Articles labeled: Alabama

The Shelby County District Attorney said the death of an 11-year-old girl was “heinous, atrocious and cruel” at a press conference, as the DA’s office brought up one of the girl’s relatives on charges.

Authorities found Katherine Helen Gillespie on Monday night at 5048 Kerry Downs Road after responding to a 911 call.

The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office today charged 35-year-old Ryan Gerald Russell, a relative of the girl who was living at the house with her, with capital murder.

Owens said the charge is capital murder because the child was under the age of 12. He did not elaborate on what he called the cruelty of the crime but said other details will come out in a trial.

When a bus load of children on an Alabama bus fell into a dangerous situation, teacher Amy King became their guardian angel as she took over the wheel of a large bus when the bus driver passed out. Although some children were taken to area hospitals for their injuries, nobody was injured as badly as the teacher who probably saved many children’s lives as a result of her quick reflexes and thinking skills.

Hurray for Amy King!

SPRINGVILLE, Ala. — The driver of a bus carrying 44 children on a field trip passed out at the wheel, and a teacher’s quick actions kept the vehicle from careening into oncoming traffic, students said.

Math teacher Amy King grabbed the steering wheel and tried to straighten the swerving coach, witnesses told The Birmingham News.

The crash Friday sent 20 people to the hospital, including the driver and King.

King was thrown through the windshield and airlifted to UAB Hospital, where she was listed in serious condition, officials said.

JaJuan Holmes, an 18-year-old student at Davidson High School in Mobile, Alabama, walked into the school’s gym where 150 students were gathered, pulled out a handgun, shot once into the ceiling before fatally shooting himself.

The school immediately went into lockdown, but the lockdown ended after police determined there was no further threat. Police believe the young man acted on his own.

School officials allowed students to be checked out of school by their parents today, but students cannot leave unless a guardian signs them out, but the school will remain open for the students who are not signed out early.

Classes continued through the day at and grief counselors are on campus to help students, faculty and staff get through this tragedy. Mobile Police Chief Phillip Garrett says since there is no other threat to students, classes will be held as scheduled Friday.

Well, this guy is either incredibly stupid, or incredibly narcissistic to think he wouldn’t be caught. Thank you school administrators and teachers for being observant and on the ball.

A convicted sex offender remained jailed Tuesday after the 25-year-old man, posing as a teenager, was caught taking a 14-year-old girl to a dance at her middle school, Athens authorities said.

Athens Middle School faculty members stopped Gregory Ray Brooks at the gym door because he appeared to be much older than his date at the Friday dance, Athens Superintendent Orman Bridges Jr. said.

“He didn’t look like the 17-year-old he said he was,” Bridges said. “The faculty did an excellent job of monitoring who was coming in and catching this guy. They kept him from other students and maybe helped this young lady out of a bad situation.”

Police Capt. Marty Bruce said Brooks was convicted in Limestone County in May 2004 for first-degree sodomy on an 8-year-old victim.

UPDATE 1: Body of the one of the children has been found.

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What a piss-poor excuse for wasting oxygen. An Alabama resident tossed his 4 young children over a bridge.

Prison is just way too lenient for someone who would throw their babies over a bridge simly because one is mad at their wife. Why not just kill yourself instead of murdering these precious babies??? What a selfish bastard!

Can you imagine what those toddlers were thinking as their father tossed them over the bridge to their deaths???

Lam Luong, 37, of Irvington confessed Tuesday night to driving to the Dauphin Island bridge, stopping and tossing the youngsters off the span, which is as high as 80 feet above the water in places, Detective Scott Riva said. Luong faced charges of four counts of capital murder and was due in court Wednesday, Riva said.

Police Chief John Joyner said Luong, who came to this coastal town from Vietnam in 1984 and worked in the commercial fishing industry, apparently had a dispute with his wife, Ngoc Phan, before taking the children to the bridge.

Missing and presumed dead were 4-month-old Danny Luong; 1-year-old Lindsey Luong; 2-year-old Hannah Luong; and 3-year-old Ryan Phan. Phan is not the man’s biological child, but Luong raised him from infancy, authorities said.

Re-arrested suspects leave us wondering what has been recently discovered/uncovered?

ORANJESTAD, Aruba — Three young men previously detained as suspects in the 2005 disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway have been re-arrested in the case, the Aruban public prosecutor’s office said Wednesday.

Holloway disappeared on May 30, 2005, hours before she was scheduled to fly home to Alabama after a high school graduation trip to this Dutch Caribbean resort island. The 18-year-old was last seen in public leaving a bar with the three young men who now are again suspects in her disappearance.

Tween hugger was warned several times, but she can’t stop hugging. Some people are more touchy/feely than others, but when did hugging a grieving friend become sexual harrassment?

It seems like such a dichotomy of sorts — parents generally want to punish a little girl for hugging a friend in need, yet they want them to know about sex as soon as they enter Kindergarten. What a strange place we live in…

Affectionate students are feeling the squeeze around the country as their displays of affection land them in trouble with school administrators.

Madison Muir, 12, a seventh grader in Prattville, Ala., spent her Wednesday at home after giving a grieving friend a hug during a school break on Monday. And eighth grader Megan Coulter finished her second detention Tuesday after she flouted her Mascoutah, Ill., school’s PDA policy last week.

“I think it’s kind of stupid,” said Madison, who was at home Wednesday rather than serving an in-school suspension at Prattville Junior High School. “I mean it’s not like we’re doing anything wrong. It’s just a hug.”