Free Republic

Joshua Ray Juarez A 17-year-old Kingwood man has confessed to stabbing his next-door neighbors to death after the daughter and her elderly mother repeatedly complained about his pit bull puppy, the Houston Police Department said. Joshua Ray Juarez was charged with capital murder Friday in the deaths of 53-year-old Deborah Maloney, and her mother, Lucy Maloney, 83, who were found slain in their Kingwood home in the 3100 block of Silver Falls on Wednesday afternoon by police. After being taken into custody, authorities said the teen told investigators he and the daughter had ongoing problems concerning his pit bull puppy...

Family photos line the walls of Raynard Brown's tidy Orange home. A good home, his mother calls it, with two working parents who believed in the value of education and the power of after-school activities to keep kids from hunting down trouble. But Cynthia Brown found she couldn't compete with another, more seductive influence in her son's life, not when it grabbed him up so young, molding his behavior since the age of 11. That's when Raynard Brown first came home wearing the signature colors of the Bloods street gang. Over the next eight years, Brown rose to the rank...

An 8-year-old boy accused of sexually assaulting a second-grade classmate last week at a St. Paul elementary school now faces expulsion. The incident happened on the playground at Four Seasons A+ Elementary, which holds classes year round, as students waited for buses just before the end of the day July 24. The boy is believed to have approached an 8-year-old girl on a slide, forced her to kiss his private parts and then simulated sex on her, according to school district officials and members of the girl's family. The slide was enclosed by a tube, making it impossible for the...

LAGRANGE — The boys looked like the worst trouble they could be facing was stealing ice cream bars or maybe breaking a window. Instead, the two fresh-faced 10-year-olds stood before a Juvenile Court judge Thursday, accused of forcing a 7-year-old neighbor into some bushes and forcefully sodomizing her. The testimony from a police officer was disturbing, causing one boy's grandmother to choke back sobs. She wore sunglasses to hide her tears, as did the other boy's mother. The two boys who were charged "approached her and asked her to perform some sort of sexual acts," LaGrange police Detective Robert Kirby...

Young people have been running amok at Sacramento showings of "Coach Carter," the Samuel L. Jackson film about a Richmond basketball coach who straightens out wayward students. Rachel Kahan was at a Century Stadium 14 showing on Arden and Ethan when a riot broke out. "Kids were beating up a security guard, and they attacked the manager," she said. "It was awful. And what makes it worse was that the behavior was exactly what the character Coach Carter is fighting against." Other showings have been disrupted by shouts and threats from boozed up fans. Paramount Pictures, which distributes "Coach Carter,"...