Man drowns daughter in church

When officers found Gerardo Mendoza Ordaz Sunday night, he was standing in the Healdsburg, Calif., police station parking lot, naked, holding his limp 4-year-old daughter. Her clothes were soaking wet.
The California man’s 9-year-old son stood nearby, wearing shorts but no shirt.
Ordaz, 42, was screaming, “help!” and “police!”
For 90 minutes, authorities attempted to revive the unresponsive girl. At a local hospital, she was pronounced dead.
  Hours later, after a lengthy, detailed statement from Ordaz, the man was arrested in connection with his daughter’s slaying, according to the Associated Press. At a press conference Monday, Healdsburg Police Chief Kevin Burke would not say why authorities believe Ordaz killed his daughter, but he did say how.
“We do believe she was drowned intentionally,” Burke said.
The man and his son led authorities to the crime scene, just 75 yards away from the police station, inside St. John the Baptist Catholic Church.
There, in the sanctuary, sits a large baptismal pool, about one- to two-feet deep, eight feet wide and 10 feet long, Lt. Matt Jenkins told the Press Democrat. On Sundays, the doors to the church are often left unlocked, authorities said, for those who wish to linger in the sanctuary and pray. Police believe Ordaz was alone there with his children when he allegedly submerged the 4-year-old girl under the baptismal waters, Jenkins said.
An autopsy was conducted Monday to determine an official cause of death.
“This is very unusual,” Burke told CBS San Francisco. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my career.”
Classes resumed Monday at St. John’s church school and preschool, but the sanctuary remained closed. The 9 a.m. mass was canceled, reported the Press Democrat, and yellow police tape cordoned the front entrance.
Church personnel did not respond to requests for comment from local media outlets, but the Rev. Sean Rodgers, pastor of the Healdsburg church, released a statement Monday afternoon on the Diocese of Santa Rosa website.

“Sunday night there was tragedy in the church; a little girl lost her life. When police finish the investigation we will know more. In the meantime, please pray for the family, and the parish community.”

Police were overburdened by the investigation, the chief told the Democrat, which spread thin the resources within their small police department in a town of about 11,200 people, located about 100 miles west of Sacramento in northern California.
“It’s a very complicated investigation. We’ve had staffing up all night,” Burke told the newspaper. “It’s a very challenging and tragic case.”
The town hasn’t experienced a homicide investigation in eight years. The young girl’s death Sunday sent shockwaves through the community.
“I’m so sad,” Healdsburg resident Katie McDowell told the Democrat. “It’s Healdsburg. Such a small town. Scary things can happen.”
According to Sonoma County court records, Ordaz was involved in some criminal activity in the late 1990s, including a conviction for disturbing the peace by fighting in public and a guilty plea of felony burglary, both in 1996. He served time in jail for both incidents.
In 1998, he was sentenced to two years in prison on the burglary charge and another offense because he violated his probation, CBS reported.
Police told the TV station they were unaware of any domestic related calls to the man’s home.
Ordaz and his wife live just outside city limits, the chief told the Democrat, and have four children, including the girl and her 9-year-old brother. Child protective services determined the children were safe in their mother’s care.
Ordaz was booked into the Sonoma County Jail without bail and will be arraigned in Sonoma County Superior Court Tuesday afternoon. It was unclear, according to local media reports, if the man had a lawyer.

Off duty cop killing case continues

The widow of the Brooklyn motorist shot and killed by an NYPD cop during a road rage incident vowed Tuesday to show up for all of the officer’s court appearances until “justice is served.”
“I will be here for every court appearance until justice is served for my husband,” said Delrawn Small’s widow Wenona Howser Small outside Brooklyn Supreme Court.
Inside the courthouse, attorneys for Officer Wayne Isaacs received some 800 pages of evidence Tuesday from prosecutors with the attorney general’s office regarding Wayne Isaacs’ murder and manslaughter case.
Isaacs, 37, spent five days at Rikers Island after he was indicted for shooting Small in East New York on July 4.

He was released after posting $500,000 bail.
The officer, who is suspended without pay, initially told officials that Small, 37, punched him during a road rage incident.
A surveillance video of the incident later revealed otherwise.
Court papers obtained by the Daily News showed that Isaacs initially downplayed the shooting on Atlantic Ave. near Bradford St.
“I was involved in an off-duty incident,” he told a fellow officer after the midnight shooting.
Isaacs, speaking to a second officer, insisted that he was a victim.
“He kept hitting me. My lip, my lip,” the officer said.

Killer should've been deported

A Dallas woman accused of killing a Wichita mother and taking her baby was in the country illegally when she was released from a Kansas jail this summer before immigration officials had a chance to request she be held, law enforcement authorities said Wednesday.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not receive the July 25 list of arrests from the Sedgwick County sheriff's office showing Yesenia Sesmas' name on it until the following day, and by that time she had already been released from local custody, said ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok. The agency would have asked that she b e detained if Sesmas, a Mexican national, had still been in jail, he said.
Sesmas posted bond and was released less than 24 hours after her arrest in that case, said Col. Brenda Dietzman, undersheriff for the Sedgwick County sheriff's office.
Even if ICE had made the request, it is not clear that the county would have honored it. Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter announced in 2014 that the jail would no longer honor ICE requests to hold inmates unless the agency presents a warrant or court order requiring them to hold an inmate in custody longer. The policy change stems from a 3rd Circuit appeals court ruling finding a Pennsylvania jail unjustly held a man on suspicion he might be in the country unlawfully after he posted bail. Several jails across the country have refused to automatically honor ICE requests after the American Civil Liberties Union warned they could be sued.
Now if Sedgwick County gets a request a hold on an inmate, jail officials call the agency about 2 to 3 hours before that person is released, and tell ICE "if you want them come get them," Dietzman said.
Sedgwick County officials say they have no record of an ICE request to hold Sesmas when she was in custody in Kansas in the summer for allegedly threatening another Wichita woman with a knife and trying to hold that woman's two daughters for ransom.
Sesmas never showed up for her August court hearing in that case and was a fugitive until her arrest Saturday during a pre-dawn raid at her Dallas home following last week's killing of another Wichita woman, Laura Abarca-Nogueda, and the abduction of Abarca-Nogueda's 6-day-old daughter Sophia. The girl was found safe and reunited with family.
ICE said it asked the Dallas jail to detain Sesmas following her recent arrest.
Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said Wednesday he does not know whether his office was aware of Sesmas' immigration case at the time of the earlier kidnapping case, but said he believed that an ICE hold meant a person can't get out of jail.

Man 62 kills 15 year old in racially charged shooting

Federal officials are investigating the shooting death of a black 15-year-old in West Virginia as a hate crime. Sixty-two-year-old William Pulliam has reportedly confessed, saying he felt threatened when confronted by the teen outside a Charleston convenience store Monday night.
The complaint signed by Charleston police reportedly said Pulliam wasn’t just unremorseful; he also referred to the victim as “trash.” And now the teen’s family said they’re putting their faith in the law to see justice done, reports CBS News correspondent Don Dahler.
The police complaint reportedly stated 15-year-old James Means was part of a group that engaged in a verbal confrontation with Pullium outside a Charleston convenience store. It escalated into violence, with Pulliam allegedly opening fire. The teen was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead with two gunshot wounds. Pulliam gave a jailhouse interview after his arrest, repeating what he says he heard from the group.

“‘What the f*** you say?’” I said, ‘Man, I didn’t say anything.’ I’m sorry, but, I mean, I’m 62 years old. I’m not going to take a bunch of punks beating me up,” Pulliam said.
The police complaint reportedly said Pulliam confessed, stating, “The way I look at it, that’s another piece of trash off the street.” Authorities are now looking into whether the shooting falls under the federal hate crime statute -- killing someone because of their race.
“I just shot him. I mean, I felt my life was in danger,” Pulliam said. “I don’t care if they’re white or black. Nobody’s going to treat me like that. It doesn’t make any difference he’s black.”
Means’ family said this is not a time for revenge, but for justice.
“We don’t hold a grudge, so nobody else should hold a grudge,” said his aunt, Teresa Means. “We all have to forgive and let everything take its place.”
The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports that Pulliam was not allowed to have a gun because of a previous domestic violence conviction. A Thanksgiving peace walk for the teenager is set to take place in Charleston later Thursday morning.

Hawaiian woman kills her own twin sister

A Hawaiian woman wanted on a murder charge was arrested in Albany Friday, State Police said.
Troopers and Albany police officers arrested 37-year-old Alexandria Duval of Maui on Friday after finding her at an Albany home. According to news media reports, she is charged in the death of her twin sister, Anastasia. They appeared enraged before their SUV, driven by Alexandria, fell 200 feet off a cliff in Maui, according to the reports.
The Maui Police Department had issued a warrant for Duval after she was charged with murder stemming from a May 29 incident. A State Police investigator from the New York State Intelligence Center located a possible address for Duval in Albany and Troop G members were notified.
Duval was seen standing outside the home and tried to flee, but was taken into custody and brought to the Latham barracks, troopers said.
She was arraigned in Albany City Court and sent to the Albany County Jail to await extradition back to Hawaii.

Man caught with woman in storage unit now has body count of 6 and rising

Investigators digging into the life of Todd Kohlhepp — the South Carolina man accused of murdering four people, kidnapping a woman and then killing her boyfriend — have found a long trail of macabre online activity they think might be linked to him.
A police source at the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office confirms to PEOPLE that, among other things, law enforcement is looking into bizarre reviews on Amazon that seem to be connected to Kohlepp, a 45-year-old realtor.
In May 2014, an Amazon user began leaving reviews on products such as weapon mounts, padlocks, shovels and a tourniquet, among others more generic items such as dog toys, chocolate bars and DVD copies of The Walking Dead.
While the username was simply “me,” the account linked to a wish list named “Todd Kohlhepp.”
PEOPLE has reviewed dozens of the Amazon user’s product reviews. Most of them were posted in 2014, reportedly in the months after Kohlhepp purchased his land in Woodruff, South Carolina, where human remains and a chained-up woman have since been found.
On Jan. 14, 2015, the user reviewed a set of padlocks, saying, “now my locks have locks…place is Hotel California now,” apparently referencing The Eagles’ song (which contains the line “You can check out any time you like/But you can never leave”).
On another review of padlocks, the user wrote, “solid locks…have 5 on a shipping container.. won’t stop them.. but sure will slow them down til they are too old to care.”
The user said they purchased a knife on Sept. 13, 2014. On the review, they wrote, “havnet (sic) stabbed anyone yet…… yet…. but I am keeping the dream alive and when I do, it will be with a quality tool like this…”
On a shovel purchase, the user wrote, “keep in car for when you have to hide the bodies and you left the full size shovel at home…. does not come with a midget, which would have been nice.”

Suspect Is a ‘Serial Killer’

The Amazon reviews might seem like attempts at dark and twisted humor, but investigators believe they could be written by Kohlhepp, who was arrested after 30-year-old Kala Brown was found chained alive in a storage container on his property last week.
The product reviews “show similarity to the language and style Kohlhepp used on his Facebook profile,” according to the Greenville News. (Citing law enforcement, the paper reports the Amazon posts are a secondary part of the investigation.)
Brown and her 32-year-old boyfriend, Charlie Carver, went missing in late August. Kohlhepp is expected to be charged in Carver’s murder after his body was found Friday in a shallow grave on the Woodruff property.
A friend of Brown’s has said the couple was allegedly abducted at gunpoint after going to do some odd jobs for Kohlhepp. A Facebook post on Carver’s page, made after he disappeared and which his family does not believe he made, referenced “Hotel California,” according to the News.
Over the weekend, Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright said in a news conference that more victims are expected. “Mr. Todd Kohlhepp was here on the scene earlier today,” Wright told reporters. “Yes, he did show us where two more graves are. He sure did. He showed us where two more victims .”
A second body and two more graves were recovered this weekend, Wright said. That would bring Kohlhepp’s alleged body count to at least six, after he also reportedly confessed to a 2003 quadruple slaying in Chesnee, South Carolina.
Wright has called Kohlhepp a “serial killer,” and court documents have reportedly documented Kohlhepp’s psychological troubles as well as a previous guilty plea for kidnapping when he was a teenager.
Kohlhepp appeared in court on Sunday for a bond hearing for his murder charges. He was denied bond, and it remains unclear if he has entered a plea to his charges or retained an attorney.

Undercover sting nabs Facebook food vendors

Mariza Ruelas never expected a plate of ceviche would lead her to the court house and maybe even a possible jail sentence.
For more than a year, undercover investigators in San Joaquin County, California tracked the sales of food — such as homemade tamales, tortillas and cakes — through a community Facebook group, a sting that Mariza Ruelas called a “waste of time and resources and taxpayers’ money.”
Ruelas, a single mother of six, first came across the Facebook group about two years ago when she needed a last-minute cake for her daughter’s quinceañera, the Hispanic coming-of-age celebration on a young woman’s 15th birthday.
The community forum, 209 Food Spot, allowed Stockton, Calif. residents to share recipes, organize potlucks and occasionally sell or exchange food items.
As a hobby, about once a month, Ruelas began offering up her own dishes — a tray of rice and beans in exchange for a birthday cake, her staple chicken-stuffed avocados to those who requested it, she said in a phone interview with the Post.
Then, in July, she received a letter in the mail: she was being summoned to court. Ruelas, along with several other group members, faced citations for two misdemeanors — operating a food facility and engaging in business without a permit. An undercover investigator had ordered a ceviche from her through the Facebook group in October 2015 as part of a sting.
At least a half-dozen other members accepted a plea deal of one year of probation, a $235 fine and 40 hours of community service. Ruelas was offered a deal with twice the community service, three years of probation and the $235 fine, so she refused to accept it, she said.
The single mother of six is headed to trial and faces up to a year in jail for her misdemeanors.
“We didn’t see any harm in that,” she said, of selling and exchanging meals through the group. “There wasn’t anybody selling it daily. A lot of times, they were just getting back what they put into the ingredients.”
She hadn’t ever looked into obtaining a permit, Ruelas said, because she only sold or exchanged food items once or twice a month at most, as a hobby on occasional weekends. It was an activity she enjoyed sharing with her children, ages 6 through 20, who would help prepare and deliver some of the dishes with her.
Sometimes, during the holidays, Ruelas and her children would donate the meals to the homeless, Ruelas said.
“The purpose wasn’t to sell food,” Ruelas said. “We wanted to bring something positive to our community.” She mentioned Stockton’s high crime and soaring homicide rates.
“They took the time to be investigating for over a year now,” she said of her case. “But they can’t solve all these unsolved murders?”
Kelly McDaniel, the San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney said that the 209 Food Spot Facebook group was sent a warning before charges were filed. She added that selling any food not subject to health department inspection is a danger to the public and undercuts business owners who purchase permits to cook and sell food.
“People are assuming that I was taking from other businesses,” Ruelas said. “It’s not something that I was trying to make a business out of.”
Ruelas has been out of work for two years, for personal reasons and to care for her children. After paying rent, electricity, water and other monthly bills, she only has $200 per month left for food and necessary shopping, she said. Simply paying the $235 fine for her misdemeanors would be a blow to her family’s finances.
Although she rarely earned much of an income from the food sales through the Facebook group, she occasionally received useful items — such as clothes for the kids — in exchange for food. When a neighbor knew she needed furniture for her home, he offered to give her family couches in exchange for a home-cooked meal.
“I have two kids that are going to have a birthday party next week and I have no idea what I’m going to do about it,” she said.
On Sunday, Ruelas posted a message from her 17-year-old daughter, Mariyah, on Facebook. She said she didn’t want to be home when her mother made phone calls to her lawyer or to reporters about the case. It scared her, she wrote, thinking about her mom going to jail and leaving her and her siblings without a parent.
“That’s just sad,” Ruelas wrote in the Facebook post. “I need this done already so we can just breathe.”

Teacher arrested in slaying of 2 men

A Dallas-area middle school teacher has been arrested and charged with capital murder in the slayings of two men in Fort Worth.
A Fort Worth police statement says Cary Joseph Heath was arrested Monday at Permenter Middle School in Cedar Hill, where he has been a teacher. Bond is set at $1 million.
No attorney is listed in jail records for the 35-year-old suspect.
Police haven't released much information on the shootings, which happened about 4 a.m. Sunday. Officers arrived to find two men dead on the driveway of a house. The men have not been identified, and a motive has not been given.