VT- In Vermont, an accused man takes his own life

10-30-2008 Vermont:

Vermont man was charged with molesting a young girl

NEWFANE, Vt. — A Vermont man accused of sexually assaulting a girl and having child pornography committed suicide Tuesday in the Windham County Sheriff’s Department parking lot before he could be arrested on federal charges.

Joseph P. Childs, 39, of Townshend shot himself in the head with a 9 mm pistol while he sat beside his mother in the passenger seat of her car, waiting to turn himself over to Brattleboro police detectives, according to Sheriff Keith D. Clark.

Childs pulled the trigger just as detectives were approaching the car to arrest him on federal charges of possession and production of child pornography, according to Vermont State Police Sgt. John Hagen.

Hagen said Childs did not threaten anyone else with the gun. After the shooting, an ambulance rushed Childs to Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

U.S. Attorney Thomas D. Anderson said the production of child pornography charge is tied to a girl who police say was repeatedly molested by Childs earlier this year. He said Childs also had child pornography that did not involve the girl.

The girl, now 10, told investigators that Childs began abusing her in March at his Brattleboro apartment. She said Childs would disrobe her and touch her inappropriately, according to an affidavit prepared by Brattleboro police detective Michael W. Carrier.

She also said that Childs sometimes gave her money after the incidents, and laughed once when she told him her parents would eventually find out about the abuse.

Childs was arrested at his mother’s Townshend residence in April after a brief standoff with Vermont State Police troopers.

He was charged with two counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child.

He was re-arrested in May on charges of possession of child pornography and promoting sexual conduct with a child. Investigators said Childs’ computer contained images of child pornography.

Carrier refused to say whether those charges involved the girl Childs allegedly molested.

Childs was released from the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield, Vt., after posting $15,000 bail shortly after his second arrest.

The Vermont State Police are investigating Childs’ death. His body was taken to the state medical examiner’s office for an autopsy scheduled for today.

In the meantime, a second man, Anthony M. Giallella, 70, of Brattleboro faces two counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child. He and Childs are accused of molesting the same girl.

Giallella, a convicted sex offender, was arrested Oct. 17, when he showed up at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital threatening to kill himself because of what he’d done to the girl, police said.

He is accused of directing the girl to remove her clothing and inappropriately touching her on several occasions while the two were alone inside his Brattleboro apartment.

During a search of Giallella’s apartment, investigators said they found children’s underwear and diary entries describing sexual encounters with other young girls.

They also found numerous photographs of Giallella posing with children inside his apartment. They are working to identify those children.

Giallella remains at the Springfield jail for lack of $5,000 bail. ..News Source.. by PHILLIP BANTZ, Sentinel Staff

UT- Man kills himself inside Utah police station

10-23-2008 Utah:

OGDEN, Utah — A suspected sex offender shot and killed himself inside a restroom in the lobby of the police department here.

The 71-year-old man walked into the lobby about 8:16 a.m. Tuesday, police said, and sat down on a couch. An officer manning the front desk asked if he could help him.

"The officer asked if he needed assistance or needed to make a report. He said, 'No, I just need to catch my breath for a minute,' and then he got up and went into the restroom," Assistant Ogden Police Chief Randy Watt said during a news conference in the lobby on Tuesday.

A KSL-TV photographer who had been working in the area was also going into the restroom, police said, and the man asked him to get the police. The photographer went to the front desk and by the time they returned, the man had shot himself in the head with a .38-caliber handgun, Watt said.

A note was found on the man, who was a concealed weapons permit holder, police said.

"He didn't confess to anything in the note, he just left a note actually apologizing to the police department for the bother, in his words, but that he wanted to avoid a large response by the fire department and ambulance personnel," Watt said.

The man was a suspect in a sexual assault case involving a juvenile family member, police confirmed. He has no prior arrest record or other involvement with police.

"Other than this case, no," Ogden Police detective John Thomas said Tuesday.

When police contacted the man's family, they were not surprised by the suicide. They said he had recently indicated he may take his own life and had begun settling his affairs.

The doorway leading to the public restrooms in the lobby was closed on Tuesday, with yellow crime scene tape blocking off the men's room. A pair of police officers stood sentry outside. ..News Source.. by

IN- Man who killed two, himself was ex-con

Posted in Related Deaths

10-23-2008 Indiana:

PORTAGE | The man who police say came to Portage early Tuesday morning and killed his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend, then got in a car crash that killed himself and his 2-year-old son had a prior criminal record.

Lawrence K. Hill, 40, was a registered sex offender whose most recent address was 301 E. 12th St., Apt. 7, Mendota, Ill.

Hill was required to register as a sex offender after being convicted of aggravated criminal sexual assault in Cook County, Ill. According to the Illinois Sex Offender Registry, the crime occurred 15 years ago.

Hill registered as a sex offender in Mendota on Sept. 5, and during the six and a half weeks between the time he registered and his death, he had no run-ins with police in Mendota.

Mendota police Lt. Lonnie Kent said the only contact police had with Hill was when Hill's home was vandalized. Kent described the area where Hill was living as a combination of apartments and mobile homes.

Portage police said they had not received any prior complaints involving Hill and his ex-girlfriend, Sonya Kerr, who lived at Park Place Apartments in Portage.

But at 12:50 a.m. Tuesday, police said Hill came to visit his ex-girlfriend after having some heated phone conversations with her.

Police said Hill climbed onto his ex-girlfriend's third-floor balcony, entered through her sliding glass door and began arguing with her about their 2-year-old son, who was in the apartment sleeping. Hill then tried to abduct his ex-girlfriend at knifepoint.

The woman's new boyfriend, Dennis R. Williams, 29, of Gary, who had been living with her at her Portage apartment, intervened but was stabbed to death by Hill, police said.

Hill fled in his Buick Regal and, without his ex-girlfriend's knowledge, grabbed their son, Keahn, from the apartment.

Police put out a bulletin asking police agencies to look for Hill and the child.

Beverly Shores police located Hill eastbound on U.S. 12, near Ind. 520, about 1:30 a.m.

Beverly Shores police, soon joined by units from several other departments, followed Hill onto Ind. 520 and then westbound on U.S. 20. Neither Hill nor the officers were going fast, police said.

Indiana State Police set up tire-deflating stop sticks at U.S. 12 and Mineral Springs Road in Porter. One of Hill's tires hit a stop stick. Hill continued eastbound, seeing a Porter County police car and seeing Officer Ryan Fenters getting ready to deploy more stop sticks at U.S. 12 and Beam Street in Porter. Hill accelerated and crashed head-on into the unoccupied police car, killing himself and his son, who was on his lap.

Toxicology tests are being conducted to determine if Hill had drugs or alcohol in his system at the time of his death, but Indiana State Police Sgt. Ann Wojas said there was no immediate indication that either were a factor. ..News Source.. by KEN KOSKY

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CASE UPDATE: Ex-Ottawa sex offender kills 2, self in Indiana

11-11-2008 Indiana:

A sex offender, formerly of Ottawa, recently killed two people and himself in Northwest Indiana.

Lawrence K. Hill stabbed to death his former girlfriend's male friend in late October at an apartment in Portage, then took the 2-year-old boy he and his 21-year-old former girlfriend had together and left in a car, police said. Police were trying to stop Hill's car when Hill, with the boy on his lap, accelerated and slammed his car into a stopped, unoccupied police car. The boy and Hill were killed.

The 40-year-old Hill lived in Ottawa until moving to Mendota in late August. That move led to Hill's arrest Aug. 26 by Ottawa police because, as a registered sex offender, he failed to tell police he moved and changed jobs. He was released from the La Salle County Jail in early September on $1,500 bond. Trial had been set for next Monday, with the public defender's office representing Hill. As a result of Hill's death, the bond money, minus $150 in administrative fees, was returned Thursday to the former girlfriend.

Hill was a registered sex offender because he was convicted of aggravated sexual assault against a 35-year-old victim in the mid-1990s in Cook County. Indiana State Police reported they believed Hill had been last living in Chicago. In recent years, he also lived in Mississippi. The former girlfriend told the Merrillville, Ind.-based Post-Tribune she moved to the Midwest from Mississippi following 2005's Hurricane Katrina.

Another former girlfriend, an Ottawa woman, obtained an emergency order of protection against Hill Aug. 26, saying Hill threatened her and her two children. However, at a Sept. 15 hearing about extending the order, Associate Judge James Brusatte — who issued the order — dismissed further proceedings because Hill showed but the woman did not. ..News Source.. by Dan Churney

IN- Killer of 5 apparently hangs self in Ind. prison

10-9-2008 Indiana:

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An illegal immigrant serving five life terms for the strangling deaths of his wife, three young daughters and a neighborhood girl apparently took his own life Thursday by hanging himself, authorities said.

Simon Rios, 36, was found in his cell at the Pendleton Correctional Facility northeast of Indianapolis after noon Thursday, prison spokesman David Barr said. Rios was pronounced dead about 40 minutes later after guards and medical personnel couldn't revive him.

There were no signs of foul play, Barr said. An autopsy was scheduled.

Rios' attorney, Michelle Kraus, said he left a note requesting that his remains be returned to his native Mexico.

"I'm very sad. I know he did a very evil thing, and he always knew he did a very evil thing. He always expressed remorse to me," Kraus said.

The prosecutor in Rios' case said any remorse the man may have felt had little weight, given the heinous nature of his crimes.

"I don't want anybody to ever lose sight that he is not a victim here," Allen County prosecutor Karen Richards said Thursday. "He killed his wife and four little girls. They are the victims here."

On Dec. 8, 2005, Rios lured 10-year-old Alejandra Gutierrez, a former classmate of his eldest daughter, into his van as she waited at a school bus stop in Fort Wayne. Authorities say he raped and strangled her, then dumped her body in a gravel pit 50 miles away near Muncie.

Five days after killing Alejandra but before her body was found, Rios fatally beat and strangled his wife, Ana Casas-Rios, 28, and strangled their three daughters, Liliana, 10, Katherinne, 4, and 20-month-old Thannya, in their Fort Wayne home.

Police found Rios, then 33, on the front porch of his home after receiving an early morning suicide call. He told them he argued with his wife after she arrived home from work, hit her with a steel pipe and strangled her with an extension cord. He then strangled the 4-year-old with his hands and the other two girls with an extension cord. He placed the children on a bed together.

Rios' death came a year and eight days after he was sentenced to four life sentences for the murders of his family and two counts of moving a body from a death scene. He earlier received a life sentence for the murder, rape and molestation of Alejandra.

Casas-Rios' mother and other family members attended his sentencing hearing and said they had forgiven him and did not want to see him die. Members of Alejandra's family also opposed the death penalty because their Roman Catholic faith teaches against it.

Rev. Paul R. Bueter, pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in Warsaw, counseled Rios in jail. He said he received a recent letter from Rios in which the inmate said he enjoyed playing billiards with other prisoners and reading religious pamphlets the priest had sent him.

Bueter speculated that Rios had grown depressed again, as he had been at the time he killed his family. ..News Source.. by KEN KUSMER

CA- Molestation Suspect Hangs Himself in Jail

1-2-1998 California:

A suspected child molester hanged himself in the jail of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Lancaster station on New Year’s Eve, the same day deputies said he had been arrested on a warrant stemming from a child abuse accusation.

Sheriff’s deputies identified the inmate as Michael Quackenbush, 33, of Lancaster.

Quackenbush, who was arrested at his home at 9 a.m. by deputies in the Juvenile Investigations Bureau, was booked at the Lancaster station on suspicion of lewd acts with a child, according to sheriff’s deputies.

At 8 p.m., jail personnel found Quackenbush hanging from a bedsheet tied to a ceiling vent in his one-man cell, said Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Joan Raber.

A woman contacted at Quackenbush’s home on West Avenue E identified herself as his wife and said Quackenbush was an unemployed construction worker. He was the stepfather to her two children, she said.

Asked about the child molestation allegation, she said: “That did not happen. It was just a malicious lie.”

No other details concerning the charges were available Thursday. ..News Source.. by Solomon Moore

LA- Sex-case suspect commits suicide

10-3-2008 Louisiana:

A 70-year-old Pineville man committed suicide Thursday when a Rapides Parish sheriff's deputy and Alexandria police officer showed up at his house to arrest him, sheriff's assistant Chief Deputy Herman Walters said.

Charles Lewis Canady was indicted by a Rapides Parish grand jury on allegations that he molested an 8-year-old girl, Walters said.

The two officers, who are members of the U.S. Marshals Task Force, went to the Canady's house to serve the arrest warrant.

Walters said the officers knocked on the door, and Canady said he was going to put a shirt on, but as the deputy entered the room, Canady shot himself.

Canady died at the scene. ..News Source.. by The Town Talk.com

UT- Prison investigating death of inmate

10-1-12008 Utah:

UTAH STATE PRISON — Authorities are investigating the death of a 23-year-old inmate in their maximum security housing complex here.

The inmate was found hanging in his cell during a bed count late Tuesday night and flown by medical helicopter to University of Utah Hospital. He died Wednesday morning, said Utah Department of Corrections spokeswoman Angie Welling.

The death is believed to be a suicide, Welling said.

"Our corrections staff is trained to try to identify these issues and prevent them as much as possible," she said Wednesday. "It is unfortunate and our hearts go out to his family."

The inmate was serving time for second-degree felony forcible sex abuse charges, corrections officials said. ..News Source.. by Ben Wilson, Desert News

Accused sex offender commits suicide in jail

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