High School Student Stabbed to Death by Ex-Boyfriend & his Wife

Jacksonville, NC - A two-day search for a popular South Carolina high school student ended Saturday with the discovery of the teenager's body in a local river and the arrest of a married couple who police say killed the teen and set her car on fire.

A student spotted the body of Marisha Jeter, 16, as she took photographs near the Broad River. Jeter had been stabbed in the neck, Union County Public Safety Chief Sam White told ABC News.

Jeter, who was president of the junior class at Union County High School and was also a cheerleader, had been last seen Thursday night on her way to McDonald's. She was reported missing early Friday morning by her father, a member of the Union County School Board, after he spent the night driving around looking for her.

Jeter's family told police that Marisha had recently been in touch with Pernell Clayton Thompson, a 20-year-old from neighboring Jonesville, whom she'd been in a relationship with. Thompson had recently married and had a child with another women, Yolanda Lee Thompson, 19.

White said Public Safety officials interviewed the Thompsons individually, both of whom said that they knew nothing about her disappearance.

"He more or less said he didn't know where she was and he would help us find her," White said. "He said that they had a relationship and it went sour, but he didn't give us too much detail."

By Saturday morning, the state police had joined the investigation, and that afternoon, Jeter's body was found about 15 miles from Union at the bottom of a steep river embankment. The photographer used her camera to zoom in and then realized she was looking at a body.

Immediately, police contacted the Thompsons a second time. "We told them during questioning what we found and presented them with information," White said. "They both confessed."

Both were charged in the murder of Jeter and are being held at the Union County Detention Center. They will make their court appearances next week, White said. The pair has apparently never been in trouble with the law before.

Investigators said the fatal confrontation began when Jeter received a text message Thursday evening from Thompson to meet her at the Union YMCA to return a coat. When Jeter arrived, however, she was met by Thompson and his wife, Yolanda, who had discovered that her husband was still communicating with Jeter.

There was a struggle, White said, and Jeter was stabbed in the neck. "They put her in the trunk of her car and drove her car down to Lockhart," he continued, where the body was dumped into the river. The car was driven a few miles down the main road, doused with gasoline and set on fire.

At Union County High School, grief counselors were available and a "comfort area" had been created for Jeter's peers, who returned to school today after the holiday break.

"This is a vibrant, beautiful young lady," Joe Walker, the high school's principal, told ABC News, "with a gorgeous smile and a voice as pretty as anything you've ever heard."

Walker said the impact of the murder could be felt in the hallways this morning. "Students are stunned," he said. "We're just asking the students to be prayerful and mindful."

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Serial Killer Likely Targeted Isolated Women

Blairsville, GA - A young hiker whose body was found in northern Georgia was probably alive for three days before she died from blunt force trauma to the head, authorities said Tuesday.

She was last seen hiking with her dog on Blood Mountain in Georgia on New Year's Day. Meredith Emerson, 24, was decapitated after her death, an autopsy also found.

That's the same day suspect Gary Michael Hilton, 61, allegedly made a phone call from a pay phone at a convenience store in Cumming, Georgia, where Emerson's black leather wallet containing her identification cards was discovered in a trash bin.

The bin is next to a grocery store parking lot where Ella, Emerson's Labrador mix, was found wandering Friday, according to a criminal warrant. Hilton led investigators to her body Monday in exchange for prosecutors' agreeing to drop consideration of the death penalty against him, according to Union County District Attorney Stan Gunter. When asked whether Hilton, 61, had taken investigators to the location or merely described it, Cagle said, "Both."

Hilton will be charged with one count of malice murder and is set to appear Wednesday in court in Dawson County, Darragh said.

The medical examiner has informed Emerson's family about the details of her death.

State and federal authorities said they are also trying to determine whether Hilton may have been involved in at least three other killings in two neighboring states.
As they grieved, Emerson's family members also expressed some relief that her body was discovered.

"We are glad she's found. This brings some sort of closure for us," Peggy Bailey, Emerson's godmother and spokeswoman for the family, said, according to CNN affiliate WXIA.

Also Monday, federal, Georgia and North Carolina investigators met in nearby Cleveland, Georgia, to compare notes on the Emerson case and a similar case from a few months ago in North Carolina, according to FBI Special Agent Greg Jones.

In the North Carolina case, an elderly couple -- John and Irene Bryant -- disappeared after going for a hike in Mount Pisgah National Forest. Irene Bryant's body was found near the couple's car. John Bryant's body has not been found, but Keenan referred to the case Monday night as a "double homicide."

Investigators have a bank video of a man wearing a yellow jacket -- believed to have belonged to John Bryant -- while using the Bryants' ATM card.

Witnesses who saw Hilton on the trail with Emerson on the day she disappeared said he was wearing a yellow jacket.

Hilton is also the primary suspect in the death of Cheryl Dunlap, 46, whose body was found December 16 in Apalachicola National Forest, southwest of Tallahassee, Florida.

Investigators know Hilton was in the area at the time Dunlap disappeared -- 15 days earlier -- because he encountered a forestry agent who wrote down his vehicle's tag number and ran it through a police database, authorities said. No wants or warrants were found.

Officials: Hiker was alive for days; suspect now faces murder charge
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Man kills Mother of His Child, Gets Away With It Despite Child IDing Him

Pittsburgh, PA - The trial has been canceled for an Allegheny County man accused of killing the mother of his child because prosecutors say they don't have enough evidence to convict him.

The third trial for 49-year-old Ulysses Cager, of Mount Oliver, was to have begun Wednesday. But county prosecutors dismissed homicide and burglary charges against him in the shooting of 26-year-old Tonya Rodgers at her townhouse in the 6800 block of McKinley Court.

Two previous juries had deadlocked and Cager maintained his innocence. County Judge Anthony Mariani signed off on the request to dismiss the charges.

A young mother was shot to death Dec. 23, 2003 while her 4-year-old daughter was home. Tonya Rodgers, 26, was shot around 2:30 a.m. at her townhouse in the 6800 block of McKinley Court. Allegheny County police say the killer kicked in the back door of Rodgers' townhome and shot the woman twice in the back.

Authorities said the couple's 4-year-old daughter hid upstairs during the killing on Dec. 23, 2003. Authorities said the girl told a psychiatric worker, a relative, and a preschool teacher that "Daddy killed Mommy."

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Dad kills 4 Kids by Throwing Them Off a Bridge

Bayou La Batre, AL - A day after reporting his four young children were missing, a shrimp fisherman broke down and confessed that he threw them off an 80-foot-high bridge to their deaths, authorities said Wednesday.

Lam Luong, 37, was charged with four counts of capital murder, and divers searched the murky waters for the bodies of the youngsters, who ranged in age from a few months to 3 years.

Luong had a drug habit and had argued with his wife, Ngoc Phan, before taking the children, said Phan's brother-in-law, Kam Phengsisomboun.

Authorities said they believe Luong then drove on Monday to the two-lane Dauphin Island bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway, stopped at the highest part of the span and threw the youngsters over the side.

Luong and his wife reported the children missing Monday. He initially told police that he had given the kids to his girlfriend and that she failed to return them, investigators and family members said.

But authorities said they found holes in his account, and he later changed his story.

Missing and presumed dead were 4-month-old Danny Luong; 1-year-old Lindsey Luong; 2-year-old Hannah Luong; and 3-year-old Ryan Phan. Phan is not the man's biological child, but Luong raised him from infancy, authorities said.

. . . .

Behind his gaze, authorities say Luong is a monster. Luong got a speeding ticket. Court records say he was traveling 80 mph in a 65 mph zone. He's battled cocaine. Authorities say he's also had drug charges out of Biloxi.

Despite those activities, however, neighbors say they never would have imagined Luong doing something so sinister as murdering his four children. For example, Ruth Bryant said, "That's a sad thing to say about our neighborhood. We just didn't know."

Even those close to Luong didn't know. "I was proud of him before he used to do drugs. He got out of it. I was happy, I was like, he's a great daddy, make good money, take care of the family," said Kam Phengsisonboun, a relative of Luong's common-law wife.

When the murder charges surfaced, so did accusations of domestic violence. Family members say Luong's wife started talking, they just wish she would have done it sooner.

Commentary: The bodies of 2 of the 4 have now been found - Danny Luong, 4 months old and Ryan Phan, 3 years. The bodies of Lindsey and Hannah are still missing.

Also, while I appreciate that family members "just wish" she had spoken up about the abuse sooner, the fact that he killed 4 kids and even *her* relatives will still refer to him as "a great daddy" who "make good money, take care of the family" really offends me. If they all hadn't been so supportive of him, maybe she would have asked for help.

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Dad threw 4 tots off bridge after fight, police say
2nd body found in Ala. search for 4 kids
Lam Luong's Family Life

Softball Coach Rapes 14 Y.O. Girl on his Team

Gold Hill, OR - A 31-year-old Jackson County man has been sentenced to 30 days in jail for raping a 14-year-old girl who played on his softball team.

Eric Robert Sell pleaded guilty in October to third-degree rape -- a felony defined under Oregon law as sexual contact with a person who is too young to give consent. He also must register as a sex offender, undergo sex abuse counseling, submit to DNA and lie detector testing, and have no contact with the victim or unsupervised visits with children.

Sell met the victim while coaching the Gold Valley National Little League softball team in Gold Hill.

Sell blamed personal problems that included a drunken driving arrest in July following the death of a family member.

The victim's mother urged the court to give Sell "the strongest punishment" allowed under the law.

Softball coach sentenced for raping Oregon teen
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Man Kills, Mutilates, Cooks Ex-Girlfriend

Tyler, TX - A man killed his girlfriend, then filleted and cooked parts of her body before calling police to tell them what he was doing, authorities said Sunday.

Christopher Lee McCuin allegedly killed his girlfriend and then called police to say he was boiling her body parts.

Christopher Lee McCuin, 25, called 911 on Saturday and told an emergency dispatcher he had killed Jana Shearer, 21, and was boiling her body parts at his mother's home, said Smith County Sheriff J.B. Smith.

When authorities arrived at the home, they found Shearer's mutilated body, one ear boiling in a pot of water on the stove and a fork sticking out of some human flesh sitting on a plate on the kitchen table.

Authorities said it was unclear whether McCuin consumed any part of Shearer's body.

"We cannot prove that he did," Smith told The Associated Press. "He was either going to, had been or led us to think that he was doing it."

Authorities believe Shearer, 21, was abducted from her home Friday night and killed. Her death and mutilation was apparently the beginning of a crime spree that also included McCuin allegedly stabbing the boyfriend of his estranged wife and breaking into a business.

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Man Kills Wife, Letter She Wrote Warning of the Threat Will Be Used in Prosecution

Elkhorn, WI - A dead woman wanted authorities to investigate her spouse if anything happened to her, according to a letter read to jurors Monday during opening statements at her husband's murder trial.

Mark Jensen, 48, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Julie Jensen, who was found dead of poisoning in 1998 at her home in Pleasant Prairie.

"I pray that I am wrong and nothing happens, but I am suspicious of Mark's suspicious behaviors and fear for my early demise," Julie Jensen said in the letter read in court by Special Prosecutor Robert Jambois.

She had given the letter to a neighbor and told him to give it to police if anything happened to her.

Mark Jensen was charged with first-degree murder in 2002, but legal wrangling over evidence delayed the trial until now.

His lawyers were to make opening statements after Jambois. They claim the 40-year-old woman was depressed and disturbed and poisoned herself to frame her cheating husband.

Jambois said Mark Jensen planned the killing for months, searching the Internet for information on poisoning about two months before his wife's death. The defense has said she did the searches herself in preparation for her suicide.

Jambois said Jensen also failed to take his wife to a hospital, even though she was sick for three days before she died. "As Julie Jensen lay in her bed, desperately ill, her husband knew exactly why she was ill," he said.

Julie Jensen also told police, a neighbor and the teacher of one of her two sons that she suspected her husband was trying to kill her, according to court documents.

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Man Rapes, Murders Girlfriend and Sister, then Rapes GF's Daughter

OMAHA, NE - A man killed two women and left their bodies in the basement of a house, then beat and raped the daughter of one of the victims in the same home, authorities and a relative of the victims said.

Fabian Hands, 46, was booked on two counts of homicide and two counts of use of a weapon to commit a felony.

Officers were called to the house in north Omaha Monday night. When they arrived, a 20-year-old woman came out of a bedroom and said she had been sexually assaulted.

Police found the bodies of the woman's 36-year-old mother and 48-year-old aunt in the basement during a search of the house, authorities said. Paramedics pronounced the women dead at the scene.

The woman who reported she had been sexually assaulted was taken to a hospital.

The cousin of the assault victim told Omaha television station KMTV that Hands was the 36-year-old woman's boyfriend. The cousin said the 20-year-old told police that she was beaten and raped after Hands killed her mother and aunt.

Commentary: Notice that he was not charged with forcible rape. as though "use of a weapon to commit a felony" is somehow worse than being raped.

Police: Man killed 2 women, beat and raped a third
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