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Sunday, apr 28
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DNA Evidence
Police & Fire
Michigan Truckers Beat, Tied Up Bucks Comic Store Owner In 2022 Robbery: DA
A pair of Michigan truck drivers are in custody for violently robbing a Feasterville comic book store in 2022, according to the Bucks County District Attorney's Office. Twenty-two-year-old Zackery Maximus Tucker of Quincy, Michigan and 35-year-old Caleb James-Lorenze Simpson of Clarklake, Michigan are each charged with robbery and related counts, prosecutors said. Investigators believe the pair walked into Comic Collection, 83 Bustleton Pike, on Sept. 18, 2022, and pretended to be customers. They asked the 61-year-old clerk to get an item from a high shelf, then knocked h…
News
Florida Man Wanted For Murder Commits Suicide In PA Prison: Authorities
A 21-year-old man wanted on murder charges in Florida took his own life in a Pennsylvania prison, authorities announced on Wednesday. Isaiah Xavier Mesadieu formerly of Hollywood, FL most recently of Harrisburg and Middletown, PA, died of asphyxiation by hanging in the York County Prison and was pronounced dead at 4:47 p.m., Jan. 23, according to the county coroner's office. Mesadieu was first arrested in Pennsylvania for a summary offense of harassment in Dauphin County, on June 21, 2023, court records show. After pleading guilty on July 5, he was released but was arrested agai…
Police & Fire
Infant Child Porn Among 2K+ Images Found On Manheim Man Also Charged In Cold Case: DA
A search warrant at the home of a man — charged in a cold case of sexual assault of two children — led the Pennsylvania State Police to over two thousand images of child pornography, the Lancaster County District Attorney's Office announced on Tuesday, Jan. 23. Eric Dorwart, 54, of the 500 block of Pleasure Road in Manheim Township has been charged for the second time in three months for sexually assaulting children, the DA explained. Dorwart was matched by DNA to the cold case assault of a boy and girl on West Newport Road, Gordonville, Leacock on April 4th, 1997, acc…
Police & Fire
DUI Driver 'Had No Recollection' Of Double Fatal Crash Moments After It Happened: MontCo DA
An accused DUI driver has been arrested in connection with a crash that killed two women in Montgomery County early this year. Khaliym Smith, 22, of Pottstown, was found standing outside his overturned Jeep Wrangler in Upper Providence around 2:30 a.m. on Feb 12, according to charging documents from the District Attorney's Office. GIvonah Mitchell Facebook photo Maya Garner, 22, was found dead a short distance away, and GIvonah “Gigi” Mitchell, 23, was taken to Penn Presbyterian Hospital where she died from her injuries, authorities said. The women, both of Philade…
Police & Fire
Suspected Pennypack Park Slasher Has Links To Unsolved Rapes, Murder: Police
The man accused of attacking people with a machete in Pennypack Park has been linked to a string of unsolved rapes and one murder dating back to 2003, according to authorities. Elias Diaz, 46, was arrested on the park trail on Sunday, Dec. 17, police said previously. In a press conference on Tuesday, Dec. 19, Philadelphia police, District Attorney Larry Krasner, and FBI officials said Diaz's DNA was linked to evidence collected from the scenes of multiple sexual assaults in Fairmount Park from 2003. He is also said to be linked to the July 13, 2003 murder of 30-year-…
Police & Fire
DNA On Tie-Dye Towel Links PA Man To Assault Of Family Member, Police Say
A 38-year-old man has been charged after a towel linked him to months of sexual assaults with a young family member, police announced on Monday, Oct. 23. Around 11:40 a.m. on May 21, 2023, a girl under the age of 16 and her mom reached out to the Lower Allen Township Police Department to inform them "that a family member, John Heinrich George II, had been sexually assaulting her for the last two months," as stated in the release. The incidents happened in Camp Hill beginning on March 2, 2023, according to court documents. During the girl's meeting with the police she "rev…
Police & Fire
Nearly 50 Years Later Cold Case Killing Of Central PA Newly Wed Solved: DA
In 1975 a 19-year-old newlywed was brutally murdered, but thanks to DNA evidence her alleged killer has been revealed, Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams announced. Lancaster County's oldest cold case homicide was that of Lindy Sue Biechler whose "life was brutally taken away from her 46 years ago in the sanctity of her own home," DA Adams said. David Vincent Sinopoli, now 69 of the 300 block of Faulkner Drive, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, aggravated assault, and burglary in connection with Biechler's death on Thursday, Oct. 19. His plea comes …
Police & Fire
DNA On Coffee Cup Lid Matches Man To Child Sexual Assaults: PA State Police
A 54-year-old man is behind bars decades after he allegedly sexually assaulted two children— all thanks to a coffee cup, according to Pennsylvania State Police. Eric Dorwart of Manheim was matched through DNA evidence to the sexual assault of two children under the age of 13, PSP on Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023. The young boy and girl had been playing near their home on West Newport Road on April 4th, 1997, when the man in light blue work van with a ladder of the back approached them and sexually assaulted them, the police detailed in charging documents. The man left semen on the c…
News
Man Who Raped, Murdered 85-Year-Old Relative Not Sex Offender
Nearly 35 years after then-24-year-old Christopher Joseph Larry Speelman raped and murdered his 85-year-old relative, he has finally been sentenced— but he's not a sex offender, according to the court. Now, 59, Speelman has been sentenced to spend the next 25 to 50 years in prison by Judge Thomas Campbell after pleading guilty to murder in the third degree, burglary, and a no contest to rape, according to Adams County District Attorney Brian Sinnett. Speelman confessed raping and then smothering Edna Laughman with a pillow at her home in the 1500 block of Carlisle Pike, Oxford Townsh…
Police & Fire
DNA Evidence Leads To Montco Car Thief, Police Say
Investigators in Montgomery County say they tracked down a carjacker a year after the fact using DNA evidence obtained from the scene. Jason Patrick Colfer, 44, of Philadelphia, is charged with theft and related counts, said Lower Moreland police in a release. Authorities say Colfer stole a 2021 Mazda MX5 from a parking lot on Tomlinson Road in Huntingdon Valley last year on March 26. At the time, police reviewed security footage that showed a white man walking into the parking lot and peering around before hopping in the car and speeding off. Suspect in the March 2022 Lower Morelan…
News
'Zombie Hunter' Who Beheaded PA Woman Sentenced To Death: DA
An Amazon delivery driver by day and self-described "zombie hunter" at night has been sentenced to death. Bryan Patrick Miller a 49-year-old Arizonan pleaded insanity with a lawyer who used a "Jekyll and Hyde" defense during a trial over the brutal stabbing and beheading deaths of two young women— including a 21-year-old from Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, according to Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell. Miller, also dubbed the "Canal Killer", was "found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder, dangerous class one felonies, two counts of kidnapping, class two dangero…
News
Ex
-ymca
Employee Who Ditched Daughter In PA YMCA Dumpster Learns Her Fate: DA
A former YMCA employee who ditched her daughter in the organization's dumpster in Lancaster in 2007 has been convicted and sentenced, the District Attorney announced on May 24, 2023. DNA evidence linked Tara Indrakosit Brazzle, 44, of Valparaiso, Indiana (formerly of Lancaster, Pennsylvania) to the baby girl, according to the DA. She was arrested in California in 2021 for "infanticide by asphyxiation," as Daily Voice previously reported. "Baby Mary Ann", was 36 weeks old when she was found in the 500 block of North Queen Street in 2007, the DA explained. Brazz…
Police & Fire
Reading Man Charged With Rape: DA
A Reading man faces criminal charges in connection with a 2022 Shillington sexual assault, the Berks County District Attorney's Office announced. Angel Vasquez, 28, was arrested Thursday, April 20, and booked on two counts each of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, and aggravated indecent assault, prosecutors said. The charges stem from a reported assault at a Shillington residence on May 26, 2022, authorities said. Investigators spoke with the alleged victim, 51, and performed a medical examination that revealed DNA evidence, according to the release. "A labor…
Police & Fire
Kohberger Victims, Roommate Were Reportedly Awake During Idaho Slayings: Affidavit
The probable cause affidavit in the quadruple murders of University of Idaho students was unsealed Thursday, Jan. 5 as prime suspect Bryan Kohberger appeared in court, suggesting that at least one of the victims and one surviving roommate were awake during the crimes. It was ultimately DNA on the button snap of a knife sheath that helped police identify the 28-year-old criminology PhD student as the suspect in the Nov. 13 killings of Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, according to the affidavit published in NewsNationNow. The affidavi…
Police & Fire
DNA Evidence Leads To Killer In 34-Year-Old Cold Case In Berks County
A now-deceased man has been identified as the suspect who killed a 26-year-old woman 34 years ago in Berks County, authorities said. With new advances in genetic genealogy, investigators were able to identify Scott Grim, who died of natural causes at the age of 58 in 2018, as the man who beat and strangled Anna Jean Kane to death and dumped her body alongside Ontelaunee Trail Road in Perry Township, Pennsylvania State Police said. She was last seen on Franklin Street and South 6th Street in Reading at around 1 a.m. Oct. 23, 1988, police said. The DNA evidence found on the Birdsboro wo…
News
Fugitive Dubbed 'Real-Life Tony Soprano' Couldn't Hide From The Law, Even In Death
He was considered one of the last of the old-time mobsters, a "real-life Tony Soprano" listed as one of New Jersey's most wanted fugitives. Even six feet under, though, Tony Mota couldn't evade his pursuers. After eluding capture for nearly 25 years for a gruesome murder committed in Hudson County, Anthony Mota was found buried in the country where he was born, the Dominican Republic. Mota had been collecting debts for high-level Colombian drug dealers in New York City when he and a group of accomplices abducted a Queens man on Dec. 13, 1997, authorities said. The victim, 38-year-old …
Police & Fire
Fingerprint Helps ID Man Accused Of Raping Teen Girl Walking To School In Reading
A fingerprint was key in identifying and arresting a man who is now charged with the rape of a teenage girl at knifepoint in Reading, authorities said. The 14-year-old girl told police that she was walking to school on the 1200 block of Hill Road when she was abducted, taken to another location, and sexually assaulted twice, around 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, March 16, Reading Police Chief Richard Tornielli said. Thanks in part to a fingerprint, police identified the suspect as 38-year-old Sean Samuels, of Auburn, the chief said. DNA evidence is still pending. He was arrested on Tuesday, …
News
Cold Case Murderer Of 9 Year Old Girl Revealed: PA State Police
UPDATE: James Paul Forte, was identified as the killer based on DNA evidence on Thursday at a press conference held by Pennsylvania state police. Forte died of natural causes in May 1980, the police said at the conference. ORIGINAL: A 57-year-old cold case homicide in Luzerne County has been solved, according to Pennsylvania state police. Marise Ann Chiverella, 9, was found dead in a strip-mining pit near the Hazleton Airport on Mar. 18, 1964, authorities say. Chiverella had been sexually assaulted, physically abused, before she was murdered and left at the scene, according to police. Th…
News
Faulty DNA Test: NJ Man Gets New Trial In Beating, Burning Of Woman, 70
DNA evidence found under the fingernails of a 70-year-old Bergen County woman bludgeoned and burned in her home wasn’t reliable enough to convict a man who’s now serving a life sentence for her murder, a state appeals court ruled. Daniel Rochat, 46, of Wood-Ridge, has already been moved from New Jersey State Prison in Trenton to the Bergen County Jail in Hackensack in anticipation of a new trial following the Appellate Division ruling. He remains charged with various counts of murder and felony murder, as well as aggravated arson, desecrating human remains, burglary, hindering arrest and f…
News
Video Of Dinner Guest Kidnapping Hostess Before Raping Her In PA Hotel Released By DA
A night that started as a warm dinner party in Pennsylvania ended in a scene out of a horror movie for the hostess, who was kidnapped by her husband's friend, beaten unconscious, and raped at a hotel, authorities said. The 27-year-old woman woke up naked from the waist down at the Roadway Inn motel in Swatara Township -- not a clue as to how she'd gotten there Feb. 15, 2017, she told police in Dauphin County. The last thing she remembered was being at the dinner party she hosted the night before at a Lower Paxton Township home. After the guests left, she and her husband went to bed. But o…
Police & Fire
Would-Be Robber With Toy Gun Nabbed After Clerk Yanks His Shirt Off
A would-be robber with a toy gun was arrested after a Pennsylvania 7-Eleven store clerk yanked his shirt off, authorities said. John E. Grubbs II, 44, of Philadelphia, was nabbed Wednesday after leaving his DNA-stained shirt at the Bensalem Township store, local police said. They did not specify the store's address. Investigators say Grubbs entered the store on Tuesday, pointed the gun at the clerk, and demanded that he open the register. They got into a fight once the cashier realized Grubbs' weapon was a toy gun, police said. During the struggle, the employee yanked Grubb…
Police & Fire
18 Years Later NJ Man Charged In 2nd Home Invasion Sex Assault Of Child
An Egg Harbor City man who last week was charged with the sexual assault of a 10-year-old girl during a 1996 home invasion has been accused of doing the same to a 5-year-old girl, authorities announced Wednesday. Brian Lee Avis, 59, of Egg Harbor City, broke into a Willow Avenue home in Galloway on July 18, 2003 around 11:45 p.m., and quickly left, Acting Atlantic County Prosecutor Cary Shill said. A mother in the home told police she noticed her daughter's pajama pants were pulled down, Shill said. The case was unsolved until earlier this week, when Galloway Township Police Det…
Police & Fire
PA Man To Stand Trial 50 Years After California Go-Go Dancer's Murder
A trial has been ordered for a Pennsylvania man accused of killing a 24-year-old California woman more than a half-century ago, reports say. John Sipos, 76, is charged in the Nov. 20, 1969, slaying of 24-year-old Mary Scott, who was found dead inside her San Diego apartment, LehighValleyLive reports. The North Whitehall man was linked to the killing last October after investigators found DNA evidence from his garbage consistent with matching evidence found on the woman's body, The Morning Call reports. Sipos reportedly broke into the go-go dancer's home, raped her, and then …
News
33 Year-Old Cold Case Homicide Solved; One Relative Innocent, Another Guilty, Authorities Say
DNA evidence and a confession have led to an arrest in a brutal homicide cold case committed 33 years ago. Christopher Joseph Larry Speelman, 58, New Oxford, confessed at the Gettysburg State Police barracks on July 27 to the murder of Edna Laughman, 85, of Oxford Township over three decades earlier. Laughman was raped and murdered in her home located on 1500 block of Carlisle Pike on Aug. 13, 1987. Her nephew Barry Laughman falsely confessed to killing her-- spending 16 years behind bars, but DNA evidence in 2003 exonerated them. A new test was conducted on the attackers DNA in 2018, po…
News
Woman Arrested In CA 14 Years After Tossing Newborn Daughter Into Garbage In PA
Years of investigation and DNA evidence have led to the arrest of an Indiana woman who police believe left her newborn daughter in a dumpster in Lancaster in 2007. Tara Indrakosit Brazzle, 44, of Valparaiso, Indiana (formerly of Lancaster, Pennsylvania), was arrested in California for the 2007 infanticide by asphyxiation of a newborn baby girl, according to the Lancaster County District Attorney's office. UPDATE: Brazzle has been convicted and sentenced. You can read the updated report here. ORIGIAL REPORT: The Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office and the Lancaster City Burea…
Police & Fire
DA: MontCo Man Pleads Guilty To Raping 19-Year-Old Woman At Norristown Farm Park In 2017
A Montgomery County man pled guilty Tuesday to raping a 19-year-old woman at Norristown Farm Park in August 2017, authorities said. Mason Hall, -- who was 17 at the time -- attacked the 19-year-old victim, held a black semi-automatic handgun to her head, and forced her into a secluded pasture off of the walking path, where he sexually assaulted her the morning of August 1, 2017, according to the Montgomery County District Attorney's office. At the time of the attack, the Hall was wearing a dark-colored hooded sweatshirt, despite the 86-degree heat, and attacked the …
News
Sentenced
! Violent Child Rapist Gets Up To 202 Years In Dauphin County Prison
A violent sexual predator in Dauphin County has been sentenced to 101 up to 202 years in jail, according to the district attorney. James A. Dubuisson, 44, of Lower Paxton Township, was sentenced Wednesday following his jury of rape, burglary, strangulation, unlawful restraint of a minor, false imprisonment of a minor, terroristic threats, possession of an instrument of crime, simple assault, and tampering with evidence. The case is based on an incident which occurred on July 21, 2019. Dubuisson unlawfully entered a home in Lower Paxton Township and raped the juvenile victim at knife-point…
Police & Fire
Accused Lehigh Valley Burglar, 34, Charged In Second Home Break-In, Knifepoint Rape
A Lehigh Valley man previously charged in a home break-in is facing a laundry list of additional charges in connection to a burglary and rape case from May 2020, authorities said. Clement Swaby, 34, was charged Wednesday with rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual assault, indecent and aggravated indecent assaults, burglary, possessing instruments of crime and terroristic threats, Bethlehem Police said. Swaby is accused of breaking into a Bethlehem home, threatening the victim at knifepoint and raping them on May 19, 2020, police said. Swaby was charged in March with first-de…
News
Rape Suspect, MMA Fighter Gave PA Victim, 14, 'Morning After Pill' Then Moved To Hawaii: Police
A man accused of raping a 14-year-old girl allegedly gave her the morning after pill, according to PennLive. The girl told police Avery E. I. Sanchis, 23 formerly of Lancaster County -- currently a Hawaiian resident -- raped her over a two-day period beginning Aug. 7, according to an affidavit obtained by PennLive. The incident ended when Sanchis took the alleged victim's parents' car without permission and returned with the "morning after pill," the outlet reports. The girl told police she originally refused to take the pill but eventually did after Sanchis told her “he would not be payin…
News
DNA Leads To Felony Charges For Hawaiian Man Who Raped Girl, 14, in Pennsylvania, Say Police
DNA evidence led to the arrest of a Hawaiian man accused of raping a 14-year-old girl in Lancaster County, according to police. Avery E.I. Sanchis, 23 of Hilo, Hawaii, was investigated by the Susquehanna Regional police following a report of a 14-year-old girl being raped in Bainbridge on August 7, 2020, according to court documents. DNA found at the scene was analyzed and matched to Sanchis, say police. He has been charged with the following: 3 counts of Rape (F1) 3 counts of Statutory Sexual Assault (F1) 3 counts of Aggravated Indecent Assault (F2) Corruption of Minors (F3) 3 count…
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