ReportWire

Tag: killing

  • 4 Accused Of Planning Gay Man’s Death, Sending Photos Of Body To His Family

    4 Accused Of Planning Gay Man’s Death, Sending Photos Of Body To His Family

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    Arizona police have arrested four men in connection with the death of a gay man, whose mutilated body was found near a Phoenix park, and of sending his family photos of the body.

    Christopher Ibarra, 21, was the latest to be arrested on Wednesday in the death of 30-year-old Bernardo Pantaleon, KPHO-TV in Phoenix reported. Jose Rodriguez, 20, Leonardo Santiago, 21, and Manuel Carrasco-Calderon, 21, were arrested last Friday.

    Though prosecutors say Santiago was the one who killed Pantaleon, all four men are facing murder charges, the KPHO reported.

    Bernardo Pantaleon, shown here in a Facebook post, was found dead on Nov. 26.

    According to the TV station, citing court documents, police said a hiker found Pantaleon dead on Nov. 26, with multiple gunshot wounds to his head, neck and torso on a trail near a Phoenix park.

    Pantaleon’s family member told KPHO-TV that they think the killing was a targeted hate crime, adding that his body was found naked and showed signs of torture.

    According to court documents cited by several news outlets, Santiago told police that Pantaleon had made an “unwanted advance” that made him feel “uncomfortable.” Prosecutors said Santiago fired several shots into the victim and left, then returned with Carrasco-Calderon, who he said mutilated the body.

    Ibarra, however, allegedly told police that Santiago planned to kill Pantaleon a day before the crime, according to KSAZ-TV, citing court documents.

    “He admitted they discussed the murder, when, where and how it would be done, and videos and photographs were passed around,” the document said.

    Pantaleon’s family members told police they received two photos that showed Pantaleon’s mutilated body and another one of a man holding up his middle finger, according to KSAZ.

    One of the photos was also posted on an Instagram account allegedly belonging to one of the men arrested, according to Mesa, Arizona, news station KPNX-TV, citing court documents.

    According to the KPNX, prosecutors cited messages between Carrasco-Calderon, Santiago and Rodriguez allegedly conspiring to “rob and kill” Pantaleon.

    The suspects also reportedly made comments about Pantaleon’s sexuality in the chat, saying that gay people were not “allowed in the northside,” according to the Mesa station.

    Investigators said that they later learned the four men were involved in a criminal street gang and that a number of its members were allegedly “celebrating” Pantaleon’s death.

    Pantaleon’s family members described him in a fundraiser as a caring, loving person who was “the rock for his sibling after the loss of their parents.”

    “Unfortunately, we are mourning him as we have lost him in the most tragic way possible. He will be missed and didn’t deserve to suffer the way,” the family stated in a GoFundMe appeal.

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  • Orange County bartender pleads not guilty to beating woman to death with fire extinguisher

    Orange County bartender pleads not guilty to beating woman to death with fire extinguisher

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    An Orange County bartender accused of bludgeoning a woman to death with a fire extinguisher pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him Monday.

    Dino Rojas-Moreno, 26, was arrested Wednesday in Laguna Hills and charged with one count of murder with two felony enhancements: that the killing was committed in commission of a kidnapping and that it was carried out with a personal weapon, a fire extinguisher.

    Those enhancements would potentially make him subject to the death penalty, according to authorities.

    “The loss of an innocent life is a travesty for the entire community,” Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said in a statement.

    A call to Rojas-Moreno’s attorney was not immediately returned Monday. Rojas-Moreno is due back in court for a pretrial hearing on Jan. 30.

    Prosecutors allege that Rojas-Moreno, who lives in Laguna Hills, assaulted 27-year-old San Clemente resident Tatum Goodwin around 1 a.m. on Nov. 12 in a parking lot near Carmelita’s restaurant in Laguna Beach.

    Goodwin had worked at Carmelita’s for four years, rising to the position of assistant manager, according to a GoFundMe campaign set up by the restaurant’s owner.

    Rojas-Moreno, prosecutors allege, dragged Goodwin to the rear of the parking lot and down an alleyway to a secluded area. There, he is accused of beating her to death with a fire extinguisher, according to the district attorney’s office.

    About 8:20 a.m., a construction worker found Goodwin’s body under a chain-link fence at a nearby work site with a sandbag placed on her head, authorities say.

    “It is heartbreaking that a young woman with her entire future ahead of her had her life ended in such a brutal way and then discarded like her life never [mattered],” Spitzer said.

    It is unknown whether there was a prior relationship between the two. Though some news outlets reported that Rojas-Moreno had worked as a bartender for Goodwin at Carmelita’s, that is incorrect, according to Kimberly Edds, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office.

    Rojas-Moreno called in sick to work the day Goodwin’s body was found, saying he had been jumped in Santa Ana, according to the district attorney’s office.

    He is being held without bail.

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    Andrew J. Campa

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  • Ex-MLB player charged in father-in-law’s killing also committed child abuse, prosecutors say

    Ex-MLB player charged in father-in-law’s killing also committed child abuse, prosecutors say

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    A retired Major League Baseball player accused of killing his father-in-law and attempting to kill his mother-in-law also was charged with child abuse of two infants, according to court documents.

    Danny Serafini, 49, was arraigned this week on a murder charge in the killing of Robert Spohr, his wife’s father, and attempted murder in the shooting of Wendy Wood, his wife’s mother. In a criminal complaint, prosecutors also alleged that Serafini committed “cruelty to child by abuse, neglect, or endangering health,” citing his treatment of a 3-year-old and an 8-month-old.

    The complaint did not say whether the children were Serafini’s and did not spell out the specific actions related to the alleged abuse.

    Serafini was arrested last week — along with a woman, Samantha Scott, 33 — in connection with the June 5, 2021, shootings of Spohr and Wood. Deputies at the time responded to a 911 call from a residence in Homewood, a neighborhood in North Lake Tahoe. They found Spohr dead from a single gunshot wound. Wood had also been shot but was still alive.

    Wood died by suicide a year after the attack.

    Serafini and Scott were both arrested in Nevada, and Serafini was quickly extradited to California.

    The criminal complaint said that Serafini or an accomplice used a .22-caliber gun to carry out the shootings, which were committed during the course of a burglary.

    Serafini pleaded not guilty to all charges and was ordered held without bail. He’s due back in court on Nov. 27.

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    Noah Goldberg

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  • In PnB Rock slaying, two new suspects are charged with robbery and helping suspect flee state

    In PnB Rock slaying, two new suspects are charged with robbery and helping suspect flee state

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    Two new suspects are facing charges in the robbery and killing of rapper PnB Rock, who was shot to death in September 2022 while dining at Roscoe’s House of Chicken & Waffles in South L.A, authorities said.

    Tremont Jones was charged with two counts of robbery, conspiracy to rob the rapper and illegally possessing a firearm as a felon, according to a criminal complaint filed in September. Another suspect, Wynisha Evans, was charged with being an accessory after the fact.

    Both Jones and Evans pleaded not guilty to the charges when they were arraigned at the Compton Courthouse last month, said Venusse Dunn, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

    Authorities had arrested the pair in May in connection to PnB Rock’s killing. However, since charges had been filed in court as a separate case, apart from the main murder case, Jones and Evans remained largely unknown to the public. The new suspects’ charges were brought to light this week after Rolling Stone attended their most recent hearing in Compton on Monday.

    The Times could not immediately reach attorneys for Jones and Evans.

    PnB Rock, 30, whose legal name was Rakim Allen, had been dining at the Roscoe’s House of Chicken & Waffles location on Manchester Avenue with his girlfriend, Stephanie Sibounheuang, on Sept. 12 when a 17-year-old boy walked up to their table and demanded jewelry and other valuables, prosecutors alleged in court documents. The jewelry was valued at “several hundreds of thousands of dollars,” prosecutors said.

    After Allen refused the teen’s demands, prosecutors alleged, the youth shot the seated rapper once in the chest, then twice more in the back. Seconds later, the teen allegedly threatened to shoot Sibounheuang in the head and took several pieces of jewelry off Allen’s body before fleeing the restaurant with his father, suspected getaway driver Freddie Lee Trone.

    In the new court filings, prosecutors accused Jones of taking part in the plot to rob Allen. Jones allegedly met Trone at a parking lot near the Roscoe’s and talked for several minutes before handing Trone an object covered in a towel, which prosecutors allege was a firearm. Trone drove off and returned to the area to drop off his teen son, who was wearing a ski mask and armed with a gun, prosecutors alleged. Jones allegedly stuck around, eventually leaving a nearby parking lot as the teen made his way into the restaurant.

    Evans was accused of fleeing with Trone after the shooting. She had known Trone since they were children, according to a recent court filing by the prosecution, and saw him as “a father figure” to her own son. After learning he was a suspect in the shooting, she reached out to Trone, prosecutors said in the filing. She allegedly rented a car and drove him from L.A. to Nevada “for safety,” the document said.

    An FBI-led task force found Trone in Las Vegas within several weeks and arrested him in late September. He was extradited to California, where he was charged with murder, robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery. His son faced the same charges. Trone’s wife, Shauntel Trone, who is not related to his son, was charged also in late September with robbery and hiding Trone and his son at her home before their eventual arrests.

    Jones remains incarcerated at Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles and is held on $1 million bail, according to county jail records. Evans was released last week on her own recognizance since her non-violent charge fell within the county’s new zero-bail policy. The court installed the policy in July after criticizing the cash bail system for disfavoring people who don’t have access to large amounts of money.

    Jones, Evans and Trone are due in court for another hearing in December.

    Philadelphia-born rapper PnB rock was known for his 2015 single “Fleek” and a hit song with Atlanta rapper YFN Lucci, “Everyday We Lit,” which cracked the Billboard Hot 100 in 2016. He also collaborated with other prominent artists, such as Ed Sheeran and Chance the Rapper.

    Times staff writers James Queally, Richard Winton, Kenan Draughorne and the late Gregory Yee contributed to this report.

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    Jonah Valdez

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  • Ex-MLB pitcher arrested in killing of father-in-law, shooting of mother-in-law in Lake Tahoe

    Ex-MLB pitcher arrested in killing of father-in-law, shooting of mother-in-law in Lake Tahoe

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    A former Major League Baseball pitcher has been arrested in connection with the killing of his wife’s father and the shooting of her mother two years ago in Lake Tahoe, according to authorities.

    Danny Serafini, 49, who last played for the Colorado Rockies in 2007, was arrested Friday in Nevada along with Samantha Scott, 33, on suspicion of killing 70-year-old Robert Spohr and attempting to murder 68-year-old Wendy Wood, according to the Placer County Sheriff’s Office.

    Spohr and Wood were the parents of Serafini’s wife, Erin, according to his sister-in-law, Adrienne Spohr.

    “I am beyond grateful for the hard work and dedication of the Placer County Sheriff’s Department and District Attorney’s office,” Spohr wrote in a statement to the San Francisco Chronicle. “They worked tirelessly for over two years to ensure that this case was solved. They never gave up, and that has meant the world to me and my family.”

    Wood was hospitalized and survived the shooting, but died by suicide a year later, Spohr told the Chronicle.

    Serafini was arrested in Winnemucca, Nev., while Scott was arrested in Las Vegas. The Placer County Sheriff’s Office is awaiting the duo’s extradition.

    The killing occurred June 5, 2021, when deputies responded to a 911 call from a residence in Homewood, a neighborhood in North Lake Tahoe. They found Robert Spohr dead from a single gunshot wound and Wood, who had also been shot, but was still alive.

    Video surveillance from nearby showed a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt, a face covering and a backpack while he was walking to the house hours before the killing, the Sheriff’s Office said.

    The Sheriff’s Office and the Placer County district attorney’s office investigated the case for the next two years.

    “The information and evidence detectives gathered led them to identify Serafini and Scott as the suspects; both suspects are known to each other and to the victims,” the Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

    Serafini’s major league career spanned more than a decade — 1996 to 2007 — but he bounced frequently between the majors and minors. He also pitched for the Minnesota Twins, Chicago Cubs, San Diego Padres, Pittsburgh Pirates and Cincinnati Reds.

    He had a 15-16 record with a 6.04 earned-run average.

    Serafini also ran a bar called the Bullpen Bar in Sparks, Nev., which was featured in the reality TV show “Bar Rescue” in 2015. In the episode, host Jon Taffer says that Serafini was in debt and had lost his “$14 million fortune through a series of bad investments and a bitter divorce settlement.”

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    Noah Goldberg

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  • University of Idaho murder victims attempted to fight off killer, parents say

    University of Idaho murder victims attempted to fight off killer, parents say

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    The parents of slain University of Idaho students Kaylee Goncalves and Xana Kernodle believe their daughters were awake and put up a struggle the morning they and two other students were killed in the bedrooms of home near campus.

    “There’s evidence to show that she awakened and tried to get out of that situation,” Kaylee’s father, Steve Goncalves, told CBS News for an upcoming special on the murders. “She was assaulted and stabbed.”

    The victim’s mother, Kristi Goncalves, supported her husband’s account of what happened on Nov. 13, 2022, when their daughter was pinned between a wall and her best friend Maddie Mogen, who was killed while sleeping next to her.

    “The way the bed was set up … she was trapped,” Kristi Goncalves told CBS.

    Xana’s father, Jeffrey Kernodle, told CBS he also has reason to believe his 20-year-old daughter fought with her killer before being fatally stabbed one floor lower in the same house.

    August Frank/Lewiston Tribune via AP

    Bryan Kohberger enters the courtroom during a hearing Tuesday, June 27, 2023, at the Latah County Courthouse in Moscow, Idaho.

    Bryan Kohberger, a criminal justice grad student at nearby Washington State University, has since been charged with killing Goncalves, Mogen, Kernodle and Kernodle’s boyfriend Ethan Chapin. No motive has been established.

    Kohberger was arrested at his parents Pennsylvania home more than a month after the murders, following a cross-country drive with his father. Kohberger pleaded not guilty in May.

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    Brian Niemietz

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  • Austin Pets Alive! | Cryptocurrency Can Now Be Used to Support Austin…

    Austin Pets Alive! | Cryptocurrency Can Now Be Used to Support Austin…

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    Mar 30, 2022

    Austin Pets Alive! is at the forefront of innovation in eliminating the killing of companion animals, which is why we’ve added a brand-new tool for fueling our work: cryptocurrency donations! Below are some of the new ways you can support our mission using crypto.

    NFTs

    Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are a new technology in the cryptocurrency space that allows for the exchange of digital media. Now, our community is using NFTs to support the animals of APA!.

    • One of our foster families started CowboyKitties.io, which started as hand-drawn ink portraits celebrating the APA! foster cats that came into their lives. “Z”, the 14-year-old artist, began sketching them to show her love for foster cats. One particular cat really captured her imagination and became the famous drawing that is now an exclusive NFT art collection with 15,000 unique kitties available in Ethereum and 5,000 in Polygon. 50% of proceeds benefit Austin Pets Alive!.

    • Two recent engineering graduates from the University of Texas at Austin wanted to put their engineering skills to use while contributing to our cause, as dog-lovers and adopters. Using the available dogs of APA!, AustinCryptoPups has created a one-of-a-kind, collectible NFT trading cards of all of your favorites – Twister, Dave, and more. 50% of proceeds benefit Austin Pets Alive!.

    Donor-Advised Funds

    You can now create your own charitable fund and recommend crypto grants to the animals of APA!. Endaoment offers Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs) built atop the Ethereum blockchain.

    DAFs are a bit like charitable savings accounts, allowing you to donate assets into the fund, and then recommend Austin Pets Alive! to receive cash grants using your Ethereum coins immediately, or over time.

    Direct Donations

    We’re excited to announce that we now accept 35 of the most common cryptocurrency coins as donations to Austin Pets Alive!. If you own crypto, giving to APA! is a smart way to make a difference.

    Here’s how it works:

    • Visit our cryptocurrency giving page

    • Choose from Bitcoin, Ethereum, or more than 30 other coins to donate and get a tax receipt

    • Know that your gift may be tax-deductible, and as a donation, does not trigger a capital gains tax*, allowing you to make a bigger impact

    Your donation will be converted into U.S. dollars and sent to us as cash so we can put your gift to work immediately.

    Your name and contact information are optional, but providing this when making a donation allows us to express our gratitude! We never share, sell, or trade donor information.

    Other Ways to Give

    Not into crypto? No problem! You can continue to fuel our work to end the killing of pets by exploring more ways to give on our website. Whatever way you choose to support our work — we thank you!

    For more information about using cryptocurrency to support the lifesaving mission of Austin Pets Alive!, please email us.

    * Austin Pets Alive! does not provide tax advice, so please consult your financial advisor on donations of cryptocurrency.

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