WebProNews

Tag: triple homicide

  • Colorado Triple Homicide, Family Friend Arrested

    On Sunday night in Cañon City, Colorado, a mother and her two young children were murdered in their home. The suspect is a 31-year old friend of the family, and thought to be the mother’s boyfriend.

    The suspect, Jaacob Harding Vanwinkle, has been arrested and is being held for the deaths of the Cañon City woman and her two children.

    The suspect is described as a family friend of the victims, said Sgt. Shannon Byerly, a Cañon City Police Department spokesman.

    Police have not identified the 35-year-old mother and her children, a 5-year-old boy and 9-year-old girl. However, another daughter escaped murder, but was allegedly sexually assaulted by Vanwinkle, Byerly said.

    The teenage daughter got away from the suspect, fleeing the home Sunday evening and making it to a neighbor’s house. They eventually called the police to the scene.

    The suspect was taken into custody without incident at the home where the bodies were found, Byerly said.

    Vanwinkle has been arrested on suspicion of three counts of first-degree murder, three counts of kidnapping, sexual assault, and sexual assault on a child by a person in position of trust. He was informed of the charges after his arrest, police said.

    The teenager was taken to a local hospital, treated, and released.

    The victims will undergo an autopsy this Tuesday.

    The local school staff brought grief counselors to area schools for friends and teachers of the children, police said.

    The Denver Post reported that Vanwinkle was sentenced in 2004 to four years in prison in Indiana for child molestation and vicarious sexual gratification. He received a two-year term in 2007 in Indiana for child molestation and, in 2012, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor domestic violence in Fremont County, Colorado, where Cañon City is located.

    Image via NDN

  • NYC Triple Homicide: Queens Father Arrested in TX

    The man who is suspected of the brutal killing of his wife and two daughters was caught in Texas on Monday.

    The 28-year-old Queens father, Miguel Mejia-Ramos was found in a white van with NY plates when a team that included Texas State Troopers and U.S. Marshals nabbed him early Tuesday at a vehicle roadblock in Schulenburg, Texas, between Austin and Houston.

    The arrest was made just after a family memorial service honoring their slain loved ones was held on Monday night.

    Each of the victims had what police described as “multiple stab wounds” — Garcia and her 2-year-old daughter had multiple wounds to the torso; the 1-year-old had wounds to the chest. All three were pronounced dead at the scene soon after officers arrived about 7:07 p.m. on Sunday.

    “There are no words that I can explain for the pain I’m going through,” said Luz Mina, Garcia’s mother. “I always told her to leave him. She said, ‘I can’t because I have two daughters and he’s bringing the money home.’”

    It was a 12-year-old that discovered the bodies on Sunday night. He went into their apartment to play with the girls.

    When the boy, Rene Chuc, opened the door, the ghastly sight of Garcia on the floor in a pool of blood sent him running to his father, Romeo Chuc, Garcia’s uncle.

    “I don’t understand what happened,” Chuc said.

    Garcia and her girls were last seen alive by relatives at 9 p.m. Saturday at the apartment, police said.

    A police source said cops found five knives at the scene.

    A friend of Garcia had witnessed Mejia as an abusive spouse who once beat her in a church restroom during a baby shower. “They go in the bathroom, and he started to hit the wife,” said Diana Villa, 44, recalling the incident that occurred at the Iglesia Naciones Unidas en Cristo Church in Jamaica, where Garcia attended services.

    Police investigated two domestic violence incidents involving the couple last year.

    On May 30, Garcia told cops her husband pulled her hair during an argument, a source said. On Nov. 13, Mejia was accused of kicking his wife in the head and pulling her hair while she was in bed, the source said.

    Image via YouTube