January 2023 | Page 7 of 21 | My Crime Library

Preston Walls Murders 2 Teens In Des Moines

Preston Walls is a teenager from Des Moines Iowa who is charged with the murders of two teens at an alternative educational program for at-risk youth. According to police reports Preston Walls who was on pre trial detention would cut off his ankle bracelet and head into Starts Right Here program building where he would shoot and kill an eighteen and sixteen year old boy. Preston Walls would be arrested and now faces two counts of murder along other offences.. The Starts Right Here program is run by William Holmes a local rapper who goes by the name Will Keeps who was also injured in the attack.

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An 18-year-old man was charged with murder in Monday’s killing of two teenagers at an alternative educational program for at-risk youth in Des Moines.

Police said Preston Walls of Des Moines is charged with two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder in the Monday shooting at Starts Right Here. Two teenagers — an 18-year-old male and a 16-year-old male — were killed in the attack.

The program’s founder, 49-year-old William Holmes — a rapper who goes by the stage name Will Keeps — was injured.

Police said Walls was on supervised pre-trial release on a weapons charge and had removed an ankle bracelet 16 minutes before he went to the school with a gun and confronted the two student victims. Police said Walls and the two students all had gang affiliations and were in opposing gangs.

Preston Walls Other News

Two teenage students were killed Monday and a man was seriously injured in what police said was a targeted shooting at an alternative educational program that was designed to keep at-risk youth away from trouble, police said. The injured man was identified as the program’s founder — a rapper who left a life of violence and was dedicated to helping youth in Des Moines.

Three people were arrested shortly after the shooting at the educational program called Starts Right Here, police said. Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie identified the injured adult as William Holmes — who goes by the stage name Will Keeps — and said the victims and those arrested were all teenagers.

“That brings a total of five families of teenagers affected by youth gun violence in a matter of minutes on a Monday afternoon, right here in our capital city,” Cownie said. “This is a growing and alarming phenomenon in our country, and one we’ve seen too often in the past and again today in the city of Des Moines.”

Cownie held a moment of silence for the victims. He said he spoke to their family members. “But there is little one can say that will lessen their pain. Nothing that can be said to bring them back, those who were killed so senselessly.”

Starts Right Here is an educational program affiliated with the Des Moines school district. Police said emergency crews were called to the school, which is in a business park, just before 1 p.m. Officers arrived to find two students critically injured, and they started CPR immediately. The two students died at a hospital. The adult, later identified by the mayor as Keeps, was in serious condition, and police said he was in surgery Monday evening

Chunli Zhao Murders 7 In California

Chunli Zhao is a man from California who would murder 7 fellow farm workers in Half Moon Bay. According to police reports following a disagreement at work Chunli Zhao would murder four people at the Concord Farms, and three more Mountain Mushroom Farms two miles away. Chunli Zhao would be quickly arrested and taken into custody. This latest mass shooting is just 24 hours removed from 11 people being shot and killed by Huu Can Tran at a dance studio in Monterey Bay

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Seven people were killed in a mass shooting that spanned two separate scenes in Half Moon Bay Monday afternoon, according to the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office.

Four victims with gunshot wounds were found dead at about 2:22 p.m. at a nursery along the 12700 block of San Mateo Road (Highway 92), the sheriff’s office said. Another shooting victim was taken to Stanford Medical Center with life-threatening injuries.

Shortly after that discovery, three more shooting victims were found dead at another nursery along the 2100 block of Cabrillo Highway South, according to the sheriff’s office.

Authorities identified the suspect as 67-year-old Half Moon Bay resident Chunli Zhao. He was taken into custody without incident at about 4:40 p.m. after he was found in his vehicle in the parking lot of the sheriff’s office substation in Half Moon Bay, the sheriff’s office said. A semi-automatic handgun was found in his car.

Zhao shot three of his victims in the trailers where they lived next to the field where they worked, and then gunned down two others in the field itself, officials said.

“They were farmworkers affected tonight. There were children on the scene of the incident. This is truly a heartbreaking incident in our community,” said Supervisor Ray Mueller.

Authorities believe Zhao acted alone, San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus said. A motive for the shooting spree wasn’t immediately known.

The victims are believed to be workers on the properties, Corpus said. Half Moon Bay Councilmember Debbie Ruddock said the victims are Chinese farmworkers.

“This is a devastating tragedy for this community and the families touched by this unspeakable act of violence,” Corpus said.

A family reunification center was set up at IDES Hall, which is located at 735 Main St. in Half Moon Bay.

The shootings in Half Moon Bay come on the heels of a weekend mass shooting in the Southern California city of Monterey Park that left 11 people dead.

“This kind of shooting is horrific,” Corpus said. “It’s a tragedy that we hear about far too often, but today it’s hit home here in San Mateo County.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he was meeting with victims of the Monterey Park shooting when he learned about the mass shooting in Half Moon Bay.

“Tragedy upon tragedy,” he said in a tweet.

Other local, state and federal leaders issued similar sentiments.

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/peninsula/deadly-shootings-half-moon-bay/3137085/

Ocastor Ferguson Charged With Kayla Kelley Murder

Ocastor Ferguson is a man from Frisco Texas who allegedly murdered Kayla Kelley to cover up their affair. According to police reports Kayla Kelley learned that her boyfriend Ocastor Ferguson was actually married and had children and she planned to confront his wife. However before she had a chance Kayla Kelley was kidnapped and murdered.

Friends and family would report Kayla Kelley missing and told friends that she was dating a man named “Kevin”. When Ocastor Ferguson was questioned he admitted that he was “Kevin” but denied knowing what happened to Kayla Kelley. However when police would look at Ocastor Ferguson cell records they saw on the day that Kayla disappeared he had driven to her home in McKinnely Texas and then back to the area where police would find Kelley burned car. Days later they would discover the body of Kayla Kelley. Ocastor Ferguson has been charged with kidnapping and murder

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A Grand Prairie man is now charged with the murder and kidnapping of a McKinney woman whose body was found buried near his home this week, online records showed Friday.

Ocastor Ferguson, 32, has been jailed since Saturday on charges of kidnapping and arson in the disappearance of 33-year-old Kayla Kelley. Court records on Friday showed a murder charge was added after Kelley’s body was found Wednesday in a field along the 2800 block of Prairie Oak Boulevard, about one mile from his home in Grand Prairie.

Kelley was reported missing Jan. 11 and her burned car was found in a remote area of Frisco a day later. According to an arrest affidavit, her aunt and co-workers said they hadn’t heard from her in several days.

According to the affidavit, Ferguson told investigators that he met Kelley, who knew him as Kevin Brown, online and they began dating over the summer. He said he’d used a fake name with her but that she would figure out his actual name and that he was married, it added.

In conversations found by investigators on Ferguson’s phone between him and Kelley, she’d told him that she would tell his wife about the affair if he didn’t answer her, according to the affidavit.

Investigators also found that a vehicle Ferguson’s wife had reported stolen was located near Kelley’s home in McKinney with gloves, duct tape and a blanket inside, the affidavit said

Following the identification of Kelley’s body, the Collin County Sheriff’s Office had said that it is working with the district attorney’s office to determine what additional charges will be brought against Ferguson.

Ferguson was held in the Collin County Jail on bonds totaling more than $1 million. Jail records did not list an attorney.

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/murder-charge-added-to-man-accused-of-mckinney-womans-kidnapping/3175234/

Teacher Timothy Liscum Tried To Lure Child For Sex

Timothy Liscum was a Florida Satellite High School chorus instructor who worked for the Brevard Public Schools has been charged with travelling to meet a minor for sex. The popular teacher was arrested after the student’s parents made a complaint to the local police department. Officers set up a sting operation and soon the former teacher propositioned who he thought was a student. Officers are also investigating another possible encounter with a different student. Timothy Liscum has been charged with traveling to meet a minor after luring by computer and use of a computer service to solicit, seduce, lure a child

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A Satellite High School chorus instructor, who had received accolades from students and teachers alike over the decades, was arrested over the weekend after Brevard County sheriff’s agents said he attempted to meet a child for sex.

Timothy Liscum, 64, of Melbourne, who has been employed by Brevard Public Schools for 30 years, was charged with traveling to meet a minor after luring by computer and use of a computer service to solicit, seduce, lure a child, according to court records.

The sheriff’s office was also looking into whether other youth at the 1,400-student beachside community campus may have been approached by the teacher. Brevard County Public school officials contacted Sunday about the arrest were at the school Monday morning to talk with administrators.

“We do have counselors, support staff who are available to talk with students,” said Russell Bruhn, spokesperson for the school district.

“The mood is somber at the campus. There is a lot of shock and everyone is processing what’s happening. He was the chorus teacher and he’s been with the school for decades and is loved, respected, by students and his teaching colleagues.”

Liscum was held at the Brevard County Jail Complex on a $70,000 bond. He will go before a judge for an initial appearance Monday. He has not yet been assigned a public defender or listed a defense attorney to speak on his behalf, records show.

Brevard County sheriff’s agents began investigating after the Satellite Beach Police Department was contacted by a student’s parents. The student’s age was not immediately available.

The sheriff’s office said Liscum had been communicating with a student from the high school. The student became concerned about the conversations and told another student along with another teacher, a sheriff’s press release stated.

The sheriff’s office took over the investigation and acting as the teen, carried on further conversations electronically with the instructor.

The sheriff’s office said Liscum then solicited the student — an agent posing as the teen — for inappropriate sexual contact. Liscum was arrested as he attempted to meet the student in person.

An investigation is ongoing.

https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2023/01/23/sheriffs-investigators-say-teacher-attempted-to-meet-minor-for-sex/69831210007/

Gregory Esparza Death Sentence Overturned

Gregory Esparza has been on Ohio Death Row for nearly forty years and now he is not only off of death row he may be eligible for parole. The Supreme Court ruled that his original death sentence was unconstitutional and he would be resentenced to thirty years to life. Gregory Esparza who was orginaly sentenced to death for murdering a store clerk during a robbery

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An Ohio prison inmate who has spent nearly four decades on death row in the murder of a convenience store clerk has been resentenced to a term that could allow his release on parole.

Lucas County Judge Stacy Cook vacated Gregory Esparza’s death sentence and imposed a new term of 30 years to life with credit for time served, The (Toledo) Blade reported. Two months ago, Cook had declared capital punishment unconstitutional in the case because prosecutors had failed to disclose evidence in his original trial.

“God is good for everyone,” Esparza said to relatives Friday as he was escorted from the courtroom back to the county jail.

Esparza, now 60, was convicted in 1984 of aggravated murder and aggravated robbery with gun specifications in the February 1983 death of Melanie Gerschutz. The 38-year-old wife and mother was working the cash register at Island Variety in East Toledo when she was shot during a robbery of $110 from the register,

Esparza’s initial appeals were denied but a public records request in 1991 turned up a large number of police reports, interviews, and other documents never given to his defense attorneys. A federal appeals court in 1995 overturned the death sentence citing a “defective indictment,” but the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the decision. A 2016 appeal was denied on the grounds that federal courts had assessed the 1991 evidence, but a state appellate court later said no court had yet addressed the 1991 evidence in the context of capital punishment.

Cook wrote that although prosecutors may have been unaware of the 1991 evidence, the defense should have had it. More importantly, she said, some of the evidence indicated that Esparza didn’t act alone and therefore “may not have been the principal offender,” so the death penalty could not be imposed.

In Friday’s hearing, Esparza said he had been just 21 and a “confused, lost soul” at the time of the crime but the rigors of life on death row for so long had helped him mature.

“God knows I am not a killer,” he said. “Even when offered life without parole if I gave up my appeals, I chose execution.”

Marsha Raymond, Gerschutz’s daughter, a teenager at the time of her mother’s slaying, told the court that the defendant “committed murder in cold blood.”

“I am so grateful that I had such an amazing mom, but unfortunately because of his actions my family fell apart,” she said. “My dad couldn’t speak about my mom, and he (Esparza) talks about a young child being abused? My younger brother was six years old. He has no memories of my mother.”

Julia Esparza, Esparza’s sister, said the family was happy to see this day come.

“It has been very emotional,” she told the newspaper. “We appreciate the justice system.”

https://www.foxnews.com/us/ohio-inmate-spent-decades-death-row-may-released-parole-following-resentencing