Case Number One
Man Who Pleaded Guilty to Murdering 15-Month-Old Baby Gets 60 Years in Prison
[Inside Edition]
Deborah Hastings
Inside EditionFebruary 27, 2017
An Indiana man who admitted killing a 15-month girl after kidnapping her from a relative’s home has been sentenced to 60 years behind bars.
Kyle Parker, 23, agreed to a deal with prosecutors that dropped rape, aggravated battery and other charges against him. An Owen County judge accepted his guilty pleas to kidnapping and murder on Monday.
Read: Family Friend Charged with Rape, Murder of 15-Month-Old Girl Found Dead Miles From Home
Parker was at the home of Shaylyn Ammerman last March, drinking with the child’s uncle and grandfather, prosecutors said. He waited until the other adults were asleep, then scooped up baby Shaylyn and slipped out of the family’s house in southern Indiana.
Her body was found two days later near a river about nine miles from home, propped against a tree. She had been choked, raped and killed, authorities said. Bleach had been poured over her small body.
Read: Toddler Allegedly Raped, Killed by Family Friend is Laid to Rest As He's Put on Suicide Watch
“You, Mr. Parker, have no moral compass,” Judge Lori Thatcher Quillen told him in court. His actions, she said, were “pure evil” and gut-wrenching.”
After she announced his sentence, the judge advised her bailiff, “you can now get him out of my courtroom,” WBIW-TV reported.
A medical examiner said in court documents that the baby suffered the worst sexual trauma she had seen in her career.
Case Number Two
Georgia pair sentenced to prison over Confederate flag confrontation
[Reuters]
By Letitia Stein
ReutersFebruary 27, 2017
Booking photo of Kayla Norton, in Douglas, Georgia
Kayla Norton, 25, charged in connection with her role in a 2015 Confederate flag display that disturbed a group of black people attending a child's birthday party, according to local prosecutors, is shown in this booking photo in Douglas, Georgia, provided February 27, 2017. Courtesy District Attorney's Office Douglas Judicial Circuit/Handout via REUTERS
By Letitia Stein
(Reuters) - A Georgia judge sentenced a man and a woman to spend years in prison on Monday for their roles in a 2015 Confederate flag display that disturbed a group of black people attending a child's birthday party, prosecutors said.
Defendants Jose Torres, 26, and Kayla Norton, 25, were convicted earlier this month of charges that include making "terroristic threats" during the confrontation in Douglas County near Atlanta, which occurred at a time of heated national debate about a flag that many consider a symbol of racism.
Georgia Superior Court Judge William McClain sentenced Torres to serve 13 years in prison, and Norton to serve 6 years in prison, Douglas County District Attorney Brian Fortner said in a phone interview. Both face probation after their release, and were banished from Douglas County.
Attorneys for Torres and Norton could not immediately be reached for comment.
The sentences were a year longer than prosecutors had asked for, said Fortner, noting the crimes went beyond disagreements over the battle flag used by the pro-slavery South during the U.S. Civil War, which some defend as part of its heritage.
"This was a case where these people pulled out a shotgun and threatened to kill people at a party, including children," he said.
The incident played out during heightened debate over the symbolism of the flag, triggered by the racially-motivated shooting deaths of nine black churchgoers in South Carolina weeks earlier.
Prosecutors said witnesses attending the birthday party, featuring a bouncy castle and snow cone machine, testified that people in a convoy of trucks displaying the flag shouted racial slurs as they drove by, stopping next to the party.
Torres was accused of pointing a shotgun at the predominately black party-goers and threatening to kill them, prosecutors said in a news release. Norton loaded the shotgun and gave it to him, they said.
The pair faced some of the most serious charges out of 15 members of the group "Respect the Flag" indicted over the incident, Fortner said. Two others facing similar charges pleaded guilty and were sentenced to lesser prison sentences.
Compare the injustice in these two cases!!!
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