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Archives > Volume 7 Issue 44 - August 5, 2009 Missing Idaho boy's body found...A body pulled from a canal south of Boise, Idaho matches the description of little Robert Manwill, the 8-year-old boy with an impish grin who disappeared July 24, police said. ABC News story here 
Boise Police Department Deputy Chief Jim Kerns said they will not have a positive identification until an autopsy is performed, but confirmed the body matches the size and age of Robert.
Someone walking by the New York Canal in Kuna, in Ada County, saw the body of a boy floating in the water and called police, Kerns said. One of the first officers on the scene jumped into the water and pulled out the body, he said. "Robert's family, who has been incredibly strong throughout this entire ordeal, has been notified that a body has been found," Kerns said, adding that the boy's family has requested privacy. "A missing child is every family's nightmare," Kerns said. The discovery of the body comes after days of intense searching for the boy. Several police agencies spent the weekend digging up the backyard of a home in Ada County that police told ABC News affiliate KIVI-TV in Boise is rented by people who know the boyfriend of Robert's mother. Police declined to say what was found to lead them to the backyard, saying only that they were following multiple leads and searching multiple locations looking for the boy. On Friday, police said they feared Robert may have been the "victim of a tragic event" but said that with the help of the FBI they had found evidence they hoped would bring them closer to finding out what happened to the boy. Kerns said that evidence was discovered in a search Thursday night of the home of the boy's mother, Melissa Scott Jenkins. "The evidence we've uncovered shows there are suspicious circumstances regarding Robert's disappearance," Kerns said. "Robert may be injured." Court documents show that Jenkins and her boyfriend Daniel Ehrlick were taken to court by the state for child support relating to an unnamed child in foster care. Jenkins is on probation after being charged with felony injury to a child, a charge the Idaho Statesman reported came after she fractured the skull of Robert's infant half-brother, who was removed by the state. The paper also reported this week that Ehrlick has served time in prison and been convicted of battery and burglary. According to the Statesman, Ehrlick is banned from spending time alone with Robert's half-sister. Police have kept mum so far on the family's legal troubles and their involvement with the search for Robert. "The previous family history and the connection to Robert's case, if any, is ... part of the investigation," Boise police spokeswoman Lynn Hightower told ABCNews.com last week. In a Tuesday press conference scheduled after the Ada County Coroner "tentatively" identified the dead boy found in the New York Canal as Robert, Kerns said police were engaged in a "very active" investigation, but cautioned against speculating about what could have happened and not to jump to any conclusions. Idaho Statesman story here 
Earlier Tuesday, the coroner's office said that the boy found in a canal between Boise and Kuna Monday was most likely Robert.
"Positive identification will be released as soon as this office receives the dental records and the forensic odontologist can compare the findings," the office said in a release. "We are working closely with the Boise Police Department and our preliminary results are being turned over to Boise police to help further their investigation." Coroners regularly use dental records to confirm identity of victims, said Ada County Coroner Erwin Sonnenberg. "We feel tentatively that's him and we need to do the dental identification" Sonnenberg said. "That would be a bizarre situation...another kid the same size." The report issued Tuesday does not indicate a cause of death, that is "pending investigation." It also says the place of death is "unknown." For the latest developments in this story, visit http://www.idahostatesman.com/robertmanwill/ Teen beaten and killed by dad while in foster care two doors away... Neighbors in a northwestern Tennessee community are questioning why a teenage girl fatally shot by the father accused of abusing her was placed with a foster family just two doors down. CBS News story here 
Christopher Milburn, 34, killed the 15-year-old, her foster father and wounded her foster mother before taking his own life Sunday, authorities said.
Neighbor Frank Hipps said Milburn was good friends with Todd Randolph, the 46-year-old foster father, and had worked for him in the past. Hipps, who had known both men for about eight years, said he didn't know the details of the abuse allegations but questioned why the girl had been placed so close. "That kid shouldn't have been in that house," he said. "This might have been preventable if she had been placed with foster parents out of the community." Neither Dyersburg police nor child services agency spokesman Rob Johnson would elaborate on the abuse allegations other than to say the investigation began last week. The girl, whose name was not released, had been staying with Todd and Susan Randolph while the state Department of Children's Services investigated the abuse claim, Dyersburg Police Captain Steve Isbell said. Susan Randolph was released from a Memphis hospital Monday. Frank Hipps' wife, Tammy, said the 15-year-old was Milburn's daughter by a previous relationship. He was married and the couple had two younger daughters. The girl's mother was living out of state and police were waiting for her to arrive before releasing the girl's name, Isbell said. Police found the teenager and Todd Randolph dead at the Randolph home and Milburn about a block away, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Charles Wootton, 71, who lives across the street from the Randolphs, said he heard five pops. He looked out the window and saw Randolph on the ground near the mailbox. In other news... 
A Massachusetts mother was horrified when she found her 7-month-old child's photo on popular promotions site, Craigslist, advertising his own adoption. Fox News Story here MyFOXBoston reports that a stranger alerted Jenni Brennan of Abington, Massachusetts to the photo, which involved her 7-month-old son, Jake, in an online adoption scam. The ad read: "A CUTE BABY BOY FOR ADOPTION HE IS VERY HEALTHY AND READY FOR ADOPTION FOR MORE YOU COME BACK TO US." Brennan responded to the ad, receiving an email describing her son as Canadian but currently living in an African orphanage. She said the photo was from her family's blog. She alerted the FBI and attorney general's office to the scam. Yahoo! has also removed the scammer's email addresses.
A corrections officer from New Jersey, who shot and killed her 4-month-old son before shooting her boyfriend and turning the gun on herself, fired 15 shots during the altercation, police said. WPIX story here According to the Essex County Prosecutor's Office, 39-year-old Kelly McKenith reloaded her weapon during the dispute at her Newark apartment Monday afternoon. McKenith's 19-year-old old daughter was reportedly in the apartment during the time of the incident, but escaped unscathed. Louis Goosby, 28, who was shot in the leg and ear, is listed in critical but stable condition. He apparently went and got help after crawling through a window. "I heard five shots coming out of the driveway," a neighbor told PIX News. "I saw a guy bleeding pretty bad....his whole shirt was red." Kelly McKenith was rushed to University Hospital in Newark where she was pronounced dead at 5:48 p.m., three minutes after her 5-month old Kaire McKenith was pronounced dead from a single gunshot wound to the chest. "She was a well regarded positive employee," said Alfaro Ortiz, acting director of the Essex County Jail. "People are in shock. They are surprised she was involved in anything like this." nj.com/news There was no indication she was suffering from post-partum depression, Ortiz added. Meanwhile, CNN takes a look at post partum depression and who may be at risk at CNN News story here.
In a major reversal, a federal judge rejected plea agreements yesterday for two disgraced former Luzerne County Court judges accused of taking kickbacks for sending juveniles to for-profit detention centers. philly.com/news story here U.S. District Judge Edwin M. Kosik issued a five-page order saying Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan had taken actions or made public statements since their February guilty pleas that demonstrated that they had not accepted responsibility for their crimes. The order opened the door for the defendants to withdraw their guilty pleas and go to trial, renegotiate their plea deals, or throw themselves on the mercy of the court, said Daniel Richman, a law professor at Columbia University and a former federal prosecutor. For the third option, however, "this judge has demonstrated that there might not be that much mercy involved," Richman said. The agreements, in exchange for pleading guilty to corruption and tax fraud, had been criticized as too lenient. Both defendants were facing 87 months - less than 71/2 years - in prison, which was "well below the sentencing guidelines for the charged offenses," Kosik wrote. Ciavarella and Conahan originally faced maximum sentences of 25 years each and substantial fines, Kosik wrote. Ciavarella and Conahan are accused of collecting a total of $2.6 million over seven years from a former owner of two for-profit detention centers - one in Luzerne County and the other in Butler County - and their developer. For more on this story see vol7_iss11.
UK Police, parents and children's charities have expressed alarm at a growing trend dubbed "sexting", where young people send explicit and indecent photos to each other using their mobile phones. The Times story here What started out as risqué fun among adolescents has spread quickly and with serious consequences. Police have said that pedophiles are increasingly trawling social networking sites to find explicit pictures taken by teenagers of each other. They then contact the young people involved, using the photos to blackmail them into committing indecent acts. In the past year, investigators said that there had been a huge rise in the number of pictures being stored on hard drives by pedophiles that have been taken by teenagers in relationships. Often the photographs are taken by teenagers in relationships who then split up and place them on social networking sites such as Bebo or Facebook. The pictures also get passed around friends at school, leading to bullying. For more information on cell phone safety see eGuide/cell phones.
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