Tag: crime

Police Search Democrat County Official’s Home in Connection with Las Vegas-Review Journal Reporter’s Murder

Law enforcement on Wednesday served search warrants in connection with the murder of Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative reporter Jeff German.

Police officers on Wednesday were spotted at the home of Robert Telles, a county official that Jeff German had been reporting on recently.

Telles, a Democrat, lost his re-election bid in June’s primary after Jeff German exposed the hostile work environment in the Democrat official’s office.

Jeff German had also recently filed a public records request on emails and text messages between Telles and others in his office, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

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Man Behind US Navy’s Largest Corruption Case Hires a U-Haul, Cuts Ankle Tag, and Flees

His unassailable charm was said to have penetrated the U.S. Navy better than the Soviets ever could, as he gained unprecedented access to classified military information through a massive bribery network. Now, Leonard Glenn Francis has pulled off yet another daring feat, successfully escaping house arrest just weeks before he’s set to be sentenced for masterminding the Navy’s largest-ever corruption scandal. 

Widely known as “Fat Leonard” for his 350-pound, 6-foot-three stature, Malaysian businessman Francis cut his GPS monitoring ankle bracelet off on Sunday and fled his San Diego home, where he’s been under house arrest since 2018. 

Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Omar Castillo told reporters on Monday that police arrived at Francis’ home concerned about his health after being notified of a problem with his bracelet, only to find nobody home.

“As of now, multiple leads are being investigated,” Castillo said, adding that Francis’ neighbors had seen U-Haul moving trucks at his house in the days before his escape. None notified police of his brazen and slow-paced escape, though it’s not clear whether they knew who resided at the property.

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Body Found in Tennessee Confirmed as Missing Heiress Eliza Fletcher

Memphis police confirmed Tuesday that they found the remains of teacher Eliza “Liza” Fletcher, who was reportedly abducted last week

The police department wrote on Twitter that “the deceased victim that was located yesterday in the 1600 block of Victor [street] has been identified as 34-year-old Eliza Fletcher, a teacher who was also the heiress to the Orgill Inc. hardware fortune.

The development comes after Cleotha Abston, a 38-year-old male, was charged in connection to Fletcher’s kidnapping and with tampering with evidence. His DNA was found on a pair of sandals near her disappearance, police said.

Authorities wrote Tuesday that Abston now faces additional charges, including first-degree murder and first-degree murder in perpetration of kidnapping. Previously he was charged with aggravated kidnapping and evidence.

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Prominent Investigative Reporter Who Spearheaded Coverage of 2017 Las Vegas Massacre Found Dead Outside His Home

Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative reporter Jeff German was found stabbed to death outside of his home over the weekend and his killer remains at large.

Newsroom colleagues mourned his passing.

“The Review-Journal family is devastated to lose Jeff,” Executive Editor Glenn Cook said, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “He was the gold standard of the news business. It’s hard to imagine what Las Vegas would be like today without his many years of shining a bright light on dark places.”

German was noted for a wide range of investigative reports about crime in Las Vegas, and also took a lead role in the Review-Journal’s coverage of the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting.

Police said they were devoting maximum resources to find a suspect in the German slaying.

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‘It makes me sick’: Neighbors’ shock after body is discovered in search for billionaire heiress near home of suspect’s brother ahead of his court appearance today – as medical examiner leaves scene after six hours

Heartbroken neighbours have described their horror after a body was found in the search for missing Eliza Fletcher ahead of her suspected kidnappers court appearance in Memphis, Tennessee, today.

Police have yet to confirm the identity of the body, which was found seven miles from where the billionaire heiress, 34, was last seen.

She vanished while out for a jog around 4.30am on Friday, sparking a four-day long hunt for the mother-of-two.

The area where the body was found is just a hundred yards from the Longview Gardens apartment complex – where 38-year-old kidnapping suspect Cleotha Abston’s brother, Mario, lives.

Just prior to the announcement of the discovery of human remains, a large Memphis Police Department mobile command unit truck was moved into area. Reporters who were covering the search were also asked to move further back from the scene. 

A van believed to belong to the medical examiners unit left the scene six hours after the remains were found, and is thought to have been transporting the body. 

Photos from the scene showed a police helicopter circling above the search. Horrified neighbors gathered around the crime scene as the gruesome discovery was made. 

‘It’s emotional, it really hurts,’ April Jackson, 30, told DailyMail.com at 7.30pm, with the body yet to be removed.

‘That could have been anybody out jogging that morning, a student, anyone. And he was just released two years ago for another abduction and he gets out and does it again,’ she said. 

‘It makes me sick.’ She was out yesterday offering to aid the search, when police and a bloodhound were out in the area, within a couple hundred yards of the body. 

In the criminal complaint against Cleotha, witnesses were quoted as saying they saw the suspect at his brother’s home behaving strangely and washing the carpet of this 2013 GMC Terrain. 

The violent felon, accused of snatching billionaire heiress Eliza, had stalked the area she went missing from while jogging for almost 30 minutes before her abduction.

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Memphis jogger abducted on street, bundled into SUV is billionaire heiress

The Tennessee teacher who had been kidnapped while jogging early Friday morning is actually the heiress to a billion-dollar company.

Eliza Fletcher, 34, is the granddaughter to hardware magnate Joseph “Joe” Orgill III, whose wholesale family business, Orgill Inc., is described as “the world’s largest independent hardlines distributor with annual sales of $3 billion,” according to the company’s website. Fletcher’s family is now offering a $50,000 cash prize for information that leads to her rescue, according to the Daily Mail.

“We look forward to Eliza’s safe return and hope that this award will help police capture those who committed this crime,” Fletcher’s family said in a statement.

Orgill Inc. is a privately owned business and employs over 5,500 people. Fletcher is married to Richard “Richie” Fletcher III and a mother to their two children, according to the outlet.

In response to Fletcher’s kidnapping, her husband had “reportedly lawyered up,” according to reporter Melanie Moon.

Fletcher was last seen in a pair of purple jogging shorts and a pink top at around 4:20 a.m. on Friday morning before she was pushed into an SUV by an “unknown individual,” Memphis police said in a press release. She is approximately 5’6″ and 137 pounds with brown hair and green eyes, according to the release.

The suspect in this kidnapping is a man in a dark-colored vehicle and was traveling westbound on Central Avenue, according to police.

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A Former Member of the JFK QAnon Cult Tried to Kidnap Her Own Children

When Samantha Ricks was kicked out of the JFK-QAnon cult led by Michael Protzman at the beginning of December, she was already in a downward spiral. 

A couple of weeks later, Ricks was accused of substance abuse by the woman who had taken her family in. Then, child protective services said she had exposed her children to “inappropriate sexual behavior.” Three days before Christmas, Oklahoma Child Protective Services knocked on her door and took her 6-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son into foster care. 

Ricks then raged online about how child protective services was secretly trafficking children. She accused everyone, including those who tried to help her, of collaborating to take her children away from her, beliefs founded in QAnon conspiracies about global child sex trafficking rings that are reinforced by extremist groups who have made it their mission to prey on vulnerable parents.

After months of spreading misinformation, lashing out at everyone around her, and even fundraising, Ricks took matters into her own hands. 

What happened next was the culmination of her extremist views and desperate outlook: On August 8, Ricks tried to kidnap her own children. 

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Cops finally reopen ‘suicide’ case of 27-year-old Philadelphia teacher found by fiancé in her apartment with 20 stab wounds – including ten to the BACK of her head

Investigators are reviewing evidence from the crime scene of a 27-year-old teacher from Philadelphia they say may have been staged to appear as a suicide nearly a decade ago.

Ellen Greenberg was found in her kitchen apartment with 20 stab wounds on January 26, 2011, by her fiancé Sam Goldberg.

Her death was initially ruled as a homicide before Medical Examiner Marlon Osbourne changed it to suicide.

Greenberg had 10 stab wounds to the neck and back of the head, with an additional 10 to her stomach, abdomen, and chest. A knife was still plunged into her heart.

The case has since been handed to the Chester District Attorney’s Office for re-review as evidence suggests the crime scene was staged based on the position her body was found and the angle of dry blood across her face.

‘In all my years of experience, and all of the homicides that I’ve done, and suicides, I’ve never seen anything like this,’ forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht told Fox News Digital as he claimed suicide is ‘highly unlikely.’

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Top Staffer for Major Anti-Abortion Group Arrested for Soliciting a Minor

A man who worked as a political director for Texas Right to Life, the premier anti-abortion group in the state, has been arrested for the online solicitation of a minor. 

Lucas “Luke” Bowen, 33, was charged with the second-degree felony on August 3. A minor, under that statute, refers to anyone who’s younger than 17 or who the arrested person believes to be younger than 17.

Bowen allegedly “knowingly” solicited a minor online “with the intent” of engaging “in sexual contact or sexual intercourse or deviate sexual intercourse,” according to a complaint filed by Montgomery County prosecutors obtained by The Courier of Montgomery County.

The news of Bowen’s charge was previously reported by Jessica Valenti, an independent feminist journalist.

Texas Right to Life is one of the most powerful anti-abortion groups in a state known for setting the anti-abortion agenda for the rest of the nation. As part of his work for the organization, Bowen had appeared on stage representing Texas Right to Life at a 2020 Texas Youth Summit panel, spoke to Politico in 2018, and served as its campaign treasurer, according to a Texas campaign finance report filed last month.

Now, it appears that Bowen’s name has been removed from some pages on Texas Right to Life’s website and other pages mentioning him have been removed entirely (Valenti also reported on this). In one press release from February 2020, a quote attributed to Bowen as of September last year now appears without his name but still has the quote, a cached version of the page obtained from the Internet Archive showed. The quote originally read: 

Texas Right to Life has never endorsed Kay Granger, including for this cycle,” Luke Bowen, Political Director of Texas Right to Life, said. “Republican Chris Putnam is the only Pro-Life candidate in the race. We proudly endorsed Putnam after our interview in December, and are excited for the people of Congressional District 12 to finally have Pro-Life representation in Washington.

Another press release, claiming a Texas Right to Life employee named Kim Schwartz “saved” a woman from getting an abortion, mentioned that Bowen stayed behind with Schwartz to ensure she “wasn’t left alone in the office.” That release is now erased from the website. 

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