

Woman allegedly stabbed her grandfather after catching him peeping on her girlfriend.

Chene A. Mejias said she caught her grandfather "pleasuring himself" last month while peeping on her girlfriend in the bathroom of their south Allentown apartment and stabbed him to death, an Allentown detective testified Tuesday.

Mejias, 21, said she continued stabbing her grandfather, 65-year-old Wilson A. Mejias, until he wasn't moving anymore, purposely aiming for his neck because "she knew he would die," Allentown Detective Stephen Milkovits testified. Mejias fled to New York, where she turned herself in to police the next day, police said.

Milkovits was the only witness to testify during Tuesday's preliminary hearing and District Judge Donna Butler found enough evidence existed to send a homicide charge against Mejias to Lehigh County Court.

Mejias told Milkovits she had been walking her dog and returned home around 1 a.m. March 10 when she caught her grandfather standing outside the bathroom "pleasuring himself" while her girlfriend Tiffany Benitez was inside, the detective said.

Okemos man tells judge he killed his father because he was 'enraged' about alleged sexual abuse

5-7-2014 Michigan:

LANSING — Greg Basolo said he shot and killed his father last year because he was “enraged” about other family members sexual abusing him as a child.

At a hearing Wednesday in Ingham County Circuit Court, Basolo pleaded guilty but mentally ill to second-degree murder in the shooting death of his 79-year-old father, Peter. The incident happened Oct. 25, 2013 at the Okemos condominium they shared.

Prosecutors said Basolo’s claims are baseless, and no one has ever been charged with sexually abusing him. Basolo, a former member of the Meridian Township’s assessing board of review, is 50. The alleged abuse would have happened more than 40 years ago.

“We dispute his allegation that he was sexually abused as a child,” Assistant Prosecutor John Dewane said in an interview.

A family spokesman said the family denies Basolo’s claims of sexual abuse.

Cops: Eastpoint man bludgeons to death sexual predator

5-13-2014 Florida:

APALACHICOLA - 46-year-old Eastpoint man has been charged in the beating death Saturday night of a notorious sexual predator who attracted nationwide attention in 2011 when he fled the county after being released from state prison to fend for himself in the woods.

Bobby J. Bullock, Jr., 46, Eastpoint, was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon after he turned himself in to the sheriff’s office following the confrontation with Norman Bill Williams, 59, which took place sometime before 8:30 p.m. on 23 Washington Street.

Capt. Chester Creamer said second degree murder charges are pending because Dr. Lisa M. Flannagan, with the medical examiner’s office, has requested the opinion of a second pathologist regarding the blunt trauma wounds to the neck that felled Williams.

Creamer said several people, many of whom were intoxicated, witnessed the violent incident but are reluctant to come forward to police. “Few people want to talk about it,” he said.

Widow of sex offender killed in Maine State Prison awarded $100,000

5-8-2014 Maine:

As part of the settlement, Janet Weinstein, whose husband, Sheldon Weinstein, was beaten to death in 2009, agreed to drop a lawsuit against the Department of Corrections.

The widow of a convicted sex offender who was killed inside the Maine State Prison five years ago was paid $100,000 by the state to settle a wrongful death claim.

Janet Weinstein, whose husband, Sheldon Weinstein, was beaten to death by other inmates in April 2009, had filed a notice of intent to sue shortly after his death. In it, she claimed that “policymakers within the Maine Department of Corrections were deliberately indifferent to a culture of inmate violence in which jailhouse justice was meted out to inmates like Mr. Weinstein,” and initially asked for at least $1 million in damages.

The settlement agreement, however, now releases the state and its medical provider, Corizon Inc., from any liability in Weinstein’s death.

Beach Park man sentenced to 35 years for murder, torture

See Also: Cops: Guilty conscience led to confession in mistaken ID murder

5-15-2014 Illinois:

A Beach Park man will spend 35 years in prison after assisting in the torture and murder of a 27-year-old Waukegan man wrongly accused of sexual assault.

Eric Castillo, 26, of the 38000 block of North Sheridan Road, was found guilty by a jury in February of holding down David Campbell while other people suffocated him with plastic bags and burned him with a blow torch on July 5, 2011.

Castillo must serve 100 percent of the sentence and is not eligible for parole.

Authorities said the five -- including Castillo -- were looking for revenge when they lured Campbell to the Waukegan auto-body shop on Dugdale Street through a fake drug deal.

After Campbell entered the shop's office, Castillo grabbed Campbell and held him while a second assailant hit him in the head with a hammer, authorities said.

The five assailants interrogated, tortured, and eventually killed Campbell in the garage, before dumping his body in the Penny Road Pond in unincorporated Cook County near Barrington, authorities said.

Son Charged With Dismembering Dad Claims Sex Abuse

5-8-2014 Maine:

A Maine man charged with killing and dismembering his father was ordered Thursday to undergo a mental health evaluation at a court appearance that ended with him declaring himself "the Lord, Father of life" and asking the gathered media to follow him on Twitter.

Leroy Smith III, 24, told an investigator he recorded at least some of the crime and posted it on YouTube and Twitter, but removed the postings and deleted the video from his camera and computer, according to court records.

A police affidavit said Smith told an officer he killed his father by stabbing him in the neck then used three knives to chop up his body.

"Leroy Smith III stated that he filleted him and buried him in the woods because his dad sexually assaulted him his whole life," an investigator wrote.

Registered sex offender lives at home where burned body found

5-8-2014 Texas:

The investigation into the death of a man found in a burning storage building behind a home on County Road 495 continued today as detectives try to determine how he died.

Smith County Sheriff Larry Smith said he had not received official word as to the man's identity, but the Tyler Morning Telegraph has learned the person listed at the residence is a 36-year-old registered sex offender, whom authorities have not been able to locate since the fire. The address is 11710 County Road 495.

Smith said Tuesday that his agency had talked to the wife of the person his detectives believed was the victim, and she was in another state but returning home to cooperate in the investigation.

According to records with the Texas Department of Public Safety's Sex Offender Registry, the person shown living at the house is Ryan Thomas Wells, who was convicted in 2007 in Collin County of a sex offense.

Records indicate Wells was convicted on a third-degree felony of online solicitation of a minor with intent to have sexual contact.

The fire was called in Monday night just before midnight and firefighters fighting the fire located a man's body under the debris. An investigator who had been inside the home said there were signs of a struggle and wads of human hair were on the floor in several locations.

Smith said Tuesday that it was unclear if the death was a homicide or suicide. ..Source.. by Kenneth Dean

Police fatally shoot man accused of trying to rape, rob woman

5-7-2014 Florida:

SOUTH DAYTONA, Fla. — Police said they shot and killed a man who was allegedly trying to rob and rape a woman inside a Volusia County tanning salon Tuesday night.

Police said officers from both the South Daytona and Daytona Beach police departments responded to a holdup alarm at Hot Tans on Beville Road near Nova Road.

Investigators said 27-year-old Cheyne Pinkney locked himself and a Hot Tans employee inside the salon Tuesday.

Officers said they believe he tried to rape and rob her.

"(I) kind of looked out and saw these cop cars coming. And they just kept coming. There was like 50 of them," said witness Janelle Lugo.

According to police, the woman was able to set off the alarm the brought officers to the business.