OHIO: DERRIS LEWIS CHARGED WITH SHOOTING TWIN, DENNIS, DURING ROBBERY

Ohio Teen Charged as Accessory in Identical Twin's Murder
Saturday, April 12, 2008
ASSOCIATED PRESS

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The death of Dennis Lewis was shocking enough: The National Honor Society student and marching band member was shot in his bedroom while masked robbers held a gun on his mother in another room.

Then police arrested his identical twin, an advanced placement student also active in their high school band. Authorities are accusing Derris Lewis of taking part in the attack and being an accomplice in his brother's death, saying his bloody palm print was found in the bedroom where Dennis was killed.

The family, crushed by the death of one twin, is adamant the other is innocent.

"There's no way, shape or form that my brother was even in that house," said the boys' older sister, Diane Lewis, who lives two doors from where the shooting happened. "He would never put my mom in harm's way whatsoever — she didn't raise killers or criminals."

Derris is charged in juvenile court with being an accomplice to aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and kidnapping. Because he turned 18 two weeks after the shooting, prosecutors are seeking to have him charged as an adult.

TWINS? GO FIGURE! READ THE REST OF THIS STORY...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351014,00.html

Events in Identical Twin Slaying in Ohio
By The Associated Press – 7 hours ago

Some events in the case of Derris Lewis, charged as a juvenile with being an accomplice in the death of his twin brother Dennis:

_ Jan. 18. Masked intruders enter the home of the boys' mother, April Agee, and demand money at gunpoint. At least one attacker struggles with her 17-year-old son Dennis Lewis, beating him with part of a bar stool. He is fatally shot.

_ Jan. 24. Family holds funeral, during which Dennis is remembered as active at school, including in sports and theater. Derris sings a gospel song with a cousin that Dennis and Derris had sung together in the past.

_ Feb. 13. Police arrest Derris in connection with his brother's death after questioning him for several hours. A search warrant says Derris' bloody palm print was found at the scene.

_ Feb. 17. The Lewis family issues a statement saying police have made a mistake. The statement says, in part, "Derris truly loved his brother with all his heart" and "Derris would have no conceivable motive to do any of this."

_ March 12. After two hearings are delayed, Juvenile Court Judge Dana Preisse sets an April 30 hearing date for prosecutors' request to charge Derris as an adult.

Source: AP Research

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jUwd-bnBjgPaSGB-gmkiPxkA32LAD900E94G0

CESAR LAUREAN: CAPTURED IN VILLAGE OF TACAMBARO, MEXICO

Map shows location of Tacambaro, Mexico, where Cesar Laurean was captured.

Mexico Coat of Arms
Mexican Flag
Cesar Laurean: shows tattoo on arm

Capture of Cabin Dweller Cesar Laurean Shocks Mexican Villagers Who Knew Him
By TRACI CARL , Saturday, April 12, 2008
ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN JUAN DE LA VINA, Mexico — People wondered about the bearded stranger with a foreign accent who moved into a rustic cabin weeks ago in the pine-clad mountains surrounding this picturesque village.

Some thought maybe he was a drug trafficker — something not unheard of in these parts. It was not until Friday when they saw Cpl. Cesar Laurean's photograph in the local newspaper that they learned he was a U.S. Marine suspected of killing a pregnant colleague.

Police arrested Laurean, 21, on Thursday as he was walking along the main street in San Juan de la Vina in the municipality of Tacambaro, ending a three-month manhunt. He is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, 20, who had accused him of rape.

Lauterbach's burned remains were found in January in the backyard of his home near Camp Lejeune, a coastal North Carolina base that is home to roughly 50,000 Marines.

FBI Public Affairs Specialist Amy Thoreson said FBI agents were present at Laurean's arrest in Mexico, but it was unclear what role they played.

Bearded and thin, Laurean told police he survived for months largely by eating avocados from the orchard in the mountains where he lived in Michoacan state.

COME ON HOME, KILLER...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,350834,00.html

DENISE AMBER LEE: 9-1-1 CALL COULD HAVE SAVED HER

DENISE AMBER LEE, 21

9-1-1 CALL CENTER
MICHAEL KING, 36, KILLER

911 Call Center Blamed for Young Mother’s Death
By Ted Moore / 18:30, April 11th 2008

The tragedy of losing his wife and the mother of his two children gives birth to an even deeper pain for Nathan Lee whenever he thinks that Denise Lee could have been saved if the 911 call center workers would have done their job properly.

Nathan thinks that the 911 call center acted with negligence. As a result, he and his attorney, Thomas Marryott , have announced their intention to file a lawsuit against the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Department in Florida.

It is hard for him now and it will be hard for him also in the future when Lee will have to explain to his two sons why their mother is not beside them. “Someday I’m going to have to tell our little boys, who have very few memories, if any, of their amazingly courageous and brave mommy. I will have to tell them that she died needlessly,” Lee told NBC News.

Denise Amber Lee died on January 17.

She was kidnapped at about 2:30 p.m. from her home in North Port, Fla. At 9 p.m. her murderer, a 36-year-old unemployed plumber named Michael King, was arrested for killing the 21-year-old mother. A ring and some hair which was found on his Camaro’s black seat linked King with Lee’s death.

However, the problem is that before she was killed, Denise called 911 several times. She managed to get the kidnapper’s cell phone, called the police and also left an open connection that allowed the Charlotte County Sheriff to know about the kidnapping.

Furthermore, 911 received calls from other witnesses who reported seeing the woman trying to escape a dark green Camaro.

Still, the 911 call center workers apparently forgot to pass along the information.

THIS STORY IS FAR FROM OVER...
http://www.enews20.com/news_911_Call_Center_%20Blamed_for_Young_Mothers_Death_07210.html

CESAR LAUREAN: FBI CAPTURES KILLER IN MEXICO

CESAR LAUREAN: Guess we wiped that smirk off his face!

Apr 10, 9:57 PM EDT
FBI arrests suspect in slaying of Marine
By ESTES THOMPSON
Associated Press Writer

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- A Marine wanted in the brutal slaying of a pregnant colleague who had accused him of rape was arrested in Mexico, the FBI said late Thursday. The FBI's office in Charlotte said special agents and Mexican authorities arrested Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean, who is charged with murder in the death of Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach. The FBI did not say when or where in Mexico Laurean was arrested, but said he is awaiting extradition to the U.S.

"Laurean's swift arrest in Mexico was due to the diligence and dedication of the Mexican government and our law enforcement partners," Nathan Gray, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Charlotte office, said in a statement.

"This was truly an international effort, and we will do all we can to ensure Laurean is brought back to Onslow County (N.C.) as quickly as possible to answer the charges against him."

GREAT NEWS FOR MARIA LAUTERBACH'S FAMILY...
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MISSING_MARINE?SITE=CADIU&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Thank you Mexico for assisting in the capture of this punk! Thank you FBI for your great crime work on this case, and for not giving up! I know this case is far from over, so I'll be writing updates tomorrow and all weekend. The next step will be extradition. This could take up to two years if Laurean fights it. He might as well just come back now.
CHOMP

JOHN CORNYN: WHAT I HEARD AT THE PETRAEUS-CROCKER HEARINGS

April 09, 2008, 0:40 p.m.

What I Heard at the Petraeus-Crocker Hearings
Seeing the mission through.

By John Cornyn

America's top military commander and chief diplomat in Iraq reported Tuesday that we are making significant progress there. They added that we cannot afford to squander our gains by losing our resolve. But was anybody really listening?

Just this morning, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said the following on the Senate floor: "Is the war in Iraq making America safer? By all accounts, the answer…is `no.'

"Senator Reid's statement stands in direct contradiction to Amb. Crocker's testimony on Tuesday. "Al-Qaeda is our mortal and strategic enemy. So to the extent that al-Qaeda's capacities have been lessened in Iraq and they have been significantly lessened, I do believe that makes America safer."

Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker said the advances in security are fragile, and we must be patient in securing them.

(snip)

We all want to bring our troops home — there is no disagreement over that goal. The question is whether they will return after defeating the threat, or whether they'll return to an America that is less safe and more vulnerable to another terrorist attack.

If we give up too soon, according to Petraeus and Crocker, Iraq would become a breeding ground for terrorists, much like Afghanistan before 9/11. Last month, Osama bin Laden declared Iraq would be a "perfect" base for al-Qaeda. But thanks to our volunteer military, we now have al Qaeda on the run, as Gen. Petraeus declared: "We have our teeth into the jugular, and we need to keep it there."

— Senator John Cornyn (R., Tex.), is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan earlier this year.

READ MORE OF THE TRUTH ABOUT IRAQ, ABOUT OUR TROOPS, ABOUT OUR COMMITMENT TO FREEDOM...

National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjQ2MTBiMDQzNGViYWM2MzU4OWU0ODBlMmQwODZjZWI

POLYGAMIST CULT, HUNDREDS OF KIDS: A PEDOPHILE'S DREAM

AP/ Leroy Johnson Steed, 41, on charges of felony tampering with evidence in connection with the investigation at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

AP/ Levi Barlow Jeffs, 19, who was arrested for interfering with the duties of a public servant during the investigation of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Court Documents Show Polygamist Sect Married Girls at Puberty
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
ASSOCIATED PRESS

ELDORADO, Texas — A polygamist compound with hundreds of children was rife with sexual abuse, child welfare officials allege in court documents, with girls spiritually married to much older men as soon as they reached puberty and boys groomed to perpetuate the cycle.

The documents released Tuesday also gave details about the hushed phone calls that triggered the raid, by a 16-year-old girl at the West Texas ranch who said her 50-year-old husband beat and raped her. Days after raiding the compound, officials still aren't sure where the girl is.

(snip)

• Click here for photos.

• Click here for Maggie Lineback's On the Scene blog.

Court documents said a number of teen girls at the 1,700-acre compound were pregnant, and that all the children were removed on the grounds that they were in danger of "emotional, physical, and-or sexual abuse." Another 139 women left on their own.

"Investigators determined that there is a widespread pattern and practice of the (Yearn for Zion) Ranch in which young, minor female residents are conditioned to expect and accept sexual activity with adult men at the ranch upon being spiritually married to them," read the affidavit signed by Lynn McFadden, a Department of Family and Protective Services investigative supervisor.

McFadden said the girls were spiritually married to the men as soon as they reached puberty and were required to produce children.

UNBELIEVABLE STORY...WHERE ARE THE MOTHER'S OF THESE CHILDREN? http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,348148,00.html

RELEASE INGRID BETANCOURT: FARCS SAY NO, FRANCE LEAVES

MS. BETANCOURT BEFORE CAPTURE BY COLUMBIAN FARCS

INGRID BETANCOURT, SICK AND DEPRESSED:
FARCS REFUSE HER MEDICAL CARE

6 April 2008 - The mission to save the French-Colombian hostage held by the FARC comes with a three point plan: the release of Ingrid Betancourt, an offer by France to accept a handful of rebel leaders held by Bogota and French support for FARC’s removal from Europe’s list of terrorist organisations.

France Ends Mission to Rescue Betancourt
By ANDREW O. SELSKY – 1 hour ago

ASSOCIATED pRESS/ 8 APRIL 2008

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — France called off a humanitarian mission Tuesday to treat and possibly free ailing hostage Ingrid Betancourt after Colombian rebels said they wouldn't unilaterally release any more captives.

France's Foreign Ministry said late Tuesday that there was no longer any reason to keep the mission by France, Spain and Switzerland in Colombia. A French government plane has been waiting on a Bogota airstrip for days with doctors hoping to reach Betancourt, who was said to be depressed and suffering from hepatitis C.

In a four-paragraph statement released Tuesday, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia repeated what they have insisted on since 2005: that the government demilitarize two counties as the first step toward a broad hostage-prisoner swap. Only as part of such an exchange, they said, would Betancourt go free.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy's office said he is "deeply disappointed" he was unable to save Betancourt, who holds French and Colombian nationality.

IS THIS THE END FOR MS. BETANCOURT? WHO CAN SAVE HER?

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jMdY0la2D68NjF07S0FOyxbXAl7gD8VU0VT05

ELDORADO: 400 KIDS TAKEN INTO CUSTODY FROM ISOLATED SECT

AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez

400+ kids taken from polygamist compound
Apr 7, 10:28 PM EDT
By MICHELLE ROBERTS / Associated Press Writer

ELDORADO, Texas (AP) -- More than 400 children, mostly girls in pioneer dresses, were swept into state custody from a polygamist sect in what authorities described Monday as the largest child-welfare operation in Texas history.

The dayslong raid on the sprawling compound built by now-jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs was sparked by a 16-year-old girl's call to authorities that she was being abused and that girls as young as 14 and 15 were being forced into marriages with much older men.

Dressed in home-sewn, ankle-length dresses with their hair pinned up in braids, some 133 women left the Yearning for Zion Ranch of their own volition along with the children.

State troopers were holding an unknown number of men in the compound until investigators finished executing a house-to-house search of the 1,700-acre property, which includes a medical facility, a cheese-making plant, a cement plant, a school, numerous large housing units and an 80-foot white limestone temple that rises discordantly out of the brown scrub.

(snip)

"Once you go into the compound, you don't ever leave it," said Carolyn Jessop, one of the wives of the alleged leader of the Eldorado complex. Jessop left with her eight children before part of the sect moved to Texas.

Jessop said the community emphasized self-sufficiency because they believed the apocalypse was near.

The women were not allowed to wear red - the color Jeffs said belonged to Jesus - and were not allowed to cut their hair. They were also kept isolated from the outside world.

They "were born into this," said Jessop, 40. "They have no concept of mainstream society, and their mothers were born into and have no concept of mainstream culture. Their grandmothers were born into it."

READ MORE OF MICHELLE ROBERTS ARTICLE...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/POLYGAMIST_RETREAT?SITE=CODER&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

ELDORADO, YFZ RANCH: 200 REMOVED, SEARCH FOR DALE BARLOW

Authorities are looking for evidence that this man, Dale Evans Barlow, married and impregnated a 16-year-old girl.

Nearly 200 taken from sect's West Texas ranch
By BILL HANNA
Star-Telegram staff writer

ELDORADO -- After several anxious hours late Saturday, tensions appeared to be easing at the YFZ Ranch in West Texas as state troopers streamed past checkpoints and escorted another busload of girls from the secretive polygamist sect's compound.

(snip)

Earlier Saturday, officials said they had removed 137 children and 46 women from the ranch. Investigators said they planned to keep searching until every child was accounted for at the YFZ (Yearn For Zion) Ranch.

The second full day of searching at the property had investigators going building to building in the hunt for more children. State officials have blocked access to the ranch since Thursday in response to a report of physical abuse of a 16-year-old girl, law enforcement officials said Friday.

(snip)

Timeline of the sect

1890 - After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rejects polygamy, some followers defy the church's edict and continue to practice plural marriage.

1914 - Settlement begins in Short Creek, an Arizona town that becomes a haven for polygamists.

1953 - Arizona officials raid Short Creek in an attempt to prosecute polygamy, but the move is heavily criticized.

1961 - Short Creek is renamed Colorado City and grows across the border to include what is now Hildale, Utah.

1986 - Rulon Jeffs becomes the prophet of the fundamentalist sect.

2000 - Jeffs' son, Warren, orders members to separate themselves from nonbelievers and compels children to stop attending public school.

2002 - Warren Jeffs succeeds his deceased father as church leader.

2003 - David Allred, a member of the sect, purchases 1,691 acres in Schleicher County near Eldorado.

2005 - A Utah judge appoints Salt Lake City accountant Bruce Wisan as the special fiduciary of the United Effort Plan Trust, which controls the church's holdings in the Colorado City and Hildale area.

2006 - In June, Warren Jeffs is placed on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list. He is arrested in August during a routine traffic stop outside Las Vegas.

2007 - Jeffs is sentenced to two life sentences for the arranged marriage of a 14-year-old girl to her 19-year-old cousin.

2008 - Authorities enter the compound outside Eldorado.

Source: Star-Telegram archives
bhanna@star-telegram.com
Bill Hanna, 817-390-7698

READ MORE...
http://www.star-telegram.com/275/story/565539.html