A Delaware pediatrician who writes about near-death experiences of children and has appeared on "Oprah" is accused of waterboarding his 11-year-old daughter for two years, according to Delaware State Police.
Dr. Melvin Morse, 58, and his wife Pauline, 40, were arrested Tuesday, a day after their daughter told a child advocate that her father had "waterboarded" her four times between May 2009 and May 2011 while her mother watched and did nothing to stop the abuse, Cpl. Gary Fournier told ABC News.
Delaware's Child Advocacy Center first became aware of the girl, whose name has not been disclosed, following a July 12 incident in which Morse was charged with third-degree assault for allegedly pulling his daughter out of a car, dragging her across a gravel driveway and spanking her in their Sussex County home, Fournier said.
The girl reported that incident to a neighbor who called police, Fournier said. Morse was later released from custody after he posted $750 in bail.
She later told the child advocate about the alleged waterboarding, police said, triggering the parents' arrest on Tuesday.
A 1-year-old girl who was the subject of a statewide Amber Alert is safe after being found at a relative's home in Alameda County.
Investigators say they are now looking for the suspect in the girl's abduction, her father, 30-year-old Johnathon Martinez, who remains at large. Martinez allegedly abducted the girl late Sunday night from her home in the San Joaquin County city of Lathrop. The Amber Alert went out a day later, but was canceled in the evening when the girl was found.
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DALLAS (AP) — Randy Travis was charged with driving while intoxicated and threatening law officers after the country singer crashed his car and was found naked and combative at the scene, officials said.
A mug shot released by the Grayson County Sheriff's Office shows a battered-looking Travis in a gray T-shirt, with a black eye and dried blood on his face. He later walked out of the county jail wearing scrubs, a University of Texas ball cap and no shoes.
It was the second Texas arrest this year for Travis, who was cited in February for public intoxication.
The sheriff's office in Grayson County, located in far North Texas along the border with Oklahoma, received a 911 call at 11:18 p.m. Tuesday about a man seen lying in a road west of Tioga, where the entertainer lives.
Texas Department of Public Safety troopers responding to the scene said a Pontiac Trans Am registered to Travis, 53, had been driven off the road and struck several barricades in a construction road.
Travis was not wearing clothes at the time of his arrest and made threats against the Texas troopers, said Tom Vinger, a DPS spokesman. He said the singer refused sobriety tests, so a blood specimen was taken.
Travis was released on $21,500 bond Wednesday morning from the jail in Sherman, about 60 miles north of Dallas. Blood test results are pending.
GARDEN GROVE, Calif. – A woman disguised in scrubs was caught trying to steal a newborn girl from a Southern California hospital in a tote bag after sensors attached to the baby alerted employees, Garden Grove police said.
Grisel Ramirez, 48, was arrested Monday at Garden Grove Medical Center after a hospital staffer stopped her from leaving with the baby, Lt. Jeff Nightengale said during a news conference.
"At this point we don't have a solid reason why she stole the baby," Nightengale said.
Ramirez is accused of posing as a nurse who came into the room of the baby's mother and told her to take a shower before a doctor came to examine her, Nightengale said.
Once the baby's mother was out of the room, Ramirez allegedly put the newborn in a purple tie-dyed tote bag and tried to carry her out of the ward.
"An alarm went off when the baby crossed an imaginary line" in the hospital that set off a sensor, Nightengale said.
Many hospital wards have security systems where patients, such as newborns or those with Alzheimer's disease, are tagged with an electronic sensor -- usually in a bracelet or anklet -- that sets off an alarm when the patient leaves a certain perimeter.
Authorities would not say what kind of system the Garden Grove hospital uses.
CORONADO - The Coronado Police Department is reviewing a recently completed independent report that questions its conclusion that the death of a boy at his father's mansion in the upscale peninsula city last summer was an accident, a representative of the department confirmed Monday.
The new analysis of the fatal injuries suffered by 6-year-old Max Shacknai in a fall down a stairwell at the Ocean Boulevard manor on July 11, 2011, seeks to refute the official ruling about the way in which he died.
"It would be more accurate to certify (the) manner as a homicide, where homicide is defined as death at the hands of another," the document states.
Max's mother, Dina Shacknai, and several attorneys representing her met with Coronado police Thursday and gave them the new analyses, the department's Lea Corbin said. It was unclear how long it would take department investigators to study the materials and reach conclusions about them, according to Corbin.
The report, compiled by forensic pathologist Judy Melinek and Robert Bove Jr., an expert in the biomechanics of injury, contends that the nature of the child's wounds was inconsistent the accepted accident scenario and instead point to an assault by an unknown party.
When Max suffered the fatal trauma, he was under the care of his father's girlfriend, 32-year-old Rebecca Zahau of Arizona.
Two days later, Zahau's nude body was found was found hanging by the neck from a balcony railing at the 103-year-old ocean-front estate owned by pharmaceutical tycoon Jonah Shacknai. Though her hands and feet were bound, investigators ultimately ruled that she had killed herself, possibly out of guilt over what had happened to the boy.
Zahau's family has consistently disputed the suicide determination, arguing that she was slain by an unknown killer or killers.
In a prepared statement, Dina Shacknai explained that the law enforcement determination about the manner of her son's death "just didn't add up" to her.
"When I started this process, all I knew is that I wanted the truth, wherever that led, like any parent would," she stated. "Even though nothing will bring my only child Maxie back, I owe it to him, as his mother, to make sure the true facts of his death are known."