55-year-old Dr. Mary Hamer—yes, believe it or not she's a radiologist—has spent her own retirement fund on van der Sloot, the prime suspect in the murder of coed Natalee Holloway in Aruba.
Hamer told INSIDE EDITION's Diane McInerney, "It's been very emotional. My life has been threatened. My savings are wiped out."
But incredibly, she's still obsessed with van der Sloot.
McInerney asked, "Joran has signed a confession. Do you still believe Joran is innocent?"
"Yes, I do. I believe Joran van der Sloot is innocent," replied Hamer.
"Why?" asked McInereny.
"I saw the pain in his face," said Hamer.Waterville, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- A Boston television station is reporting tonight that investigators now believe that missing toddler Ayla Reynolds is dead.
However, Maine Public Safety spokesperson Steve McCausland says that report is completely untrue.GROSSE POINTE Park, Mich. (WXYZ) - Police sources are telling 7 Action News that the story Bob Bashara told them about the night his wife disappeared is unraveling.
Bob Bashara reported his wife missing at around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday. He has maintained that he had not contact with her that night.
“I got home about five after 8:00 and she wasn’t around and I relaxed and figured she was out running an errand," Bob Bashara explained to 7 Action News on Thursday.
An Orange County teenager accused of attacking a teacher with a hammer has been offered a plea deal, WFTV learned on Monday.
Diana Barfield's lawyer said she has challenged the deal.
Barfield's lawyer, Rosalind Johnson, said her 16-year-old client deserves help, not 18 months in prison.
Prosecutors said they're treating Barfield like an adult because she already served 18 months in juvenile detention.An elementary school teacher is facing federal charges on suspicion of molesting a 7-year-old student and using his cellphone to record the abuse.
The U.S. attorney's office Monday filed a criminal complaint against 43-year-old Neng Yang of Fresno, the Fresno Bee reported. He was arrested Friday.
Yang taught second grade at Freedom Elementary School in Clovis, a suburb of Fresno, and was removed from his job upon his arrest, the Bee reported.
READ MORE :
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/01/clovis-teacher-accused-of-molestation.html
(KUTV) WASHINGTON - Relatives of Josh Powell have built a new website that attacks the family of Susan Cox Powell, as well the police in Washington, and Utah.
Josh Powell is the only person of interest named in the disappearance of his wife Susan Powell in December of 2009.
The website says it takes no prisoners. The family of Josh Powell says that Chuck Cox and his wife, who now have custody of the Powell's children, are extremely careless care takers.
And they say the West Valley City Police Department are "incompetent".
The website says that the Powell children have suffered two serious injuries, and the kids have ended up in the emergency room at least twice.
READ MORE :
http://connect2utah.com/news-story/?nxd_id=206857&utm_source
The mother of a missing Columbia toddler appeared in a Richland County courtroom this afternoon to ask a judge to reduce her $150,000 bond.
After hearing about 22-year-old Zinah Jennings’s psychiatric problems and pregnancy, Judge Casey Manning said he would decide later this week whether he will lower her bond.
Jennings dressed in the standard-issue navy blue garb handed to inmates at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center despite her attorney’s request that she be allowed to dress in street clothes.
READ MORE :
http://www.thestate.com/2012/01/30/2134148/judge-delays-decision-on-lower.html
by KMOV Web Producer
Tessa Van Vlerah and a male professor from California have been charged with abusing the baby.
READ MORE :
http://www.kmov.com/news/mobile/Ballwin-woman-admits-to-sexual-abuse-of-13-month-old-138355504.html
The trial of a teenager accused of killing her father was expected to go to a jury soon.
Attorneys for the now 15-year-old girl are hoping for a not guilty verdict. Prosecutors want a guilty verdict and are asking for 40 years in prison.
The girl was 12 years old when she shot her father while he was asleep.
READ MORE :
SALINAS, Calif- Police are looking for an accused child molester who may have ran away with his girlfriend and two kids, said police. Rene Cruz is wanted on an $800,000 warrant for child molestation and oral copulation of a child.
Rene Cruz and his girlfriend, Nelida Vega Gayton, lived at a home on the 700 block of Yucatan Way. Police say Gayton ran a daycare out of her home four years ago. One on the children, now 11-years-old, came forward to police and said that she was molested by Cruz.
Police believe that the couple's children, ages five and nine, may also be victims.
READ MORE :
http://www.kionrightnow.com/story/16634507/accused-child-molester-leave-with-two-young-daughters
A 10-year-old boy was arrested after knocking on the door of a 67-year-old woman and pointing a toy gun at her.
The woman told Burbank police she thought the gun was real.
The boy, whose identity was not released because he is a minor, picked the house in the 1100 block of Evergreen Street in Burbank because the woman's grandson reportedly beat up his friend at school, Burbank police Lt. John Dilibert told the Burbank Leader.
The boy allegedly yelled "you suck" at the woman while pointing the gun at her and then running away, Dilibert said.
READ MORE :
Special Judge Dawson Engle made the decision Monday in the case of Kimberly Crain, who is charged with 23 felony counts, including manufacturing juvenile pornography, lewd molestation and aggravated possession of juvenile pornography.
District Attorney Richard Smothermon objected to Crain's bond reduction motion, saying there is no way to prevent her from leaving her house and coming into contact with victims and witnesses if she is free on bond.
ALPHARETTA, Ga. —
The parents of a severely malnourished North Miami Beach boy who was found badly beaten and naked in the middle of a street were behind bars Monday on charges of aggravated abuse and neglect of a child charges.
Marsee Strong, 34, and Edward Bernard Bailey, 40, were both arrested after their 9-year-old boy was found in the middle of the road by members of the community Saturday evening, according to a North Miami Beach Police report released Monday.
READ MORE :
BELFAST, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- A 41-year-old man from Belfast has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for strangling his girlfriend to death back in 2010.
Dennis Edgecomb was sentenced Monday morning at Waldo County Superior Court. He initially pleaded not guilty to the murder charge but changed his plea to guilty in court Monday.
READ MORE :
Andrew Scott Denning of Billings has been booked in the Yellowstone County Detention Center on two counts of deliberate homicide.
Denning, 20, was arrested early Monday morning after two bodies were found in an apartment complex on Sunday.
The victims are a 21-year-old woman and a 22-year-old woman.
Billings police say that once on scene at the Ponderosa Acres Apartment complex, located at 1301 Industrial Avenue, they discovered "suspicious deaths."
READ MORE :
http://www.krtv.com/news/billings-man-charged-after-2-bodies-found/
Family members of the missing toddler were told by police that the amount of the girl's blood found in the basement where her father slept was "more than a small cut would produce" but police declined today to say how much blood was discovered.
Police confirmed Sunday night that blood was found in the Waterville home and that some of it came from the missing girl, Ayla Reynolds.
READ MORE :
http://www.pressherald.com/news/Investigators-No-evidence-Ayla-Reynolds-was-abducted.html
With song and prayer, family and friends of a 22-year-old mother of two whose body was found dumped off a Los Angeles area freeway last week, held a candlelight vigil on Sunday.
Bree-Anna Guzman's grief stricken 5-year-old daughter kissed her mother’s picture, the centerpiece of a makeshift memorial outside a Lincoln Heights Rite Aid, the location Guzman was last seen on Dec. 26 when she made a trip there to buy cough drops.
READ MORE :

SHELBY, N.C. -- Dwight Justice was found not guilty of murdering his 2-year-old stepson, Jeremiah, in February of 2009.
The jury ruled Justice was, however, guilty of the first degree child abuse charge, a lesser charge than the first degree murder felony Swafford was facing.
READ MORE :
http://www.wcnc.com/news/local/Man-found-not-guilty-of-murder-in-stepsons-death-138329094.html
Divers with Hollywood Police were heading back to a canal Monday to resume their search for human remains after a group of teens found a human skull while swimming Saturday, authorities said.
Hollywood Police Lt. Diana Pereira confirmed Monday the skull found in the area of 56th Avenue and Douglas Street was indeed human.
READ MORE :
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/Human-Skull-Found-in-Hollywood-Canal-138324989.html
On Jan. 17, Lauren Spierer’s parents and her sister sat in the missing Indiana University student’s bedroom at home in New York and celebrated her 21st birthday.
The Spierers focused not on Lauren being gone from their lives for nearly eight months, but instead shared her enthusiasm for life and the joy she brought to people around her.
They reminisced about how Lauren was an early baby; Charlene and Robert Spierer had just finished their last Lamaze class and taken the official tour of the hospital. The next day, she was born.
READ MORE :
HICKORY, NC (WBTV) - Adam Baker, father of the ten-year-old girl killed and dismembered in Hickory in 2010, has been deported back to Australia, his attorney told WBTV.
On Monday morning, WBTV learned that Baker was quietly deported back to his home country nearly two weeks ago. His attorney, Shell Pearce, said that Baker had been held on an immigration detainer while he was in court on various charges.
READ MORE :
http://www.wistv.com/story/16630591/adam-baker-deported-to-austrailia-without-zahras-remains
A North Miami man is under arrest after he beat his 4-month-old son so severely that the doctors have declared the child brain dead, police said.
A judge on Friday ordered a $200,000 bond for Yosi Mahlab, 30, who is facing a charge of aggravated child abuse. Mahlab will likely be charged with murder if Javon, the baby, dies from his injuries.
READ MORE :
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/27/2611730/north-miami-father-accused-of.html
A Cleveland County jury is expected to resume deliberations today in the case of a man accused in the beating death of his 2-year-old stepson.
Dwight Stacy Justice, 45, is charged with first-degree murder and felony child abuse in the death of Jeremiah Swafford. Justice's wife, Kathy Lynn Swafford, faces similar charges and will be tried in March.
READ MORE :
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/01/30/2971225/cleveland-county-jury-to-resume.html
A mother who abandoned her two daughters aged just three and five on the street with only a few extra diapers has been arrested.
Dalisha Adams, 26, of Brooklyn, was picked up by police on Sunday night after leaving her children on a street in Brooklyn near a busy intersection around 3pm.
A woman came across them and stayed with the young girls until police arrived.
An attorney for Zinah Jennings is expected to tell a judge during a hearing in Columbia on Monday that his 22-year-old client is pregnant and mentally ill and should be released from jail because she needs medical care.
Hemphill Pride II says Jennings has been ordered to have treatment for her mental illness for a year and has been told to take Risperdal, which is used to treat symptoms of schizophrenia. He also said she needs prenatal care.
READ MORE :
http://www.wistv.com/story/16629563/mother-of-missing-sc-toddler-expected-in-court
A man charged with child abuse for allegedly binding his 23-month-old daughter’s eyes, mouth, feet and hands with tape and posting the picture on Facebook thanked members of a South Side church he said helped get him out of jail.
Andre Curry, 21, was released from jail Friday night after being held for a month on aggravated domestic battery and unlawful restraint charges.
Torrey Barrett, pastor of the Life Center Church of God in Christ visited Curry about three days after he was locked up.Grosse Pointe Park— A popular community volunteer failed a polygraph test about the murder of his wife, but his friends and family said he was incapable of being involved in the death.
Robert Bashara, 54, didn't pass the lie detector test administered by police Friday, a police source told The Detroit News on Sunday.
The specific question or questions he allegedly answered untruthfully weren't known.
Bashara has been identified by police as the only person of interest in the death of his wife. He is the son of the late George Bashara, who was a state appellate court judge and president of Wayne State University.
READ MORE :
An Orange County father is accused of beating his teenage son in a fight over bad grades.
Investigators said 43-year-old Bertram Castell repeatedly hit his son inside their Ocoee home on Tumblewater Boulevard on Thursday.
Ocoee police said the boy got into a fight with his mother over his grades before the incident.
READ MORE :
http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/investigators-father-arrested-abusing-teen-son/nHKZK/

WATERVILLE — Blood found by police at Ayla Reynolds' home belongs to the missing toddler.
Police confirmed the information Sunday night. It was first posted earlier Sunday on aylareynolds.com, a website maintained by Ayla's maternal family in Portland.
Department of Public Safety spokesman Steve McCausland said Sunday night said that testing has revealed that at least some of the blood samples that were found in the home during a December search belong to Ayla.
READ MORE :
http://www.onlinesentinel.com/news/Blood-found-at-missing-toddlers-home-is-Ayla-Reynolds.html
Their words were private, but their body language spoke of anguish. Trista Reynolds, who rocked back and forth on the City Hall steps as she talked to DiPietro, earlier had addressed the news that police have been analyzing blood found in the basement of the Waterville home where 20-month-old Ayla was last seen.
“I don’t have the answers you guys are looking for,” she told media gathered at the vigil. “I want to know where she is and who took her.”
READ MORE :
And around it were photos of Ryan Carter. Ryan with a mop-top haircut. Ryan in a Buzz Lightyear costume. Ryan wearing a bow tie and sitting on Santa’s lap. Ryan with that wide grin that others found so winning.
Some 400 people gathered in an El Cajon church Friday to mark the life and mourn the death of the 12-year-old boy, who was stabbed to death with a kitchen knife last week in a neighbor’s driveway north of town.
The 10-year-old boy accused in the killing has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and felony assault.
READ MORE :
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/jan/28/tp-boy-12-had-a-true-heart/
Letter: Stop giving Casey Anthony attention by putting her on front page
I was extremely disappointed to see front-page space designated Jan. 19 for news on Casey Anthony. If the public must know every move this young woman makes please put the article somewhere obscure and use the space on the front-page for news that really matters to us locals.
READ MORE :
http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2012/jan/28/letter-stop-giving-casey-anthony-attention-by-on/
A Chandler man accused of raping a woman in an alley was caught after he gave the woman his phone number.
The suspect, who said he had been assaulted a day after the attack, told investigators he deserved it because "God was punishing him," police said.
Rafael Chavez, 31, was booked on charges of sexual assault and kidnapping, a court document said.
HARDIN CO., Ky (WDRB) -- A babysitter trusted with the care of a 2-year-old stands accused of abusing that trust. Wednesday night the toddler was rushed to Hardin Memorial Hospital's emergency room. "At that point she was found to be unresponsive and observed multiple bruises or contusions over a large portion of the child's body," says Kentucky State Police trooper Scott Rafferty. He says doctors quickly found more injuries.
"It was discovered she was suffering from some bleeding and swelling of the brain," the KSP trooper says.
READ MORE :
http://www.wdrb.com/story/16613308/vine-grove-babysitter-charged-with-child-abuse
WATERVILLE, Maine -- Investigators say they've found blood inside the Maine home where a toddler was reported missing six weeks ago.
State police spokesman Steve McCausland confirmed Saturday that blood was found in the basement early in the investigation into Ayla Reynolds' disappearance from her father's home in Waterville.
READ MORE :http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/28/10259428-blood-found-in-home-where-toddler-disappeared
Matt Palmgren, the widower of his estranged wife, Gail, has been arrested on trespassing charges. That's according to Arlene Durham, a friend of Gail Palmgre's, who filed trespassing charges against Matt for being on her property without her consent.
Durham tells NewsChannel Matt Palmgren was at a lakehouse he and Gail owned in Alabama Thursday night.
READ MORE :
http://www.newschannel9.com/news/matt-1008539-palmgren-charges.html
A Surprise mother faces murder and child abuse charges more than a year after her child died from an infection that could have been treated, authorities said.
Phoenix police arrested Kristen Elizabeth Torres, 21, on Tuesday.
Maricopa County prosecutors charged Torres with second-degree murder and felony child abuse for the death of her 13-month-old son Aiden Torres.
Madison County deputies, state police investigators and desperate family members are still in the dark about what could have happened to Lauren Susanne Smith.
Smith vanished last November and those who knew her best just want to know that she's out there somewhere - and safe.
"I keep trying to come up with scenarios that have happy endings," said Emily Carver, Lauren's mother. Richard Smith, Lauren's father added, "We can't put our finger on anything that would have caused her to take off."
READ MORE :MILWAUKEE (AP) -- A judge has ruled that a Milwaukee woman accused of killing a pregnant woman and trying to steal her unborn baby is mentally competent and will stand trial.
Annette Morales-Rodriguez has pleaded insanity to two counts of intentional homicide, including homicide of an unborn child. She faces life in prison if convicted.
READ MORE :
The family of a girl who disappeared from her south Kansas City home are relieved she is doing OK, but many questions remain about what happened to the girl.
The 11-year-old girl told police that two men blindfolded her and kidnapped her from her home on Thursday while her mother was at work.
The girl was found about 3 a.m. Friday when police, acting on a tip, went to an apartment about a mile from the girl's home. The apartment was the home of a 20-year-old man.
READ MORE :
http://www.kctv5.com/story/16619988/girl-says-2-men-kidnapped-her-blindfolded-her
GROSSE POINTE PARK, Mich. (WJBK) -- Bob Bashara walked into the Grosse Pointe Park Police Department just before 5:00 p.m. Friday, a day after his being interviewed about his wife's disappearance and murder. We have no information at this time as to what's happening inside. Police are also at the family's home.
The body of 56-year-old Jane Bashara was found in the back seat of her Mercedes-Benz Wednesday morning. It was abandoned on Detroit's east side. She had been strangled.
READ MORE :
The parents of a newborn baby left with horrific injuries and fractures all over her body walked free from court today, despite admitting child cruelty charges.
The unnamed infant was just 23 days old when doctors discovered she had suffered multiple breaks to her legs, knees, ribs, right wrist and right hip.
MRI scans showed the baby girl had also sustained a skull haemorrhage and trauma to her brain tissue.