News of Doom 2.0

A baby girl has suffered serious burns after being put inside a clothes dryer.

The 13-month-old girl's mum had left the tot in the care of her boyfriend while she went to the gym.

But when the baby spilled a drink on herself, he allegedly put the child inside the tumble dryer and switched the power on.

When the mother returned to her home in Perth, Western Australia, she took her daughter to hospital and the police were alerted.

Officers said the child suffered serious burns to both feet and her left hand, as well as bruising to her face and back.

She was being treated in a Perth hospital and was expected to make a full recovery, they said.

"The injuries are horrific and in my years of being a police officer I have not seen or heard of this type of injury before," Detective Deb Newman said.

A police spokesman said a 21-year-old man appeared in court on charges of causing bodily harm and was released on bail.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch pedophiles are launching a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalization of child pornography and sex with animals.

The Charity, Freedom and Diversity (NVD) party said on its Web site it would be officially registered Wednesday, proclaiming: "We are going to shake The Hague awake!"

The party said it wanted to cut the legal age for sexual relations to 12 and eventually scrap the limit altogether.

"A ban just makes children curious," Ad van den Berg, one of the party's founders, told the Algemeen Dagblad (AD) newspaper.

"We want to make pedophilia the subject of discussion," he said, adding that the subject had been a taboo since the 1996 Marc Dutroux child abuse scandal in neighboring Belgium. "We have been hushed up. The only way is through parliament."

The party said private possession of child pornography should be allowed although it favors banning the trade of such materials. The broadcast of pornography should be allowed on daytime television, with only violent pornography limited to the late evening, according to the party.

Toddlers should be given sex education and youths aged 16 and up should be allowed to appear in pornographic films and prostitute themselves. Sex with animals should be allowed although abuse of animals should remain illegal, the NVD said.

The party also said everybody should be allowed to go naked in public.

The party's program also includes ideas for other areas of public policy including legalizing all soft and hard drugs and free train travel for all.

BATES CITY, Mo. â?? Police have taken a Missouri couple wanted in a grisly videotaped rape and murder into custody, officials confirm to FOX News.

The couple had a 5-year-old girl with them when they turned themselves in to authorities, officials said.

Sources told FOX News that the FBI's "most wanted couple in America," Richard Davis, 41, and Dena Riley, 39, placed the call to turn themselves into authorities under "quite unusual" circumstances. The couple was being sought after on charges that they sexually assaulted, beat and strangled 41-year-old Marsha Spicer and buried her in a shallow grave in a rural area in Bates City, Mo.

Sources told FOX News that additional victims of the hunted couple are likely but that the bodies have not been found. Some of the female victims also are believed to have been videotaped. The prosecuting attorney said during a press conference Thursday that additional charges are "likely."

The Barton County, Mo., sheriff's department released a statement later Friday that said officers located Davis and Riley in a wrecked vehicle after a 911 call was made at 4:50 p.m. Police say Riley had placed the 911 call herself to Barton County and spoke to a deputy on the phone stating that she and Davis were going to harm themselves. When a police officer arrived at the scene, he found the 5-year-old girl near the vehicle.

"America's Most Wanted" also reported that police believe Riley and Davis sexually assaulted the 5-year-old girl.

"We believe this girl was taken from her home in Pittsburg, Kan., and the FBI is investigating this as a kidnapping case," Lanza told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Pittsburg is in southeast Kansas, about 17 miles from Lamar.

Lanza said authorities were trying to determine any possible relationship between the girl and the couple.

SIDNEY, Neb. - A judge said a 5-foot-1 man convicted of sexually assaulting a child was too small to survive in prison, and gave him 10 years of probation instead.

His crimes deserved a long sentence, District Judge Kristine Cecava said, but she worried that Richard W. Thompson, 50, would be especially imperiled by prison dangers.

"You are a sex offender, and you did it to a child," she said.

But, she said, "That doesn't make you a hunter. You do not fit in that category."

Thompson will be electronically monitored the first four months of his probation, and he was told to never be alone with someone under age 18 or date or live with a woman whose children were under 18. Cecava also ordered Thompson to get rid of his pornography.

He faces 30 days of jail each year of his probation unless he follows its conditions closely.

"I want control of you until I know you have integrated change into your life," the judge told Thompson. "I truly hope that my bet on you being OK out in society is not misplaced."

A former assistant prosecutor for Macomb County faces criminal sexual conduct charges after going to Illinois to allegedly have sex with someone he thought was a minor, prosecutors say.

Steven M. Waclawski, 52, of St. Clair Shores is being held in Illinois on $200,000 bond on one count of soliciting, three counts of first degree and two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct. He also faces five counts of using a computer to produce sexually abusive child material. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.

Waclawski flew to Chicago and drove to Wheaton, Ill., on March 18 to meet a boy he thought he was chatting with online. Instead, he was talking to a member of the Illinois Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, and he was arrested when he arrived in Wheaton.

On March 20, following his arrest in Illinois, the Michigan Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force raided his home, where investigators found hundreds of pornographic images of young boys.

Several of the pictures appear to show Waclawski engaged in sexual activity with underage boys at his home, said Nate Bailey, a spokesman for Attorney General Mike Cox.

Bailey said Wednesday that "part of what came out of the Illinois investigation led us to his home."

The task force also seized computers from Waclawski's home. Bailey said he is suspected of having at least one sexual encounter in Michigan with an underage boy.

Waclawski was an assistant prosecutor from March 1986 to July 1990 before working as a lawyer in Birmingham. He will remain in Illinois while facing charges there before returning to St. Clair Shores to be arraigned on the criminal sexual conduct charges. There is no arraignment date yet.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. â?? Police are searching the Kansas City area Wednesday for a couple accused of raping, beating and strangling a 41-year-old woman and burying her in a shallow grave.

Richard Davis and Dena Riley of Independence, Mo., have been on the run since Friday when police discovered a videotape of the deadly assault of Marsha Spicer in the couple's apartment.

The couple was sighted Sunday in Perryville, Mo., at the Hilltop Apartment Complex, FOX News has learned.

Police found Spicer's naked body in a shallow grave in Lafayette County on May 15.

â??Thereâ??s no indication she was buried alive,â?? Kerrick Alumbaugh, the sheriff of Lafayette County, told FOX News. â??She was dead before she was placed in the grave site.â??

The couple was interviewed by police last week â?? before the tape was obtained Friday through a search warrant â?? but have since fled.

"Their whereabouts are totally unknown," said Independence police Capt. Ken Jarnagin.

Detectives noted that the couple had a camcorder aimed at their bed when officers interviewed them. Both denied knowing Spicer. Police believe the couple lured the victim to their home for a sexual encounter.

"It appears like initially the encounter was consensual, I don't think there's any question about it, that's what's shown on the tape," Sanders said. "But at some point, it became dramatically no longer consensual, when they tape her, duct tape her, strike and beat her."

Authorities say the tape recovered from the apartment of Davis and Riley shows the couple with Spicer in the violent final moments of her life.

Police say the video found on a TV stand in the couple's bedroom shows the 41-year-old Spicer with duct tape over her eyes and her hands secured behind her back. She is beaten, raped and sodomized as she pleads for the attack to stop.

Davis, 41, and Riley, 39, are each charged with first-degree murder, first-degree assault, kidnapping, forcible rape and two counts of forcible sodomy.

Davis is on parole after spending nearly 18 years in prison for a rape and sodomy conviction in 1987 in Lafayette County. According to a report in The Kansas City Star, Davis was paroled a year ago Wednesday from a Bonne Terre, Mo., prison. He married a woman in 2001 while in prison, but they divorced in 2004, the paper reported.

Albany (KMTR) - A 19-year-old man with a severe developmental disability died earlier this month after a fire burned the Albany apartment where he lived with his parents. The parents have been arrested in connection with the death.

Christopher Aire Degroot died on Sunday, May 14th, after being taken by Life Flight to Legacy Emanuel Hospital in Portland for treatment of serious injuries as a result of the fire.

Albany fire investigators say the cause of the fire, which started in the living room, is suspicious.

Police say Christopher Degroot, who was home at the time of the fire, but was unable to escape because he had been locked in the apartment by his parents, Agnes Elizabeth Degroot, 48, and Nicolaas Dirk Degroot, 45. Investigators say it was the parentsâ?? custom to lock their son in the apartment when they were not home.

On Friday, May 19th Albany Police detectives arrested Nicolaas and Agnes Degroot on charges of Arson in the First Degree and Manslaughter in the Second Degree.

Anyone with information involving this case is asked to contact the Detective Section of the Albany Police Department at (541) 917-7686.

COVINGTON, Georgia (AP) -- A man ran over three young children and two women with a car in the parking lot of a McDonald's restaurant Tuesday, police said, and one witness described him as having a smile on his face.

Lanny Barnes, 36, was in custody and charges against him were pending.

"All indications are that he intentionally hit them," Assistant Police Chief Almond Turner said.

A 2-year-old girl was in critical condition and two boys, ages 3 and 4, were in stable condition, Police Chief Stacey Cotton said.

The women, ages 33 and 36, are sisters and the mothers of the children, authorities said. Both were also in stable condition.

Barnes' mother, Mary, told The Associated Press her son has battled mental illness.

"He's been suffering with depression for years," she said, her voice shaking after being told by a reporter what happened. "Lord have mercy."

Witnesses described the car running over a curb as the victims left the restaurant, then hitting them and the building before backing up and hitting them again, police said.

Ryan Boldman-Snyder, 20, an employee at the McDonald's, was on a break outside when he heard screaming, and said Barnes was "smiling the whole time."

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Autopsy results obtained by CNN show a mentally disabled man was shot in the back when he was killed by New Orleans police in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

This contradicts testimony by a police sergeant that the victim had turned toward officers and was reaching into his waistband when shot.

"Clearly he was shot from behind," said famed New York pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, who examined the body for the family's lawyer.

Ronald Madison, 40, was mentally disabled and lived at home with his mother. He had no criminal record. He was shot when police responded to a report of gunfire on a bridge over the flooded Industrial Canal on Sunday, September 4, six days after Katrina hit New Orleans last year.

It was a week of dire flooding, rampant looting, death by drowning. Police were strained, beset by suicides and desertion. Four people were killed in confrontations with police that weekend alone.

Madison's older brother, Lance, said he and Ronald were walking across the Danziger bridge toward another brother's dental office when teen-agers ran up behind him and opened fire that Sunday morning.

By his account, he and Ronald were running away toward the crest of the bridge when a police team, responding to the report of gunshots, arrived in a rental truck and opened fire on people on the bridge.

Lance Madison said a policeman pointed a rifle at Ronald and shot him as the two of them were running up the bridge. Lance said he helped carry his wounded brother to a motel on the other side of the canal and left him there as Lance kept running to seek help.

The Police Department said in a press release last fall that Ronald Madison, whom it called a second unidentified gunman, "was confronted by a New Orleans Police Officer. The suspect reached into his waist and turned toward the officer who fired one shot fatally wounding him."

Testifying in a preliminary hearing last fall, Police Sgt. Arthur Kaufman said much the same thing: "One subject turned, reached in his waistband, turned on the officers."

Autopsy results, made available to CNN by a source involved in the investigation, directly contradict that police account.

The findings list five separate gunshot wounds in Ronald Madison's back. Three went through the body and exited in front. There were two other wounds in his right shoulder. None of the shots entered his body from the front.

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (AP) -- A man gunned down four of his in-laws during a morning church service Sunday, abducted his wife and then shot her to death before he was captured nearby, authorities said.

Church members wept as they watched investigators examine evidence and search for clues. Anthony Bell, 25, of Baton Rouge, was arrested at an apartment complex, where his wife was found dead, police said.

It was unclear whether Erica Bell, 24, was killed at the complex, police said. Her three children, including an infant, also were taken from The Ministry of Jesus Christ church and were found safe, officials said.

Erica Bell's mother, church pastor Claudia Brown, was wounded and was in serious condition at a hospital, police said, but would not provide further details.

Brown's brother, Jeffrey Howard, said his sister had been shot in the back of the head but was able to give a statement to police.

Howard said Anthony and Erica Bell had some "domestic trouble" in the past.

Anthony Bell faces charges of murder, attempted murder and kidnapping.

Police and relatives said those killed were Erica Bell's grandparents, Leonard Howard, 78, and Gloria Howard, 72; her great aunt, Deloris McGrew, 68; and a cousin Darlene Mills, 47.

One person was killed and four others were injured Sunday night when multiple shots were fired into a group of people who had gathered outside A.D. Porter & Sons Funeral Home for a wake.

It was Louisvilleâ??s fourth homicide in less than a week.

Louisville Metro Police Chief Robert White, who came to the scene, said two unidentified assailants had confronted a group gathering for the visitation at about 7:15 p.m., when shots were fired outside the funeral home at 1300 W. Chestnut St. The attackers fled on foot.

Police said they were searching for two black males but had no further descriptions.

A black male â?? who was not identified â?? lay dead, covered in a sheet just outside the door of the funeral home for several hours Sunday night while 40 to 50 people were held inside, awaiting police questioning. Later in the evening, police escorted small groups of them to their cars. By 11:30, almost everyone who was being questioned had been allowed to leave the funeral home.

The others who were shot had non-life-threatening injuries and â??escorted themselvesâ?? to University Hospital, White said.

The visitation was for Frank Sherley Jr., 70, who died Wednesday. He was a retired employee at Corhart Refractories, according to a Courier-Journal obituary. The visitation was from 6 to 9 p.m.

White described some of the people inside the funeral home as â??hysterical.â??

Outside the funeral home, pockets of people cried and hugged after learning of the shooting. Some, like Lillian Clayton, tried to contact those inside to find out who had been shot.

â??Itâ??s just crazy,â?? said Clayton, who at one point nearly broke down while being interviewed by reporters. â??This has to stop.â??

At University Hospital last night, Ricky Goldsmith of Louisville said his 72-year-old mother, Anna Goldsmith of La.Grange, was among the injured.

Goldsmith said his parents and other relatives were going to the visitation for her husbandâ??s cousin when shots rang out, and his mother was shot in the leg. Sheâ??d only recently had hip-replacement surgery, but Goldsmith said she is a strong woman and he was confident she would be OK.

â??I know sheâ??s in the best care she can be in,â?? he said. â??Weâ??re just praying to God that everything works out.â?? He said later, â??Sheâ??s the one who taught me to pray.â??

Waiting to get word in a hallway at the hospital, he said the shooting was disturbing.

â??Itâ??s stupid,â?? he said. â??Itâ??s pretty sad that you canâ??t go pay your respects in the city anymore.â??

Authorities in South Florida are searching for a man who broke into a home and raped a 7-year-old girl while she slept, according to a report.

The attacker broke into the home in Miami Gardens at around 4 a.m. Tuesday and then went to the girl's bedroom, police said.

The man reportedly sexually assaulted the 7-year-old while the rest of her family continued to sleep in the house.

The girl told her family after the attack, but the attacker escaped, a Miami TV station said.

After an investigation, officers believe the girl was targeted by a serial rapist, Local 6 News reported.

They believe that the case may be connected to the kidnapping and rape of two other young girls in the same area this month.

Anyone with information concerning this crime is urged to call Crimeline at (800) 423-TIPS.

Three males cheered on another as he raped a 13-year-old girl at a party March 4 at the Little Earth housing complex in south Minneapolis, according to criminal charges filed Thursday.

All told, five males had sex with the girl that night and some of them punched and kicked a second girl because she refused to have sex, the charges said.

The victims, including a 17-year-old assault victim, told police they were at a party when they were beaten and left bruised, bloody and cut, according to a complaint filed in Hennepin County District Court.

Kevin J. Bruce, 16, is charged with three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and two counts of first-degree attempted criminal sexual conduct. It is unclear whether other suspects will be charged in adult court or have been charged in juvenile court.

Bruce is being tried as an adult.

The 13-year-old victim told authorities she had been drinking brandy and vodka. She fell asleep. A male woke her up, took her upstairs and took off her clothes. She told him, "No," the complaint said, but he raped her before "a number" of males entered the room and raped her, too.

The girl, who suffered injuries and multiple bruises, identified Bruce and another male as two of her assailants.

Bruce told police the sex was consensual and that five males had sex with her, the complaint said. It was the first time he had met the girl, he told police.

But the 17-year-old victim told police Bruce tried to force himself on her that night, too. They were kissing when he became aggressive and tried to take off her clothes. He threw her down and kicked her in the head, the charges said. Other males entered the room and began punching and hitting her because she refused sex with Bruce, the complaint said.

When police searched the home they found a blood-like substance on the floor, a white bra, a used condom and, in an upstairs bedroom, a gold hoop earring belonging to the 13-year-old girl.

TIOGA-NICETOWN - May 17, 2006 - A Philadelphia man is recovering from an attack, allegedly at the hands of his wife. The assault on his private parts has become public knowledge. In an interview with Action News after his release from, the 52-year-old victim spoke of his terrifying ordeal.

The 52-year-old Tioga-Nicetown man, who we are identifying only by his first name of Howard, arrived home late Wednesday, hours after his wife allegedly tore off two parts of his genitalia with her bare hands. Surgeons at Einstein successfully managed to repair the damage.

Howard says his 40-year-old wife Monica, who he says is bi-polar, somehow conceived the notion that he was cheating on her. So while he was asleep last night, she attacked him.
Police outside the home in Tioga-Nicetown following the domestic incident early Tuesday morning.

Howard: "I mean she just grabbed me all down there and yanking and yanking and tearing me up with those fingernails."

Police and paramedics rushed to the man's row home in the 3800 block of Pulaski where they found him bleeding profusely. He was rushed to Einstein where doctors first labeled his condition critical. He was later upgraded to stable after having reattachment surgery and a few doses of morphine. Howard still cannot believe his wife of 11 years would allegedly do this him.

Howard: "I can see doing something like that to a rapist, or mugger but not a husband, not something like..."

Dann: "She thought that you were cheating on her?"

Howard: "I wasn't cheating on nobody, I'm home in bed at 8' 0 clock every night, I mean I'm not out there messing around."

Some neighbors say Howard's had problems with his wife before and has thrown her out only to let her back in. They worry what'll happen next.

Dann Cuellar: "Howard, you're not gonna let her back in here are you?"

Howard: "Oh no, no, no. She's in jail where she belongs."

SALT LAKE CITY â?? A campground at Natural Bridges National Monument has been closed because of bubonic plague detected among field mice and chipmunks.

Plague also has been found this spring in rodent populations at Mesa Verde National Park and Colorado National Monument.

National Park Service officials said there never has been a reported human case of bubonic plague originating from the parks or national monuments.

"We come down on the conservative side when it comes to closing campgrounds," said Joe Winkelmaier of the U.S. Public Health Service. "We just like to be sure when it comes to plague."

Several weeks ago, park rangers noticed a large number of dead field mice at Natural Bridges, about 40 miles west of Blanding. Chief Ranger Ralph Jones showed that tests indicated they died from the plague.

Rangers plan to insecticides to kill fleas in the campground area. Humans usually contract bubonic plague after being bitten by fleas that have bitten infected rodents. The campground could be reopened as soon as next week.

Plague occurs throughout the West, but is concentrated in the Four Corners area of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. An average of 18 cases involving humans are reported each year in the United States, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About one in seven victims die.