NYC mother killed, two young children fighting for their lives after horrific hammer attack

Hammer Killer

Important Takeaways:

  • A New York City man is in custody after brutally attacking and killing a mother with a hammer, while leaving her two young children fighting for their lives on Wednesday, according to police.
  • When the officers arrived, they quickly apprehended the suspect who was trying to walk out of the building and placed him under arrest.
  • Chell said the suspect had blood all over his body at the time of his arrest.
  • The three victims — a 43-year-old married mother, her 5-year-old son, and 3-year-old daughter — were taken to a local hospital, where the mother was pronounced dead.
  • The mother and her two children occupied a room in the three-room apartment. The suspect and his 9-year-old son occupied another room, while a third person occupied the third room.

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Genealogy websites help California police find Golden State Killer suspect

By Fred Greaves

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – California investigators tracked down the man they suspect is the Golden State Killer by comparing crime scene DNA to information on genealogy websites consumers use to trace their ancestry, a prosecutor said on Thursday.

Former police officer Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, was arrested on Tuesday outside the Sacramento-area home where he has lived for at least two decades, not far from the site of the first of eight murders he is charged with committing 40 years ago.

DeAngelo, described by neighbors as an oddball and loner known to fly into occasional fits of solitary rage, is suspected of 12 slayings in all. He also is accused of committing 45 rapes and scores of home invasions in a crime spree that spanned 10 years and 10 California counties during the 1970s and 1980s.

Announcing his arrest on Wednesday, authorities said DeAngelo’s name had never surfaced as a suspect prior to last week, when a DNA match was made.

Officials initially did not disclose how their investigation led to DeAngelo, whose DNA had never previously been collected.

But on Thursday, Steve Grippi, chief deputy district attorney for Sacramento County, said detectives narrowed their search by using genetic information available through commercial genealogy websites furnishing personal family histories to consumers who send DNA samples in for analysis.

Confirming details first reported by the Sacramento Bee newspaper, Grippi said investigators compared DNA samples left by the perpetrator at a crime scene to genetic profiles on the ancestry sites, looking for similarities.

He did not address whether the websites volunteered the information or were subject to a search warrant or subpoena.

Detectives followed the family trees of close matches, seeking blood relatives who fit a rough profile of the killer. The process produced a lead a week ago, pointing to DeAngelo based on his age and whereabouts at the time of the attacks, Grippi said.

Investigators found DeAngelo, placed him under surveillance and obtained his DNA from a discarded object, finding a match to a crime scene sample. A second, more decisive sample was collected from him days later and came back positive on Monday.

Authorities have not disclosed the relative whose DNA helped solve the case. DeAngelo is known to have at least two adult children.

DeAngelo is scheduled to make his first court appearance in Sacramento on Friday, facing two counts of murder.

On Thursday, sheriff’s detectives and FBI agents spent hours combing through his modest single-story house in Citrus Heights, a Sacramento suburb, and probing the backyard with poles for signs of digging. Red marker flags were visible in an embankment at the rear of the yard, enclosed by a tall wooden fence.

“Those are fairly standard search techniques,” said Lieutenant Paul Belli, a homicide detective for the sheriff’s department. “There’s no reason to believe there are bodies buried back there.”

Among the items of evidence collected from the house were computers and firearms, he said.

Investigators also sought articles of clothing that might help tie the suspect to particular crimes, such as ski masks or gloves worn during the attacks, or jewelry, driver’s licenses and other personal effects taken from victims, apparently as keepsakes or trophies, Belli said.

Belli said he doubted additional victims would emerge because exhaustive DNA database searches had turned up no further matches.

Neighbor Paul Sanchietti, 58, said he was left “bone-chilled” by news that DeAngelo, who lived four houses away, had been arrested as a suspected serial killer.

In the 20 years they lived as neighbors, Sanchietti said he could recount speaking just a few words with DeAngelo on two occasions, once when they pushed a stalled car out of the middle of the street.

“It just felt like he wanted to be left alone,” Sanchietti said of his neighbor, who he said had a reputation in the community for loud, angry outbursts.

“He would be outside in his driveway working on his car or something, and he would go into these rally loud tirades, Sanchietti told Reuters, adding that he nevertheless was unaware of DeAngelo ever running afoul of law enforcement.

(Reporting in Sacramento by Fred Greaves. Additional reporting and writing by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Michael Perry)

Accused Arizona killer linked to seven more fatal shootings

Cleophus Cooksey, Jr., a convicted felon arrested for shooting and killing his mother and stepfather in their residence in December, has been linked to at least seven more gunshot murders, according to police, is shown in this undated booking photo in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S., provided January 18, 2018.

By David Schwartz

PHOENIX (Reuters) – A convicted Arizona felon arrested on charges of killing his mother and stepfather in their home last month is now believed responsible for at least seven more fatal shootings in the Phoenix area, police said on Thursday.

Phoenix police said they have evidence linking Cleophus Cooksey Jr., 35, to the shooting deaths of nine people in all during a three-week span that began in late November when two men were gunned down in a local parking lot.

That death toll ranks among the highest attributed by authorities to a single suspect in Arizona history.

A blood-stained Cooksey was arrested at the scene of the Dec. 17 gunshot slayings of his mother, Rene Cooksey, and her husband, Edward Nunn, in their living room, according to police.

He has been held in custody ever since, as police amassed evidence linking him to seven additional homicides and other crimes, said Sergeant Jon Howard, a Phoenix police spokesman.

So far, Cooksey has only been charged with two counts of premeditated murder and one count of unlawful possession of a weapon in connection with his parents’ killings.

But he faces additional murder and weapons charges, as well as one count each of a sexually motivated kidnapping and armed robbery, stemming from the seven other murder investigations still underway, police said.

Gary Beren, a lawyer listed in court records as Cooksey’s attorney in the case of his parents, could not immediately be reached for comment.

“There are ballistic links to all of these crimes,” Howard told reporters.

Howard said there was no known motive for the killings. The nine victims – seven men and two women – ranged in age from 21 to 56.

Asked whether additional victims might be identified, Howard said that was “absolutely a distinct possibility.”

Apart from his mother and stepfather, police said Cooksey had a personal connection to at least one other of his alleged victims. The body of a former girlfriend’s brother was found inside a home on Dec. 11.

Cooksey has a long criminal history and served time for manslaughter and armed robbery in the past, prison records show. He is the second suspected serial killer arrested by Phoenix police in the last year. In May, police linked 12 shootings and nine deaths to a former city bus driver who has pleaded not guilty.

(Editing by Steve Gorman and Tom Brown)

Tampa police hunt possible serial killer after three shootings

City of Tampa Police badge

(Reuters) – Police in Florida warned residents of a central Tampa neighborhood not to go out alone after dark as they search for a possible serial killer they believe fatally shot three people in nighttime ambushes over the last two weeks.

At least two of the victims were trying to catch a bus in the Seminole Heights section when they were shot, police said.

Benjamin Mitchell, 22, was alone at the bus stop after dark when he was shot on Oct. 9. Monica Hoffa, 32, was walking through the neighborhood two days later to meet a friend when she was shot. Anthony Naiboa, 20, was trying to find a bus stop when he was shot on Oct. 19.

Police say they think a single killer is behind all three attacks because they happened so near to each other at roughly the same time in the evening and without any obvious motive.

“We need everyone to come out of their homes at night and turn on their porch lights and just not tolerate this type of terrorism in the neighborhood,” Brian Dugan, the Tampa police department’s interim chief, told reporters at a news conference on Friday.

He said people should not go out alone and should pay attention to their surroundings.

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Crime Stoppers of Tampa Bay are offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the killer or killers.

Police have released an indistinct video of a person wearing a hooded top they think may be the killer.

 

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Jeffrey Benkoe)