Tuesday, July 3, 2012

From Missing To Murdered Photo Gallery

Aliahna Lemmon
Aliahna Lemmon, 9, went missing Friday on December 23, 2011. She and her sisters had been staying with neighbor/family friend Mike Plumadore, 39, while her mother, Tarah Souders, 28, recovered from the flu. Souder told police that Aliahna, who was hard of hearing and had Attention Deficit Disorder, needed supervision that her husband, who worked nights and slept during the day, was unable to provide. Plumadore, who had watched the children before, was the one who called to report Aliahna as missing. Police were concerned because there were 15 registered sex offenders living in the area where the girl had disappeared. On Monday, sadly, police found Aliahna's body and arrested Plumadore, whom they had already interviewed several times. He allegedly confessed to beating her to death with a brick, and then dismembering her body. He stored her head, hands and feet in his freezer, and dumped the rest of her remains in garbage bags. Though Plumadore has a police record in Florida, it does not include sex offenses. No motive has been established for the murder.

Marina Sabatier
On September 9, 2009, Marina Sabatier (pictured), 8, was reported missing by her father, Eric Sabatier, 37, and his wife, Virginie Darras, 30 of Le Mans, France. The couple claimed that Marina had been abducted from their car while they were buying food at a McDonald's. Marina suffered from mild Down Syndrome, and her kidnapping made headlines capturing public attention. On September 11, though, police found the girl's body at her father's workplace in a cement-filled container. The couple was then arrested and quickly confessed to authorities that they had beaten Marina "because she was greedy and asking for food." They left her in the basement overnight and found her dead in the morning. They hid her body in a freezer for 6 weeks before dumping the body in the trunk in which it was found. The couple said they concocted the abduction story because Marina would have been missed at school. Marina was apparently abused often and was underfed. Her family moved about once a year to avoid scrutiny, but even so, teachers from two of Marina's schools reported her covered with bruises. The parents said she fell and the investigations were scrapped. If convicted, Sabatier and Darras could face life imprisonment.

Jon "Cecil" Anthony Frazier
Little Cecil (pictured right) was reported missing from his family's home near Custer, Wash., at 8:30 a.m. on August 28, 2009, by his grandmother. She was not at the scene, but said that her son Jon Lorenzo Frazier called her that morning saying that the 2-month-old was not in the trailer and that the door to the residence was open. The day he went missing, Cecil's mother, Brooke K. Johnson, 26, had been jailed after a robbery conviction, leaving the infant in the care of his father, who admitted he had been drinking that night. The initial search for the boy involved law enforcement from as far as Canada. Two days later, Cecil's body was found in a field about a mile from his home. The autopsy revealed that his femur - the strongest bone in an infant's body - had been broken and there were multiple skull fractures. When questioned, Jon Frazier claimed he had tripped and fallen on a table while carrying his son outside the home. At one point, he told investigators that he had fallen asleep on the baby and smothered him, but got lost on his way to the hospital, panicked and left the body near the home of his wife's ex boyfriend who he hoped to implicate. But prosecutors say Frazier's account is not consistent with the condition of the body. They believe that Frazier swung the baby around by the leg, hitting his head against a fixed object. Frazier's bail is set at $1 million. If convicted he could face life in prison.

Hasanni Campbell
Hasanni Campbell (pictured), 5, disappeared on August 10, 2009 after his foster father, Louis Ross, said he briefly left the boy, who had cerebral palsy and wore leg braces, outside his car in the parking lot of the upscale Oakland shoe store where he works. Hasanni and his sister had been living with Jennifer Campbell, their aunt and Ross, her fiancé. On August 24, a vigil was held for Hasanni in the parking lot from which he had disappeared. On August 28, the police ruled Hasanni's disappearance to be a homicide and arrested both Ross and Campbell. The two were released, though, on September 1 after the Alameda County District Attorney's Office decided there was insufficient evidence to press charges. Police have not said why the case became a homicide nor do they have a body, but they believe Ross is lying: that Hassani never made it to Oakland and that he disappeared from public view as early as the August 6. They believe he is dead and ask the public to continue in their efforts to find the boy. Public response in this case has been remarkable and the search continues. Campbell and Ross continue to maintain their innocence.

Robert Manwill
Robert Manwill (center) went missing on Friday, July 24, 2009, from Boise, Idaho. According to his mother, Melissa Scott Jenkins (right), he had asked to go to a party at a friend's house and had been disappointed when she had kept him home. She said she had instead let him play outside, and he had disappeared sometime between 7:00 and 9:00 p.m. She reported him missing at about 9:30 p.m. Jenkins said she believed Robert might have tried to go to his friend's party by himself despite her decision to keep him at home.
Boise police, eager to find the boy, quickly filed for an Amber Alert, but were denied because the situation did not fit the criteria. They interviewed over 100 known sex-offenders and organized a manhunt including over 2,300 searchers, Boise's largest search on record, scouring the area for fear that the boy had fallen into nearby the canal.
On Monday, August 3, Robert's body was found 14 miles from his home in the New York Canal. Soon after, police announced that preliminary results of Robert's autopsy indicated that his death was not accidental and that they did not believe he had been abducted by a stranger. On the night of August 18, 2009, Jenkins and her boyfriend Daniel Ehrlick (left) were arrested and charged with first degree murder in the death of Robert Manwill. The grand jury indictment accused Ehrlick of willfully and premeditatedly beating the boy to death while Jenkins did nothing to stop him and concealed evidence. If convicted they could face the death penalty.

Daisja Weaver
On June 10, 2009, 9-month-old Daisja Weaver (center) was reported missing from Dallas, Texas. The abduction was reported by her mother, Tamaira Creagh (right), who told police that while she was in her North Dallas apartment preparing to move to a new apartment, an Hispanic male, dressed in red and black, entered her apartment and attempted to sexually assault her. Though she managed to fight the man off, he grabbed her infant daughter, Daisja - car seat and all, jumped from a second-story balcony, and disappeared. Police were not able to issue an Amber Alert for about 12 hours because Creagh, 19, could not give a definitive description of her assailant. Another problem was that the parents gave conflicting stories.
By June 13, Creagh had recanted her initial story, now saying that the baby's father, Alandus Weaver (left), had picked her up from work on June 8 without the baby. When they arrived home, she said, she found the dead child wrapped up in a towel on the floor with bruises on her eyes, cheeks, stomach and back. Weaver, who had been violent with Creagh on other occasions, became so again when she attempted to call police and bullied her into "sticking together." She was six months pregnant at the time and, she said, was afraid of Weaver. The next day they tied a sandbag to the baby's body and dumped it in Lewisville Lake. After both parents were arrested on June 13, weaver confessed to accidentally drowning Daisja in the kitchen sink. Both parents were arrested at that time for tampering with evidence.
On June 18, police called off the search, and Creagh was released on $25,000 bail. Weaver, whose bail was set at $100,000, remained in prison and has since been indicted on capital murder charges.

Deuntay Miller
In 2007 Detroit police were investigating Nickella "Nikki" Reid (left) and Joseph Miller (right) on child abuse charges after their 1-year-old son Nicholas Miller had been brought to the hospital with second and third-degree burns over 35% of his body. During the investigation, police realized that one of the children for whom Reid was receiving welfare benefits, Deuntay, was missing. When asked, Reid told investigators that he was "Chicago or down South" with family. When they insisted she produce Deuntay, Reid got her mother, Dorothia Lippet, 51, to provide another child to present to the welfare officials. Welfare officials, though, were not fooled and threatened to remove all the children from the house. At that point Reid told them that Deuntay had died of natural causes two years before, and they had tried cremating him on the barbecue to avoid funeral costs. When that failed, she said, they had hidden the remains in the house until child services had begun asking questions about Nicholas' injuries. At that point, she said, Miller took Deuntay's remains to his sister's house under the pretense of doing laundry and hid them in her basement ceiling. Officers from the Violent Crimes Task Force retrieved the remains from the stunned sister's house. Examination of the skeletal remains showed signs of malnutrition and healed breaks in both legs.
Nickella Reid, 23, pleaded guilty in Wayne County Circuit Court to involuntary manslaughter and welfare fraud in connection with the death of her son, Deuntay Miller. She was sentenced to 10-15 years in prison. Joseph Miller, 28, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for Deuntay's death and was sentenced to 22-50 years in prison.

Ja' Shawn Powell
Although 22-year-old Danny Platt of New Orleans had visiting rights to his son, Danny, he had never used them. But now he owed over $4,000 in child support for his son Danny. On January 2, 2009, when he picked up his two-and-a-half-year-old from the home of Daniella Powell, the boy's mother, for a visit Platt seemed fine, according to Powell. Ja 'Shawn (pictured above), she said, was happy to see his father, "He went to the door and said, 'Daddy,' when he came to pick him up."
Several house after they left, however, Powell received a phone call from Platt saying that Ja'Shawn had been kidnapped. Platt hung up on her too quickly, though; so, in disbelief she called him back. She said Platt then gave a differing account of the abduction, but told her he had called police. Powell then called police and found out that Platt had not in fact reported the incident. Platt next spun an elaborate tale for authorities saying son was kidnapped by three men with dreadlocks and AK-47 rifles who had piled out of an SUV and kidnapped Ja' Shawn shortly before midnight. Finally, though, he confessed to killing the boy, saying that he "would kill either his wife or his child before he paid child support." Platt has been charged with murder, but the legal case is pending.

Victoria Couchman
19-year-old Victoria's father, Tony Couchman of St. Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, England, was taking care of her young daughter Rachel, 3, and making updates to her webpage and Bebo account which made it seem as if she were alive and well. When asked, her father told friends and neighbors that Victoria (pictured with daughter) had left to get her life straightened out. October 19, 2008, however, children playing in nearby Redgeland Wood discovered a human skull. Since then, 90 percent of the remains have been recovered and identified positively as those of Victoria. It seems she had been dead about 10 months, but Victoria had never been reported missing by her family.
One hint that the remains were Victoria's was that the leg bone had healed from a full break and was pinned just as hers had been after she had broken it in a car accident in 2005. The accident, about which she and her father still fought, claimed the life of her brother Dean, 17. Tony Couchman never got over his son's death and openly blamed Victoria for his death in the accident even though she was not the driver.
Tony Couchman, 45, was arrested on Saturday October 18, 2009 on suspicion of murdering Vicky but released on police bail the following Monday. Though investigators have not released a cause of death, they believe that Victoria's was killed in 2008 between May 15 and 18. Her father was re-arrested in February of 2009 and is now awaiting trial in her murder.

Caylee Anthony
On July 15, 2008, Casey Anthony (right), 22, told her mother, Cindy, that her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee (left), had been missing for a month. Cindy Anthony immediately called 911. She explained to the shocked operator that Casey had left a month ago, stealing her car and money. Now that she had found Casey, she was trying to locate Caylee. An hour later she called 911 again. This time she sounded panicked. "There's something wrong," she told the dispatcher. "I found my daughter's car today. It smells like there's been a dead body in the damn car." Caylee's body would not be found until December 11, 2008. But police would already have made an arrest in the case: Casey Anthony, whose story turned out to be a complete fabrication. According to Casey, Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez had been Caylee's babysitter for nearly two years; and after dropping Caylee off with Fernandez-Gonzalez on June 9, Casey had gone to her office at Universal Studios, where she worked as an event planner. When she returned to Zenaida's apartment around 5:00 p.m. no one was home. She said she called Zenaida's cell phone, but the number was out of service. The simplest preliminary detective work quickly showed that Casey had seemingly pulled the name Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez out of a hat, and that Casey didn't work at Universal studios, nor did anyone who could have corroborated her story. As far as detectives could tell, Casey had told no one of her daughter's disappearance and no one had seen Caylee since at least June 15. Casey Anthony was arrested on July 16 for the murder of her daughter.

Sierra Marie Doxey
On March 4, 2008, police emergency teams responded to a call reporting a medical emergency involving 13-month-old Sierra Doxey (center), who was not breathing. The child was pronounced dead at the hospital; autopsy results revealed that she had died of a morphine overdose. No one in the family had a prescription for morphine, though. Initially the parents, Nicholas Doxey (left) and Sara Nigro (right), cooperated with investigators claiming that they believed she had died of pneumonia. Once it became clear that they were the focus of the investigation and that morphine had been detected, they retained attorneys. Pathologists determined that the couple's timeline of Sierra's symptoms was inconsistent with the body's state: Sierra must have collapsed much earlier than the parents claimed. Lockport Police Chief of Detectives Captain Richard Podgers said, "The child's death occurred much earlier than the parents had said, and that put them in direct conflict with statements about checking the baby, feeding the baby." He added that there was enough morphine in her system to kill an adult and doubted that little Sierra was able to ingest that much on her own. Doxey and Nigro are each charged with two counts of criminally negligent homicide for allowing the child access to the drug and for not obtaining prompt medical attention. The couple faces 1 1/3 to 4 years in prison if convicted.

Harmony Jade Creech
On October 19, 2007, Harmony Creech's grandmother reported her missing from the family home. She had gone to pick up Harmony's father, Ronald Earl Creech II, from the airport upon his return from a 15-month deployment in Iraq and bring him home to see Harmony (left). Harmony's mother, Johni Michelle Heuser (right), had stayed behind. On entering the child's room, Mr. Creech found the window open and the baby gone. Heuser said she had last seen the baby at 11:00 that morning. Neither she nor the three other children living in the house had heard anything strange. Initially police issued an Amber Alert. A later search by police discovered the infant's body in the family's attic wrapped in a plastic bag and stuffed into a diaper box. She had been there for several weeks. Neighbors later recounted a smell of decomposition over the end of the summer that had been so bad that they searched their own yards for a dead animal. Harmony's body was so decomposed that authorities were never able to determine a cause of death. Hauser told them that she had found the child dead weeks ago, panicked and tried to cover up the death. On September 24, 2009, Hauser was indicted of first degree murder in the death of Harmony Jade Creech.

Nyia Miangel Page
According to her parents, 23-month-old Niya Page (left) was last seen at 12:30 a.m. on the morning of February 3, 2007, in their Braddock, Penn., home, when her father, William Lorenzo Page (right), put her to bed. The family awakened to find her gone and immediately called police, who quickly issued an Amber Alert, and organized an intensive search of the area fearing the girl would die in the freezing temperatures. By the next evening searchers had found her frozen body in an abandoned, overgrown playground. Though there were tiny footprints in the snow, investigators determined that barefoot Niya, who was wearing only a diaper and a sweater, could not have gotten there by herself. A blanket found nearby was from her home and may have been used to wrap her. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner's office concluded that she had died of exposure. During the search investigators discovered that her father had severely beaten a young boy in the home with a belt and sexually abused him. Mr. Page was arrested on charges of simple and indecent assault of a child, endangering the welfare of children and corruption of minors. Later he confessed to Allegheny County Detective Robert Opferman, who testified that Page had told him he had awoken around 3 a.m. and gone to the basement to have a brandy. Page confessed that Niya came downstairs without her diaper and he became so frustrated that he kicked her between the legs. He tried to stop the bleeding, wrapped her in a blanket and took her outside where he left her. Page has been charged and his non-jury trial has been continued to October 13, 2009.

Jason Midyette
On February 24, 2006, Molly Midyette (right) called her pediatrician, saying her 10-month-old, Jason (center), was "out of sorts." Three hours later, the doctor examined Jason and insisted on admitting him immediately to a nearby emergency room. On seeing Jason's condition Elaine Rottinghaus, the emergency room nurse, called 911 to report the incident as one of the worst child abuse cases she'd ever seen. When Molly arrived at the hospital with her husband Alex Midyette (left), the son of a prominent Boulder, Colo., businessman, they had already retained a lawyer, who met them at the hospital, and both refused to talk to police. Jason was removed from life support on March 3, 2006, and died. The autopsy revealed that Jason's brain had been bleeding and that he had 37 fractures to his skull and body in various stages of healing. Coroner Tom Faure ruled that the baby had died of "blunt force craniocerebreal injuries." In 2007 a grand jury indicted both parents in Jason's death. Molly insisted she was unaware of any abuse, but on December 12, 2007, she was sentenced to 16 years in prison for criminal neglect in failing to seek help for her injured child. She asked for a new trial saying she had been bullied by her husband and his family, but her request was denied. Alex Midyette, who admitted to accidentally hitting his boy's head on a chair and table, was convicted on February 17, 2009, of criminally negligent child abuse resulting in death.

William Cunningham
William Cunningham (pictured) thought he could turn tragedy into a pile of money, but first he needed a tragedy. The hapless victims of his get-rich-quick scheme were his children, 18-month-old Miranda and 3-year-old Billy. Not once, but on three separate occasions he laced their soup with prescription drugs and lighter fluid, nearly killing them both. The kids became suspicious of their father's cooking and by the third time Cunningham had to force it down their throats. They became ill and had to be hospitalized. Cunningham then contacted the Campbell Soup Company and threatened to sue them. Both children survived, but swallowing lighter fluid scarred their lungs so they may have lifelong breathing problems. On May 21, 2009, Cunningham was sentenced to 100 years in prison. His now-ex-wife hopes they feed him lighter fluid every day.

Aaroné Thompson
On November 14, 2005, Aaron Thompson (right) of Aurora, Colo., reported his daughter Aaroné (center) missing, saying the 6-year-old had run away after an argument and hadn't come back. Police conducted an intensive search for child, but called off the search after only days because, among other things, they could find no DNA traces of her in the home. What they found suggested she had not been in the home for at least 18 months. Thompson and his live-in girlfriend Shelley Lowe (left) had eight other children living with them, whom authorities removed from the home. Initially, the children told investigators that Aaroné had been in their home the morning she was reported missing. Later, they said they were coached and admitted they had not seen Aaroné for years; one child had never seen her. Before Lowe, 33, died of a heart attack on May 12, 2006, she confessed to at least two people that Aaroné had died suddenly and that Thompson had buried her in a field to avoid questions about the scars on the girl's back that might lead to the loss of the other children. Much of the testimony against Thompson came from the children, who described regular and extreme episodes of abuse called "whoopins" which included punishment with belts, extension cords, fists and baseball bats. Aaroné suffered more than her share of abuse and was frequently locked in the hall closet for extended periods of time and beaten when she urinated there. One night before she vanished, one of the other children heard her screams coming from the basement, where the most severe punishments occurred. Finally they stopped, and the house was silent. Aaron Thompson was arrested four days after Lowe's death and indicted on May 17, 2006. On September 8, 2009, a jury found him guilty of the murder of Aaroné. Her body has never been found.

Kynande Bennett
On September 29, 2002, Vertasha McCullough-White (left) walked into a Whiteville, S.C., K-Mart, walked around the entranceway for a couple of minutes and then asked a clerk, "Did you see my daughter? Did you see my daughter?" She then called police to report that she had lost her daughter and told them that she was just making a run to the store while her brakes were being worked on, which seemed odd to police since she couldn't have driven to the store while having her vehicle repaired. Authorities didn't find any leads in Whiteville, so they turned their attention to the family's apartment in Conway, S.C., which McCullough-White and Kynande's father, Eddie Kevin Bennett Jr. (right), had vacated after reporting Kynande (center) missing. They found the 4-year-old's belongings in a trashcan behind the apartment. The apartment itself had been cleaned with large amounts of bleach; even so, police found transfer stains, which are left when bodily fluid spatters are wiped, and linked the stains to Kynande by DNA. This, combined with her grandmother's belief that the child was abused, formed the basis of the case against Kynande's parents. Though police never found her body, they maintained that Kynande's mother had been abusing her and accidentally killed her. They arrested both parents, believing that both had been involved, though Bennett was later released for lack of evidence. McCullough-White, who had failed a polygraph test, was convicted in February 2006 of homicide by child abuse, unlawful neglect of a child and inflicting great bodily harm on a child. As of this writing, Kynande's body has still not been found.

Susan Smith
At 8:00 p.m. on October 25, 1994, Susan Smith (right) put her sons, 3-year-old Michael Daniel Smith (left) and 14-month-old Alexander Tyler Smith (center), in the car and went for a drive. Later a hysterical Smith knocked on the door of Shirley and Rick McCloud, claiming that her car had been carjacked by "a black man" with her two sons inside while she had been stopped at a red light on Monarch Mills Road. The man, she said, made her drive for a while and then told her to leave, saying he wouldn't hurt the crying children.
For nine days she persisted in her story. Police suspected her from the start, however, because Smith claimed that she had not seen any other cars at the intersection when she had stopped at the red light. Police, though, knew that particular light would only have turned red if there had been a vehicle on the intersecting road. Ultimately detectives confronted Smith with the discrepancies in her story, and she confessed to a murderous deception. Her boyfriend had dumped her and sent her a letter in which he had written: "Susan, I could really fall for you. You have some endearing qualities about you, and I think that you are a terrific person. But like I have told you before, there are some things about you that aren't suited for me, and yes, I am speaking about your children." She claimed that she had wanted to die that night. Instead, she drove to a ramp on John D. Long Lake, got out, put the car in drive, released the brake and watched her car plunge into the lake and slowly sink with her sleeping children inside. On July 27, 1995, Smith was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison.

Source : http://www.trutv.com

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...