KELYNN BYRD

Illegal Immigrant Charged In Child’s Death

KOTV - 8/22/2007 8:16 PM - Updated 8/23/2007 6:16 AM

Charges are filed in the kicking death of a Coweta toddler. Michael Hernandez was in a Wagoner County district court Wednesday, facing first degree murder charges. He's accused of kicking his girlfriend's 2-year-old son to death. A judge denied Hernandez bond, but the victim's family is concerned his immigration status could change that, because he’s here illegally from Mexico. The News On 6’s Ashli Sims reports the victim's grandmother says she's worried he might be sent back to Mexico before justice can be served.

Kelynn Byrd's grandmother says burying her 2-year-old grandson was the hardest thing she ever had to do.

"He is, he's very beautiful and he was so sweet," said Kelynn’s grandmother Michelle Ebel.

The toddler's life was cut short when he died from blunt chest and abdominal trauma. Police say his mother's boyfriend, Michael Hernandez, was the only one home at the time of the boy's injury. And they say Hernandez confessed to repeatedly kicking Kelynn in the chest.

"Whatever kind of anger that can lead up to someone doing that to a 2-and-a-half-year-old boy is just beyond me," said Ebel.

Hernandez is charged with first degree murder and is now behind bars in the Wagoner County jail. The judge in the case contacted the Mexican consulate, because Hernandez is a Mexican citizen, here illegally. Kelynn's family is afraid that Hernandez could be sent back to Mexico before the American legal system can run its course.

A spokesperson from the Wagoner County district attorney's office told The News On 6 they would fight any extradition or deportation. He says they plan on proceeding to a conviction, and if Hernandez is convicted they intend for him to serve his sentence in Oklahoma.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, confirms that illegal immigrants would go through the same criminal justice process as anyone else. ICE says they do flag illegal immigrants in state custody, so if they're eligible for bond, they're released into ICE custody instead of back into the community. ICE also added if Hernandez was tried and convicted for the murder of Kelynn Byrd he would serve his sentence first, and then be deported back to Mexico.

Michael Hernandez will be back in court next month for a preliminary hearing.

Watch the video: Charges File In Toddler's Death

Related story:

8/13/2007 Man Accused Of Killing Girlfriend's 2-Year-Old Son

http://kotv.com/news/local/story/?id=134479

DANI COUNTRYMAN

Teen murder victim fought back

By Frank Lenzi

AM 860 KPAM, Aug 6, 2007, Updated Aug 7, 2007 (21 Reader comments)

Court documents are shedding more light on the murder of a 15-year-old Texas girl in a Milwaukie apartment last month. They show that the victim, Dani Jen’e Countryman, struggled with her alleged attackers and that a bloody shoe worn by one of the suspects matched an imprint left on her chest.

Two cousins, Alejandro Emeterio "Alex" Rivera Gamboa, 24, and Gilberto Javier Arellano-Gamboa, 23, are charged with aggravated murder in Countryman’s death. Countryman was found strangled on July 28th at the Balboa Apartments.

According to probable cause documents obtained by Fox 12, Rivera Gamboa said he woke up that morning to find his cousin on top of Countryman. As Countryman struggled, Arellano-Gamboa asked his cousin for help, deputies said.

The documents say Rivera admitted to stepping his foot on Countryman's throat until she stopped moving, Fox 12 reported. As detectives investigated the killing, they found blood on a shoe that matched the size of shoe worn by Rivera Gamboa, authorities said. The pattern of the shoe also matched an imprint on Countryman's upper chest, according to detectives.

The fact that two people were arrested for the killing and that Dani fought back did not come as a surprise to her grandmother, Sandra Wright. “I kinda felt there were maybe two people involved because I don’t think one could have held her,” Wright told AM 860 KPAM in a telephone interview from Texas on Monday night. “She was a little dynamo.”

“We knew she was gonna solve her own case,” Dani’s sister Ashley Countryman said. “I’m glad she put up a fight.”

The two suspects were arraigned in Clackamas County on Tuesday. They are scheduled for a preliminary hearing on Aug. 14th.

“I ordinarily…don’t believe in the death penalty, but I think in this case I wouldn’t have a problem with it,” Wright said. “I’d like to see them suffer. I’d like to see someone strangle them like they did my granddaughter.”

Authorities said Monday it was a bit of a surprise to make these arrests so soon after the murder. They called the investigation “complex” and said it involved a large number of difficult interviews and the tedious collection of critical forensic evidence.

Authorities have said that the two sisters had gone to the Balboa Apartments for a party on the night of July 27th. They separated at some point and spent the night in different apartments at the complex, located at 2717 S.E. Courtney Rd. Ashley Countryman found the body while looking for her sister.

Ashley Countryman lives in Oregon City and her sister was visiting from Texas.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has placed a hold on the two cousins, officials said Tuesday. Once they are tried in the criminal system, they will be taken into ICE custody and immigration proceedings will begin against them.

http://www.clackamasreview.com/news/story.php?story_id=118645316968220400

RASHEEN NEWKIRK

llegal Alien Arrested In Connection With Fatal Hit And Run
POSTED: 7:50 am EST November 29, 2005
UPDATED: 9:16 am EST November 29, 2005

A man is now under arrest in connection with the hit and run that killed a 14-year-old boy in Bucks County.Police said Carlos Reyes, 37, is an illegal alien.
The accident happened on Sunday night on Street Road at Kingston Way in Bensalem.
Reyes entered district court Monday night in Bristol borough.
Police said he ran down 14-year-old Rasheen Newkirk, then took off.
The teenager was run over by a second vehicle, but that driver stopped.
The family said Rasheen was a special needs child, who was going to the store at the time of the accident.
"He loves school. He loves to sing. He just love to dance," Rasheen's aunt Sharon Newkirk said.
Police found Reyes' car early Monday morning in Bensalem.
They said he bent the license plate to elude authorities, because he did not have a driver's license.
"He is very sorry of the accident. He really feels bad about the family. He doesn't know what to do," translator Esthella Forget said.
"He is remorseful. He's afraid understandably so," Officer Tim Clark said.
A preliminary hearing is set for Dec. 7.
Bail was first set at $100,000, but was increased to $500,000 after Reyes couldn't remember where he lives.

NBC10.com

http://www.nbc10.com/news/5424555/detail.html

JESSICA SHERIDAN

August 9, 2003
Victim in rape-stab case dies
By CATHY REDFERN
Sentinel STAFF WRITER

SANTA CRUZ — After holding onto life for nearly six months, a Santa Cruz teen allegedly stabbed by her fugitive boyfriend has died.
Jessica Sheridan, 17, died Thursday afternoon at a Saratoga care facility, sheriff’s deputy Kim Allyn said. She had been in a vegetative state since Feb. 10, when her boyfriend, Miguel Loza, allegedly stabbed her in the upper chest before raping her 17-year-old friend. The trio, and another man, had been partying together at the former Sherwood Preschool near Soquel Drive and Park Avenue.
For three weeks after the attack, Sheridan remained on life support at Dominican Hospital, Allyn said, before being transferred to Saratoga. She died of complications from the attack.
Sheridan had run away from her foster home in Boulder Creek after meeting Loza at Capitola Mall about a month before the attack, according to friends. Her mother, Deborah Kennedy, is in County Jail on drug charges.
"We gave her notification yesterday, and she fell apart, as any parent would," sheriff’s Lt. Steve Hartness said Friday.
Friday, social workers were helping Kennedy make funeral arrangements.
Sheridan was due to graduate from alternative school this past June and was an excellent student, said Michael Watkins, director of alternative education for the county Office of Education.
Her alleged killer, Loza, was the subject of an intense man hunt, but escaped to Mexico.
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, meanwhile, has joined the quest to bring Sheridan’s assailant from a Mexican jail to this country to face what are now first-degree murder charges as well as sodomy and oral copulation charges.
Detectives said Friday they have confirmed via fingerprints and photographs that it is in fact Loza in jail in Mexico, where he was arrested for an alleged stabbing.
Prosecutors now face the daunting task of bringing him to the United States to face a possible life sentence. Mexican officials typically will not extradite accused defendants who would face the death penalty or life in prison, said Ariadne Symons, head of trial operations for District Attorney Bob Lee.
Symons said she believes the maximum sentence Mexican authorities impose is 30 years. But the District Attorney’s Office is not willing to drop a life sentence in exchange for Loza, as that also opens the door to Mexico unilaterally taking over the prosecution and meting out a much lighter sentence, she said.
"We simply won’t make a promise to Mexico that we won’t seek a significant sentence," she said.
But encouragingly, Feinstein has contacted Lee’s office and has taken an interest in the case, Symons said.
Feinstein announced Wednesday she planned to ask Mexican President Vicente Fox for help to bring Loza and other wanted criminals to the United States, including Mexican citizens wanted in Southern California for the murders of a child and a deputy, as well as a priest charged with 19 counts of child molestation.
Under a 1980 treaty, neither country must deliver its citizens for prosecution if they face the death penalty, according to the senator’s Web site. Following an October 2001 Supreme Court ruling, Mexican authorities extended that to life in prison.
Maria Silva of Aptos said her daughter, Rina DiBattista, had been friends with Jessica — her friends called her Jesse — since the two were in fourth grade at Live Oak Elementary School. The two, along with Amber Jones of Santa Cruz, were inseparable, Silva said, and went on to Shoreline Middle School and Star Community School, an alternative high school in Santa Cruz.
Silva said the other teen assaulted by Loza, whose name has not been released, is "still going through a hard time" and is in counseling.
"He ruined two girls’ lives," Silva said. "There are a lot of angry parents and hurt young people who want to see him pay for his crimes."
Silva and her daughter cried as they described Jesse as a fun-loving, outgoing girl who smiled often and loved to dance, play basketball and be with friends. She was always ready to help, they said.
"My daughter visited her every day and said she wanted to bring her home and take care of her, that’s how much she loved her," Silva said. "We want her to be remembered as the beautiful soul she was."
DiBattista laughed and cried Friday as she explained how Jesse loved her long strawberry blonde hair and would take so long fixing it that she would always be the last one out the door.
Sheridan moved several times after leaving Live Oak, going with her mother to Washington, then to her grandparents’ home in Colorado, then to live with DiBattista and her mother. She never talked about her father, DiBattista said.
"She had a hard life, but she had a great heart and could put a smile on anyone’s face."
A former girlfriend of Loza, who wished to be identified only by her first name, Sarah, said she was angry Loza had been portrayed as an evil person.
Sarah was with Loza from age 13 to 18, she said, and has his 3-month-old baby, Nethaneel Josiah, a name picked by Loza. She met him on the bus in Watsonville, she said.
He encouraged her to finish high school and was a sweet, fun person who was supportive of her, Sarah said. But she said Loza is bipolar and has a drinking problem.
"When he drinks, he’s not a good person," she said. "But he asked for help and never got it. He was in jail for six months and never got a treatment program."
Loza worked in construction, landscaping and other jobs, but Sarah asked him to leave her home in December because he couldn’t get a job. He was on probation for domestic violence against her, which hampered his ability to find work, she said.
"The next thing I hear is a call from police," she said.
Loza was raised in King City, she said. He also spent time in Long Beach before moving to Santa Cruz, then Watsonville. He has a mother, stepfather, brother and two sisters in Watsonville and extended family in Mexico, she said.
"He will live his life there," she said. "I hope he has a good life. I’ll always love him, but I don’t think I’ll go to Mexico. I wanted his baby and I got his baby. Hopefully, he’ll get to meet him one day."

AMY DUMAS & HER DAD

In Lynn, Massaschusetts, 16-year-old Amy Dumas was shot dead Monday night (May 16) during a home invasion as she tried to protect her wheelchair-bound father, Robert S. Finnerty, who was also killed. Apparently four Asian gang members forced themselves into the family's apartment and shot father and daughter several times. Finnerty was a cancer survivor who was left using a wheelchair after a stroke. Robert's wife Judith Finnerty was in the apartment but was unhurt.

Two men were quickly arrested by police. The accused are "Cambodian-born men" (no further status mentioned) and belong to a local gang, the "Oriental Boys." Two other gangsters are being sought in the killing. At least one of those arrested, Chon Son, "is well known to local police."

TRAVIS SMITH

The nation's highways have become far more dangerous since they have been turned into smuggling thruways for criminals from Mexico and elsewhere. Nineteen-year-old Travis Smith of Mesa, Arizona, was killed in 2002 by a carload of illegal aliens being smuggled to Pennsylvania. The accident occurred near Monticello in southeastern Utah, as the car driven by illegal alien smuggler Isidro Aranda-Flores plowed head-on into Smith's 1966 Mustang. The smuggler apparently fell asleep at the wheel.
At the sentencing held on May 25, Travis' mother Tanya Lowe was not buying the tiresome excuses that essentially blame the victim.

"People say my son was just in the wrong place at the wrong time," she said. "My son was not in the wrong place at the wrong time ... The illegal person transporting illegals was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Travis' dad Wayne Smith was too distraught to attend the sentencing:
But outside court, he said that the law should be altered so that being in the United States illegally would warrant harsher sentencing, just as recklessness and intoxication do, in traffic-accident cases.
The killer received a hand-slap sentence, just six and a half years in prison for ending the life of a teenager.
For more on the highway carnage caused by illegal aliens, please see Diversity Is Strength! It's Also... Drunk Driving

JORDAN PAULDER

It is hard to fathom how anyone could bury an axe in the head of an innocent nine-year-old boy, but that was the unimaginable fate of Jordin Paulder of Fulton County, Georgia, on June 5. The killer was “Honduran native” Santos Benigno Cabrera Borjas.

Three children were playing in the parking lot of the Chastain Apartments in Sandy Springs early Monday evening when a red car with a wobbly wheel drove through.Jordin Paulder, a 9-year-old boy with chubby cheeks, called out to the car’s passengers to tell them of the bad tire.Jordin didn’t mean to insult anybody, he just thought they should know, witnesses told police.But the car stopped. A man got out and slammed an ax into Jordin’s face. Emergency workers were afraid to remove the ax during the helicopter flight to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite hospital, where Jordin died. [Boy, 9, hacked to death, 6/7/06, Atlanta Journal-Constitution]When the police approached the crime scene, Cabrera Borjas fled to a nearby apartment complex. After he broke an officer’s arm by throwing a tire iron (or maybe a “rimmed tire” — accounts differ) and made threats with an iron pipe, the officer shot and killed him.Since the accused killer is dead, there will be no trial to remind the public that illegal immigration is not a victimless crime — assuming Santos Cabrera Borjas was indeed an illegal entrant, which was apparently the case. The authorities may not pursue that detail, wishing to forget the whole sordid thing.

ISRAEL HERNANDEZ 14 MONTHS OLD

LINCOLN CITY, Ore. – Investigators say the man who killed a toddler in 2002 remains on the loose.

On Dec. 21, 2002, authorities said 14-month-old Israel Hernandez was found dead inside a Lincoln City trailer home. Retired Lincoln City Police Officer Frank Harris said someone stomped on Israel with a boot, breaking his back and tearing open his heart.

Harris also said he believed the prosecutors botched the case, letting the suspect walk free.
“There’s really no reason for this to go on like this,” Harris said. “This should have been prosecuted years ago.”

FOX 12 has learned that in October 2005, a grand jury charged Gerardo Vera-Garcia, 31, the mother’s boyfriend, with aggravated murder and murder by abuse. FOX 12 also learned that Vera-Garcia was held in federal prison on an immigration violation shortly after Hernandez’s death. In July 2003, he was set free.

Lincoln County District Attorney, Bernice Barnett, said her office didn’t have the evidence necessary to charge Vera-Garcia until last fall. “We couldn’t tell who did it because there were multiple adults in the house,” Barnett told FOX 12. Prosecutors say the FBI is also on the case.
Gerardo Vera-Garcia may be going by the names Jaime or Hedda and could be living in Mexico. Anyone with information on Vera-Garcia is urged to contact the Lincoln City Police Department.

ESMERELDA NAVA, 4-YEARS-OLD, MOLESTED & STRANGLED

Initial autopsy results show that 4-year-old Esmerelda Nava was strangled or suffocated, authorities said Monday. The suspect in her death, 24-year-old Cornelio Rivera Zamites, still is on the run from murder, kidnapping and child molestation charges. Zamites may have gotten at least a six-hour head start between the time Jesus and Veronica Nava reported their daughter missing from a relative's home on Pratt Reece Road to 7 a.m. Sunday when her body was found in woods a couple hundred yards away.

Hall County Sheriff Steve Cronic said authorities have no clues as to whether Zamites still is in Georgia. "We want every lead," Cronic said, adding that the hunt has been expanded to "every known associate" of Zamites. State and federal law enforcement agencies have joined the manhunt, with the U.S. Border Patrol alerted that Zamites may be headed home to Vera Cruz, Mexico. If Zamites makes it across the border, Cronic said it is unlikely that Mexico would send him back to Georgia for capital prosecution. Hall authorities could not determine Zamites' criminal history in Mexico. But Cronic said that contact with residents in his native village revealed that "he wasn't a good citizen there." As the search continued Monday night, Jose Alfaro Flores, a 29-year-old associate of Zamites, remained without bond at the Hall County Detention Center. Flores, an undocumented Gainesville resident, has been charged with giving police false information and violating immigration laws. Flores, also known as Jose Delgado, was arrested about 10:30 p.m. Sunday in a red Chevrolet sport utility vehicle. He is suspected of helping Zamites escape. "He denied any contact (with Zamites) in the last 24 to 36 hours," Cronic said. "We're not sure we're getting all the information."

Zamites had few close friends locally, but may have some family in the area, Sheriff's Capt. Jeff Strickland said. The suspect reportedly worked as a day laborer in and around Gainesville and Jefferson. Zamites rented a room in a residence on Pratt Reece in East Hall, Strickland said. Authorities have searched most suspected hangouts, stopped cars, responded to calls and checked every home in a 5-mile radius. Cronic declined detailed comment on if or how Zamites knew the victim, but said there are some "casual relationships," possibly between her family and him. Strickland could not release what evidence investigators have against Zamites, but said it was strong enough for a judge to issue a murder warrant. [June 2005]

2-YEAR OLD MARIELLA DE LUNA

WANTED FUGITIVE • Raul Ortiz Gonzalez is another of the many violent creatures let loose on innocent children by border anarchy and permissive interior enforcement of immigration. An illegal alien from Mexico, he is accused of shaking two-year-old toddler Mariella De Luna to death as a result of internal head injuries, specifically hemorrhaging to the brain and retinas. Gonzalez was the unemployed live-in boyfriend of the child's mother. The crime occurred in Franklin, Indiana, demonstrating that violent crimes by illegal aliens are no longer just the problem of southwestern states. Local police have been unable to find Gonzalez and believe he may have escaped to Mexico.

ALEXIS & LUCERO QUEZADA & RICARDO ESPINOZA

What sort of monster could murder three children in the most brutal manner — one child was beheaded and the two other were nearly decapitated. They also suffered a variety of injuries including blunt force trauma and asphyxiation. The victims, residents of Baltimore, (l. to r.) were siblings Alexis Quezada (10) and Lucero Quezada (9) and their cousin Ricardo Espinoza (9). The two men arrested for the crime were also relatives: Policarpio Espinoza, 22, brother of the father of the two siblings, and Espinoza's cousin Adan Espinoza Canela, 17. The accused are illegal aliens as are the parents of the murdered children. Apparently the arrests were based on DNA/blood evidence.

DUSTIN INMAN KILLED, PARENTS SEVERELY INJURED

The sign in this photo reads, "I'm looking for Gonzalo Harrell-Gonzalez, illegal alien driver who killed my son. Have you seen him?" The face hidden behind the sign is that of Kathy Inman, who lost her son Dustin when an illegal alien crashed into the Inman's car. Kathy, husband Billy and son Dustin were stopped at a traffic light when a car driven by Harrell-Gonzalez rear-ended their car at 62 miles per hour. Both adults were severely injured and couldn't attend their son's funeral. Kathy was permanently disabled and was put into a wheelchair. The perpetrator, Gonzalo Harrell-Gonzalez, escaped from a hospital and was never even arrested. A Gilmer County (Georgia) grand jury indicted Gonzalez on charges of vehicular homicide and serious injury by a vehicle. He remains at large. The occasion which brought Kathy Inman out into the streets was the so-called "Immigrant Worker Freedom Ride," a caravan of buses demanding "rights" for illegal aliens. That's the crowd in the photo. Of course, real immigrants, the legal sort, have workplace protections just like the rest of us. Furthermore, illegal foreigners wrapping themselves in the civil rights movement is insulting to the real Freedom Riders of the 1960s, who worked for long-denied political rights for black Americans.

Who Was Dustin Inman?

Dustin Inman is one of the un-counted thousands of Americans who have needlessly lost their lives because government in America refuses to secure American borders or enforce American immigration and employment laws.

Dustin Inman was a sixteen-year-old American boy killed by an illegal alien in a senseless traffic collision on Father's Day weekend five years ago.

He was on his way to a weekend of fishing in the North Georgia mountains with his parents.
Despite being in the United States illegally, the driver of the car that killed Dustin, Gonzalo Harrell-Gonzalez, was able to obtain a valid North Carolina driver's license using his Mexican birth certificate and a Mexican Matricula Consular ID card.

On June 16, 2000, a speeding vehicle driven by Harrell-Gonzalez hurtled into the rear of the Inman family's car while it was stopped at a red light in Ellijay, Georgia - killing Dustin and knocking unconscious Kathy and Billy Inman - Dustin's parents.

When she regained consciousness after five weeks in a coma, Kathy learned of the death of her son and that because of spinal injuries received in the wreck that killed him, she would spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair.

Because of their injuries in the wreck, Kathy and Billy were not able to attend their only son's funeral.

Billy Inman will tell you that he blames the government sworn to protect him and his family for his son’s death more than he blames the illegal alien who killed him.

The Inman's have only a few school photos, family snapshots and a video made at Dustin's funeral by which to remember their son.

America's un-secured borders and illegal immigration have changed their lives forever. It can happen to any one of us.

Billy Inman will tell you that Dustin was a "good kid" and that he misses his "hunting buddy" everyday. "I loved Dustin," says Billy often. He talks about Dustin having been born with a cleft palate, and getting him the surgery to get his son "all fixed up".

He says that he will not rest until he brings his son’s killer to justice.

He will also tell you that he "paid no attention to politics" and had never voted before he lost his son to America’s intentionally un-secured borders.

"The system really let me down," says Billy Inman.

In his search for a better life, he now votes in every election.

Charged and indicted in the death of Dustin Inman, Gonzalo Harrell-Gonzalez is a fugitive after escaping from local police when taken to a local hospital after the crash. His whereabouts are unknown.

Like all crime, illegal immigration has consequences.

With the Inman family’s blessing, The Dustin Inman Society has been created to help educate the public and elected officials on those consequences and the often-ignored reality of the true cost of our virtually open borders and "cheap labor".

We often wonder what our grandfathers would say about the state of our nation.
It only took one illegal alien to kill Dustin Inman. We ask: how will we know when we have enough illegal aliens in our republic?

Elsewhere on our Website, you will find a partial list of other Americans killed by illegal aliens. We desperately want to be able to stop adding names to that dreadful list. We hope that our efforts will help force the President and our federal government to secure our borders and our Governor and state government to do all it can to discourage the millions of illegal aliens in our nation from coming into or remaining in our state.

Note to all elected officials: we are part of a growing majority of voters that regard doing nothing to stop illegal immigration into the U.S. - or Georgia - as the same as encouraging illegal immigration. Illegal immigration is not a "federal problem"... it is a national problem, and Georgia has one of the largest and fastest growing populations of illegal aliens - and those who encourage and profit from them - in the nation. Illegal immigration is a crime and it is national suicide.

Enough.

The Dustin Inman Society offers a $1,000.00 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Dustin Inman’s killer.
Other rewards offered for the arrest and conviction of Dustin Inman's killer:
$3,000.00 reward offered by the Inman Family.
$1,000.00 offered by the state of Georgia
$2,000.00 offered by the city of Ellijay, Georgia.
Please contact The Dustin Inman Society with any information on Gonzalo Harrell-Gonzalez.

FELIX LEON

Five-year-old Felix Leon was another another victim of a hit-and-run illegal alien on Sept. 29. The boy was struck and killed as he rode his bike near his home in Brownsville, Texas. Mexican national Carlos Jaramillo ran over the child with his pick-up and dragged the bike for about 40 yards, where passenger Domingo Acosta Lopez tried to remove the bicycle from the truck's undercarriage but could not. At that point, both Jaramillo and Lopez fled on foot. They were pursued by neighbor Leroy Redford who lives on little Felix's street, who was joined by others from the neighborhood. Lopez was caught then and Jaramillo was found two days later by police later hiding out in a local house, thanks to a tip. Both men who were arrested in the crime are illegal aliens who had been deported earlier. Police are investigating their possible connection with other crimes and whether drinking was involved in this hit and run.

BROTHER MURDERED, MARIANA CISNEROS MISSING

Mariana Cisneros is currently listed by the FBI as a missing person, although she was last known to be in the custody of her mother in Nashville. This child was unlucky in parents: her mother Martha Cano Patlan is accused is the brutal torture/murder of Mariana'a four-year-old brother. The boy had been beaten and burned, and died from multiple wounds. The other accused killer is Martha's boyfriend, Genaro Espinosa Dorantes, who was added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list in August 2003. The FBI describes Dorantes as very dangerous. He was involved in illegal alien smuggling, so he may use those connections to stay hidden or to escape to Mexico. Obviously, this child is in danger if she is still alive.

WALTER VALENZUELA

Eleodora Contreras, shown being helped to a court appearance by a police escort, was the mother of Walter Contreras Valenzuela, a 10-year-old boy who was murdered May 20, 2001, by an illegal alien from Honduras. Walter enjoyed playing along the Whippany River, just a short distance from his Morristown, New Jersey, home. He liked to fish in the river, with friends or sometimes with people he met on the bank. Tragically, one whom he met, Porfirio Jimenez, was a sexual predator. In another case of INS and police failure, the alleged killer had been arrested three times, once for threatening a man with a knife, yet the illegal alien remained in America to commit much more serious crimes. The boy was beaten so badly that his mother could not recognize his face, and he was sexually molested before being murdered. Porfirio Jimenez is scheduled to go to trial in January 2004.

CHRISTINA LONG

• Christina Long's body was found face down in a creek in Greenwich, Connecticut, after she was killed by asphyxiation during rough sex. Christina, aged 13, met her killer, Saul Dos Reis, through the internet in a chat room, an aspect of the case which has gotten it a lot of media attention, unlike the criminal's immigration status. Dos Reis attempted to give himself an alibi by emailing the girl and apologizing for not meeting her the night of the death. In fact, he strangled the sixth-grader and then dumped the body not far from his home. The killer is a Brazilian national who evidently overstayed his visa by several years and legally should be deported when he completes his sentence. He was convicted of manslaughter in mid-April 2003. This article includes a video clip about the case. Sentencing Update: At the sentencing, Saul Dos Reis stated, "I have not had a single night of sleep when I don't wake up drenched in sweat." Judge Patrick L. Carroll III responded, "That time for mercy was the evening your victim died in your hands." The Judge gave Dos Reis 30 years in prison, the maximum for manslaughter.

RUBEN MORFIN

• Angie Morfin of Salinas, California, testified before the House Immigration Subcommittee in June of 1999 about the murder of her 13-year-old son by an illegal alien gangster. Her boy Ruben was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and was shot down by a Mexican who escaped to Mexico. Her testimony also noted how the Latino community in her town wants immigration laws enforced, particularly to deal with the problem of illegal alien gangs that are responsible for a lot of violent criminal activity. Since her son's murder, Angie Morfin has spoken out about the need for more Border Patrol agents and other enforcement to make her community safer so that no other mothers must suffer the loss that she has.

JOEY CORNELL

Another American stymied in the pursuit of justice for a murdered child is Ron Cornell, shown here with a car-hood portrait of his murdered son Joey. His son's killer, Gonzalo Villalobos, escaped to Mexico and, like so many others, is being protected by the Mexican government's refusal to extradite. At one point, Villalobos' whereabouts in El Salvador were known precisely, but there is no extradition cooperation with that nation either. (After the devastation of Hurricane Mitch in 1998, the United States sent $110 million in disaster relief aid to El Salvador.) This article includes a rogues gallery of mug shots of fugitives safe in Mexico.

TANEE NATIVIDAD

• In another case of justice denied, the murderer of Phoenix high school student Tanee Natividad merely crossed the border into Mexico to escape law enforcement. A local television station was able to track down the murderer in a bar just a few miles across the border without much effort. Max LaMadrid has no reason to hide because the Mexican government actually helps violent criminals escape American justice. According to Arizona Attorney General Janet Napolitano, action by the Mexican supreme court making it more difficult to extradite criminals has "created an incentive for people to flee into Mexico as a safe harbor." At one time, Mexico would not extradite criminals who might be subject to the death penalty; the Mexican court recently extended this "protection" to any Mexican who might receive a life sentence, thereby giving a free pass to rapists, kidnappers and child molesters. In fact, the investigating reporter found 100 cases of violent criminals from the Phoenix area escaping into Mexico in just the last few years. Meanwhile, the grieving family of 16-year-old Tanee gets no justice — like thousands of others in the southwest.