Recent Violence In The News

Body of Missing California Girl, 8, Found
By JULIANA BARBASSA, AP
posted: 4 HOURS 52 MINUTES AGOcomments: 2001filed under: Crime News, National NewsPrintShareText SizeAAA

TRACY, Calif. (April 7) - The body of a missing 8-year-old girl has been found in a suitcase dumped in an irrigation pond a few miles from her northern California home.
Sandra Cantu was found Monday after a 10-day search, authorities announced.
Authorities would not comment on their investigation, but they roped off the mobile home park where Sandra lived. They had previously searched several homes and towed several cars from the park.
No suspects had been identified. "Our heartfelt sympathies go to Sandra's family and friends," said Tracy Police Chief Janet Thiessen. "We will determine the person or persons responsible for this reprehensible act, and we will bring them to justice."
Authorities planned an autopsy to determine the cause of death.
Thiessen said Sandra was found wearing the same clothes she had on when she was last seen on March 27: a pink "Hello Kitty" T-shirt and black leggings.
Sandra's disappearance sparked a widespread search that included hundreds of volunteers and law enforcement officials, including the FBI, and drew more than 1,000 tips. Pictures of the girl with dark brown eyes and light brown hair were posted all over town, on business fronts, car windows and fire hydrants in this city of 78,000 about 60 miles east of San Francisco.
Investigators said they spoke last week to the girl's father, Daniel Cantu, who lives in Mexico and works in southern California. Authorities would not give any details of the discussion, but the father told the Tracy Press newspaper he had not seen his daughter for a year.
Police said the suitcase was found by farmworkers who were draining the irrigation pond to water fields.
Investigators cordoned off the area for hours while they searched the area for clues. The suitcase was eventually opened at the coroner's office, where Sandra's body was positively identified.
More than 100 mourners — some holding candles, others wiping away tears — gathered outside the mobile home park Monday night while police blocked the entrance.
"I am still in shock," said Brandy Robles, 27, who held her 2-year-old son. "You see this in the movies. I never thought it would be real life — real to me."

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2009-04-07 05:21:24

5 Children Slain in Trailer Park Home

Police Say Dad Killed Kids Because Wife Was Leaving Him
By PHUONG LE, AP
posted: 1 DAY 6 HOURS AGOcomments: 1178filed under: Crime News, National NewsPrintShareText SizeAAA

GRAHAM, Wash. (April 6) - Authorities and relatives portrayed a father believed to have killed his five children and then himself as a strict parent who had been reprimanded by the state and a jealous husband driven to rage by another man.
The children, aged 7 to 16, were found shot to death Saturday in the family's mobile home in Graham, 15 miles southeast of Tacoma. The father, James Harrison, was found earlier in the day, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot behind the wheel of his idling car 18 miles away in Auburn, about 30 miles south of Seattle.

A Grim Tally: In Past Month, US Mass Shootings Claimed 53 Lives

The night before, the father and his eldest daughter went in search of the wife, Angela Harrison. The daughter used a GPS feature in her mother's cell phone to find her with another man at a convenience store in Auburn, said Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the Pierce County Sheriff.
The woman told her husband she was not coming home, and was leaving him for the man with her at the store. The father and the daughter left, distraught, Troyer said. Sometime after the children went to sleep, he shot them each multiple times. Four died in their beds. The fifth was found in the mobile home's bathroom, surrounded by signs of violent struggle.
"He wanted the kids dead," Troyer said. "It wasn't like he shot a few rounds. He shot several rounds."
Investigators believe he then returned to the area near the convenience store looking for his wife. His body was found near the store, Troyer said. Investigators believe he then returned to the area near the convenience store looking for his wife. His body was found near the store, Troyer said.
"A working theory is that he probably went back up there looking for her, wasn't able to find her, realized the gravity of what he'd done and shot himself," Troyer said.
Several weapons were found in the home.
Authorities have not released the names of the family, relatives identified the couple as Angela and James Harrison and the children as Maxine, Samantha, Heather, Jamie and James.
Candy Johnson, Angela Harrison's aunt, described James Harrison as a strict, controlling husband and father who didn't allow his wife to make any decisions without asking him first.
"My niece has been so controlled from the time she was young," Johnson said, adding that James Harrison had impregnated Angela when she was 13.
"It's unbelievable," Johnson said. "My whole family is in shock. How does this happen? How does anyone do that?"
The father worked as a diesel mechanic, and the mother works at Wal-Mart, said another of Angela Harrison's aunts, Penny Flansburg. Troyer, however, said he worked as a security guard at a casino.
Ron Vorak, who lives across the street from the family's trailer at the Deer Run mobile home park, said James Harrison "wasn't too friendly a person."
"He was always hollering at the kids. He seemed to be strict with them."
Harrison was put on a parenting plan by state child welfare officials in 2007 after what Troyer describes as a "minor assault" on one of the children. He agreed to the plan and the case was closed, Troyer said.
Ryan Peden, daughter Maxine's classmate, had said she told him Friday night that her parents had gotten into a fight and her mother had left. The father followed the mother and tried to get her to return, said Peden.
"Maxine texted me at 11 p.m. Friday. She said: "I'm tired of crying. I'm going to bed.''" His text to her the next day went unanswered.
Outside the mobile home, neighbors left cards and bouquets of flowers. The yellow crime-scene tape and dozens of investigators who responded to the scene on Saturday were gone. The home's front yard was littered with unused bicycles, a swing set, a trampoline and a basketball hoop.
A few people drove slowly by the scene, a neatly kept mobile home in a quiet park nestled among towering evergreens.
"How do you make sense out of something like this?" asked Jeff Davis, superintendent of the 2,100-student Orting School District where all five children attended school.
"In a small community like this, we know these kids," Davis said. " Teachers know the kids. All the kids know the kids."

Associated Press Photographer Ted S. Warren contributed to this story.---Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2009-04-05 06:48:20