Texas
The father of two young boys is accused of killing them before allegedly texting a photo of the younger child’s dead body to their mother.
According to friends of the mother, Gabriel Armandariz, 28, of Graham, Texas, sent pictures of himself on a bed with two-year-old Gatlin and eight-month-old Luke with the message ‘We love u goodbye’.
He then texted a final message to his ex-girlfriend with a photo that is claimed to show their younger son dead with a piece of frayed fabric wrapped around his neck like a noose.
Colleagues of the boy’s mother, Lauren Smith, said she rushed into work on Wednesday ‘frantic and hysterical’ after receiving the text messages.
Cindy Bradley, who works with her at the Chuck Wagon restaurant, Sudan, Texas, said Armandariz had been calling her and saying strange things before allegedly sending the disturbing photos.
‘About four o’clock he sent her a picture message of the youngest boy hanging,’ she said.
Unsure if the photo was real or not, they immediately called the police to check on the boys who were staying with Armandariz in Graham.
Police discovered the bodies of Luke and Gatlin Armandariz after a 10-hour search after they were alerted by disturbing texts.
Armandariz sent a photo appearing to show their son with a piece of fabric wrapped around his neck
After a 10-hour search through the night, officers found both Luke and Gatlin dead. Armandariz was arrested and charged with their murders.
Armandariz also allegedly posted a photo of his sons on Facebook with the caption ‘love forever’.
Cynthia Bradley said the children’s mother was living with a relative in the Texas Panhandle, about 250 miles northwest of Graham.
She said she was unsure why the couple had broken up.
Douglas Ames, the woman’s boss at the Chuck Wagon restaurant, said: ‘Never expected anything like this to happen to anybody.
Gabriel Armandariz is charged with capital murder and jailed on a $1.5 million bond.
A woman accused of cutting a fetus out of a pregnant friend's womb and pretending the baby was hers, allegedly contacted the victim three weeks ago with the Facebook message: 'I hear you're going to be a mom.'
The barbaric murder was uncovered after Kathy Michelle Coy turned up at a Kentucky hospital with a newborn boy.
Nursing staff immediately became suspicious and alerted the police.
The next day, investigators discovered the mutilated body of eight-month-pregnant Jamie Stice, 21, in woodland in Oakland, Kentucky.
The victim's mother, Jeannie Stice, said Coy allegedly began chatting online with the family about three weeks ago.
Jeannie Stice told Deborah Highland of the Bowling Green Daily News: 'She popped in on Jamie’s [Facebook] page and said, "How are you? I hear you are going to be a mom".'
She added that Coy told Jamie and herself that she worked for a company that could help them obtain baby clothes and other financial assistance.
'We were being evicted... and she gained our trust. She was trying to get us help and into another place.'
But Mrs Stice now believes that the whole story was a bid to get closer to her pregnant sister.
‘I just want people to know that Jamie was a very bright, optimistic young lady. She had a bright future ahead of her. She was robbed of her motherhood,’ the victim’s cousin, Carolyn Miracle told CNN.
Coy could now face the death penalty. She is being held without bond on charges of kidnapping and murder.
Jamie Stice, 21, was eight months pregnant when she was murdered. She was supposed to her baby shower this weekend, which will now be a memorial instead.
The baby's father, Stice's ex-boyfriend James Reynolds, says that the baby is healthy
Jamie Stice, 21, was eight months pregnant. Her mutilated body was found in woodland. James Reynolds, her ex-boyfriend and the father of baby Isaiah, says the boy is premature but in a 'stable' condition
A friend said Coy had been hatching the despicable plot for months.
She even stole a sonogram photo to help back her claim that she was pregnant.
‘She was desperate to prove to everybody that she was pregnant, and I guess nobody believed her,’ said Miss Stice's friend, Ashley Reeder.
‘So I think she did this to show everybody that she was going to have the baby when it really wasn't her baby,’ she told NBC.
Kathy is reportedly married to Shannon Coy, who posted this photo of the pair on his Facebook profile.
Ongoing investigation: Police have not released details about the arrest of Coy, who is already a mother of two.
The boy, named Isaiah Allen Stice Reynolds, is being treated at the Bowling Green Medical Center, and is said to be in a stable condition. While uninjured during the attack on his mother, Isaiah was born prematurely and needs to be monitored.
Isaiah's father, James Reynolds, said: 'He's healthy, and that's a miracle, especially under the circumstances,’ he added.
Warren County Coroner Kevin Kirby said the victim died from ‘multiple homicidal sharp force injuries.’
Stice was due on May 24. Her friends have now set up a Facebook memorial
He added: 'In the 25 years that I’ve been coroner, I’ve never seen anything like this in terms of the scope of the crime.'
Police interviewed Coy at the hospital and arrested her early yesterday morning.
‘Due to the possibility of this being a death penalty case, that’s why she’s being held without bond,’ said Warren County Commonwealth’s Attorney Chris Cohron.
Her neighbors in Bowling Green were all taken in by Coy’s baby scam.
‘She has been telling everyone that she was pregnant and we had no reason not to believe otherwise,’ said Darla Mueller.
Relatives were stunned at the death of the expectant mother, who had planned a baby shower for tomorrow.
‘She was a wonderful girl with a very sweet spirit about her," said Miss Stice's aunt, Nancy Logsdon.
‘The baby was named Isaiah and she was actually due, I think she put on Facebook she was due in about 40 days,’ she added.
A fund was set up last night to help pay for the victim’s funeral and a Facebook page was launched by friends in her memory.
It is not the first time Coy has faced criminal charges in Warren County.
The Bowling Green Daily News reports that in November, 2000, Coy - who at that time was named Kathy Michelle Hardin - was indicted for second-degree assault for allegedly stabbing her then-husband, George Hardin, in the back.
That charge was dismissed the following year.
Coy is being held without bond at the Warren County Regional Jail. A preliminary hearing in the case is set for 1 p.m. Tuesday in Warren District Court.
I just love reading these romantic snippets of the human condition.(sic) It is depressing that the worst of humanity is the most highlighted part of our social environment. Like the slander magazines at the beginning of the grocery aisles we cannot help but read the headlines, and look away once read and digested like a piece of snot that cannot be spit out in public.
OAK HARBOR — An Ottawa County man called 9-1-1 just after midnight Saturday and told authorities that he shot his wife and three children in their Salem Township home and that he was getting ready to kill himself.
When authorities later forced their way into the home at 964 Leutz Rd., they discovered Alan Atwater, 31, his wife, Dawn Atwater, 30, and three children — daughter Ashley, 4, and sons Isaac, 2, and Brady, 1 — all dead of gunshot wounds, Ottawa County Sheriff Bob Bratton said during a news conference Saturday in Port Clinton.
Authorities described the deaths as an "unexplainable incident," noting there were no known domestic or financial problems facing Mr. Atwater or the family.
This one in Ottawa County kind of hit home . Alan Atwater was my sister's exhusbands stepbrother . A " stepuncle " to my nieces. They were not close , but my nieces have met those poor innocent children . May the mother and Children Rest in Heavenly Peace . No comment about Alan .
I graduated with a girl whose husband blew the whole family away. They also had 3 kids. He lined them up in the basement and shot them all execution style, then killed himself. Truly horrifying.
The father of two young boys is accused of killing them before allegedly texting a photo of the younger child’s dead body to their mother.
According to friends of the mother, Gabriel Armandariz, 28, of Graham, Texas, sent pictures of himself on a bed with two-year-old Gatlin and eight-month-old Luke with the message ‘We love u goodbye’.
He then texted a final message to his ex-girlfriend with a photo that is claimed to show their younger son dead with a piece of frayed fabric wrapped around his neck like a noose.
Colleagues of the boy’s mother, Lauren Smith, said she rushed into work on Wednesday ‘frantic and hysterical’ after receiving the text messages.
Cindy Bradley, who works with her at the Chuck Wagon restaurant, Sudan, Texas, said Armandariz had been calling her and saying strange things before allegedly sending the disturbing photos.
‘About four o’clock he sent her a picture message of the youngest boy hanging,’ she said.
Unsure if the photo was real or not, they immediately called the police to check on the boys who were staying with Armandariz in Graham.
After a 10-hour search through the night, officers found both Luke and Gatlin dead. Armandariz was arrested and charged with their murders.
Armandariz also allegedly posted a photo of his sons on Facebook with the caption ‘love forever’.
Cynthia Bradley said the children’s mother was living with a relative in the Texas Panhandle, about 250 miles northwest of Graham.
She said she was unsure why the couple had broken up.
Douglas Ames, the woman’s boss at the Chuck Wagon restaurant, said: ‘Never expected anything like this to happen to anybody.
Gabriel Armandariz is charged with capital murder and jailed on a $1.5 million bond.
In Texas, a defendant convicted of capital murder can face the death penalty or life in prison without parole.
DERMOTT, Ark. (KTHV) -- A Chicot County father is accused of hitting and killing his two young children with his car. It happened Sunday afternoon. Police say Robert Carter, 23, is expected to be charged with two counts of capital murder.
Crime tape and tire tracks are all that's left of a horrific scene in Dermott.
"Crazy tragedy. What pushes a person to that point?" says Chicot County Sheriff Ron Nichols.
He's been in law enforcement for more than 20 years and says he's never seen anything like it.
Nichols explains, "I feel so sorry for the kids and the mother, and the entire family."
He says 18-month-old Amoni Elasia Carter and her sister Nekole Carter, 4, were murdered Sunday afternoon. Their mother, Latasha Figures, 24, was injured.
"They were going across the yard and the dad came up in a yard and just run over them," explains Nichols.
Police say it happened not once, but twice.
Carter is the children's father and mother's ex-boyfriend. He was reportedly driving about 25 to 30 miles an hour
Nichols says, "Backs up comes around and does it again from what I've been told."
Police say that's when the children's grandfather got a gun and shot Carter in the knee. Meanwhile, a motive is unclear. Police had never responded to a problem with the couple before. But Today's THV has learned there was a no contact order in place.
Sheriff Nichols says they hope to learn more once they can interview the mother. She's in stable condition at a Little Rock hospital.
"I don't know if there is closure," adds Nichols.
They are the first murders in the small town of Dermott in at least five years. It's a yard forever scarred, but the girl's memories police say not forgotten.
Nichols says, "My heart goes out to both sides of the family."
Deputies say Carter wasn't drunk. As for his mental state, police aren't saying. He is in the hospital under protective custody. He is recovering from a gunshot wound to the knee.
OAK HARBOR — An Ottawa County man called 9-1-1 just after midnight Saturday and told authorities that he shot his wife and three children in their Salem Township home and that he was getting ready to kill himself.
When authorities later forced their way into the home at 964 Leutz Rd., they discovered Alan Atwater, 31, his wife, Dawn Atwater, 30, and three children — daughter Ashley, 4, and sons Isaac, 2, and Brady, 1 — all dead of gunshot wounds, Ottawa County Sheriff Bob Bratton said during a news conference Saturday in Port Clinton.
Authorities described the deaths as an "unexplainable incident," noting there were no known domestic or financial problems facing Mr. Atwater or the family.
"Obviously this is a tragedy," said sheriff's Capt. Olen Martin. "Three young, innocent lives taken. And Mrs. Atwater."
The bodies all were found upstairs in the same room, with Brady's body in a bed. Authorities said they are unaware of any notes being left at the scene.
After receiving the 9-1-1 call at 12:11 a.m., a sheriff's special response and command team responded to the family home and attempted to contact Mr. Atwater from outside the dwelling. They used a loud speaker and made cell phone calls without response.
Ottawa County sheriff's deputies remained on scene mid-morning Saturday at the home on Leutz Road, northeast of Oak Harbor in Salem Township.
They forced the front door open at 2:52 a.m., at which time the bodies were discovered.
"It was a situation where it was extremely critical," Sheriff Bratton said on why deputies didn't enter the home right away.
While they received the 911 call, they didn't know whether it could be an ambush or hostage-type situation without using practical procedures and monitoring the home, the sheriff said.
Mr. Atwater's voice was steady and calm when he called the emergency line.
"There has been a terrible accident at my house, my wife and three children are dead," Mr. Atwater told a communications deputy who received his 9-1-1 call.
When asked what had happened to them, Mr. Atwater replied "gunshot wound" and said, "I'm getting ready to kill myself right now."
"Did you kill them?" the dispatcher asked; Mr. Atwater said, "Yes." The deputy asked what had happened but Mr. Atwater hung up the phone.
Joan Atwater, who lives down the road from the home of her grandson Alan Atwater, said he killed his family and then himself.
Joan Atwater, grandmother to Mr. Atwater, lives in a neighboring home on the corner of Leutz and Salem-Carroll roads. She helped authorities by calling her grandson's cell phone before they gained entry.
She said a fourth child, 12-year-old Mandie, Mr. Atwater's daughter and Dawn's stepdaughter, was not home at the time.
The couple were married on Nov. 4, 2005, according to marriage license records. Their birth records state they both were born in Oregon.
The family lived in a two-story white farm house with a big yard and swing set, not far from the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station where Mr. Atwater was employed in the maintenance department. Mrs. Atwater was a stay-at-home mother.
The sheriff's department said he had no criminal record and that it wasn't aware of any disputes between the couple.
This map shows the location of the home on Leutz Road, northeast of Oak Harbor, where five family members were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide.
This is the second time within six months that the Ottawa County Sheriff's Office has dealt with the killings of multiple family members.
William J. Liske, 25, is awaiting trial on charges of aggravated murder stemming from the Oct. 31, 2010, deaths of his father, stepmother, and stepbrother in their home on State Rt. 2 just east of the Lucas-Ottawa County line.
William E. Liske, Jr., 53, and wife Susan Liske, 46, were found with gunshot wounds to the head in their bedroom. Her son Derek Griffin, 23, had been beaten to death in his upstairs bedroom.
Mr. Liske pleaded not guilty to all charges, for which he faces the death penalty if convicted.
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