Free Republic

Victim turns killer? The whereabouts of Jack Berry, missing since February, may be solved. His son, Jeremiah Berry, has been charged with his fathers death. He said he shot him in the head, stabbed him 199 times, skinned him, cut him up and fed his flesh to the coyotes. Why would a son turn so viciously on his father? Jeremiah Berry has said that he was a victim first. His father Jack Berry allegedly told Jeremiah that God told him that his son (Jeremiah) should get a sex change and become his wife

"Their aggressive behavior seems to be on the upswing," said Steve Martarano, a spokesman with the state Department of Fish and Game. "They just seem to lose their fear of humans." Since the 1970s, more than 100 coyote attacks on humans in Southern California have been recorded, with half the incidents involving children age 10 and younger. "If they see a young child and they have a chance, yeah they'll take it," said Kevin Brennan, a state wildlife biologist. Game wardens don't normally hunt coyotes unless they pose a threat to people. After attacks, they trap and then shoot coyotes....

LAKE ARROWHEAD, Calif. — A coyote grabbed a 2-year-old girl by the head and tried to drag her from the front yard of her mountain home in the third incident of a coyote threatening a small child in Southern California in five days, authorities said. The coyote attacked the girl around noon Tuesday when her mother, Melissa Rowley, went inside the home for a moment to put away a camera, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said in an incident report. Rowley came out of the house and saw the coyote dragging her daughter towards a street. She ran towards...

LA JOYA - Dramatic police chases with illegal immigrant-crammed trucks are common place in this small city. That pursuit, however, has often ended in dangerous chases with the desperate human smugglers widely known as coyotes. Again on Tuesday, just east of La Joya, a coyote led Peñitas police on an early morning chase that crossed four cities and ended in a crash after the driver refused to pull over for erratically changing lanes on Expressway 83. Four Honduran illegal immigrants were taken to the hospital with broken bones and other minor injuries after the vehicle they were traveling in blew...

LORETITO, Mexico — It's the end of the day here. Down one lonely street two young boys kick a ball between them, as an elderly woman slowly makes her way nearby. On most days, this little town about 300 miles northwest of Mexico City feels like the set of a Hollywood movie — its narrow streets and alleyways silent, stark, deserted. From the sidewalk outside his small liquor shop, Edmundo Cruz takes in the vast emptiness, pointing out one house after another left vacant when families headed north — to Seattle. It is said more Loretito people now live in...

MISSION - A police chase Wednesday morning that ended with a mother and her two young children in a canal underscored yet again the danger human smugglers pose to motorists. Authorities reported no serious injuries, but the crash near Farm-to-Market Road 495 and North Stewart Road illustrated the challenges coyotes pose to the officers charged with catching them. Mission police started the chase on westbound FM 495 after a man driving a truck ran a red light near Stewart, Mission police Chief Leo Longoria said. The man refused to pull over and turned north onto Bryan Road and then drove...

18 illegal immigrants in van in path of 18-wheeler RACHAL - U.S. Border Patrol agent Adam Ruiz had to act fast as the van full of illegal immigrants veered into the path of a hurtling 18-wheeler. Should he pursue the vehicle's driver, who bailed out on the shoulder of U.S. 281 and left the van's gear in drive? Or chase down the van and its occupants as they edged closer and closer into oncoming traffic? In seconds, Ruiz sprang into action. The eight-year agency veteran bolted toward the moving vehicle, leaped through the passenger side door and steered the vehicle...

McALLEN - Human smugglers are employing increasingly risky and dangerous methods to transport illegal immigrants since security tightened along the U.S.-Mexico border, law enforcement officials said. "They're getting less area they can successfully enter," said Oscar Saldaña, a U.S. Border Patrol spokesman. "That's why were seeing more of these desperate acts. And unfortunately, we anticipate there's going to be more of these types of events." On Thursday a Ford F-150 carrying more than 20 illegal immigrants collided with another vehicle on Expressway 83 in Peñitas, leaving three dead and another 14 injured. They were the latest victims of what appears...

A wild chase involving illegal immigrants ends in a massive fire and over a dozen suspected aliens scattering from the scene. The blaze sparked up right off Saratoga near Greenwood. The chase actually began near Farm Road 43 and State Highway 286 around seven o'clock Wednesday night. The pick up ran a stop sign which triggered the chase. Fifteen People in all were crammed into the pick up truck. The chase eventually ended in a field near Greenwood when the truck ignited a massive brush fire. Three people were apprehended including the driver and a fourteen year old boy. The...

A jackrabbit found throughout much of the West has disappeared from the Yellowstone area, although the reason why remains a mystery, a new study concludes. Whatever the cause, the study suggests the white-tailed jackrabbit's disappearance has wrought major changes to Yellowstone's food chain. Coyotes and wolves, which could have depended on the rabbit as a significant food source, apparently turned their attention instead to larger prey including young elk, pronghorn antelope -- even domestic livestock. However, because the rabbit's decline went relatively unnoticed until now, quantifying that shift is virtually impossible, said the study's lead author, Joel Berger with the...

LA JOYA, Texas — A man driving a car full of suspected illegal immigrants lost his ear as he tried to flee from police. The 22-year-old Mexican national had turned into a brushy field from a farm-to-market road Sunday when he tried to open the door and jump from the car, said Joe Cantu, a La Joya police spokesman. The car door bounced against a tree and slammed shut on the man's head, cleanly severing his ear, police said. Police and Border Patrol agents found four of the six passengers who fled the car after it came to a stop....

STOLEN PICKUPS Cartels swipe rugged Ford F-250s, F-350s in state for smuggling drugs and humans Houston entrepreneur Bill Christmann was shocked when thieves stole his souped-up black Ford F-250 pickup from his west Houston driveway one night last July. But shock turned to concern the next day after Christmann learned thieves had driven the 2001, heavy-duty, four-wheel drive truck to Laredo, loaded it with illegal immigrants and drove it back from the border, roaring off-road through fenced ranch pastures. Police chased the truck south of San Antonio before the smugglers crashed the vehicle into a tree. The smugglers escaped, and...

Three coyotes have tested negative for rabies after three children were attacked last week in southern Alberta. Fish and Wildlife officers caught and tested the animals after three children were attacked in Canmore, Alta., which is about 100 kilometres west of Calgary. "Parents will probably feel relieved," ... The coyote first bit another 10-year-old boy on the leg. Skaters scared the animal away, but it returned and bit Ethan's jacket... Canmore residents are still on the alert because the attacks were strange behaviour for coyotes, who usually avoid people, said Darcy Whiteside, a spokesman for Alberta Sustainable Resource Development.

Editor’s Note: Women are active participants, and often the masterminds, behind the world’s third most lucrative illegal activity, after gun and weapons: people smuggling. In a four-part investigative series for the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinión, reporter Claudia Núñez uncovers the lives of women involved in the human trafficking business in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California. “Gaviota” (not her real name) has six phones that don’t stop ringing. Her booming business produces net profits of more than $50,000 a month. She has dozens of customers lining up for her in a datebook stretching three months ahead. Gaviota is not exactly...

Got a tip? Authorities urge anyone with information on the whereabouts of suspect Esteban Martinez to contact the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office at (956) 668-8477. EDINBURG — Jorge Luis Gonzalez Ramirez and Eduardo Talavera Jimenez thought they could escape powerful enemies in Mexico by fleeing to Houston. Instead, they ended up shot and left for dead. On Tuesday, authorities charged Jose Luis Benavidez Lopez, 35, of McAllen, with accepting money to kill the Mexican nationals. But it remains a mystery who exactly ordered the hit and what prompted the Nov. 1 attack that killed Ramirez and critically injured Jimenez, said...

ICE: Man guided immigrants to stash house where they were held for ransom McALLEN — For more than two years, Maximo Castillo-Jimenez sent countless undocumented immigrants to stash houses where they were locked up and held for ransom. On Tuesday, he began his own 12 years of court-ordered confinement. The 28-year-old Mexican national, who Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents once described as the top coyote operating in Miguel Alemán, Tamps., was sentenced to 151 months — more than 12 1/2 year — in federal prison for his role in one of the Rio Grande Valley’s largest human smuggling rings. “I...

A "coyote" who used the assistance of a Customs and Border Protection agent to facilitate trafficking illegal immigrants was sentenced Tuesday in federal court to time already served.Enrique Aguilar-Rios, a Mexican citizen, pleaded guilty in March to bringing undocumented immigrants into the U.S. He had faced a sentence of three-to-10 years in prison, but visiting U.S. District Judge Donald E. Walter ruled the time Aguilar had already served while awaiting sentencing was sufficient, and sentenced him to three years of supervised release. Aguilar had been held without bond since his arrest in January. Two additional charges of bringing undocumented immigrants...

The USCCB Committee on Migration sent a delegation to the U.S./Mexico border region to study the plight of unaccompanied minors and human trafficking victims. The ever-growing problems with these populations are some of the gravest and many times most overlooked symptoms of the broken and out-dated immigration system currently employed by the United States. The delegation met with a broad cross-section of agencies and individuals involved with or knowledgeable of these populations to gain critical insights and to understand their needs. The delegation also met with Church officials, government officials, community-based organization, and other with important perspectives. Programs established to...

For years, the vast majority of politicians in the main parties have avoided having honest public conversation about the extent and consequences of immigration. The fear of appearing racist, or giving any ground to the arguments of the far right, has left most MPs and commentators in Pollyanna territory - extolling the economic and cultural benefits of immigration and glossing over problems. That has done the nation no favours, because the consequences of rapid social change have been scarcely studied, let alone addressed. And it has increased many people's distrust of the political universe, as the gulf between their own...

Democrats’ DREAM Act is a Nightmare By Fred Thompson Coyotes are the men who prey on illegal aliens, helping illegal immigrants return to the U.S. over our southern border, sometimes after these immigrants have been deported, two, even three or more times. Apparently our Democratic friends in Congress have learned a thing or two from the “coyotes,” because just when we’d thought we’d sent the illegal-immigrant amnesty bill packing (at least for this year), Congress has ignored the public’s wishes and is trying to sneak what amounts to another amnesty bill through. After several false starts Sen. Dick Durbin...