Lindsey J Baum (10) - last seen leaving a friend's house on the evening of June 26, 2009. Lindsey was last seen wearing a light blue hooded pullover shirt and blue jeans.
McCleary, WA

The massive ground search for the missing 10-year-old girl was scaled back on Wednesday as investigators turned the focus of their work from searching to following up on tips they've received.

On Wednesday a second person came forward to report having seen Lindsey Baum on Friday night as she walked home along Maple Street from a friend's house.

Experts with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children say if the girl was abducted, it most likely wasn't by a stranger who was hiding in the bushes.

"From what knowledge we have and the information that I have that it's someone that she possibly knows, somebody that is in the area," said Henry Schmidt with the organization.

The FBI now wants neighbors to think about anyone who may have been in the area Friday night. They also want to hear about anyone suddenly engaging in strange behavior, such as not showing up for work, selling their car for no reason or changing their appearance.

"We're certainly not looking for a witch hunt or anything of that sort, but the bottom line is we have a missing girl. And so anyone who is in this area is going to be someone we want to talk to," said Ron Twersky, FBI assistant special agent in charge.

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Avion Bell (10) - died on June 17, 2009 as a result of injuries suffered in a fire in her home on June 13, 2009
Tamira Bell (34) - mother of Avion Bell charged with endangering the welfare of a child for leaving her unattended
Sarah R. Moore (25) - charged with second-degree murder and first-degree arson for her role in the fire that killed Avion Bell; apparently set the fire in retaliation for an argument she had with the child's mother that night
Schenectady, NY

An arrest has been in the deadly Schenectady fire that killed a little girl. 10-year-old Avion Bell died from smoke inhalation after the June 13th fire at her Congress Street apartment house.

Police said from the beginning they believed the fire was arson and now they have arrested 25-year-old Sarah Moore and charged her with murder.

Back on June 13th, the fire ripped through the apartment as firefighters battled heavy smoke and flames in the tight space. As they fought the flames, 10 year-old Avion lay helplessly, sleeping inside; an unnecessary, unintended victim of arson.

Schenectady County District Attorney Bob Carney spoke of Moore, "She was in fact aware of the child being there, but she didn't intend we believe to purposely kill the child, but of course that's what happened."

Moore apparently had an argument with Avion's mother, Tamira Bell, a short time before the fire started.

"Ms. Moore was with other people, including Avion's mother, earlier in the evening," Schenectady Police Captain Pete Frisoni, "she was apparently angry about some disagreement that there was."

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Lei Tyree Johnson (38) and Samuel Marshall Fowlkes, (49) - murdered Wednesday, July 1, 2009, by what police describe as a boarder
unnamed 12 year old son of Lei Johnson - witness to the murder and victim of attempted strangulation
suspect (age) - allegedly became enraged upon hearing his former girlfriend, having sex in one of the bedrooms above his basement apartment; confessed to both killings and was charged with two counts of second-degree murder
Annapolis, MD

A man and woman were found shot to death early Wednesday in a house on a quiet Annapolis street that was preparing for a neighborhood July 4th celebration, and police arrested a suspect late Wednesday night.

Elbert Gardner Jr., 56, was charged with two counts of second-degree murder and one count of attempted second-degree murder. Police say he lived in the basement of the home where the two victims were found and that he confessed to both killings.

Police on Thursday identified the victims as Lei Tyree Johnson, 38, and Samuel Marshall Fowlkes, 49. They were found together shortly before 5:30 a.m. in a small, beige house on Goodrich Road in the Admiral Heights neighborhood, just west of the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. Police said Johnson lived at the house, along with a juvenile who was assaulted during the incident.

Fowlkes lived in the 100 block of Obery Court in Annapolis, according to police.

The call to police came from a neighbor's house, Weaver said. Within a few hours police were seeking a search warrant for at least three other locations, but not all of them may be houses, he said.

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Maureen Modlin (59), Michael Bistranin (60) - shot and killed Sunday, June 28, 2009
David Myers (66) - former boyfriend of Maureen Modlin charged with two counts of first degree murder.
Venice, FL

Maureen Modlin tried desperately to protect herself from her ex-boyfriend, David Myers.

She installed security cameras outside her rural Venice property, alerted her neighbors about Myers, pleaded with a judge for a restraining order and frequently called the Sheriff’s Office for help.

None of it worked.

Authorities say Modlin, 58, was killed when Myers went to her home Saturday night and shot her in the face and then fired three more times.

Sarasota County sheriff’s investigators also say Myers then pumped several shots into Modlin’s boyfriend, Michael Lee Bistranin, 60, who came to the home that night. Bistranin was also killed.

Myers, 66, faces murder charges in both deaths.

One official close to the case called the killings a “surprise attack.”

But while Modlin’s neighbors on rural Kennedy Boulevard, where the shootings took place, were shocked by the deaths, most were not surprised.

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Ed Thomas (58) - highly successful football coach shot in the head and killed in his team's weight room on Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Mark D. Becker (24) - arrested for the murder of Ed Thomas; has a history of arrests and run-ins with police, and had been hospitalized for mental evaluation after a recent incident leading to a high speed chase that ran through three counties
Parkersburg, IA

Mark D. Becker of Parkersburg late Tuesday was formally charged with one count of first-degree murder in the death of Aplington-Parkersburg teacher and coach Ed Thomas.

Becker, 24, is being held in the Cerro Gordo County Jail, but will be brought back to Allison to face the charges next Tuesday morning.

Judge Stephen Carroll continued Becker's cash-only bond in the amount of $1 million.

A second charge of eluding or attempting to elude while participating in a felony also was filed against Becker. The pertains to the three-county chase in which he was involved June 20, which ended in Butler County near Allison. That charge is a Class D felony punishable upon conviction of up to five years in prison.

Becker was being chased after allegedly vandalising a Cedar Falls home. Charges for that incident have not been filed.

Becker is the man accused of entering the Aplington-Parkersburg makeshift weight room in Parkersburg about 7:45 a.m. June 24 and shooting Thomas several times. Thomas died later at Covenant Medical Center in Waterloo.

No motive for the slaying has been stated.

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Sandra Cantu (8) - last seen about 4 p.m. March 27, 2009, leaving the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park in Tracy, CA, on foot; reported missing at 8:00 p.m. that night. Body found Monday, April 6, 2009.
Melissa Huckaby (28) - neighbor and mother of Sandra's best friend who has been arrested for her rape and murder
Tracy, CA

A secret grand jury is expected to convene this month to decide if Tracy’s Melissa Huckaby should stand trial in open court on charges she kidnapped, raped and murdered 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, sources said.

The grand jury is scheduled to meet for two weeks beginning July 20.

The grand jury proceeding would take the place of Huckaby’s preliminary hearing set for Sept. 24. It also threatens to keep from the public key facts of the case — like Huckaby’s alleged motive and how Sandra was killed — until the jury trial.

Huckaby, 28, is charged with kidnapping, rape with a foreign object, lewd and lascivious acts on a child under age 14 and murder. The charges stem from Sandra’s March 27 death.

Sandra was last seen in the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park where she and Huckaby were neighbors. Farm workers found the girl’s body 10 days later, stuffed in a suitcase and dumped in a dairy pond two miles north of the mobile home park. Huckaby faces a potential death sentence.

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Leslie Buck - Schoolteacher; husband reported he found her dead two days after reported kidnapping
Russell Kirby - Charged with assault and kidnapping on May 3, 2002; convicted; overturned on appeal; awaiting new trial
Charles Buck (62) - husband charged January 22, 2009 with the 2002 murder of his wife
Mystic, CT

A Superior Court judge ruled today that Charles Buck will stand trial for allegedly murdering his wife in 2002.

Although no weapon was recovered, and the coroner did not rule the death of Leslie Buck a homicide, Judge Susan B. Handy said there was probable cause that Buck committed the crime.

During seven days of hearings over the last three months, prosecutors described Buck as a man infatuated with a younger woman who worked at a local bar.

They said he showered the woman with gifts, including a house, two cars, and a $15,000 ring.

Defense attorneys said the relationship was platonic and Buck loved his wife, a popular school teacher.

On May 4, 2002, Buck called police to say he had found his wife's lifeless body at the bottom of the stairs in their home in the Mason's Island section of Stonington.

Police theorize Buck, an electrical contractor, hit his wife with a wire bar.

Leslie Buck was the target of an unsuccessful kidnapping attempt two days before her death. Russell Kirby, who sometimes worked for Charles Buck, is awaiting retrial after his kidnapping convicted was overturned.

Buck was arrested for murder in January and is being held on $2.5 million bail.

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Sandra Martin (27) - Stay-at-home mom with two kids aged 5 & 2 found shot in the head and bound with duct tape in her home by her husband on September 22, 1986; police suspected that her attacker posed as someone interested in purchasing her home, which was on the market
Jay Thayer Williams (now 63) - Dallas real estate agent identified as Martin's attacker through fingerprints in the national system due to a 1981 arrest in Las Vegas for a minor offense
Ft. Worth, TX

A 64-year-old Dallas real estate agent has been indicted in the fatal shooting of a young mother during an attempted rape in her south Fort Worth home nearly 23 years ago.

A Tarrant County grand jury returned a capital murder indictment last week against Jay Thayer Williams, accused in the Sept. 22, 1986, slaying of Sandra Lea Martin. The 27-year-old was found bound and gagged in a bedroom.

Authorities believe that the killer locked the bedroom door and shot Martin in the head as her 5-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter played elsewhere in the house. Police think he used a pillow to muffle the sound.

Sexual assault is thought to be the motive because Martin was nude from the waist down.

Williams was arrested in April after a national database matched his fingerprints to those found on duct tape wrapped around Martin’s head, detectives said.

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Priscilla Dawn Hickman (45) - Last seen around January 6, 2009; reported missing, police responded to her home and found nothing out of order; returned on January 18, 2009 and found body; strangled
Heath, OH

Licking County's sole slaying in the first half of 2009 -- the strangulation of a 46-year-old Heath woman -- remains an open investigation.

Investigators along with the victim's family again are petitioning the public to help bring the individual who choked the life out of Priscilla Dawn "Dondi" Hickman to justice.

It's been almost six months since crime-scene tape surrounded Hickman's trailer at Ramp Creek Mobile Home Community. Inside, Heath police investigated the crime scene, but the person responsible has thus far eluded detection.

There are no suspects or persons of interest, but the case is not in a holding pattern waiting for a big break, Detective Jaimee Coulter said.

Licking County Crime Stoppers sent out a press release Tuesday night reminding the public of a $1,000 reward for information on the death.

According to the information Heath police has, Hickman was last seen or spoken to Jan. 12, six days before her body was discovered in the bedroom of her trailer, Coulter said.

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Sarah J. Parks and unborn child (28) - pregant teacher found dead after a fire on Thursday, June 25, 2009; death ruled a homicide
Silas Parks (25) - charged with murder and arson in the death of his wife
Moscow, ID

An autopsy found that a pregnant woman whose body was found in a burned duplex had been suffocated or strangled before the fire started.

The body of third-grade teacher Sarah Parks was found June 24. Her husband, Silas Parks, was arrested Wednesday and charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the death of his 28-year-old wife and unborn daughter. He is also charged with first-degree arson for allegedly setting the fire.

Parks made an initial appearance Wednesday before Latah County Magistrate Judge William Hamlett, who scheduled a preliminary hearing for July 14. Parks is being held without bail.

Court records say Parks told Moscow police that he pushed his wife to the ground while enraged on at least three occasions.


Officials who are investigating the death of Sarah J. Parks, 28, a third grade teacher whose body was found after a structure fire June 24 in Moscow, arrested her husband, silas Parks, 25 in connection with the incident Wednesday, July 1. He has been charged the deaths of his wife and unborn child, along with one count of arson.

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