When your gut is telling you something, it’s usually right. We should always think twice before brushing our instincts aside, considering the power of our intuition. There are those who do not believe in our mind’s ability to have these celestial feelings, but they will often learn, by ignoring them, they will put themselves in unwanted situations.

Almarasa did not listen to her inclination that something terrible would happen to her if she embarked on a cruise with her husband, hence she found herself in a tragic situation that permanently shattered the calmness often acquainted with the seas.

A Beloved Teacher

Almarasa, a 52-year-old teacher from Florida, worked passionately with children to further their education. She worked diligently to provide the best learning experience for all her students. As a beloved teacher, all who had known her, described her as full of life and devoted to her students. 

A Marriage Falling Apart

As a mother of two, Almarasa had a vibrant personality, lighting up any room she walked into. She had many friends, welcoming everyone into her life with open arms. However, not everything in Almarasa’s life was so peachy, like many married women, she struggled to keep her marriage afloat.

An Idea To Help Marriage

So, when Almarasa’s husband, Leo, suggested taking a trip alone together to rekindle their marriage, it sounded like a great idea, but something was holding her back. Almarasa was never the type to believed in jinx or inexplicable phenomena, but in the weeks prior to the trip, she was consumed with uneasiness and fear…

Her Ominous Instincts

It’s as if she had known something would happen to her, like some inexplicable force, possibly her intuition, telling her that something terrible was going to happen. She couldn’t explain the feeling, but it was undoubtedly there. Subconsciously, her mind was shouting at her to be cautious and alert or else…

Something Terrible Will Happen

Almarasa’s children said she “did not want to go” on the trip. “She knew something was going to happen,” said daughter Andrea Smith. She had told her children she didn’t want to go on the trip because something inside her gave her warning that it would be a mistake.

The Last Hug

Almarasa Tenorio was deeply concerned that something would happen to her if she embarked on the trip. “My mom did not want to go on this cruise,” Andrea Smith told ABC’s Good Morning America. Timothy Tenorio, Almarosa’s son, said the night before his mom left for the cruise that she hugged him “for a good five minutes” and told him that might be the last hug he gets from her.

The Trip

And although Almarasa was fully convinced that something tragic would happen to her if she went on the cruise, it did not stop her from going. Almarasa and her husband Leo drove to Fort Lauderdale, Florida to board the seven-day cruise with Royal Princess Cruise to Aruba. Almarasa brushed her unwanted feelings aside, and decided it would be best to focus on her bringing back her marriage to life.

Listen To Your Gut

Almarasa should have listened to her instincts. In the following days, while aboard the ship, mysterious and inexplicable events would take place. A trip that was meant to help a strained marriage would instead, lead to a horrible tragedy.

A Happy Couple

A few days into the trip, things seemed to go well between the husband and wife. They were enjoying the scenic views, made some friends on the ship, and played a few hands of blackjack in the casino. But, according to some passengers, their blissful vacation quickly turned sour…

The Argument

Passengers couldn’t avoid the loud bickering between Almarasa and her husband on the casino floor. It could have possibly been fueled by a few too many drinks for the duo or excessive gambling. But, the argument with Almarasa’s husband would be the least of her worries as things would soon spiral out of control with another man.

An Alert

At the crack of dawn, a security alert was issued by the ship’s Captain. Passengers woke up to a chaotic scene, with confusion of why the alert had gone off in the first place. But, in a matter of moments, passengers witnessed a horrific and bloody scene on the ship’s deck.

A Grisly Scene

Horrified passengers said a woman’s leg was torn off in a fall, creating a gruesome scene with glass everywhere. The rest of the mutilated body laid in the lifeboat, with a pool of blood around it. When investigators arrived on board, they discovered the lifeless body to be none other than Almarasa.

Missing Puzzle Pieces

Which twisted being did this to Almarsa and why? Where was her husband? These questions are currently under investigation. The puzzle pieces are slowly being put back together as officers use witness testimony from passengers and evidence from the gory scene to figure out exactly what had happened to Almarasa.

The Deadly Fall

There was a murder on the ship. Almarasa had plunged to her death after she was reportedly seen fighting with an unidentified man on the deck of the 16th floor at around 10:30 pm. She either fell or was pushed off from the deck at 4 am.

Passengers Terrified

Many passengers woke to the loud and unnatural sound of her body falling bluntly against the ship. Passengers who witnessed the heinous scene, could not believe their eyes. A relaxing vacation had turned into a real life nightmare more suitable of a scene from a horror movie.

A Vacation Turned Nightmare

Passenger Logan Tignor described the horrifying incident on a video call with CBS News, saying: “It’s surreal and I’m kind of traumatized for it. I never would expect that it would happen on vacation.” Many other passengers who had witnessed the deadly scene have difficulty coming to terms with what has happened to Almarasa. For some, as far as swearing not to ever embark on a cruise again for the rest of their lives. 

The Mysterious Man

The man, described as being muscular, allegedly strangled Almarasa before tossing her from the ship’s deck. Aruba investigators are now performing an autopsy to establish if the woman was choked to death or died from the fall. According to the Princess Cruises, the tragic incident was also reported to the FBI to help local authorities determine the exact cause of death and the person responsible.

What About Her Husband?

Her husband Leo was brought in for questioning, but denied any involvement in the death of his wife. He has returned to his home in the States, and continues to voice his innocence and is not treated as a suspect by authorities. Leo, an airbus executive, said in a statement that his wife’s death would “haunt him,” and that he hopes to treat the memory of his wife “with respect.”

No Closure In Her Death

Almarasa’s mysterious death has caused tremendous pain on her family, especially because many questions remain unanswered. It is difficult for them to move forward without any closure. Tim and Andrea have said they love both of their parents, and a GoFundMe page has been set up for funeral expenses. They’re looking to raise $10,000.

Shocking Turn Of Events

In a shocking twist, Almarasa’s husband, Leo told FOX10 News his wife’s tragic death wasn’t a murder, but an accident. Leo was upset with several reports that his wife was strangled and pushed off the deck. As her senseless death still remains a question, the FBI and local authorities are in an ongoing investigation to provide a concrete explanation of what really happened to Almarasa aboard the dreadful trip.

Woman Killed On Cruise With Husband Knew Going On Vacation Was A Mistake is an article from: LifeDaily

All one USC college student had was a grainy old photo of a woman posing in a pool which would be the only clue to track down the woman responsible for giving her life. With the help of her supportive family and friends, this information turned out to be all she needed.

Witness the emotional reunion, almost two decades later, between a woman who donated her egg in college and the daughter she never met…

Egg Donation

Since Elizabeth Gaba was a young girl, she’s known she was born via egg donation and surrogacy. Her parents have always been transparent with her and Gaba knew that it was for this egg donation that her life has been possible.

Egg Donor

But it wasn’t until she turned 18 that Gaba decided she would like to meet the egg donor that created her. Little did she know, she not only had matching DNA with her donor but also matching voices.

The Search

When she began her search, Gaba had little information to go on, but the fertility clinic where her mother had been a patient released details of the egg donor’s file. Still, there wasn’t much to go on.

Glamour Shot

The file included the donor’s birth year (1977), the college she attended (USC), the sorority she was a member of (Alphi Phi), and a glamour shot of a pretty blonde in a hot tub.

Donor Eggs

Since most fertility clinics pay egg donors between $5,000 and $10,000 and require they be between 26 and 32, and have a college education, the donor’s degree wouldn’t have narrowed the list down much. As of 2010, more than 18,300 women received donor eggs, according to the Daily Mail.

University of Southern California

This meant that finding her donor was possible, but the chances were slim. Gaba was surprised her donor attended the same college where she was currently a student, and she had gotten a degree in music, the same major she was pursuing.

Sorority Sisters

As Gaba searched the Internet for more clues, she also consulted her manager, Amanda Newman. Newman began the search right away and figured out what year Throckmorton could have graduated and contacted sorority sisters from that year through Facebook.

Beauty Of The Internet

She also sent Throckmorton’s glamour shot to each, simply asking if they knew her. But seconds after she hit send on the fourth message, Newman knew she had just sent the message to Throckmorton, who was clearly the woman from the glamour shot.

Finding Her Egg Donor

Newman texted Gaba asking her if she was sitting down, saying, “this one is a doozey.” “I found your egg donor, and she [was in] SoCal Vocals!” It was incredible that her donor had sung in the same A Capella group at the same school just 18 years earlier.

Meeting

Throckmorton, who has three children, told KTVU, “We have so many similar quirks. But the fact that she sang in my old A Capella group was mind-bending.” Throckmorton and Gaba decided they would have to meet and eventually sing together.

Singing Together

“Meeting her was wonderful and surreal,” Throckmorton said. She took a video of her and Gaba singing and posted it on her Facebook page with a heartfelt caption. “Funny story. In college, I was an egg donor for an infertile couple. Today, I met that egg.”

Genetics

“She goes to my college and sings in my A Capella group. It was a crazy and wonderful day! I’m so excited to know her and especially freaked out (in the best way) to hear our voices together,” Throckmorton wrote. “Skip a minute or two into the video to hear us sing together. Genetics, man!”

College Years

As she thought back to her decision to donate eggs in her college years, Throckmorton said it was an easy decision because it seemed like a “win-win” for everyone involved. “I wasn’t squeamish about the medical procedures (lots of self-administered shots, etc.) and I liked the idea of helping a couple who couldn’t have children of their own start a family,” she said.

Checking A Box

When Throckmorton, now 41, filled out her forms with the fertility clinic, she checked a box saying she would be open to contact. She always knew in the back of her mind that someone could come forward to her many years later, although she wasn’t aware that any of her eggs led to viable pregnancies.

Building A Relationship

After she got to meet Gaba, she also introduced her three children to her. As far as if they will continue to nurture a relationship, Throckmorton said, “I do think we’ll continue to have a relationship.” “She’s a really cool chick and I’m so excited to know her.”

Next Steps

Gaba feels the same, saying she leads a happy life and loves her family, but she always wanted to learn more about where she came from. The pair said they plan to continue building their relationship.

Delicate Issue

While this story had a happy ending, more often than not, the outcome is not ideal. Contact between children and their donor parents remains a delicate issue in the fertility world. Some research suggests that telling donor children where they come from does not benefit them.

Studies

In a 2009 study by Oxford Academic, 37 percent of the offspring who were told during childhood felt confused and 27 percent were shocked. There was a lower percentage in those who were informed later but clearly worse than those who were not told at all.

Moral Dilemma

While some authors of these studies stated that no differences were found in those who were told and those who weren’t, they concluded that it is better for children to be told. One possible explanation of this is the moral premise that ‘children should be told the truth,’ or ‘children have a right to know their genetic origin.’

Emotional Preparation

Others studies indicate that women feel they are not adequately informed or emotionally prepared for the implications of donation down the line. For Gaba, her mother has always encouraged her to get in touch with her egg donor, so she already had a great support system behind her.

Woman Meets The ‘Egg’ She Donated In College 18 Years Later is an article from: LifeDaily

We often think we can run from our problems or our responsibilities. But no matter how hard you try to run, the truth can’t be avoided forever. Eventually, our problems and responsibilities wind up catching up with us.

In early 2017, a California woman attempted to run from the law after her carelessness ended up costing an innocent man his life. In the end, however, the truth about what happened finally caught up with her despite going to extreme lengths to stay hidden.

A Typical Monday

For 46-year-old Agustin Rodriguez, the morning of Monday, January 30, 2017, started just like any other day. The father of three from Whittier, California was up early like every other morning. That day, he was scheduled to work at a packaging warehouse.

A Hard Worker

According to his family, Rodriguez worked hard at the warehouse to support his children. So sometime after seven in the morning, Rodriguez left his family’s home and started riding his bicycle to his parents’ house as his father was going to drive him to work. Tragically, he never made it to his parents’ home.

An Impatient Driver

At around 7:30 am, Rodriguez was riding along Calmada Avenue and was trying to cross the street. A car closest to the father-of-three slowed to a stop to let him pass. However, the driver of the car behind the stopped car pulled out to the side to pass it.

A Careless Accident

According to the police, witnesses claim the driver of the white Lexus pulled out into the opposite lane and sped around the stopped car. The driver hadn’t realized that the other car had stopped to let Rodriguez pass on his bicycle. Sadly, it was too late by the time the driver saw Rodriguez.

A Disturbing Reaction

According to witnesses, the white Lexus then plowed head-on into Rodriguez. What happened next, however, was even more disturbing. Instead of stopping and calling for help, the driver slowed down but then sped back up, ran over Rodriguez, then dragged him two and a half blocks.

A Handful Of Mistakes

“The Lexus slowed down briefly and then sped up, dragging the bicycle rider under the Lexus,” FBI Agent Erik Arbuthnott explained in court documents. “The traffic collision investigation concluded that the Lexus drove into opposing lanes and was traveling at an unsafe speed, failing to yield to the bicycle rider.”

The 911 Call

After dragging Rodriguez 800 feet, the Lexus sped off. A horrified witness immediately called the police to report what happened. By the time first responders arrived about 15 minutes later, Rodriguez was pronounced dead at the scene by coroner officials.

‘She’s A Monster’

“The police confirmed she dragged him. She’s a monster. I think if she would’ve stopped, my uncle might still be here,” Angelica Miller, Rodriguez’s niece told KCAL 9. Since Rodriguez couldn’t be saved, the police then focused their attention on finding his killer since they had fled the scene.

The Investigation Begins

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much information for the police to start their investigation. The little information they did have came from witnesses to the hit and run. According to those witnesses, Rodriguez’s killer was likely a woman and had been driving a newer model of either the Lexus 250 or ES 350.

Looking For The Suspet

Police learned that the car had tinted windows and that it likely had damage to the front of the car from the accident. Within hours of the accident, the police released a statement to the public asking for their help locating the hit and run driver responsible for Rodriguez’s death.

The Family Speaks Out

“You can’t just get away in broad daylight at 7:30 in the morning and not be seen,” Monique Limon, Rodriguez’s other niece, told KCAL 9. “It wasn’t a little crime, she dragged a person two-and-a-half blocks. Have a heart, please come forward because my family is hurting.”

Struggling To Find The Killer

“He was definitely a family man, he was a gentle, kind person, there isn’t a person who could say a bad thing about him,” Miller said about her uncle. “He was murdered and someone is hiding it.” Over the following days, investigators did everything they could, but struggled to come up with any leads in the case.

The Anonymous Tip

However, everything changed when they got a call from an anonymous woman who believed her co-worker was the hit-and-run driver. According to the woman, her colleague seemed to fit the description that police had released. She also claimed that her colleague drove a white Lexus and had come into work late the day of the accident.

A Major Breakthrough

“That was the real turning point in the case,” Officer Robert Jensen from the Whittier Police Department’s Traffic Bureau told Whittier Daily News about the tip he received over the phone. After the woman gave Officer Jensen her co-worker’s address, he ran it in the system and found their suspect.

The Prime Suspect

Based on the information he received, Jensen was confident the driver responsible for Rodriguez’s death was Andrea Dorothy Chan Reyes, a 33-year-old finance adviser and analyst who worked as a fraud auditor. According to the police, Chan Reyes was born in the Philippines but had been living in California at the time of the accident.

Retracing The Killer’s Steps

After that breakthrough, investigators tracked down an auto body shop in Huntington Beach that Chan Reyes had visited the day after the accident. She had gotten her windshield replaced and had the front of her car repaired. According to the shop, Chan Reyes told them that she had hit a deer.

Concrete Evidence

At that point, the police got a warrant to track the location of the Lexus through the car’s internal GPS system. According to Officer Jensen, that led the police to Alan Gold’s home in Meridian, Idaho. Gold was Chan Reyes’ boyfriend and was hiding the Lexus in a private garage owned by a business associate. After seizing the car, the police examined the car and found Rodriguez’s DNA on it.

The Hunt Goes Global

An arrest warrant for Chan Reyes was later approved, however, local police decided to reach out to the FBI after learning that the 33-year-old may have fled the country just days after the accident. According to authorities, Chan Reyes flew to Hong Kong, where she reportedly had relatives, to avoid a vehicular manslaughter charge and a hit-and-run charge.

The Arrest

Eventually, however, authorities tracked Chan Reyes from Hong Kong to Australia. By using as many as 11 different aliases, Chan Reyes was able to restart her life in Australia and settle in Adelaide. Once police caught up with her, they found her living with a new boyfriend and arrested her on April 17, 2018. After the arrest, Chan Reyes was taken into custody at a women’s prison but is expected to be extradited to the United States to face charges.

Awaiting Justice

If convicted, Chan Reyes likely faces 15 years in prison, however, the Rodriguez family has been left waiting to find out when or if they will get justice for their deceased relative. “Not having any closure or information on what’s going on with everything pretty much keeps that rawness of his death in our minds,” a spokesperson for the Rodriguez family told The Advertiser. “He is deeply missed by everyone who knew and loved him. He was a good man … He would give the shirt off his back to someone in need.”

Police Chase Accountant Turned Fugitive Across The Globe After Lethal Hit-And-Run is an article from: LifeDaily

Doctors and nurses are supposed to fight for their patients’ lives and ensure they are getting the best care possible. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen.

When a mother from the UK noticed her young daughter had an insidious mental illness, she begged doctors to help her daughter get better. She expected doctors would take her daughter’s illness seriously, yet they failed the 16-year-old when she needed them most. Now, the devastated mother is fighting for answers and justice.

A Mother’s Dream

Rosemary Westwood-Rose always imagined that when her daughter Libby grew up, she would be happy and successful. She dreamed that her daughter would grow up and start a family of her own one day. When Libby was a child, it seemed like that dream would one day become a reality.

A Bright Future

According to Rosemary and Libby’s father, Ricky, they had always been proud of their little girl. She was smart, kind and ambitious. Libby had a bright future ahead of her, however, that all changed when she left her school at The Old Hall, a prep school in Wellington, England.

The New Kid

At the time, Libby was 11 years old and she transferred into the Charlton School, which was also in Wellington. Libby didn’t know anyone at the new school and she struggled to make friends at first. As a result, she focused even more heavily on her studies.

Things Start To Change

Eventually, Libby became friends with a group of girls, who Rosemary described as like-minded and sensible. Over the next few years, Libby was happy, was doing well in school, and had a good group of friends. However, things took a turn when Libby was 14 years old.

Self Awareness Turns Into Self Loathing

Libby had become aware of the fact that she was bigger than many of her friends and decided to go on a diet to try and lose weight. “I thought I had this super clever child, that she’ll do the diet and feel a whole lot better about herself,” Rosemary told Shropshire Star.

Like Mother Like Daughter

“I have always struggled with my weight and I thought she’d be like me, she’d gain and she’d lose and try diets like me. I didn’t know she would develop an eating disorder,” Rosemary explained. “I just saw my clever, smart, astute 14-year-old. Had I known then what I know now, I would have stopped it then and taken a lot more control.”

The First Diet

No one knew it at the time, but that first diet was the beginning of an incredibly unhealthy and dangerous relationship with food that soon spiraled out of control. After finishing her first diet, Libby started a ‘clean eating’ diet, which Rosemary wasn’t worried about. She thought Libby was just getting interested in taking care of her health.

The Concerning Weight Loss

In reality, the opposite was happening. And when Libby started losing weight, Rosemary thought her daughter had just lost some baby fat. Yet when people started commenting on the weight loss, Rosemary decided to bring her daughter to the doctor just to check and see everything was fine. “She didn’t look ill, and because I saw her every day I didn’t notice it,” Rosemary explained.

Time To See A Doctor

“She wasn’t wearing big baggy clothes, she wasn’t covering up and she was eating. I thought everyone was making a fuss and that I knew her better. But because enough people had mentioned it we took her to the doctor, and this was when she first entered the system,” Rosemary said.

A Shocking Sight

“She had to take her top off and lie on the couch to have the ECG electrodes connected. It was at that stage I looked and I was really shocked. She didn’t look emaciated, but she was thin and I thought, ‘my God, how have I not noticed this?’ It was like someone had lifted the blinkers. I fell apart right there in the surgery. She admitted she had anorexia, but said she was going to stop.”

A Triggering Meal

After leaving the doctor’s office, Rosemary and Libby cried together. Then Libby promised she’d get healthy again and asked for pizza for dinner and then tea. Rosemary thought that was a promising step in the right direction. But it was really the point that things truly became out of control with Libby.

A New Battle Begins

Libby had been starving herself up until that point. After binging on pizza at dinner, she threw it all up later that night, thus beginning her battle with bulimia. “I didn’t realize the huge impact of her having that pizza that night. It seems incredibly stupid now, but at the time I just didn’t know,” Rosemary said.

Uncontrollable Binging

“I would start to find lots of food packets, but I still didn’t know about bulimia. I’d find the packets, clear them out and I would talk to Libby about sensible eating and not pigging out. Sometimes I got cross. But I just did not know what was happening,” said Rosemary. “I’m a nurse, but I didn’t see any obvious signs of poor health.”

A Vicious Cycle

As time went on, however, Rosemary realized what was happening. “She started buying so much food, I didn’t know. It would be eaten, vomited and then hidden. But the evidence became more and more obvious,” said Rosemary, who tried to get her daughter help at that point. Unfortunately, Libby’s BMI wasn’t low enough to be considered an urgent case needing treatment.

Treating The Wrong Problems

“At one point her case worker said ‘I don’t really know what to do’, and that is not enough,” said Rosemary. “The eating disorder books were mostly about anorexia. But the same guidance doesn’t apply for someone with bulimia. How could I sit and say ‘Libby you need to eat’? Getting her to eat wasn’t the problem. That was the least of the problems. She ate non-stop, all the time.”

Out Of Control

Rosemary was lost and had no idea what to do. She even tried locking the doors and windows to the house to keep Libby in, but she managed to break out. At one point, the family even tried locking the food away to keep Libby from binging and then purging. When Libby turned 16, Rosemary lost even more control as the teenager got her own bank account and told doctors she didn’t want her mother involved with her case anymore.

Begging For Help

“A lot of it I didn’t see. It sounds crazy to say it, but she was really adept at hiding it all,” Rosemary said. “It got to the stage where I started to notice bottles of vomit in her bedroom. One day I counted 27 bottles of vomit around her bedroom. Along her radiators, along her surfaces, some of them overflowing. All the professionals knew about this, I told everybody. They couldn’t do anything.”

Libby’s Last Chance

Shortly after turning 16, Libby’s condition got so bad that Rosemary rushed her to the hospital where doctors finally agreed she needed to be treated at an inpatient facility. Libby spent three months at an eating disorder clinic in Sutton Coldfield. According to Rosemary, she received almost no treatment or therapy. She was nowhere close to overcoming bulimia, but the clinic discharged Libby anyway.

A Tragic Ending

Three days later, Libby’s heart stopped as a result of dangerously low potassium levels and she died after suffering for two years. “The three days before she died were lovely,” said Rosemary. “Looking back at her letters she knew she was going to die and wanted to make everything right.” After Libby was found dead in her bedroom, Rosemary found notes Libby wrote in her final days knowing she was about to die. “It’s no one’s fault,” Libby wrote. “I love you so much.”

Fighting For Justice

Now, Rosemary is taking legal action to fight back against the system that failed to give her daughter the early intervention she needed and discharged her when she was deathly ill. “We are all angry and frustrated, broken. We want to know why Libby did not receive early specialist support and the subsequent therapy that she needed to prevent her unnecessary death. We are determined to find out what happened and what could have been done to prevent Libby’s death,” Rosemary wrote on Crowd Justice. “We want to know what changes are needed to improve services for others suffering from eating disorders.”

Bulimic Teen Denied Proper Treatment Dies Days After Release From Clinic is an article from: LifeDaily

Even for people who love their jobs, there will always be some responsibility or aspect of the job that is less than enjoyable. However, they stay because the good aspects of the job outweigh the bad.

For a long time, one teenager from Canada stayed at his job at Walmart because he was getting a lot of hours and was making a steady paycheck. Yet when the bad things about the job started to outweigh the good, he decided to resign in a way that would send his message loud and clear to management…

A Loyal Employee

For more than a year and a half, one teenager from Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada has been an employee at the city’s local Walmart. According to 17-year-old Jackson Racicot, he always made sure to be a dependable and hardworking employee.

The Company Culture

Soon after he got a job at the Walmart, however, Racicot started to realize the company culture wasn’t as great as he was lead to believe while interviewing for the position. He had been told by managers at the store that employees are always valued and respected.

Unfair Treatment

Racicot soon realized that the way his managers at the store treated him and other fellow employees was anything but fair and respectful. Instead, he and other store employees were regularly treated poorly and written up for ridiculous offenses.

Sticking It Out

Racicot always imagined that if he quit one day, he would find a way to make his exit dramatic to make a point to management. However, Racicot explained that he never felt pushed to the point of quitting. While there was a lot Racicot didn’t enjoy about his job, he had always put up with it without much complaint.

Staying For The Money

The main reason Racicot had stayed so long at Walmart was that he was getting a steady paycheck. However, after working there for a year and a half, the loyal and dependable employee was finally pushed to his limit and decided it was finally time to leave.

An Unnecessary Challenge

According to Racicot, management had been moving him around the store making him work in different departments every single day. Racicot believed he would be able to do his job better if he could focus on one department instead of jumping around each day.

A ‘Waste Of Time’

On several occasions, Racicot made requests to his manager to be assigned to one department, which he believed was a fair and logical request. Racicot’s assistant manager didn’t agree and called the teenager a ‘waste of time.’ While frustrating and insulting, Racicot tried to let it go.

Punished For Being A Hardworker

Unfortunately, another incident occurred not long after. According to the 17-year-old, he was written up for working on his day off, which he was doing to try and make up hours. After he was punished for being a dedicated and hardworking employee, Racicot knew it was finally time to leave.

The Last Straw

“It was a little shove because my toes were already hanging off the edge,” Racicot recently told The Star about the reason he decided to stop working at Walmart. At that point, Racicot started planning his exit strategy and committed to making it as dramatic as possible.

The Resignation Letter

On December 6, 2018, Racicot finally went through with his plan. That day, Racicot went to work with his resignation letter, which he had handwritten on a copy of his resume. Sometime after showing up for his shift, the 17-year-old handed his letter to his assistant manager.

The Rant

After officially resigning, Racicot walked over to the intercom system and typed in a number combination that would allow him to broadcast his message to the entire store. “Attention all shoppers, associates, and management,” Racicot said to get everyone’s attention.

Airing His Grievances

With both the attention of his former coworkers and every customer in the store, Racicot then proceeded to air all of his grievances, which he explained were the cause for his dramatic resignation. At that point, Racicot was also filming the scene on his iPhone.

A Bold Warning

“I would like to say to all of you today that nobody should work here. Ever,” Racicot warned over the loudspeaker. “Our managers will make promises and never keep them and not only that, they will preach to us about how they care about their employees.”

No Help

“But about a month ago, my boss, assistant manager Cora, called me a waste of time and management did nothing to help,” Racicot explained during his expletive-filled rant. “Management will also try to save money every step of the way,” he added.

The Employees Lose Out

During his store-wide announcement, Racicot explained that during his time working at the store, he saw how management would save money at the expense of their employees. According to Racicot, they did that by cutting benefits of full-time employees to a part-time employee.

A Breaking Point

Racicot, who worked typically worked more than 40 hours a week, was just one of several full-time employees who had their benefits unfairly cut. “I’ve been a loyal employee here for over a year and a half, and I’m sick of all the bull—-, bogus write-ups, and my job,” he said.

Uploading The Footage

As if his message wasn’t already clear, Racicot finished off his cathartic speech by saying “F— management. F— this job. F— Walmart.” According to Racicot, he then immediately left the store and went home. Once at home, Racicot uploaded the footage of his resignation to his Facebook page.

A Viral Sensation

“I was expecting a couple hundred views and a few shares,” Racicot said. Yet the video quickly went viral and has been viewed over 600,000 times.  “I got fed up,” Racicot told the Edmonton Journal after his rant went viral. “I don’t regret what I did, I went into this knowing what will happen,” said Racicot, who also added that he had already secured another job before his Walmart resignation.

Walmart’s Reaction

“We are aware of the video circulating online and are disappointed by this incident,” Walmart said in a statement reported by the Edmonton Journal. “Respect for all individuals including our associates and customers is a core value at Walmart. We are looking into this matter and will address it internally as required.”

Taking A Stand

“I want people to start boycotting it,” said Racicot, who has since been contacted by other Walmart employees who are fed up with the way management treats them. “It’s not just our f—ing Walmart. It’s nationwide. It’s a corporate thing. It’s how the managers are trained,” Racicot said. “Don’t be treating your employees as if you own them, [as] if they are your property. Don’t think to throw them around.”

17-Year-Old Walmart Employee’s Dramatic Resignation Goes Viral is an article from: LifeDaily

Real estate schemes seem to be a dime-a-dozen these days. Ever since the 2007-2008 financial crisis, many people, especially in the United States, have been wary of buying new real estate, specifically when a deal looks too good to be true.

Recently, a real estate scheme in Moscow, Russia, gained worldwide notoriety. Not because of its poor payouts or cheap and easy money making potential, but because the end result for all those involved was the same, dreadful end…

An Offer

The man who came to the door was charming, though in a rough sort of way. He wasn’t clean shaven, wasn’t wearing the perfect, crisp suit of a businessman, but he was charming all the same. He had come to extend an offer to the elderly woman. She could sell him her apartment at a profit and buy her some new property.

Persuasion

It was a great offer, one that seemed almost too good to be true. This was because it was in fact too good to be true. Though the elderly victim didn’t know it yet, the whole offer was a scam. The reason that the man offering it was so charming was all part of the scam, his associates knew that his power of persuasion had few equals.

Accomplices

The man’s name was Roman Shugaibov. The 34-year-old Russian con artist had been at it for a while. He and his accomplices had successfully persuaded many elderly victims to sell their apartments with the promise of using the proceeds to buy some property for them. This woman was no different and sadly, her fate would be the same.

Chance of a Lifetime

In the victims’ minds, it made sense. If they sold their flats in Moscow, they could buy a smaller place outside the city. The pocket money they saved would help to boost what meager salaries they had. Many of them were also running exceptionally low on their pensions as well. This was the chance of a lifetime.

Bleak Night

Before he had crept upon this poor woman’s door, Shugaibov had run the scheme on other people as well. One of them, an elderly man who’d agreed to hand over the lease to his flat, had opened the door some days later to a most unwelcome sight; a murderous Shugaibov, holding a bag in his hands.

Strangled

Shugaibov then convinced the poor, confused man to come out to his car, at which point he placed a bag over the man’s head and strangled him to death. Once the deed was done, Shugaibov and his partners dug a shallow grave and buried the man’s remains. Then they pocketed the money.

A Bloody End

The scheme was elegant in its simplicity. It was the best kind of plan, brutal and efficient. The people they targeted were vulnerable, many of them elderly and some prone to alcohol abuse. The gang had been careful to case them beforehand, to prevent their looking for any outside counsel before the deal was done.

Posing

Over a series of lucrative months, Shugaibov and his gang of unscrupulous “salesmen” managed to parlay their murderous exploits into a number of new homes and quite a bit of stolen money. They would pose as buyers and then others would come back as sellers, legitimizing the whole enterprise in their victim’s minds.

Proceeds

From the very first moment they began the scheme, the gang knew it was ironclad. How could it not be? There were no witnesses, many of the victims’ families were too concerned with their own lives to worry about their now missing elderly relatives. The proceeds from the first murders also allowed them to purchase a bit more legitimacy towards future cons.

Cash Advance

The victims were paid in cash for their trouble, which was usually stolen right back as the new “realtors” showed up and turned that money into profit for the elderly victims. The money, of course, was just being funneled back and forth between gang members and so cash made the transaction more secretive.

Huge Gang

Shugaibov’s gang, which was allegedly founded in 2013, consisted of seven other men and eight women. Together, the lot of them ended up stealing roughly $430,000 in proceeds. They weren’t found out right away, however, and ended up working their brutal scheme on at least nine different victims.

Arrested and Confessing

Eventually, Roman Shugaibov was arrested and taken into custody. Despite his cool outward exterior, he sang like a bird when questioned. Not only did he confess to the whole scheme and name every single one of his accomplices, he even admitted to how he managed to hide all the bodies in the end.

Masked Graves

When he and his fellows had finished the bloody business of buying, the faux real estate agents ended up taking the deceased victims to the local cemetery and burying them in unmarked graves. Which they then masked by taking crosses and flowers off other nearby graves. That way, no one would even bother to ask questions.

Many Victims

Though Shugaibov admitted that they’d killed at least nine, the Moscow police believe that many others might actually have been casualties of the large-scale scheme. Some of them may have been more patsies, and others may have been professionals in the real estate industry they needed to glean information from.

Wealthy Enterprise

By all accounts, the enterprise was a lucrative one, even split sixteen ways. Shugaibov was more than happy to relay the information to detectives about the money and the scheme as a whole. He was so morbidly candid about the affair that the detectives were slightly shocked when he told them about some of the other victims.

Cruel Endings

The detectives videotaped the confession. In one of the videos, Shugaibov explained to detectives how he dragged a homeowner out into the street and held him face down in water for about 10 minutes. With that one, he left the body and drove away, but the last revelations of his victims proved the most unsettling.

Worse than Death

In some rare cases, members of the criminal enterprise actually went so far as to bury the victims alive. They wouldn’t even bother killing them first, just tied and gagged them, before tossing them into open graves in official cemeteries. The poor souls would never be found amidst the actual dead.

The Charges

In the end, the charges against Shugaibov amounted to violations of part 1 and part 2 of Article 210, which refers to creating a criminal community. The others include murder and part 4 of Article 159 referring to large-scale swindling. These articles are documented in the Criminal Code of Russia, which is the prime source of law in the Russian Federation. But Shugaibov’s arrest wouldn’t be the end of the story.

Ignominious End

Shugaibov’s so-called “black estate agents,” became a media sensation almost immediately. As for the mastermind himself, he didn’t make it to his day in court. In November of 2018, Shugaibov committed suicide while in prison. It seemed his confident confessions were just more obfuscation of the coward beneath.

No Way Out

Today, the rest of Shugaibov’s accomplices are currently awaiting their own charges. As for Shugaibov, he clearly felt that life in prison was no way to live and chose to take the only other way out available to him. One can’t blame him. After all, as his victims found out, there are some fates worse than death.

Russian Real Estate Scheme Ends In Tragedy For Nearly A Dozen Senior Victims is an article from: LifeDaily

It seems like so many things in life, good and bad, are determined by being in the right or wrong place at the right or wrong time. Call it luck, fate, or random chance, it plays a huge part in what happens in our lives.

On an autumn day in Pennsylvania, a number of people were walking along, minding there own business. Some would quickly learn that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, while for one of them, the opposite would be true.

Cloudy Day

It was a typical Wednesday in mid-September. Grey clouds lazily crossed the sky over the green hills of the Pennsylvania State University campus. At around 9:30 in the morning, students were milling about, going to and from their classes.

Shortcut

Brendon Malovrh was one of those students, casually going about his business. The 21-year-old senior was walking through the grass by the HUB-Robeson Center, taking a shortcut after his morning class to grab a bite to eat…

Chatting After Class

Another of those students was Melanie Spalla. She was also a 21-year-old senior. After her Spanish class, she spent a little time chatting with a classmate before making her way down the sidewalk, still wet from a bit of early morning rain.

About to Change

At the same time, Nicholas Mensah, a 22-year-old sophomore, walked by the Health and Human Behavior Building. None of them had any idea how much their hum-drum day would change in just the next few moments…

Pop Pop Pop

As he was walking along, Brendon heard an unusual sound ring out through the air. “I heard these very loud noises, like cannon fire, but at a higher pitch,” he said. Thinking the “pop pop pop” sounds were fireworks, Brendon started walking toward the sounds.

Taking a Closer Look

As he walked along, Brendon noticed a bit of smoke coming out of the bushes. It looked like he found the spot where someone was setting off fireworks. Because he was “pretty much curious about all things,” went to investigate.

Unexpected Sight

When Brendon walked the 25 or so feet from the northwest to the southwest side of the lawn, he saw something he didn’t expect. He saw a young woman kneeling in the bushes with a tarp beneath her. In her hands was a high powered 7mm Mauser rifle.

Setting Up Her Shot

Just a few minutes earlier, the young woman named Jillian Robbins spread out the tarp beneath her and set up her rifle. The 19-year-old had grown up close to the school but was not a student. The “pop pop pop” Brendon heard earlier was Robbins firing shots at passersby.

Bullets’ Paths

Two of her shots hit passing students. One hit Melanie Spalla in the back and exited her neck, killing her instantly. The second passed through the left side of Nicholas Mensah’s abdomen, knocking him to the ground. He was bleeding profusely as a student who had been walking right in front of him dragged him into a nearby bush.

Brush With Death

Two other shots came close to hitting two more students, William Mocker and Kerry Butler. Both students had their backpacks grazed by shots as they ran from the sound of gunfire. Neither of them realized they’d come so close to death until after they returned to their dorm rooms…

Awkward Encounter

It was after Robbins had fired those shots that Brendon came across her. The two locked eyes and gave each other an instinctual nod. Brendon didn’t realize that Robbins had a gun in her hands until she turned and pointed it at his chest as she was reloading.

Instinct

Without thinking, Brendon charged across the 20 feet that separated him from Robbins. Just as she finished reloading, Brendon grabbed the barrel of her gun. Pulling with all his might, he yanked it out of Robbins’ hands…

Knife fight

Unfortunately for Brendon, Robbins didn’t have just one weapon. After he’d disarmed her of her rifle, Robbins pulled out a hunting knife and took “a couple quick stabs at me,” Brendon said. In an instant, Brendon had gone from strolling along to disarming a shooter to being in a lopsided knife fight.

Once In A Lifetime

“I jumped backward. I have trained in martial arts,” Brendon said, “but I [didn’t] know the exact defense if someone’s stabbing in a downward, overhead motion with a knife. I was thinking, ‘Wow. This is the first time, and probably last time, I’m ever going to use this.’”

Oops

Once Brendon successfully evaded Robbins’ first couple of stabs, she got “annoyed,” he said. In moving forward and making another stab at Brendon, Robbins missed once more and accidentally stabbed herself instead. The knife had sunk about three inches into her upper leg.

Totally Disarmed

As Robbins was momentarily distracted by the pain and shock of having stabbed herself, Brendon managed to grab the knife away from her. He took it and the rifle and threw them far away from her and began yelling to people on the sidewalk to call for the police. Then, he turned his attention back to Robbins…

Using His Belt

Brendon took the belt from his trench coat and moved toward Robbins. Rather than further attacking her or binding her hands, Brendon took the belt and tied it around Robbins’ leg above her knife wound in order to stop the bleeding. Robbins was stunned and had apparently gone into shock.

Quick Reaction

In no time after the shooting began, university police and the entire nursing department on duty that day showed up on the scene. They couldn’t do anything to help Melanie, who’d died instantly when she was shot, but they were able to rush Nicholas, the young man shot in the abdomen, to the nearby hospital.

Cuff Her

Two university police officers were less than a minute away when they got the call about the shooting and they put handcuffs on Robbins, just a couple of minutes after the first shot was fired. The spot Robbins had chosen had a 40-foot area of concealment on a hill where she could see everything down towards College Ave. and no one could see her.

Decades in Prison

If Nicholas hadn’t been walking where he was, it would have likely taken much longer to find and stop Robbins. She was charged with third-degree murder and four counts of attempted murder. After pleading guilty to all charges, Robbins was sentenced to 30-60 years in prison and will be up for parole in 2028.

Student’s Quick Thinking Saves Lives At Penn State is an article from: LifeDaily

In 1984, a teenager from New Hampshire disappeared without a trace. Then, for three decades, her body went unidentified.

But after a tip about her disappearance came in 2017, her body was recovered one year later. Yet, still, mysteries about her disappearance remain…

Missing Teen

According to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, 17-year-old Elizabeth “Liz” Lamotte went missing in November 1984. Lamotte had left a Youth Development Center to head to Gill Stadium and never returned.

Disappearance

At the time of her disappearance, Lamotte was described as being 5-feet-5-inches tall and weighing between 110 and 125 pounds. According to WMUR, officials said she had brown hair and hazel eyes the last time anyone saw her. Anyone with tips was asked to call the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

Green County, Tennessee

Then, less than one year later, on April 14, 1985, the partially decomposed body of a young female was found along Interstate 81 in Green County, Tennessee. “That would have been about six months after she was last seen in Manchester, New Hampshire,” Senior Assistant Attorney General Susan Morrell said.

18th Birthday

One year later, on what would have been her 18th birthday, Lamotte’s case was discharged from the Youth Development Center, even though she had not returned to the facility. Despite finding a body, they couldn’t determine if it was Lamotte’s.

Autopsy

Investigators said the death of the body was ruled as a homicide and that an autopsy revealed that she died of blunt force trauma to the head about two to three weeks before her body decomposed. Since Tennessee officials were unable to determine the identity of the victim, she was listed as Jane Doe.

Second Barrel

Fifteen years later, a state police sergeant newly assigned to the case discovered a second barrel, contained the remains of two more girls, believed to be three and four years old. Authorities believed that the girls were killed between the late 1970s and early 1980s.

DNA Test

DNA tests also revealed that the woman and two of the girls were related. “I’m sure the family has had questions all these years about what they could’ve done, what could be done to help find her, and now they know it wasn’t long after she went missing that she was killed,” said Morrell.

Sample

Then, in 2006, investigators submitted a sample of the victim’s remains to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification. This allowed the center to develop a DNA profile for the victim, which was entered into the Combined Data DNA Index System. But it wasn’t until November 2018 that investigators confirmed that Lamotte was a match to the homicide victim’s DNA profile.

Unidentified Persons Case

Lamotte was not reported as missing to Manchester police until 2017, after a January 2017 press conference held by the Attorney General’s Office. During the press conference, the New Hampshire State Police Cold Case Unit and the Manchester Police Department spoke out regarding the Allenstown unidentified persons cases.

Suspect

During that press conference, officials released the name of Bob Evans, who was a suspect in the murders. They also mentioned the name of a woman who was thought to be his wife, Elizabeth Evans. Both were living in Manchester in the early 1980s, according to the attorney general’s statement, obtained by the Boston Globe.

Identification

When authorities asked the public’s help in identifying Elizabeth Evans, one tipster told investigators that Lamotte could be the Elizabeth Evans that police were trying to identify. Manchester police detectives then spoke with Youth Development Center personnel, along with Lamotte’s family and friends, who all confirmed her disappearance.

DNA Samples

Police obtained DNA samples from two of her brothers, which were submitted to NamUS, a national information clearinghouse and resource center for missing, unidentified and unclaimed person cases across the United States.

Mitochondrial DNA

Those DNA samples resulted in the match to the remains found in Tennessee. The DNA was tested using mitochondrial DNA, which is maternally inherited, according to New Hampshire officials. The likelihood of a match was determined to be 194.4 million times more likely than the unidentified remains, according to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office.

Open Investigation

Although officials determined that Lamotte and Elizabeth Evans were, in fact, not the same person, the investigations into both Lamotte’s disappearance and the death and the identity of Elizabeth Evans are ongoing. Lamotte’s family has been notified that their daughter’s remains were positively identified.

Identification

“I think they ’re overwhelmed,” Morrell said. “I think they’re a bit in shock because nobody really expects to get those answers.” Regarding the Allenstown unidentified persons cases, authorities completed DNA testing in July 2017 confirming the man known as Robert “Bob” Evans is actually Terry Peder Rasmussen.

Rasmussen

Rasmussen was a serial killer who was born in Colorado and resided in Phoenix. He was enlisted in the US Navy only to be discharged. He then moved to Hawaii. There he worked at his parents’ shoe shop and married his wife.

Separation

In 1972, his daughter was born and Rasmussen and his wife separated temporarily. One year later, Rasmussen’s wife and children left him. Then in 1974, he arrived unexpectedly to visit his wife and children in Arizona. That was the last time his family ever saw him.

Kidnapping

Four years later, his whereabouts continued to be unknown while Rasmussen worked at Waumbec Mills as a head electrician, “Bob Evans.” In 1980, Evans was arrested for issuing a bad check and also for theft of services. Then, in 1981, a woman named Denise Beaudin went missing along with her 6-month-old daughter and her boyfriend Bob Evans.

DUI

Rasmussen moved to California and was arrested for a DUI, and that same year, in November 1985, the first barrel containing a body was found in Allenstown, New Hampshire. He continued to go by other names, like Gordon Jenson and Curtis Kimball.

Prison

A string of events continued with Rasmussen dying in prison in December 2010. The investigation on him continued after his death, and in 2016, DNA confirmed he was the biological father of the unidentified little girl found dead in Allenstown in 2000. He was also responsible for the disappearance of Denise Beaudin.

Homicide Victim In Cold Case Identified After 33 Years is an article from: LifeDaily

The thought of not being around to raise your children is terrifying for parents who have just been diagnosed with a deadly disease. The only thing worse for a parent is finding out that their child is the one who is gravely ill.

In 2016, a mother of two found out she had a rare disease and that she would have to fight to stay alive if she wanted to be there to see her kids grow up. She thought that moment was the worst moment of her life until everything changed…

A Time Of Change

Pregnancy and the postpartum period is a time of great change for a mother’s body. During those months, many women experience changes in their bodies that they have never experienced before, and those changes become the new normal for a while.

An Expecting Couple

After becoming pregnant for the first time in her life, Vici Rigby was thrilled that she and her husband Jamie were about to become parents and start a new chapter in their lives together. The pregnancy brought on countless changes to Rigby’s body and not all of them were pleasant.

An Unpleasant Problem

Around the same time as the pregnancy, Rigby noticed she started having bowel issues. She had never experienced those issues before and heard that it can be fairly common for pregnant women to experience issues going to the bathroom. For those reasons, Rigby just assumed the bowel problems she started to experience were because of her pregnancy. After giving birth to her first son, George, Rigby explained that the bowel issues persisted. However, they never did. In fact, over the years, they only got worse.

The Second Pregnancy

“I’d had bowel problems for years,” Rigby told The Sun about her unpleasant pregnancy side-effect. Less than two years later, Rigby became pregnant for the second time and gave birth to another son, Jack. During that pregnancy, she continued to have trouble going to the bathroom and passing bowel movements.

A Pregnancy Symptom

“I’d bleed when I went to the loo but I didn’t think much of it,” said Rigby, who believed she had developed ‘piles’ or hemorrhoids. “Jack had been a big baby – 9lb 4oz – so when I started to bleed I wondered if it was piles a result of my pregnancies.”

The Symptoms Worsen

After that second pregnancy and birth, Rigby’s bowel problems progressively worsened. She also started feeling extremely exhausted more often than not, and tired way more quickly than she did in the past. In general, Rigby explained she just didn’t feel great.

‘Normal’ Postpartum Symptoms

At the time, Rigby thought it was all because of the pregnancies and raising two young boys. She figured all new moms felt the way she did and that it was normal. “I had a 14-month-old, Jack, and a three-year-old, George, so I thought I was just run down and exhausted,” Rigby explained.

A New Symptom

Then Rigby started experiencing a new symptom. The mother of two from England started losing weight, which she was happy about and thought it meant she was getting healthier. I was doing Slimming World, so I was delighted to be losing a pound or two a week,” Rigby said.

A Welcomed Change

“I thought it must be because of that and the fact that I was so busy with the children and working part-time,” the mom said. “I remember saying to my husband, Jamie (now 41), ‘It’s working!’” But over time, Rigby started to worry that something wasn’t right.

Too Painful To Ignore

As all of the symptoms continued to get worse, Rigby began thinking that what she was experiencing wasn’t normal postpartum changes. The bowel issues were worse than ever and she felt more run down than she ever had. “I couldn’t avoid the symptoms anymore,” she said.

The Initial Tests

“So I visited my GP who, suspecting I had polyps which are abnormal tissue growths referred me to hospital in Worcestershire,” Rigby explained. “There I had scans and an examination.” Doctors were worried when they heard Rigby explain her symptoms and ordered a biopsy.

The Truth Is Revealed

That test revealed the real reason why Rigby had felt so unwell over the previous years. After the results came back, doctors told Rigby that she had rectal cancer, which they told her was extremely rare for anyone under the age of 60 years old.

A Shocking Diagnosis

Rigby was completely shocked. She knew she hadn’t been feeling her best, but she never thought at any moment that it was because she had cancer. “When the doctors sat me down and said to me, ‘You have cancer’, I was shell-shocked. I didn’t actually cry or get emotional. I just went into shock – pure shock,” Rigby said.

‘Anything But Cancer’

“I thought it was anything but cancer,” Rigby said. “Even when I was losing weight, which I now know is a symptom of cancer, I wasn’t concerned – on the contrary, I was pleased!” Because of how long Rigby had been experiencing her symptoms, doctors decided to run some more tests.

The Treatment Begins

They wanted to check if the cancer had spread to other areas of the body. Unfortunately, their fears were confirmed when the results came back. According to Rigby, her doctors explained that the cancer cells had spread to her liver and that they wanted to start treatment right away.

Fighting For Her Life

During the fall of 2016, Rigby started six rounds of chemotherapy and then had surgery on both her liver and her bowel. After that, doctors started her on a course of radiotherapy and 12 more rounds of chemotherapy to kill the cancer cells. “It was grueling. During the chemotherapy, I was exhausted. My hair thinned so much I opted to shave it,” Rigby said.

Five Months Later

Rigby and her husband tried to keep everything cancer-related a secret from their kids. Yet at the beginning of 2017, just five months after Rigby was diagnosed, their 3-year-old son George started feeling sick. When she and Jamie noticed a rash on George’s stomach, they brought him straight to the doctor. “We took him to the GP again who immediately referred him to hospital for blood tests. From there things moved very quickly,” Rigby said.

Groundhog Day

At the Worcester Royal Hospital, the couple found out that George had acute lymphoblastic leukemia.  “It was like Groundhog Day. Five months earlier I had been sat in a virtually identical room hearing the same devastating news – ‘It’s cancer.’ All I could think was, ‘Not again, not again.'”

Fighting Cancer Together

Because of how aggressive the type of cancer is, George started chemotherapy immediately. “George had six months of quite intensive chemotherapy at hospital and home, while I underwent radiotherapy. We were actually treated in the same hospital in Worcester at points.”

The Fight Continues

“He dealt with it all so bravely but it was still heartbreaking to see him go through it,” Rigby said. Now, Rigby has finished treatment and is officially cancer-free. George is in remission but will continue with treatment until 2020 to make sure the disease doesn’t return. “It’s amazing that we’ve both got through this,” she added. “I thought it was the worst news ever when I had cancer. But actually, the worst was yet to come and hearing my baby had the disease was so much worse.”

Mother With Cancer Left Devastated After 3-Year-Old Son Is Given Same Diagnosis is an article from: LifeDaily

When your children finally leave the nest, it can be a scary time. Some parents struggle with letting go, while others accept that their child is equipped to make the right decisions in the real world.

Sometimes, however, no matter how prepared you think your child is, there are outside forces that take over. What happens when your child starts becoming distant and you don’t know why? The following story depicts a father dealing with a bad feeling he couldn’t shake off with his daughter. He knew something was wrong before anything even happened…

The Best Dad

Gary was a retired firefighter who loved being a dad. If he could have it his way he would be with his two children, Jessie and Brandon, all the time. In fact, Jessie didn’t ever want to let her dad out of her sight. When Jessie was 14, Gary and her mother Carla divorced, and Jessie spent her high school years with her father and her new stepmother Gina.

Leaving The Nest

When Jessie went off to college, Gary missed her terribly. Jessie seemed to be having more fun than she was focusing on school and her dad became worried. But after a few years of college, Jessie moved to Orange Beach and started working tables at a popular beach side restaurant called Cobalt. She still spoke to her dad Gary every day…

A New Boyfriend?

Jessie had been living with a long-term boyfriend but she surprised everyone when she fell for a new guy, Jason Lowe. Lowe was friendly, outgoing, handsome, ambitious and had two college degrees, so he was quite the catch. But for Jessie, Jason wasn’t just a new love, he was a ticket to a more exciting life.

Keeping Secrets

When Lowe went to Dallas for a six-figure job in the tech industry, Jessie decided she would join him and pursue her own dream of cosmetology. She thought of the move as more of an adventure. But Jessie failed to mention she was about to go to Dallas when she saw her family that Christmas…

Something Was Wrong

Shortly after the holidays, Jessie prepared to leave for Texas. Now, suddenly, the girl who always had her iPhone with her was now never on it. Jessie’s friends couldn’t reach her, and they became very concerned when her phone number was cut off. The only way to reach her was to go through Lowe.

Jessie Was Not The Same

Her friends would come to find out that Lowe was monitoring all of Jessie’s calls. Eventually, every time Gary called Jessie he only got Lowe, who told him she would call him later. But when Gary went to visit Jessie in Orange Beach, she was hugging him more than normal. He asked his daughter if she was OK and she said yes and that she was still moving to Texas. Still, Gary knew something was wrong…

Cutting All Communication

Even though Jessie never led on that anything was wrong, Gary had a bad feeling. He decided to channel his frustration by going into Jessie’s room and writing a song about how much he loved her. Four months after that, Jessie moved to Texas and she stopped answering her dad’s calls altogether.

A Controlling Boyfriend

Because this was very unlike his daughter, Gary called Lowe and insisted on knowing where Jessie was. Lowe became defensive saying that he didn’t know. He even yelled that they were not codependent and he didn’t know where Jessie was. But then, when Jessie didn’t call her mom and stepmom on Mother’s Day, Gary packed his bags and headed to Texas…

Going To See Jessie

When Gary got in his truck and headed to Texas he was very angry. So angry, in fact, that it scared him. Gary texted Lowe on the way there and said that if Jessie is not at the apartment when he gets there that he will be in a tremendous amount of trouble.

Missing Persons Report

However, when Gary arrived at the apartment, Jessie was nowhere to be found. Gary immediately filed a missing person’s report with the Richardson police department and over the next 24 hours, police were on a hunt. They regularly visited Jessie’s apartment, but she never showed up. That’s when Detective Hail called Lowe on the phone…

He Was Covering Something Up

Lowe said the last day he saw Jessie was on Mother’s Day, May 8, at 10 am and that she left in her Acura. The next day, detective Hail made a house call to Lowe. By then Jessie had been reported missing for three days and it seemed everyone was desperate to find Jessie except the man that claimed to be in love with her.

Shocking Evidence

While Lowe had a convincing story, there was one problem with it. Police learned that the couple had sold that Acura three weeks before Lowe claimed Jessie drove off with it. They found the car in the new owner’s driveway. It became clearer the next day that something was going on besides a missing person case…

Getting Closer

A group of detectives including Hail returned to the apartment and they saw a line of cocaine on the table. But it was an odor coming from the garage that really got their attention. It was the smell of death and it was coming from the back of Jason Lowe’s black Audi. Detective Hail opened the hatch door, but there was no Jessie Bardwell in there.

The Evidence

There was, however, evidence that a body had been there because the car smelled like decaying flesh and had a lot of damage to it. Lowe told detectives that he got stuck in the mud while searching for Jessie. But when they sprayed a chemical into the backseat of the car, it turned blue, indicating the presence of blood. At that point, the case turned into a homicide investigation…

Still No Jessie

Lowe was arrested and investigators questioned him, but nothing seemed to get him to talk and he was very irritated. Yet, even without a body, Jason Lowe was charged with murder. Detectives suspected that he killed her. Texas is a huge state there are lots of rivers, ponds, fields and a million different places you could hide a body. Still, they hadn’t found Jessie.  

A Reliable Source?

Almost three weeks after Jessie was last seen alive, police finally got an answer. The chief said they received information from a reliable source about where Jessie’s body was and that the Bardwell family needed to prepare for the worst. Her body was found where Lowe’s car was stuck in the mud and she was thrown away like a piece of trash. But her body was so badly decomposed, officials could not say how she was murdered…

Plea Deal

That reliable source turned out to be Lowe himself, and he told police where the body was as part of a plea bargain. If convicted, he would only serve half his sentence of 50 years instead of the full term. Prosecutors believe Jessie was killed on or around May 1, the last day she was seen alive. They believe Lowe kept her body in his car for eight days before dumping it.

Paying Respects

Over 900 people showed up to mourn the death and celebrate the life of Jessie Bardwell. But it wasn’t over yet. Lowe still had to be convicted of murder and the trial was set four years after Jessie had been killed. Prosecutors called Lowe to the stand and he told an elaborate story of what happened that night…

A Confession?

Despite trying to convince the jury he was innocent, prosecutors built a strong case against Lowe. He had a sadistic past including drug use and numerous ex-girlfriends who believed that Lowe could have killed them too. With everyone that encountered Lowe scared for their lives, a phone call between Lowe and a friend visiting him in prison proved everything. He said, “I made a mistake.”

Guilty

At the trial, Lowe was finally convicted of murder. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison and he will be eligible for parole in May of 2041 when he is 52-years-old. Until then, Gary can rest his head a little bit knowing that his daughter’s killer is behind bars.

California Girl Disappears After Following New Boyfriend To Texas is an article from: LifeDaily

It’s almost 2019 and if you’re in the market for a new SUV, now’s the time to educate yourself about the marvelous new models coming out in the coming year. SUVs have long been known for their perfect blend of reliability, utility, spaciousness, and of course, performance. This isn’t just one brand either, SUVs are just as sought after with models across the board.

Despite their size, SUVs also get excellent gas mileage. In addition to being a great family vehicle, SUVs offer safety features that are sometimes lacking in smaller model cars. With so many great options out there, however, how can one decide? Well, we’ve done some of the do-diligence for you and compiled 20 of the greatest SUVs available in 2019…

2019 Audi Q3

Although it’s already landed in many European dealerships, the luxurious 2019 Audi Q3 isn’t set to enter the United States until at least January of the new year. From the wheelbase to the interior, the new, second-generation Q3 is larger in almost every way than its predecessors. Even the display screen is larger and completely customizable.

2019 BMW X5

BMW has always prided itself on being a cut above the competition and the 2019 BMW X5 appears to keep the trend going. The new model is a bit longer, wider, and lower than the previous one, but also smarter and much more powerful. This new X5 has a souped-up 3.0-liter turbocharged inline-six, with an extra 35 horsepower. It also features the patented iDrive system.

2019 Hyundai Santa Fe

In 2019, Hyundai renamed a few of their midsize SUV’s to reflect the wider models offered in the coming year. The 2-row crossover formerly known as the Santa Fe Sport will heretofore be known as simply “The Santa Fe.” It also comes standard with new safety features like automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, blind spot monitoring, driver drowsiness monitoring, and lane keeping assist.

2019 Acura RDX

The first Acura RDX came equipped with a turbocharged engine but was discontinued in the second generation. This year, the 2019 RDX brings it back and becomes one of the top-rated luxury compact SUVs of the coming year. It’s new 10.2-inch HD display and touchpad removes cumbersome utilization tools and replaces them with more streamlined features.

2019 Cadillac XT4

When people hear the name Cadillac, they don’t automatically think of SUVs, but this year, the 2019 Cadillac XT4 throws its hood into the ring with the other subcompact luxury SUVs on the market. It’s available in luxury and sport models and features a turbocharged four-cylinder engine to help draw younger consumers.

2019 BMW X4

BMW didn’t just redesign their X5, they also brought the X4 crossover into the SUV running this year. It’s a sportier model in its second generation and features a wider track and lower center of gravity in order to enhance handling. The BMW X4 doesn’t sacrifice horsepower for width, however, and still features a 248 horsepower engine if one opts for the xDrive30i models.

2019 Toyota RAV4

For many years now, the Toyota RAV4 has been the go-to crossover SUV for those wanting to test the waters of an SUV. Reliable and powerful as ever, 2019 RAV4 features Toyota’s Safety Sense 2.0 suite of safety and driver assistance technology. These include the now standard automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, and lane tracing assistance.

Audi e-tron Quattro

Audi’s long-awaited e-tron pure electric SUV is a model of modern electrical engineering. The five-passenger midsize luxury SUV can accelerate from zero to 60 mph in 5.5 seconds – not too shabby considering it’s an electric car. Though the vehicle is still being studied, early estimates peg the vehicle’s range at around 250 miles.

2019 Lexus UX

This past Fall, Lexus brings two new SUV models onto the market. The subcompact 2019 Lexus UX and UX Hybrid are both low-slung crossover vehicles that drive like a sedan but handle like a hatchback. The UX 200 is gas only and produces approximately 169 horsepower, while the hybrid version has a four-cylinder engine and two electric motor-generators to produce an impressive 175 horsepower.

2019 Volvo XC40

Earlier in 2018, Volvo rolled out their all-new XC40 subcompact SUV. A luxury vehicle, the XC40 is expected to come in Hybrid and electric models in the near future. Like so many other cars on this list, standard safety features new in 2019 include traffic sign recognition, driver drowsiness monitoring, and emergency braking. You barely need to drive the car yourself anymore!

2019 Jaguar I-Pace

Jaguar has always been synonymous with power and speed. In 2019, they are planning to release the I-Pace, a vehicle considered to be a serious player in the burgeoning luxury electric car market. It can charge up to 80% in an hour and goes from zero to 60 mph in 4.5 seconds – typical Jaguar speed on a new breed of electric SUV.

2019 Rolls-Royce Cullinan

Rolls-Royce has been known for producing some of the most decadently-appointed, luxurious cars in the world, and today, they’re entering the SUV market. In 2019, the company is introducing the Rolls-Royce Cullinan, a highly-customizable, 563 horsepower, all-wheel drive powerhouse. As expected, the Cullinan has more options than you can shake a stick at and drives like a dream.

2019 Mercedes-Benz G-Class

Mercedes-Benz has been providing excellent, luxury vehicles for going on four decades. This year, they bring the G-Class back for it’s second, 2019 version. Though it looks like the Gelandewagen, this year’s G-Class has been completely redesigned inside and out. It’s modernized interior is larger, display screens more robust, and safety features, even safer than its predecessors and according to them, many of its competitors.

2019 Subaru Forester

The completely redesigned 2019 Subaru Forester has even more room for passengers and cargo than last year’s already spacious model. New technological features include advanced safety features, driver assistance, and the same practical, SUV shape that fans have come to enjoy from the brand. It also comes in a few more colors this time around.

2019 Subaru Ascent

Subaru also released the spacious 3-row AScent this year among its SUV offerings. It seats eight and holds a boatload of cargo in the back. Because of its prodigious size, the Ascent can also tow upward of 5,000 pounds. Like the Forester, the size of the model doesn’t mean that Subaru skimps on safety features. All new technological safety features are now standard in the 2019 Ascent.

2019 Infiniti QX50

In Mid-2018, Infiniti introduced the 2019 Infiniti QX50 onto the market. The semi-autonomous vehicle offers a number of advanced engine and safety features, all of which were improved during the model’s one-year hiatus. As before, the QX50 also comes with a spacious interior for passengers and cargo. It’s a stronger, more luxurious model with better fuel economy and better technology features all around.

2019 Lincoln Nautilus

The 2019 Lincoln Nautilus is the company’s replacement answer for their previous MKX luxury midsize SUV. The Nautilus doesn’t just have a new name, it has a new everything. The interior and outside have been updated and redesigned and the new safety features help drivers to avoid accidents at every stage of their journey. It also has a standard four-cylinder engine that can be upgraded to V6 turbocharged if you’re looking for a bit more horsepower.

2020 Lincoln Aviator

Lincoln is also planning to launch the new 2020 Lincoln Aviator towards the end of the coming year. Though much remains the same from the Nautilus, the new model is expected to sync up one’s smartphone with the car itself to use as a key. It’s also slated to be a midpoint between the Nautilus and the upcoming Navigator model.

2019 Hyundai Kona Electric

The 2019 Hyundai Kona Electric is one of the most impressive electric SUVs yet to reach the market. It is one of only a few such vehicles with an estimated 258 miles of range off a single charge. It can also charge to almost full in about an hour, which makes it pretty good for road tripping. Sales will likely start in California and branch out to the rest of the country from there.

2019 Porsche Cayenne

The newest of Porsche’s 2019 SUVs offers a complete redesign and offers so much more than its predecessor. The 2019 Cayenne features 35 more horsepower, a turbocharged engine, all-wheel drive, and a lighter-weight platform even for a luxury SUV. It’s evolutionary exterior design screams Porsche but doesn’t detract from the features that draw SUV lovers.

20 Of The Best SUVs Coming To The Market In 2019 is an article from: LifeDaily

The marriage between Sandra Grazzini-Rucki and her husband David had gone sour years ago. All the love the couple had initially felt was gone, and Sandra felt that David was abusive to the couple’s two teenage daughters as well as to her.

Sandra was aware that deprivation of paternal rights was illegal and carried a jail sentence, but she didn’t care. All she knew was that she had to protect her daughters’ innocence at all costs and was prepared to stop at nothing to achieve that goal. But there are two sides to every story…

In Hiding

Sandra, from Elko, Minnesota, decided in April to hide her daughters, 14-year-old Samantha and 13-year-old Gianna, from their father, while the three younger kids still lived with her. In total, David didn’t see or hear from his daughters for the best part of two-and-a-half years. But Sandra claims she had good reasons for pulling the stunt.

In Fear

According to Sandra, she was forced to hide her daughters for an extended period for their safety as their father was allegedly abusing them. She told the press, according to a Star Tribune report: “We’d lock ourselves in the bedroom because we were scared. We just didn’t know how his behavior was going to be from one day to the next,” she said.

Divorce Papers

Sandra claims that her husband David abused her for 20 years and that she wanted to protect her daughters from a similar fate. She served David with divorce papers at some point, giving her full custody of the children, but David wanted shared custody on some level. To that end, he took Sandra to court as she had duped him into signing the paperwork.

Daddy Danger

Fearing that David’s plea to the court may be successful, Sandra went ahead and moved the two girls to a remote farm owned by some of her friends. Shortly after the girls went into hiding, they penned a letter to the court. “We were afraid for our lives…our father had abused us,” the letter read. The girls seemed to be in on the plan and didn’t want any contact with their father at that time.

Constant Abuse

In an interview given to the media, Samantha explained: “Our dad was abusive, emotionally, verbally,” she said. “Our mom was always our protector.” But for more than two years, authorities searched high and low for the girls but to no avail. But Sandra’s story wasn’t wholly believable, and some serious manipulation was going on.

Hearing Rumors

After more than two years in hiding, a friend of the family told investigators that he had heard rumors that the girls were living on a farm. The girls were found and given to their father while Sandra was arrested and charged with deprivation of paternal rights. She claimed she did it to protect her kids, but there was a lot more to this story than met the eye.

No Proof

Not only was there not a single piece of proof that David had abused his wife during their 20-year marriage, but there was also no proof he had abused his children either. David’s lawyers claimed that Sandra was lying in a big way, and to prove that point they called Samantha, now aged 16 to the stand.

Different Story

Having become a young adult, Samantha shocked the people in the courtroom when she said that her father had never hit her or abused her and that she’d never seen him hit anyone else either. What’s more, during the two-and-a-half years the girls were in hiding on the farm their mother didn’t visit them even once.

Out of Spite

The lawyers in court put a compelling case to the jury, claiming that Sandra hadn’t acted out of love for her kids at all but rather out of deep-seated spite for David. Once her marriage was over, she decided to punish her husband by denying him access to his kids and then taking them away completely.

Bad Parenting

The shoe was gradually switching to the other foot in this disturbing case of borderline child abuse. While David claims he was tricked by Sandra into signing the divorce papers, experts and psychologists alike found that Sandra had brainwashed her children against David; telling them blatant lies so they would hate him.

Personality Disorder

Those same experts also noticed a pattern with Sandra, and before long it was one they couldn’t ignore anymore. During their numerous assessments, they found that Sandra had a personality disorder. Accordingly, the experts claimed, that disorder would make it difficult for Sandra to be reasonable during a tense situation like a custody battle.

Judge Rules

Having gone through the legal system, Dr. Paul Reitman, a court-appointed psychologist and expert in the field of parental alienation, convinced the judge that Sandra was the problem here and not David. The judge ordered that Sandra move out of the family home and her sister Nancy move in to act as a temporary guardian for the children.

Moving Again

After a while, Nancy was unable to continue to care for the kids, and they were taken by police officers to David’s sister Tammy. Having arrived there, the kids ran away shortly afterward and were not seen by anyone for a whole month. Once the kids were located, the court gave David sole legal custody of them.

Kids Traumatized

When the case was being heard in court, the judge said he wanted to make the questioning as “quick and painless” as possible. When Samantha took the stand, she explained that her parents had constantly been fighting before the divorce. “I heard a lot of screaming,” she said. “I just wanted it all to end.”

Freaked Out

Samantha explained that when she was taken to her father’s sisters house she totally “freaked out.” She explained that she went into the bathroom and called her mom. “I wanted her to help me,” she said. “It was my idea.” Samantha and her sister ran barefoot from the home into their mother’s truck that was waiting for them outside. It was then that the girls were taken to the rural horse farm to be hidden from their father.

Stiff Sentence

For taking the girls away from her father for all that time, Sandra was sentenced to 34 additional days in jail, on top of the 133 days she had already served. She was also given six years’ probation and a fine of $944 for each daughter. But Sandra and her legal team maintained her innocence throughout the proceedings, claiming she did what any mother would do.

Paying the Price

Following her conviction, Sandra’s lawyers issued a statement outside the courthouse. “I’m paying the price for doing what any loving parent would do for their children, protecting them from harm,” it read. But David claims that the girls didn’t need protection from him as he’d never abused them.

Accomplice Jailed

The women who helped Sandra with her plan, Dede Evavold, also found herself in court facing the long arm of the law. She was charged and convicted on six counts of deprivation of parental rights and was sentenced to six months in jail. The couple who owned the farm where the girls stayed, Gina and Doug Dahlen, are due to be sentenced in the coming months.

Family Outrage

David’s sister Tammy, who looked after the girls for a short time before they went into hiding, took to social media to vent her outrage at what had happened to the family. “My family has/is going through HELL by people who have NO idea as to the truth of this family,” she wrote. “You have taken the childhood of two impressionable girls, and you will be held accountable for this.”

Unification Process

While police confirmed that the “unification process” for the family would now commence, David’s lawyer told Newsweek, “When I spoke with David, he said the news was anti-climactic, because he knows this is the start of a whole next step in getting them the help they need and finding out what happened to them the last two and a half years.” The whole family has been through a lot of trauma as it remains to be seen what the outcome will be for all the parties involved.

Mother Jailed After Hiding Daughters From Father For 2 Years is an article from: LifeDaily

When Jeffrey and his girlfriend April headed out on the back roads of Jackson County on their way to a friend’s wedding, the last thing they needed was to be pulled over by a cop. They were already running late and needed to hurry if they were to make it in time for the wedding ceremony.

As the couple passed a Sheriff’s Office patrol car coming in the opposite direction they thought nothing of it. When that car did a sudden U-turn and pulled them over, the couple wasn’t sure what they’d done wrong. They certainly had no idea they were about to be set up for a drug bust even though neither of them had any drugs.

Immediate Recognition

As soon as the cop started walking towards the couple’s car, April immediately recognized him as 26-year-old Jackson County deputy, Zachary Wester. He was known to come from a prominent law enforcement family and seemingly took his job very seriously. Neither Jeffrey nor April were overly concerned though as they knew they were clean at the time.

Pulled Over

No sooner was the couple pulled over by Wester that he approached the car and ordered them to get out and lay on the ground. Wester claimed he could smell Marijuana even though there was none in the vehicle, but that gave him probable cause to search the car without consent. He fumbled around in the back seat for a while and then returned to his car.

Second Search

It seemed strange that the officer had gone to his car and then returned for a second search just a few minutes later. “Oh, what do we have here?” he said. “You all need to be a little more careful,” he added. The couple knew they had nothing illegal in the car and also knew that the officer had just planted a small bag of a crystal-like substance in the back.

Testing Positive

The officer cuffed the couple and put them in the back of his patrol car. He had a 3-gram bag of methamphetamine in his hand, but the couple knew it didn’t belong to them and that this was a setup. ‘This is crazy,” April said to the officer, receiving a smirk in return. But what happened next was even worse.

Bent Cop

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement was right to initiate an investigation into Wester. He has been accused of framing drivers and planting drugs in their cars before hauling them off to jail. As many of the incidents were caught on Wester’s bodycam, there was plenty of evidence to initiate a probe against him.

Caught on Camera

Wester wasn’t the smartest cop at the station as he incriminated himself on numerous occasions. One recording from his body cam shows him holding a baggie of something in his right hand before he initiated a search of a vehicle he had stopped. State Attorney Glenn Hess of the 14th Judicial Circle was briefed on the details of the investigation, and he had many questions for Wester.

Seeing Evidence

Nobody likes a bent cop and investigators do what they can as quickly as possible to take them off the streets before they ruin more innocent people’s lives. As Hess told the Tallahassee Democrat in an interview, “I saw a video, and I saw still photographs that caused me to do a whole lot of things that state attorneys usually don’t do.”

Charges Dropped

The fallout from the situation is massive as the cops were forced to drop charges in at least 48 cases where Wester was involved. No one knows how many innocent people this man set up for disaster and that fact has put additional pressure on the police. A Jackson County judge also ordered sentences vacated for at least eight people locked up in prisons thanks to Wester.

Official Misconduct

According to Betsy White, a civil rights and criminal defense attorney from Jacksonville, Wester will likely face charges of official misconduct to perjury and even for drug possession and conspiracy. If he is charged and convicted, noted White, he will face a long stint behind bars for his crimes.

Great Reluctance

White explained that police departments have traditionally shown “great reluctance” when it comes to officers wearing working body cams. They know that this video evidence implicates them in things they shouldn’t be doing while putting heavy pressure on them to comply with various rules and procedures which they feel often hinders an arrest.

Doing Damage

According to White: “Bad police officers do more damage to the community than we can ever know,” she said. “They poison police/community relations and create distrust. So we should be glad that these types of events are coming to light. There can be no justification for this crime.”

Taking Blame

Even though she was innocent, April knew that her boyfriend would be sent to jail if he admitted to the planted drugs being his. This was due to a previous criminal record he had, and April was happy to take the fall for him. She knew full well that Wester had planted the drugs but pointed out, “since somebody has to take this charge,” she said, “it was mine.”

More Charges

Not only were both April and her boyfriend arrested on possession of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia, but Jeffrey was also slapped with additional charges that were trumped up, including felony fleeing and eluding and reckless driving. The cop claimed he had to drive at 90 mph just to catch the couple, but that also turned out to be a fabrication.

Not Alone

Soon after the innocent couple was taken downtown, they were put into a holding cell with other inmates. While inside, the couple were told by some people that they had also been set up by Wester in a similar fashion and were completely innocent of the charges leveled against them. “Their stories are exactly like ours,” April said.

Clean Record

When investigators looked into Wester’s personnel file, they saw that he had graduated from Sneads High School in 2010. He even made the Dean’s lost and was an active member of Future Farmers of America. Apart from a lone traffic ticket, Wester had a completely clean record, leading investigators to question his motives for setting innocent people up for drug busts.

Following Footsteps

Having worked part-time at Verizon Wireless stores in Marianna and Tallahassee, Wester enrolled at the Chipola Law Enforcement Academy in 2014 and was certified the following year. He followed in his father’s footsteps as his dad, Robbie was a Jackson County Sheriff’s Office captain. Two high-ranking sheriff’s officials even said they knew Wester well and “highly recommended” him for the job.

Walking Free

For her part, April spent a couple of weeks in jail before she posted bail. The charges against her were minimal in any event and were consolidated after she pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor paraphernalia charge. Just recently, prosecutors apologized to her and told her that the charges against her would all be dropped.

Month Inside

Jeffrey spent more than a month behind bars before pleading no contest to the charges against him. He had some kind of criminal record, so he was sentenced to 18 months in prison, according to the Florida Department of Correction records. The charges from Wester’s arrest were dropped though, and he remains in jail at the Hamilton Correctional Institution Annex in Jasper.

Totally Unexplainable

April also spoke to reporters about the case, telling them about the incident: “It’s unexplainable,” she said. “Because you see it in the movies. You see it in TV shows. And you don’t think it’s going to happen in your hometown.” As April said, “He’s ruined lives.”

Going Deeper

April concluded that “People are losing their lives, their freedom, their children, their marriages — all because of this one man. It’s not just innocent men. It’s innocent children. It goes a lot deeper than everyone realizes,” she said. The probe in Wester’s conduct is ongoing pending a full and final report from the FDLE.

Crooked Cop Faces Investigation After Planting Drugs In Couple’s Car is an article from: LifeDaily

Oppression, for centuries, has been an infamous weapon used to inflict nothing but harm wherever it strikes. In today’s society where information can be shared with the world within an instant, people have found more ways to abuse this weapon even further.

A young refugee has found himself at a dead end when he was forced to start a new life alone, just because he lived in a society that oppressed one of his most fundamental traits.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/world/europe/gay-afghanistan-man-asylum-austria.html

The Graveyard Of Empires

Afghanistan is an extremely rough place to live in, since it has been in war for over 40 years. This already life threatening fact, along with its own extremely corrupt government, makes it a place where there is no room for peace. However, it became even rougher for a 12 year old boy when he realized his true identity.

Gay Prejudice

The boy, addressed as Hassan for privacy, realized at a very young age that he actually had an attraction towards other men rather than women. Being homosexual is assumed to be a terrible crime in Afghanistan, to the point where it could be punishable by death, so when the boy found out his true sexual orientation, he knew he was in grave danger.

Fearsome Land

The reason for homosexuals being so despised in Afghanistan is that they are viewed as being on the same level as pedophiles, prostitutes, and rapists. The law views it as a taboo, rather than a cultural identity. The society in Afghanistan oppresses many cultural aspects like this, so this boy knew he couldn’t live as a gay man in this country without the risk of being arrested, or killed.

Amplified Danger

This extra sense of danger put an equally disturbing sense of stress on Hassan. The only options for him would be to either live the rest of his life hiding his true identity and go against his own spirit, or escape from Afghanistan and live his life somewhere else. Of course, he decided to choose the latter.

Confession

He trusted his parents for who they were, because they also wanted to leave Afghanistan to live a peaceful life elsewhere. And so, he decided to confess his sexual orientation to them, and told them that he would be willing to support the family in moving to a different country. The response he got was a merciless beating…

Child Abuse

Unfortunately, Hassan’s parents also fell for the inclinations of society, putting the law of the corrupt government over their own son. His father didn’t hold back when beating him with his cane, and his mother didn’t refrain from shouting at him as if he killed somebody. He learned the hard way that the only person he can trust is himself and nobody else.

Not His Home

On the night after the beating, Hassan knew he couldn’t live in this home, nor in this country. He decided to gather his clothes, food, and money, and set off to live somewhere else. He had neighbors that knew him and his family, so he had to make sure that nobody saw him. On that night, he set off on the journey for a new life of freedom.

Foreign Land

After trying vainly to live freely in other countries and walking for miles upon miles, Hassan at 18 years finally arrived at Austria. He quickly found that life was significantly tougher than the other countries he lived in, especially because of Austria’s high standard lifestyle. His first goal was to find an apartment to live in, and a roommate to help with his staggering financial burden…

Homeless And Oppressed

Unfortunately, the three potential roommates he tried contacting all rejected him and spat at him once he brought up his identity. For a few days, Hassan didn’t have a home to live in. He was a young adult who had a long life ahead of him, yet he couldn’t live this life just because he was gay. Then, he finally found a place to live in that could accept him: a homosexual asylum.

Asylum Testimony

Queer Base, the name of the organization, was quick to have a worker meet with him for a testimony at an asylum hearing. Hassan was more than nervous about this; if he failed to get his story across in the right words, he would lose his chance of finally having a home to live in again after six years…

Hassan’s Story

He spilled out everything he remembered, from the terror he felt in his childhood, to the psychological trauma of being beaten by his own parents for a trivial reason. He emphasized the stress he felt when entering and leaving countries that he thought were the right place for him, until they showed him the same ferocity on their faces that his parents had on that day. He hoped that this would be enough for the organization to accept him…

Unbearable Suspense

The worker left the room, telling Hassan that he will return soon with their decision. Hassan sat quietly in his chair, glancing at the clock every few seconds. One minute passed. Two, then three. Ten more minutes passed, and he was more than unnerved at this point. He wasn’t sure if them taking long was a good or bad thing, and this only added to his nervousness.

Decision

Hassan was startled when he heard the doorknob turn. He sat back up in the most professional position possible, before the man returned to his seat. “We’ve made our decision,” he uttered. While he continued talking to him, Hassan realized that the worker’s voice was more monotone than before. When it was too late, the reality of the situation slowly dawned upon the poor 18 year old.

Rejection

Hassan was yet again rejected by a place he hoped to call home. The worst part to this is that the place was made for the purpose of housing oppressed homosexuals just like him, yet the world refused to let him live there, too. He had to know why this was happening.

The Worst Resolution Possible

The decision, which was at least a hundred pages long, said “Neither your walk, nor your behavior nor your clothing give the slightest indication that you could be gay.” This offensive generalization has boiled the blood of Hassan and many other homosexuals and activists across the world.

Generalizations Uncalled For

Queer Base had many other inappropriate claims in their decision. They also said they rejected Hassan because he wasn’t sociable nor peaceful, compared to the general image of the gay man. Austria is generally L.G.B.T.Q. friendly, so many people were surprised by the asylum’s blatant discrimination.

No Place To Call Home

During that time, Hassan was convinced that there is no place in the world where he can live and be himself at the same time. He was once again forced to make the same choice: live as somebody else, or try and fail to live somewhere else. Those were the only two choices given to him every time. This led him into an unavoidable, gaping pit of depression.

Protests

When this experience hit the public, they were not hesitant with their response. Hundreds of people started protesting at the headquarters of Queer Base, arguing that they have no right to have that name if they can’t live up to it. Even though many people took time from their schedule to do this, it didn’t get Hassan any closer to finding a new home…

A House That Isn’t Home

Hassan still currently lives in Austria, but nobody knows if he remains homeless or if he found a place to live in. Even if he did find a house or apartment to live in, his depression will still linger with him until he finds a place that he can be truly accepted and liked in. The embarrassment he suffered through his lifetime caused him to hide himself from the public to this day.

Oppression Lives In Human Blood

Even though homosexuality appears to be accepted by the public in other places in the world, Hassan’s terrible experience is even more proof that the world is still full of societies where a home for a homosexual is too much to ask for. The sad truth is that having a unified world of equality is a distant dream that is impossible to reach, for now, and likely forever.

Homosexual Asylum Rejects And Discriminates Against Young Afghan Boy is an article from: LifeDaily

Sandra Boss and Clark Rockefeller had been very much in love when they first met. But their rushed marriage, hastily-conceived daughter, and Carl’s general unpleasantness ensured that the inevitable divorce was a messy one.

It was during a supervised visitation of Clark’s daughter one July morning that the squabbling and sniping between the two parties came to a head. Clark, his seven-year-old daughter, and a social worker were walking through the neighborhood when an SUV pulled up abruptly, Clark pushed the social worker, grabbed up his daughter, and jumped into the car…

Holding on Tight

The brave social worker did everything she could to stop the kidnapping, even going so far as to grab hold of the vehicle. She was dragged a short distance but eventually lost her grip and fell roughly to the road. Later that night, the police issued a warrant for the arrest of Clark Rockefeller and began the week-long search for both him and his daughter.

One Week

A week later, police discovered Clark Rockefeller in Baltimore living under the name Charles “Chip” Smith. He had purchased a $450,000 apartment and even kept a catamaran in the local marina. The police actually lured him out of his apartment by having the marina owner call and say his boat was taking on water. As soon as he stepped out the door, they cuffed him.

Caught Him

The police found the seven-year-old girl inside the apartment, safe and sound. The kidnapper was charged with kidnapping, assault, and battery. It was only when they began the process of booking Rockefeller that the police noticed something peculiar. Their initial fingerprint analysis had come up with some rather interesting results.

Fingerprinting

Before he could be transferred back to Boston, Rockafeller’s fingerprints were taken by FBI agents. The Feds compared the impressions to a number of latent prints from various sources, including one from a wine glass they’d examined early in their search for the kidnapper. Both the prints were inconclusive but led the investigators to a startling revelation.

Fake Identity

As it turned out, the man who called himself James Frederick Mills Clark Rockefeller was not that person, nor was he even the slightest bit Rockefeller. He’d been living under the assumed identity for years, hoping it would gain him notoriety. It did a fair bit more than that. As to who he actually was, however, that would take police some time to suss out.

The Early Years

His real name was Christian Gerhartsreiter, son of Simon and Irmgard Gerhartsreiter, of Bavaria, Germany. Born in 1960, Gerhartsreiter moved to the United States after meeting an American couple in his native Germany. Once he learned their names, he was able to obtain permission to enter the US as the couple’s “guest.” This first trip to California set the tone for his whole deceitful life.

Traveling Abroad

Gerhartsreiter arrived in New York and from there, headed to Berlin, Connecticut, where he met a friendly family willing to take him in. Of course, when the Savios agreed to let him live with them, it was because they believed him to be a foreign exchange student. Things were good for a while, but something about the young man unnerved the Savio family.

Liar Liar

Gerhartsreiter liked to embellish certain aspects of his life. He told the Savios that he had come from a wealthy German family. Charming as he was, his lies were usually enough to ingratiate him into most people’s good graces; at least at first anyway. Eventually, the Savios got tired of his smugness and lying and cut him loose. Undaunted, Gerhartsreiter headed west.

Acting Dreams

Following his unceremonious exit from the Savio household, Gerhartsreiter decided to pursue the reason he’d come to the US in the first place. He wanted to make it big in Hollywood but knew that California was a long way off. On the way there, he settled in Milwaukee, changed his name to Christopher Kenneth Gerhart, and enrolled in a class at the University of Wisconsin.

Love and Lies

He was getting comfortable in his new country but knew that if he wanted to stay indefinitely, he needed a green card. He managed to persuade 22-year-old Amy Jersild Duhnke to marry him by explaining that if he was forced to go back to Germany, he’d be sent to fight in the Cold War on the Russian front line. A day after they were married, Gerhartsreiter left his wife and continued on to California.

New Name

Gerhartsreiter soon found himself in San Marino and decided to start the newest stage of his life with another new name. The newly-named Christopher Chichester moved into the guesthouse of a woman named Didi. Soon after moving in though, Didi’s son Jonathan Sohus went missing, and so did his wife.

Strange Questions

Didi’s new tenant was a person of interest right from the start. Despite this, he seemed to offer a reasonable explanation for the family’s disappearance. Gerhartsreiter told police that Jon and Linda had traveled to Europe and their family even got a postcard from France soon after the story began circulating. Still, something about the situation sat poorly with police.

Headed East

Gerhartsreiter had worn out his welcome in the west. Suspected of murder and coming off a sham marriage, he decided to relocate to the East Coast. Eventually, police picked him up in Greenwich, Connecticut. He had been driving a pickup that had previously belonged to Jonathan Sohus. Still, there was no proof that either of the Sohuses were dead, so they let him go.

Buried Bones

Years later, police discovered what they believed to be the buried bones of Jonathan Sohus in his mother’s backyard. A cursory DNA test and forensic examination revealed that they were indeed Jon’s remains. He had been struck in the head by a blunt object, stabbed twice, and his body cut into three parts. His wife’s bones were not found. By that point though, Gerhartsreiter was long gone.

Christopher Crowe

Gerhartsreiter settled in Greenwich and took on a new identity. Christopher C. Crowe, as he was now called, apparently worked as a television producer from Los Angeles who had worked on the 1980s remake of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Because Christopher Crowe was the name of one of the actual producers of the series, the lie was fairly ironclad.

Fired and Fleeing

“Mr. Crowe” soon found himself a job at the brokerage firm S.N. Phelps and Company. His job was to work with the firm’s computers but he was fired when the HR department discovered the social security number he had used actually belonged to serial killer David Berkowitz. Realizing the police were still looking for him in regards to the Sohuses, he fled further north.

Love Blossoms

In Boston, Gerhartsreiter became James Frederick Mills Clark Rockefeller. It was risky to use the name of such a wealthy, influential American family, but the gambit worked. Before long, he and Sandra Boss became involved. She was a successful businesswoman and he was a charming Rockefeller heir. It seemed like the perfect match.

Emotionally Abusive

The honeymoon period didn’t last long. Gerhartsreiter was emotionally abusive and very angry. He was paranoid, for obvious reasons, and it made him very guarded, especially when it came to their shared finances. At his constant urging, Boss eventually ceded control of their finances to her husband. He had to ensure she never learned his true identity.

Careful Scheming

He even went so far as to hire an “accountant” to do their taxes for them so that she could file single tax returns. Boss wasn’t a fool. She knew that something wasn’t right and eventually hired a private investigator to track down who Gerhartsreiter actually was. Once she’d discovered the truth, the two divorced and Boss got sole custody of their daughter.

Many Roles

Gerhartsreiter was convicted of kidnapping and while in prison, was also convicted of the murder of Jonathan Sohus. Over the years, he had lived under multiple aliases. He’d been an actor, director, art collector, physicist, a ship’s captain, and an English aristocrat. In the end, though, the only true thing he was, was a criminal.

Man Guilty Of Kidnapping Went By Alias ‘Rockefeller’ During Multi-State Crime Spree is an article from: LifeDaily

Living in a remote area has a certain appeal. Far from the hustle and bustle of cities, there’s also a lot more nature and wildlife than you’ll find in the suburbs.

But while nature can be beautiful, it also comes with certain risks. Especially when you live in the woods, you have to take certain precautions about how you interact with the wildlife.

Small Forest Town

When Julie decided to move into the San Bernardino Mountains, a big part of the appeal was living amongst wildlife. Her family chose to move into a little A-frame cabin in the small town of Forest Falls, California, a wooded community of about 1,100 people, 70 miles east of Los Angeles.

Wildlife

Unfortunately, as it happens in so many communities are built on the edge of where human society meets with nature, Julie was having some problems with the local wildlife. Squirrels on the roof or racoons in the garbage wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but this problem was much, much worse…

Enter the Bear

It all began on a Friday night when a 400-pound male bear broke into her garage. The wild animal had apparently smelled something in her garbage worth investigating. Fortunately, Julie was able to chase the bear off with mace before any harm came to her or her family.

Additional Precaution

Julie decided to move her garbage containers to the inside of the home, removing the incentive for the bear to come around. She’d hoped that that would be all the action necessary to protect herself and her family…

Goldilocks

A couple of weeks later, Julie came home with her 3 children, ages 5, 6 and 9, to a sort of reverse-goldilocks situation. There in her kitchen was the same bear, standing there as plain as day, after gravely injuring Julie’s dog.

Back in the Car

Julie rushed her children back out of the house and into the car. After she had moved her children to safety, she called 911 and explained the situation. By the time a game warden arrived at her home, the bear was still nearby, outside the home. The warden used bean bag rounds from her shotgun to drive him back into the woods…

Likely to Return

More than just a nuisance, this bear had injured her pet and threatened her children. The game warden believed that it was likely the bear would return again and so, issued a permit to Julie, allowing her to kill the dangerous animal. Ideally, Julie would never have a reason or opportunity to use it.

Back Again

But the bear had other ideas in mind. Later that very same night, the bear came back and broke into Julie’s home again, this time coming in through the bathroom window. Julie was again able to chase the bear off but after this last encounter, she’d had enough…

Calling In Some Help

The next day Julie called a friend who is a hunter and asked him to keep a watch out for the bear. Just a few days later, the bear popped up again at around 2 a.m., this time charging toward the house. Julie’s friend took aim at the bear, fired, and killed him.

It’s Over

Finally, Julie’s pets and family were safe. She thought she could put the whole bear scenario behind her. But shortly after the bear had been killed, Julie found herself in the middle of a brand new ordeal…

Beloved

It turns out a number of the residents were shocked to find out that Julie, who had just moved to Forest Fells a couple of months ago, had killed the woodland creature. “My heart sunk,” one neighbor named Alycia said. “They are beloved to us up here.”

Intense Backlash

Julie suddenly found herself the subject of a lot of anger and contempt from some of the other members of the small town. “I’ve had death threats and my address posted all over social media,” she said.

Her Mistake

Many people believed that it hadn’t been necessary for Julie to kill the bear. “I have lived here for seven years and never had a problem with a bear going in [my] house,” said one neighbor named Pennie. She believed that if Julie had better secured her garbage in the first place, there never would have been a dangerous situation.

Other Ways

Further, Pennie believed that Julie could have used a less lethal method of getting rid of the bear or even simply used avoidance.“Go to a neighbor. Get in a car. They don’t hurt you as long as you leave them alone,” Pennie said. “My son walks home at 2 o’clock in morning. No problem.”…

Food and Fear

The problem with that thinking is Julie had already employed several non-lethal strategies and the bear kept returning to her home.The bear seemed to have lost its natural fear of humans, which may have been caused by the fact that some people in the community feeding wild animals. “It’s not legal and it’s dangerous if something happens,” said Andrew Hughan, a Fish and Wildlife spokesman.

Animal Lover

Julie would actually characterize herself as an animal lover, citing the fact that she’s foster 15 dogs over the past year. In her eyes, it was just a matter of safety. “[The bear] had already come into my house Friday night and then again broke into my kitchen early Saturday morning and attacked my dog,” she said. “I have my three babies in the house.”…

Safety First

Hughan agreed with Julie’s belief that she’d done the right thing. “I understand that people are upset,” said Andrew Hughan, a Fish and Wildlife spokesman. “We don’t want to destroy animals unless we have to. The fact is this bear was inside the residence and had been inside the house several times.”

People Problem

“At the end of the day this is not a bear problem, it’s a people problem,” Hughan said. When you live on the border of nature and civilization, you have to be considerate of how your actions may affect wildlife. “Going forward it’s everyone’s responsibility to maintain their trash cans and keep their property cleaned up.”

She’s Got Supporters

Not all of Forest Fells was upset with Julie. Some of the residents thought the backlash against her was uncalled for. “I’ve had people come by and have real conversations with me and that gave me a little encouragement and hope for the future,” Julie said.

Come Together

The incident pushed community leaders to hold a special meeting at the Forest Falls Community Center. There, they wanted to discuss how to live safely with wildlife and what precautions to take. Julie planned to attend.“I know this community, and when tragedies happen they usually pull together,” she said. “I hope this will happen here.”

After Bear Breaks Into Family’s Home, Mother’s Defense Leaves Community Outraged is an article from: LifeDaily

It seems that no matter where we come from, no matter which road of life we find ourselves on, crime is something that we cannot avoid. Whether it’s the petty crimes we commit in our teenage years in order to test our own limits, or the violent, often reprehensible ones that we see on the news every day.

People have many reasons for committing crimes. Violent crime is often the result of a surge of emotion prompted by something like anger, or jealousy, or revenge. Odd as it may seem, some crimes are the result of unexpectedly altruistic intentions. Yet no matter how noble the reasoning, a crime is still a crime; but that doesn’t mean it isn’t justified.

Falling in Love

Jace Crehan met Brittany Monk in early 2014. Jace, a volunteer firefighter, was an older boy and Brittany was barely 16. Nevertheless, the two soon began to cultivate a relationship together. It was an immediate attraction, an innate and powerful connection they hadn’t felt with anyone else in their young lives.

Rough Childhood

They flirted over social media, spoke to one another daily, and in time, started dating in earnest. The young lovers shared stories about their lives. They spoke about their home lives and the struggles that they faced because of their parents, though Brittany was never overt about the details. Jace knew one thing, whatever happened must have been rough.

Opening Up

Eventually, Brittany felt comfortable enough to open up to her new boyfriend. She explained how her parents were almost always at the bar. On the rare occasion that they were home, they were drunk and surely beyond comprehension. As if that weren’t enough, her drunk parents would also invite dozens of strange drunk men over to party with them. Because of this, Brittany never felt safe.

Living Situation

By the time she’d met Jace, Brittany was living with her mother in Walker, though she only did s begrudgingly and because she had no choice. A few years earlier, when she was a minor, Brittany’s mother had moved out of her father’s trailer, leaving her and her younger sister in the care of their “loving” father.

Hidden Memories

Though the memories were hazy, Brittany remembered what life was like before she had hit her teens. The drunken parties, her blacked out mother, and her abusive, rapist of a father. There were times when she would wake in the night, crying at the memory of being forcibly sedated and raped by her alcoholic father, Robert Noce.

Nightmares

The nightmares had followed her into high school but seemed to subside when she was with Jace. It got to the point where Brittany couldn’t get through the night without him sleeping next to her. It got to the point where he had to be there all the time. Jace wondered why nothing had ever been done to curb Noce’s abuse.

Mild Sentence

As it happened, something would eventually be done, though it had come to little in the end. Plauche had been arrested and pleaded no contest to carnal knowledge of a juvenile a few years prior to Jace and Brittany’s meeting. Unfortunately, the terms of that plea meant that he could essentially plead guilty but be able to maintain his innocence.

How Could They?

Because of the plea deal, Noce served no jail time at all. Instead, he was sentenced to five years active supervised probation. Despite months of court proceedings, Noce had gotten away with a slap on the wrist. Brittany was still plagued by her memories of the abuse. After the plea deal, the nightmares increased, eventually becoming full-on night terrors.

Night Terrors

Brittany was suffering increasingly violent night terrors. She worried that Noce would seek revenge on her or Jace, or seek to punish her sister or her mother. Though he kept his feelings to himself, Jace worried about the same thing. Jace decided that something had to be done. He had to keep them all safe.

A Body

Robert Noce disappeared a few weeks later. Eventually, police searched his trailer in Zachary, Louisiana and discovered where he had been hiding. Or rather, where someone had hidden him. It was evident from even a cursory examination that someone had stabbed him, then placed his dead body in a plastic bin outside the trailer. But had that person been Jace Crehan?

Suspected Parties

All signs pointed to Jace and to a lesser extent to Brittany. After all, they had both made it abundantly clear that they weren’t happy with Noce’s paltry sentence. Before they could point fingers, however, the police had to make sure all their ducks were in a row. Forensic experts examined the body and discovered a rather telling piece of evidence.

DNA Links

Brittany Monk’s DNA was found on the plastic drum that had housed Noce’s corpse. Considering that the girl hadn’t lived in the trailer for many years, it made sense that she had at least something to do with the murder. Both she and Jace were placed under arrest and taken into custody. Before any lawyer could be called, however, Jace made a startling confession.

She’s Innocent

Once he was in custody, Jace Crehan openly admitted that he was the only one responsible for the crime. He even wrote as much in a letter to the Advocate following the arrest. “I’ll say this, I Jace Crehan, killed Robert Noce and he admitted in his final moments his rape against Brittany,” he said. And that wasn’t all he had to say.

Her Protector

“This love is beyond what one would feel for their wife or child or family member,” Jace continued in his letters. “It was something that overcame me. I couldn’t control this enormous amount of obligation. I felt indebted to her. I was more than just her boyfriend, fiance, lover. I was her guardian, her protector, her hope.”

Missing Details

According to Jace, he and Brittany had gone to Noce’s trailer on the day it occurred to confront him. They allegedly entered the trailer without Noce’s permission to do so. When they got there, the argument devolved and Noce reached out angrily to attack his daughter. Jace added that he’s not a violent person and that it was never his intention to do what he did.

Making Comparisons

Jace’s actions are not unusual, even when compared to other incidents in Louisiana. In 1984, Gary Plauche avoided prison time even after he killed his son’s accused molester, Karate teacher Jeff Doucet. Unlike this muddled mystery, Doucet’s murder had actually been caught on tape and while he was in police custody.

Disguised

Doucet had been found in a California hotel room with Gary Plauche’s missing 11-year-old son. He was on his way back to Louisiana when Plauche showed up in disguise at the Baton Rouge Metro Airport. Despite the police presence, Plauche’s single gunshot struck true, completing his revenge.

Vigilantism

Plauche, like Noce, pleaded no contest to manslaughter and was ultimately sentenced to five years probation. He was also given hundreds of hours in community service but served no prison time. It seemed that State was perfectly fine with the idea of vigilantism when the culprit deserved death. Only, would the same hold true for Jace Crehan?

I’d Do It Again

At 21 years old, Jace will likely never see the light of day again, though he believes that his fate will ultimately be the same as Plauche. To him, the important thing is that Brittany and their families are safe from Noce’s perceived retribution. Time will tell whether or not he or his fiancé will face the full consequences of their actions.

Wasted Potential

Regardless of his admission, Brittany Monk remains in jail for the time being. She is allegedly pregnant with Jace’s child. The fact that she is facing a potential murder charge is a sad thing for the formerly straight-A student but also for her younger siblings as well. Many of whom she was responsible for prior to her arrest.

Boyfriend Shows No Remorse After Killing Girlfriend’s Abusive Father is an article from: LifeDaily

When someone’s life is in jeopardy because of a medical condition, they will do whatever it takes in order to beat their illness and stay alive. Unfortunately, those lifesaving treatments don’t come cheap and survivors are often left with crippling debt upon recovering.

Instead of enjoying their new lease on life, people with medical debt are being forced to work to the bone trying to keep up with their bills. In late 2018, however, hundreds of New Yorkers were stunned to find out their debt had mysteriously been paid off just in time for the holiday season.

The Cost Of Living

When faced with a life-threatening or debilitating medical emergency, most people choose to fight for their lives and do whatever their doctors tell them is their best chance of regaining their health and quality of life. However, that usually requires countless costly tests, lab work, procedures, and medications.

A Mountain Of Bills

Even with insurance, the bills can still pile up at an alarmingly fast pace. By the time people do manage to overcome their conditions and regain their health, they are left with a mountain of medical bills. Instead of enjoying their second chance at life, those people now have to scramble to try and find a way to pay their debts.

Uncontrollable Debt

For millions of Americans with past-due medical bills left from their time getting treatment, those bills eventually get passed on through several collection agencies. Over the following months and years, those debts start to severely damage debtors’ credit.

A Hopeless Situation

As a result, people across the country with medical debt are left feeling hopeless. While they continue to get hounded by debt collectors, their debts are also ruining their credit and ruining their chance of being able to buy or rent a home, get a loan, or even get a job to help them pay their debts back.

A Common Problem

“As medical costs rise to unspeakable levels, so does un-payable medical debt,” RIP Medical Debt, a nonprofit that buys and clears medical debt for people explained on its website. According to troubling statistics, more than one in three Americans struggle to pay for medical care.

Vulnerable Targets

“Medical debt has destroyed the financial stability of large segments of America’s most vulnerable communities: the sick, the elderly, the poor, and veterans. It also particularly targets the middle class, driving many families who are barely getting along into poverty,” RIP Medical Debt explained.

A Widespread Problem

Today, there are now 43 million people in the United States who owe a combined $75 billion. Those people are forced to take on second jobs, work longer hours, or even beg for help from charities or fundraisers like GoFundMe in order to stay afloat.

Desperate For Help

Because of medical debt, millions struggle to pay for basic needs like food, rent, and utilities every year. According to GoFundMe’s CEO, Rob Solomon, one out of every three GoFundMe campaign is to help people struggle with medical bills and debt.

Medical Bankruptcy

Those who can’t come up with money to pay back their debts are forced to go into medical bankruptcy. Shockingly, a majority of those people actually had health insurance. According to RIP Medical Debt, three out of every four people who declare bankruptcy from medical debt had insurance.

An Eye-Opening Issue

In 2018, two Ithaca, New York women, 80-year-old Judith Jones and 70-year-old Carolyn Kenyon, started to realize how debilitating medical debt really is after hearing about RIP Medical Debt. “The further we got into it, the more we realized what a serious issue medical debt is,” said Jones, a retired chemist.

Inspired To Help

“One thing that really struck me in my research was the medical debt incurred by women who had metastatic breast cancer,” Jones told the Times Union. “When you start to learn how bad the problem is, it makes you want to do more,” Jones added.

Universal Healthcare Advocates

Before finding out about RIP Medical Debt, both Jones and Kenyon, a psychoanalyst, were members of the Finger Lakes chapter of the Campaign for New York Health. The campaign advocates for universal healthcare and fights for the New York Health Act.

Making A Statement

However, when the two women realized just how much people are suffering now because of the cost of medical care, they were inspired to do something with a more immediate impact. Not only did they want to help people, but they also wanted to make a political statement at the same time.

Executives With A Heart

Jones and Kenyon learned how RIP Medical Debt was founded in 2014 by Craig Antico and Jerry Ashton, two former executives from the debt collection industry. Even though they knew there was a bigger underlying problem with the high medical costs in the United States, the two men didn’t like the way debtors were being treated.

Looking For Debt

So the pair came together and started their non-profit, which works by buying up medical debt by working with third-party credit data providers. With the date providers’ help, RIP Medical Debt searches for bundled debt portfolios that meet their criteria for financial relief.

Debt Forgiveness

They then negotiate to buy those portfolios for discounted prices. Typically, they pay about a penny on the dollar for the debt portfolios and then forgive the debt. “I like doing this much more than I liked doing collecting,” Antico told The New York Times.

The Fundraising Campaign

Jones and Kenyon were inspired by what the nonprofit was doing to relieve medical debt and decided to raise money with the intention of helping people trapped under medical debt in New York. “The way sort of opened,” Jones told The New York Times. Over the summer of 2018, the pair raised $12,500.

Saving Thousands From Debt

After finishing up their fundraising campaign, Jones and Kenyon sent the money off to RIP Medical Debt. With that money, the nonprofit was able to purchase $1.5 million worth of debt. According to RIP Medical Debt, that debt had belonged to 1,284 people throughout Upstate New York.

Relieving Some Stress

The holiday season can be incredibly stressful for everyone. But for people in debt, the holiday season is a particularly difficult period. For that reason, RIP Medical Debt decided to let debtors from New York know the exciting news in the winter of 2018 by sending out notices in small yellow envelopes.

‘Too Good To Be True’

“A lot of people get our letters and think they’re too good to be true and throw them out,” Daniel Lempert, a spokesman for RIP Medical Debt, told the Times Union. “That’s why we try to get the word out. We really just want people to be aware of what a terrible problem medical debt is. And we want recipients of these letters to know this debt is finally off their credit report.”

New Yorkers Left In Disbelief When $1.5 Million In Medical Debt Is Mysteriously Paid Off In Full is an article from: LifeDaily

When a teenage boy named Charles got off the school bus one day and decided to walk the rest of the way home via the scenic route through the woods, he thought he spotted a dying animal in the undergrowth near his house.

As Charles approached for a closer look one cold day in December near to Mason Road in Economy, Pennsylvania, he was shocked when he realized he was looking at…

Bizarre Find

As if finding a severed head in undergrowth in a deserted area wasn’t strange enough, what made the find even more bizarre was the fact that the skin on the woman’s head was still smooth and there were few signs of degradation. Her grey hair was perfectly curled, and two moles could be seen on her cheek. This human head defied logic and was meticulously preserved yet thoughtlessly discarded.

Embalmed Head

As Economy Borough Police Chief Michael O’Brien said, according to a Daily Beast report, “What’s bizarre is not that we’ve found a head,” he said. “It’s that we’ve found a head that’s embalmed.” Now the police were faced with a double whammy; who was this woman and where was her body?

Puzzle Pieces

Experts from different fields spent a year trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together and find out who this woman was before she was decapitated. She appeared to be in her late 60s and had waxy white skin, but the most curious thing about the head was that the woman’s eyes had been removed and replaced with small red rubber balls.

Professionally Embalmed

One thing the cops found interesting was that the dead woman had been professionally embalmed, most likely at a funeral home or a mortuary which meant she likely wasn’t murdered. Investigators assumed that an illegal intervention had taken place with her body on its way to the cemetery, but this couldn’t be proved.

Dead Ends

Investigators initially checked to see whether any local graves had been desecrated. That came up empty, so detectives turned their attention to the eye sockets in the head. Some of the most highly-skilled forensic labs in the states tried to identify this woman’s DNA but to no avail as it had been compromised by the extensive embalming process.

Medical Schools

Having come up with no answers, investigators approached medical schools who work with medical tissues to see if the head could be traced back to them. This also turned up nothing, and detectives found themselves back at square one. Now the police approached Michelle Vitali, a sculptor who was tasked with drawing an accurate picture of the dead woman.

Forensic Artist

During the day, Vitali was an art professor at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania. In her spare time, Vitali was an expert forensic artist who helped police departments around the world to solve mysteries like these. But even this expert was unable to find out the name or identity of the woman whose head was found.

Feeling Attached

While Vitali also hit a dead end, she explained that this case had become almost an obsession for her. “I feel like I have an attachment to this one,” she told the Beaver County Times. “I really want to see it resolved. … I just really want to know her name,” she said.

Public Assistance

Police chief O’Brien spoke about the sketch Vitali drew of the dead woman for the press to get help from the public. “Even though she’s rather recognizable, you can’t put her visage on the television,” he said. “So we have to find a more palatable way to present it to the public.”

Several Leads

Vitali drew some sketches, some of which attempted to paint the victim in her younger years, and they threw up some leads. But all of them were dead ends too, so Vitali went ahead and spent 40 hours molding 10 pounds of clay into a 3-D model of what she thinks the woman looked like.

Information Needed

Having produced a life-size clay model of the victim, Vitali told reporters: “I think it’s a pretty good likeness. … What they need now is for people to call with information. If she looks remotely like anyone you knew who passed away, call them.” However, no one called, and the victim remained unidentified.

Feeling Haunted

Vitali said she feels haunted by this case as she tries desperately to do what she can to help identify this Jane Doe. “It’s something to have somebody, to look her right in the face, to hold her head in your hands and say, “I really hope we’re able to resolve this for you, to find out what happened,'” Vitali said. “She has a lot of good people working on her case. A resolution, I think it will be found.”

Fresh Information

The first break in the case came when tests conducted by Salt Lake City-based IsoForensics found isotopes in the woman’s head proving she had spent her last seven months living between Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, and New York. Accordingly, forensic experts concluded that the victim most likely grew up in western Pennsylvania.

Cardiac Arrest

Another piece of the puzzle that was put in place when toxicology tests showed trace amounts of Lidocaine and Atropine suggesting the victim suffered a cardiac arrest at some point close to death. “It looks like she had medical treatment at some point in time,” O’Brien said.

Body Parts

According to Beaver County District Attorney Anthony Berosh, the severed head could be something to do with the booming black market on body parts. “There’s a black market on body parts, and that market is pretty extensive,” he said, according to Reuters. “It didn’t roll off a truck,” Berosh said. “It just didn’t happen that way.”

Closure Needed

Many of the people involved with the case have been left dumbfounded by the lack of leads and solid information. As O’Brien said to reporters, “She’s on my mind 24 hours a day, just the fact that I’m not able to identify her,” he said. “There’s nobody that deserves to be found that way. “She needs to be identified so she can have her name put to her face.”

Nursing Homes

In the meantime, a local prosecutor speculated on how this Jane Doe died. He alleged that she might have had health problems and been in and out of nursing homes in the area, which would explain the various minerals in her system from across the states. But that still doesn’t answer how this poor woman ended up being decapitated.

Possible Match

One lead that investigators were excited about was a missing person named Tamara “Tammy” Porrin. Porrin went missing from central Pennsylvania in 1986, and the photos of her on a national missing-persons database bear a remarkable similarity to Jane Doe. Even Porrin’s brother Ernest agreed that the head looks very much like his sister. However, the connection between the skull and the Porrin family was never solidly established.

Red Balls

Another confounding factor for cops was the red rubber balls which had been used to replace the woman’s eyes. No one at the funeral homes nor the medical examiners had ever seen or heard of this method of embalming. This led many to conclude that the women may have been killed and then used as some part of a sick experiment at the hands of a very twisted person.

Partial Funeral

Even though investigators claimed they hadn’t given up on the case, the woman’s head was buried a year after it was discovered. The partial funeral took place at the Beaver Cemetery, overlooking the Ohio River. The woman was buried without a headstone for now, and if the mystery of her identity isn’t solved her epitaph will simply read: “Jane Doe. Found Dec. 12, 2014.”

Mysteries Abound After Woman’s Head Is Found Without A Body is an article from: LifeDaily

Doctors and nurses are supposed to fight for their patients’ lives and ensure they are getting the best care possible. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen.

When a mother from the UK noticed her young daughter had an insidious mental illness, she begged doctors to help her daughter get better. She expected doctors would take her daughter’s illness seriously, yet they failed the 16-year-old when she needed them most. Now, the devastated mother is fighting for answers and justice.

A Mother’s Dream

Rosemary Westwood-Rose always imagined that when her daughter Libby grew up, she would be happy and successful. She dreamed that her daughter would grow up and start a family of her own one day. When Libby was a child, it seemed like that dream would one day become a reality.

A Bright Future

According to Rosemary and Libby’s father, Ricky, they had always been proud of their little girl. She was smart, kind and ambitious. Libby had a bright future ahead of her, however, that all changed when she left her school at The Old Hall, a prep school in Wellington, England.

The New Kid

At the time, Libby was 11 years old and she transferred into the Charlton School, which was also in Wellington. Libby didn’t know anyone at the new school and she struggled to make friends at first. As a result, she focused even more heavily on her studies.

Things Start To Change

Eventually, Libby became friends with a group of girls, who Rosemary described as like-minded and sensible. Over the next few years, Libby was happy, was doing well in school, and had a good group of friends. However, things took a turn when Libby was 14 years old.

Self Awareness Turns Into Self Loathing

Libby had become aware of the fact that she was bigger than many of her friends and decided to go on a diet to try and lose weight. “I thought I had this super clever child, that she’ll do the diet and feel a whole lot better about herself,” Rosemary told Shropshire Star.

Like Mother Like Daughter

“I have always struggled with my weight and I thought she’d be like me, she’d gain and she’d lose and try diets like me. I didn’t know she would develop an eating disorder,” Rosemary explained. “I just saw my clever, smart, astute 14-year-old. Had I known then what I know now, I would have stopped it then and taken a lot more control.”

The First Diet

No one knew it at the time, but that first diet was the beginning of an incredibly unhealthy and dangerous relationship with food that soon spiraled out of control. After finishing her first diet, Libby started a ‘clean eating’ diet, which Rosemary wasn’t worried about. She thought Libby was just getting interested in taking care of her health.

The Concerning Weight Loss

In reality, the opposite was happening. And when Libby started losing weight, Rosemary thought her daughter had just lost some baby fat. Yet when people started commenting on the weight loss, Rosemary decided to bring her daughter to the doctor just to check and see everything was fine. “She didn’t look ill, and because I saw her every day I didn’t notice it,” Rosemary explained.

Time To See A Doctor

“She wasn’t wearing big baggy clothes, she wasn’t covering up and she was eating. I thought everyone was making a fuss and that I knew her better. But because enough people had mentioned it we took her to the doctor, and this was when she first entered the system,” Rosemary said.

A Shocking Sight

“She had to take her top off and lie on the couch to have the ECG electrodes connected. It was at that stage I looked and I was really shocked. She didn’t look emaciated, but she was thin and I thought, ‘my God, how have I not noticed this?’ It was like someone had lifted the blinkers. I fell apart right there in the surgery. She admitted she had anorexia, but said she was going to stop.”

A Triggering Meal

After leaving the doctor’s office, Rosemary and Libby cried together. Then Libby promised she’d get healthy again and asked for pizza for dinner and then tea. Rosemary thought that was a promising step in the right direction. But it was really the point that things truly became out of control with Libby.

A New Battle Begins

Libby had been starving herself up until that point. After binging on pizza at dinner, she threw it all up later that night, thus beginning her battle with bulimia. “I didn’t realize the huge impact of her having that pizza that night. It seems incredibly stupid now, but at the time I just didn’t know,” Rosemary said.

Uncontrollable Binging

“I would start to find lots of food packets, but I still didn’t know about bulimia. I’d find the packets, clear them out and I would talk to Libby about sensible eating and not pigging out. Sometimes I got cross. But I just did not know what was happening,” said Rosemary. “I’m a nurse, but I didn’t see any obvious signs of poor health.”

A Vicious Cycle

As time went on, however, Rosemary realized what was happening. “She started buying so much food, I didn’t know. It would be eaten, vomited and then hidden. But the evidence became more and more obvious,” said Rosemary, who tried to get her daughter help at that point. Unfortunately, Libby’s BMI wasn’t low enough to be considered an urgent case needing treatment.

Treating The Wrong Problems

“At one point her case worker said ‘I don’t really know what to do’, and that is not enough,” said Rosemary. “The eating disorder books were mostly about anorexia. But the same guidance doesn’t apply for someone with bulimia. How could I sit and say ‘Libby you need to eat’? Getting her to eat wasn’t the problem. That was the least of the problems. She ate non-stop, all the time.”

Out Of Control

Rosemary was lost and had no idea what to do. She even tried locking the doors and windows to the house to keep Libby in, but she managed to break out. At one point, the family even tried locking the food away to keep Libby from binging and then purging. When Libby turned 16, Rosemary lost even more control as the teenager got her own bank account and told doctors she didn’t want her mother involved with her case anymore.

Begging For Help

“A lot of it I didn’t see. It sounds crazy to say it, but she was really adept at hiding it all,” Rosemary said. “It got to the stage where I started to notice bottles of vomit in her bedroom. One day I counted 27 bottles of vomit around her bedroom. Along her radiators, along her surfaces, some of them overflowing. All the professionals knew about this, I told everybody. They couldn’t do anything.”

Libby’s Last Chance

Shortly after turning 16, Libby’s condition got so bad that Rosemary rushed her to the hospital where doctors finally agreed she needed to be treated at an inpatient facility. Libby spent three months at an eating disorder clinic in Sutton Coldfield. According to Rosemary, she received almost no treatment or therapy. She was nowhere close to overcoming bulimia, but the clinic discharged Libby anyway.

A Tragic Ending

Three days later, Libby’s heart stopped as a result of dangerously low potassium levels and she died after suffering for two years. “The three days before she died were lovely,” said Rosemary. “Looking back at her letters she knew she was going to die and wanted to make everything right.” After Libby was found dead in her bedroom, Rosemary found notes Libby wrote in her final days knowing she was about to die. “It’s no one’s fault,” Libby wrote. “I love you so much.”

Fighting For Justice

Now, Rosemary is taking legal action to fight back against the system that failed to give her daughter the early intervention she needed and discharged her when she was deathly ill. “We are all angry and frustrated, broken. We want to know why Libby did not receive early specialist support and the subsequent therapy that she needed to prevent her unnecessary death. We are determined to find out what happened and what could have been done to prevent Libby’s death,” Rosemary wrote on Crowd Justice. “We want to know what changes are needed to improve services for others suffering from eating disorders.”

Bulimic Teen Denied Proper Treatment Dies Days After Release From Clinic is an article from: LifeDaily