Crime Time

'Epidemic': Nearly 5,600 children abused in Tarrant County

Shimmery blue pinwheels — thousands of them — have been set up on the TCU campus to represent each of 5,598 children in Tarrant County who were confirmed victims of physical or sexual abuse in 2012.

Child advocates say they hope the bold visual display will prompt community conversations about protecting children from the emotional or physical harm of abuse.

 "In Tarrant County, one child abuse victim is too many but 5,598 is epidemic in its proportions," said Julie Evans, Alliance for Children executive director.

For more on National Child Abuse Prevention Month, and what it means to Tarrant County, see this article by Susan Schrock.

— Bill Miller

Mom charged in deaths after remains of 5 infants found

Pennsylvania authorities have charged a woman with criminal homicide after tests indicated that she was the mother of four infants whose remains were found in July at her Reading home, CNN reported.

Michele Kalina also has been linked to a fifth set of infant remains found at a landfill near her home.

She was arrested in August. She faces charges of criminal homicide and five counts of abuse of a corpse, CNN reported.  Authorities were first contacted in July by Kalina's teenage daughter who discovered some of the remains in the living room closet, CNN reported.

-- Lance Murray

DPS updates list of 'Ten Most Wanted' fugitives

The Texas Department of Public Safety has updated its list of the "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives," which describes some really brutal murders.

Joel Burt Thompkins, 48, (right) has a bunch of arrests from Dallas for burglary, drugs robbery and rape. But Thompkins is accused of capital murder in Houston, according to the DPS.

Police believe that he bludgeoned and stabbed a woman last June at a Houston apartment complex.

The Harris County Sheriff’s Office has issued a warrant for him. The charge: capital murder with a club/blunt object.

Ricardo Zuniga, 30, (left) of San Elizario, is wanted for capital murder.

In 2001, he shot a victim in the spinal chord with a .45-caliber pistol, causing paralysis from the waist down, according to the DPS.

He went to prison and was discharged in 2008 and then turned up in El Paso, where he is accused in a fatal stabbing and shooting.

All of the fugitives are considered armed and very dangerous.

See the entire list here, and read how to submit tips about their whereabouts and possibly receive a reward.

-- Bill Miller

Allegations: Mortician was naked, mishandled corpses, abused drugs

A funeral director in Ohio is under investigation from a state board after he was accused of mishandling a corpse, going nude in public and wearing a dead man's jacket in front of the man's family.

The mortician isn't facing any criminal charges, but his funeral home has been closed pending an investigation by the State of Ohio Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors.

The dead man's family complained to the board last week, prompting the investigation, CNN reported.

And while those allegations are eye-opening, the director also is accused of being intoxicated or addicted to illegal drugs, not properly disposing of waste materials and failing to properly sterilize instruments used in embalming, CNN reported.

He's alleged to have been naked in public during business hours, threatened and/or harassing employees and partially embalmed a corpse before leaving it unrefrigerated for 13 days, CNN reported.

The moritician told a CNN affiliate that the accusations are not true, CNN reported.

-- Lance Murray

New York morgue techs played with corpses

The snapshot is a classic Heisman Trophy pose, but the guy in the picture isn't holding a football.

It's a severed head.

"Ghouls are at play" in New York morgues, according to a report by The New York Post.

Technicians hired "to respectfully handle the remains of the deceased have instead turned cadavers and body parts into macabre playthings," according to The Post.

And, like the Abu Ghraib prison guards, they documented their antics with photos. Pictures obtained by the newspaper show grinning technicians using corpses as props.

"Perhaps most disturbing of all is mortuary technician Kaihl Brassfield holding a severed head in a classic Heisman Trophy football pose," the newspaper reported.

"It was stupid," Brassfield told The Post. "It was just the culture there. Everyone was doing it."

Brassfield also told the newspaper that everyone working in the Staten Island and Brooklyn morgues, "from cops to coroners," participated in the gory foolery.

A spokeswoman for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said the agency is investigating.

Read the entire article by reporters Chuck Bennett and Ikimulisa Livingston of The Post.

-- Bill Miller

Police: Couple put fetus in gift box under Christmas tree

A couple in south Texas have been charged with abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence after police say they put an aborted 7-month-old fetus in a gift box under a Christmas tree.

Police said the Mission couple did that after being unable to flush the fetus down a toilet.

The woman used pills to induce an abortion, police said, and then called for an ambulance when she began bleeding. She told doctors she didn't know where the fetus was.

Police found the remains in the woman's trailer after getting an anonymous tip, the Associated Press reported.

-- Lance Murray

Police say woman's body locked inside hearse to rot

A funeral director in Gadsden, Ala., faces felony abuse of a corpse charges after police discovered the rotted remains of a 52-year-old woman in a card board box that was locked inside a hearse.

Harold Watson Sr., told police he was never paid to cremate the woman's cremation and police say that after a year of storing the body, he boxed it up and put it inside the hearse that was locked and had the battery removed.

Police found the body after someone complained about a foul smell.

-- Lance Murray

Body parts in freezer? Police thawing to make sure

A man moving into a Fort Worth apartment Friday found a bag containing what appeared to be two human hands.

But a homicide detective said they may be clear plastic gloves filled with sausage or some other meat product to make them look like hands.

The Tarrant County medical examiner’s office is working to determine whether the man came across the handiwork of a killer or a prankster.

Staff Writer Aman Batheja reports.

-- Bill Miller

UPDATE: It was animal testicles, according to the ME's office.

- Bryon Okada

Report: Trio stole corpse's head and turned it into a bong

Sometimes it's hard to believe what you read. It's just too incredible.

The Houston Chronicle is reporting that two men and a juvenile are being accused of digging up a man's corpse, decapitating it and then using the head to smoke pot.

The paper reports that the three went to the Humble, Texas, cemetery dug up a man's grave, took off the head and then transformed it into a "bong." The men have been charged with misdemeanor abuse of a corpse.

-- Lance Murray