Aliahna Lemmon, 9, went missing Friday on December
23, 2011. She and her sisters had been staying with neighbor/family
friend Mike Plumadore, 39, while her mother, Tarah Souders, 28,
recovered from the flu. Souder told police that Aliahna, who was hard of
hearing and had Attention Deficit Disorder, needed supervision that her
husband, who worked nights and slept during the day, was unable to
provide. Plumadore, who had watched the children before, was the one who
called to report Aliahna as missing. Police were concerned because
there were 15 registered sex offenders living in the area where the girl
had disappeared. On Monday, sadly, police found Aliahna's body and
arrested Plumadore, whom they had already interviewed several times. He
allegedly confessed to beating her to death with a brick, and then
dismembering her body. He stored her head, hands and feet in his
freezer, and dumped the rest of her remains in garbage bags. Though
Plumadore has a police record in Florida, it does not include sex
offenses. No motive has been established for the murder.
Jon "Cecil" Anthony Frazier
Little Cecil (pictured right) was reported missing
from his family's home near Custer, Wash., at 8:30 a.m. on August 28,
2009, by his grandmother. She was not at the scene, but said that her
son Jon Lorenzo Frazier called her that morning saying that the
2-month-old was not in the trailer and that the door to the residence
was open. The day he went missing, Cecil's mother, Brooke K. Johnson,
26, had been jailed after a robbery conviction, leaving the infant in
the care of his father, who admitted he had been drinking that night.
The initial search for the boy involved law enforcement from as far as
Canada. Two days later, Cecil's body was found in a field about a mile
from his home. The autopsy revealed that his femur - the strongest bone
in an infant's body - had been broken and there were multiple skull
fractures. When questioned, Jon Frazier claimed he had tripped and
fallen on a table while carrying his son outside the home. At one point,
he told investigators that he had fallen asleep on the baby and
smothered him, but got lost on his way to the hospital, panicked and
left the body near the home of his wife's ex boyfriend who he hoped to
implicate. But prosecutors say Frazier's account is not consistent with
the condition of the body. They believe that Frazier swung the baby
around by the leg, hitting his head against a fixed object. Frazier's
bail is set at $1 million. If convicted he could face life in prison.
Hasanni Campbell
Hasanni Campbell (pictured), 5, disappeared
on August 10, 2009 after his foster father, Louis Ross, said he briefly
left the boy, who had cerebral palsy and wore leg braces, outside his
car in the parking lot of the upscale Oakland shoe store where he works.
Hasanni and his sister had been living with Jennifer Campbell, their
aunt and Ross, her fiancé. On August 24, a vigil was held for Hasanni in
the parking lot from which he had disappeared. On August 28, the police
ruled Hasanni's disappearance to be a homicide and arrested both Ross
and Campbell. The two were released, though, on September 1 after the
Alameda County District Attorney's Office decided there was insufficient
evidence to press charges. Police have not said why the case became a
homicide nor do they have a body, but they believe Ross is lying: that
Hassani never made it to Oakland and that he disappeared from public
view as early as the August 6. They believe he is dead and ask the
public to continue in their efforts to find the boy. Public response in
this case has been remarkable and the search continues. Campbell and
Ross continue to maintain their innocence.
Robert Manwill
Robert Manwill (center) went missing on Friday,
July 24, 2009, from Boise, Idaho. According to his mother, Melissa Scott
Jenkins (right), he had asked to go to a party at a friend's house and
had been disappointed when she had kept him home. She said she had
instead let him play outside, and he had disappeared sometime between
7:00 and 9:00 p.m. She reported him missing at about 9:30 p.m. Jenkins
said she believed Robert might have tried to go to his friend's party by
himself despite her decision to keep him at home.
Boise police, eager to find the boy, quickly filed for an Amber Alert,
but were denied because the situation did not fit the criteria. They
interviewed over 100 known sex-offenders and organized a manhunt
including over 2,300 searchers, Boise's largest search on record,
scouring the area for fear that the boy had fallen into nearby the
canal.
On Monday, August 3, Robert's body was found 14 miles from his home in
the New York Canal. Soon after, police announced that preliminary
results of Robert's autopsy indicated that his death was not accidental
and that they did not believe he had been abducted by a stranger. On the
night of August 18, 2009, Jenkins and her boyfriend Daniel Ehrlick
(left) were arrested and charged with first degree murder in the death
of Robert Manwill. The grand jury indictment accused Ehrlick of
willfully and premeditatedly beating the boy to death while Jenkins did
nothing to stop him and concealed evidence. If convicted they could face
the death penalty.
Daisja Weaver
On June 10, 2009, 9-month-old Daisja Weaver
(center) was reported missing from Dallas, Texas. The abduction was
reported by her mother, Tamaira Creagh (right), who told police that
while she was in her North Dallas apartment preparing to move to a new
apartment, an Hispanic male, dressed in red and black, entered her
apartment and attempted to sexually assault her. Though she managed to
fight the man off, he grabbed her infant daughter, Daisja - car seat and
all, jumped from a second-story balcony, and disappeared. Police were
not able to issue an Amber Alert for about 12 hours because Creagh, 19,
could not give a definitive description of her assailant. Another
problem was that the parents gave conflicting stories.
By June 13, Creagh had recanted her initial story, now saying that the
baby's father, Alandus Weaver (left), had picked her up from work on
June 8 without the baby. When they arrived home, she said, she found the
dead child wrapped up in a towel on the floor with bruises on her eyes,
cheeks, stomach and back. Weaver, who had been violent with Creagh on
other occasions, became so again when she attempted to call police and
bullied her into "sticking together." She was six months pregnant at the
time and, she said, was afraid of Weaver. The next day they tied a
sandbag to the baby's body and dumped it in Lewisville Lake. After both
parents were arrested on June 13, weaver confessed to accidentally
drowning Daisja in the kitchen sink. Both parents were arrested at that
time for tampering with evidence.
On June 18, police called off the search, and Creagh was released on
$25,000 bail. Weaver, whose bail was set at $100,000, remained in prison
and has since been indicted on capital murder charges.
Deuntay Miller
In 2007 Detroit police were investigating Nickella
"Nikki" Reid (left) and Joseph Miller (right) on child abuse charges
after their 1-year-old son Nicholas Miller had been brought to the
hospital with second and third-degree burns over 35% of his body. During
the investigation, police realized that one of the children for whom
Reid was receiving welfare benefits, Deuntay, was missing. When asked,
Reid told investigators that he was "Chicago or down South" with family.
When they insisted she produce Deuntay, Reid got her mother, Dorothia
Lippet, 51, to provide another child to present to the welfare
officials. Welfare officials, though, were not fooled and threatened to
remove all the children from the house. At that point Reid told them
that Deuntay had died of natural causes two years before, and they had
tried cremating him on the barbecue to avoid funeral costs. When that
failed, she said, they had hidden the remains in the house until child
services had begun asking questions about Nicholas' injuries. At that
point, she said, Miller took Deuntay's remains to his sister's house
under the pretense of doing laundry and hid them in her basement
ceiling. Officers from the Violent Crimes Task Force retrieved the
remains from the stunned sister's house. Examination of the skeletal
remains showed signs of malnutrition and healed breaks in both legs.
Nickella
Reid, 23, pleaded guilty in Wayne County Circuit Court to involuntary
manslaughter and welfare fraud in connection with the death of her son,
Deuntay Miller. She was sentenced to 10-15 years in prison. Joseph
Miller, 28, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for Deuntay's death
and was sentenced to 22-50 years in prison.
Ja' Shawn Powell
Although 22-year-old Danny Platt of New Orleans
had visiting rights to his son, Danny, he had never used them. But now
he owed over $4,000 in child support for his son Danny. On January 2,
2009, when he picked up his two-and-a-half-year-old from the home of
Daniella Powell, the boy's mother, for a visit Platt seemed fine,
according to Powell. Ja 'Shawn (pictured above), she said, was happy to
see his father, "He went to the door and said, 'Daddy,' when he came to
pick him up."
Several house after they left, however, Powell received a phone call
from Platt saying that Ja'Shawn had been kidnapped. Platt hung up on her
too quickly, though; so, in disbelief she called him back. She said
Platt then gave a differing account of the abduction, but told her he
had called police. Powell then called police and found out that Platt
had not in fact reported the incident. Platt next spun an elaborate tale
for authorities saying son was kidnapped by three men with dreadlocks
and AK-47 rifles who had piled out of an SUV and kidnapped Ja' Shawn
shortly before midnight. Finally, though, he confessed to killing the
boy, saying that he "would kill either his wife or his child before he
paid child support." Platt has been charged with murder, but the legal
case is pending.
Victoria Couchman
19-year-old Victoria's father, Tony Couchman of
St. Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, England, was taking care of her young
daughter Rachel, 3, and making updates to her webpage and Bebo account
which made it seem as if she were alive and well. When asked, her father
told friends and neighbors that Victoria (pictured with daughter)
had left to get her life straightened out. October 19, 2008, however,
children playing in nearby Redgeland Wood discovered a human skull.
Since then, 90 percent of the remains have been recovered and identified
positively as those of Victoria. It seems she had been dead about 10
months, but Victoria had never been reported missing by her family.
One hint that the remains were Victoria's was that the leg bone had
healed from a full break and was pinned just as hers had been after she
had broken it in a car accident in 2005. The accident, about which she
and her father still fought, claimed the life of her brother Dean, 17.
Tony Couchman never got over his son's death and openly blamed Victoria
for his death in the accident even though she was not the driver.
Tony Couchman, 45, was arrested on Saturday October 18, 2009 on
suspicion of murdering Vicky but released on police bail the following
Monday. Though investigators have not released a cause of death, they
believe that Victoria's was killed in 2008 between May 15 and 18. Her
father was re-arrested in February of 2009 and is now awaiting trial in
her murder.
Caylee Anthony
On July 15, 2008, Casey Anthony
(right), 22, told her mother, Cindy, that her 2-year-old daughter,
Caylee (left), had been missing for a month. Cindy Anthony immediately
called 911. She explained to the shocked operator that Casey had left a
month ago, stealing her car and money. Now that she had found Casey, she
was trying to locate Caylee. An hour later she called 911 again. This
time she sounded panicked. "There's something wrong," she told the
dispatcher. "I found my daughter's car today. It smells like there's
been a dead body in the damn car." Caylee's body would not be found
until December 11, 2008. But police would already have made an arrest in
the case: Casey Anthony, whose story turned out to be a complete
fabrication. According to Casey, Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez had been
Caylee's babysitter for nearly two years; and after dropping Caylee off
with Fernandez-Gonzalez on June 9, Casey had gone to her office at
Universal Studios, where she worked as an event planner. When she
returned to Zenaida's apartment around 5:00 p.m. no one was home. She
said she called Zenaida's cell phone, but the number was out of service.
The simplest preliminary detective work quickly showed that Casey had
seemingly pulled the name Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez out of a hat, and
that Casey didn't work at Universal studios, nor did anyone who could
have corroborated her story. As far as detectives could tell, Casey had
told no one of her daughter's disappearance and no one had seen Caylee
since at least June 15. Casey Anthony was arrested on July 16 for the
murder of her daughter.
Sierra Marie Doxey
On March 4, 2008, police emergency teams responded
to a call reporting a medical emergency involving 13-month-old Sierra
Doxey (center), who was not breathing. The child was pronounced dead at
the hospital; autopsy results revealed that she had died of a morphine
overdose. No one in the family had a prescription for morphine, though.
Initially the parents, Nicholas Doxey (left) and Sara Nigro (right),
cooperated with investigators claiming that they believed she had died
of pneumonia. Once it became clear that they were the focus of the
investigation and that morphine had been detected, they retained
attorneys. Pathologists determined that the couple's timeline of
Sierra's symptoms was inconsistent with the body's state: Sierra must
have collapsed much earlier than the parents claimed. Lockport Police
Chief of Detectives Captain Richard Podgers said, "The child's death
occurred much earlier than the parents had said, and that put them in
direct conflict with statements about checking the baby, feeding the
baby." He added that there was enough morphine in her system to kill an
adult and doubted that little Sierra was able to ingest that much on her
own. Doxey and Nigro are each charged with two counts of criminally
negligent homicide for allowing the child access to the drug and for not
obtaining prompt medical attention. The couple faces 1 1/3 to 4 years
in prison if convicted.
Harmony Jade Creech
On October 19, 2007, Harmony Creech's grandmother
reported her missing from the family home. She had gone to pick up
Harmony's father, Ronald Earl Creech II, from the airport upon his
return from a 15-month deployment in Iraq and bring him home to see
Harmony (left). Harmony's mother, Johni Michelle Heuser (right), had
stayed behind. On entering the child's room, Mr. Creech found the window
open and the baby gone. Heuser said she had last seen the baby at 11:00
that morning. Neither she nor the three other children living in the
house had heard anything strange. Initially police issued an Amber
Alert. A later search by police discovered the infant's body in the
family's attic wrapped in a plastic bag and stuffed into a diaper box.
She had been there for several weeks. Neighbors later recounted a smell
of decomposition over the end of the summer that had been so bad that
they searched their own yards for a dead animal. Harmony's body was so
decomposed that authorities were never able to determine a cause of
death. Hauser told them that she had found the child dead weeks ago,
panicked and tried to cover up the death. On September 24, 2009, Hauser
was indicted of first degree murder in the death of Harmony Jade Creech.
Nyia Miangel Page
According to her parents, 23-month-old Niya Page
(left) was last seen at 12:30 a.m. on the morning of February 3, 2007,
in their Braddock, Penn., home, when her father, William Lorenzo Page
(right), put her to bed. The family awakened to find her gone and
immediately called police, who quickly issued an Amber Alert, and
organized an intensive search of the area fearing the girl would die in
the freezing temperatures. By the next evening searchers had found her
frozen body in an abandoned, overgrown playground. Though there were
tiny footprints in the snow, investigators determined that barefoot
Niya, who was wearing only a diaper and a sweater, could not have gotten
there by herself. A blanket found nearby was from her home and may have
been used to wrap her. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner's office
concluded that she had died of exposure. During the search investigators
discovered that her father had severely beaten a young boy in the home
with a belt and sexually abused him. Mr. Page was arrested on charges of
simple and indecent assault of a child, endangering the welfare of
children and corruption of minors. Later he confessed to Allegheny
County Detective Robert Opferman, who testified that Page had told him
he had awoken around 3 a.m. and gone to the basement to have a brandy.
Page confessed that Niya came downstairs without her diaper and he
became so frustrated that he kicked her between the legs. He tried to
stop the bleeding, wrapped her in a blanket and took her outside where
he left her. Page has been charged and his non-jury trial has been
continued to October 13, 2009.
Jason Midyette
On February 24, 2006, Molly Midyette (right)
called her pediatrician, saying her 10-month-old, Jason (center), was
"out of sorts." Three hours later, the doctor examined Jason and
insisted on admitting him immediately to a nearby emergency room. On
seeing Jason's condition Elaine Rottinghaus, the emergency room nurse,
called 911 to report the incident as one of the worst child abuse cases
she'd ever seen. When Molly arrived at the hospital with her husband
Alex Midyette (left), the son of a prominent Boulder, Colo.,
businessman, they had already retained a lawyer, who met them at the
hospital, and both refused to talk to police. Jason was removed from
life support on March 3, 2006, and died. The autopsy revealed that
Jason's brain had been bleeding and that he had 37 fractures to his
skull and body in various stages of healing. Coroner Tom Faure ruled
that the baby had died of "blunt force craniocerebreal injuries." In
2007 a grand jury indicted both parents in Jason's death. Molly insisted
she was unaware of any abuse, but on December 12, 2007, she was
sentenced to 16 years in prison for criminal neglect in failing to seek
help for her injured child. She asked for a new trial saying she had
been bullied by her husband and his family, but her request was denied.
Alex Midyette, who admitted to accidentally hitting his boy's head on a
chair and table, was convicted on February 17, 2009, of criminally
negligent child abuse resulting in death.
William Cunningham
William Cunningham (pictured) thought he
could turn tragedy into a pile of money, but first he needed a tragedy.
The hapless victims of his get-rich-quick scheme were his children,
18-month-old Miranda and 3-year-old Billy. Not once, but on three
separate occasions he laced their soup with prescription drugs and
lighter fluid, nearly killing them both. The kids became suspicious of
their father's cooking and by the third time Cunningham had to force it
down their throats. They became ill and had to be hospitalized.
Cunningham then contacted the Campbell Soup Company and threatened to
sue them. Both children survived, but swallowing lighter fluid scarred
their lungs so they may have lifelong breathing problems. On May 21,
2009, Cunningham was sentenced to 100 years in prison. His now-ex-wife
hopes they feed him lighter fluid every day.
Aaroné Thompson
On November 14, 2005, Aaron Thompson (right) of
Aurora, Colo., reported his daughter Aaroné (center) missing, saying the
6-year-old had run away after an argument and hadn't come back. Police
conducted an intensive search for child, but called off the search after
only days because, among other things, they could find no DNA traces of
her in the home. What they found suggested she had not been in the home
for at least 18 months. Thompson and his live-in girlfriend Shelley
Lowe (left) had eight other children living with them, whom authorities
removed from the home. Initially, the children told investigators that
Aaroné had been in their home the morning she was reported missing.
Later, they said they were coached and admitted they had not seen Aaroné
for years; one child had
never seen her. Before Lowe, 33, died
of a heart attack on May 12, 2006, she confessed to at least two people
that Aaroné had died suddenly and that Thompson had buried her in a
field to avoid questions about the scars on the girl's back that might
lead to the loss of the other children. Much of the testimony against
Thompson came from the children, who described regular and extreme
episodes of abuse called "whoopins" which included punishment with
belts, extension cords, fists and baseball bats. Aaroné suffered more
than her share of abuse and was frequently locked in the hall closet for
extended periods of time and beaten when she urinated there. One night
before she vanished, one of the other children heard her screams coming
from the basement, where the most severe punishments occurred. Finally
they stopped, and the house was silent. Aaron Thompson was arrested four
days after Lowe's death and indicted on May 17, 2006. On September 8,
2009, a jury found him guilty of the murder of Aaroné. Her body has
never been found.
Kynande Bennett
On September 29, 2002, Vertasha McCullough-White
(left) walked into a Whiteville, S.C., K-Mart, walked around the
entranceway for a couple of minutes and then asked a clerk, "Did you see
my daughter? Did you see my daughter?" She then called police to report
that she had lost her daughter and told them that she was just making a
run to the store while her brakes were being worked on, which seemed
odd to police since she couldn't have driven to the store while having
her vehicle repaired. Authorities didn't find any leads in Whiteville,
so they turned their attention to the family's apartment in Conway,
S.C., which McCullough-White and Kynande's father, Eddie Kevin Bennett
Jr. (right), had vacated after reporting Kynande (center) missing. They
found the 4-year-old's belongings in a trashcan behind the apartment.
The apartment itself had been cleaned with large amounts of bleach;
even so, police found transfer stains, which are left when bodily fluid
spatters are wiped, and linked the stains to Kynande by DNA. This,
combined with her grandmother's belief that the child was abused, formed
the basis of the case against Kynande's parents. Though police never
found her body, they maintained that Kynande's mother had been abusing
her and accidentally killed her. They arrested both parents, believing
that both had been involved, though Bennett was later released for lack
of evidence. McCullough-White, who had failed a polygraph test, was
convicted in February 2006 of homicide by child abuse, unlawful neglect
of a child and inflicting great bodily harm on a child. As of this
writing, Kynande's body has still not been found.
Susan Smith
At 8:00 p.m. on October 25, 1994, Susan Smith
(right) put her sons, 3-year-old Michael Daniel Smith (left) and
14-month-old Alexander Tyler Smith (center), in the car and went for a
drive. Later a hysterical Smith knocked on the door of Shirley and Rick
McCloud, claiming that her car had been carjacked by "a black man" with
her two sons inside while she had been stopped at a red light on Monarch
Mills Road. The man, she said, made her drive for a while and then told
her to leave, saying he wouldn't hurt the crying children.
For nine days she persisted in her story. Police suspected her from the
start, however, because Smith claimed that she had not seen any other
cars at the intersection when she had stopped at the red light. Police,
though, knew that particular light would only have turned red if there
had been a vehicle on the intersecting road. Ultimately detectives
confronted Smith with the discrepancies in her story, and she confessed
to a murderous deception. Her boyfriend had dumped her and sent her a
letter in which he had written: "Susan, I could really fall for you. You
have some endearing qualities about you, and I think that you are a
terrific person. But like I have told you before, there are some things
about you that aren't suited for me, and yes, I am speaking about your
children." She claimed that she had wanted to die that night. Instead,
she drove to a ramp on John D. Long Lake, got out, put the car in drive,
released the brake and watched her car plunge into the lake and slowly
sink with her sleeping children inside. On July 27, 1995, Smith was
sentenced to 30 years to life in prison.
Source : http://www.trutv.com
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