Kidnapped Texas girl found in Mexico after 12-year search
AUSTIN: A Texas girl kidnapped 12 years ago at the age of four and taken to Mexico by her mother has been found there, law enforcement officials said.
Sabrina Allen was taken from Austin, Texas, in April 2002 by Dara Llorens, who was estranged from Allen’s father, according to the Austin Police Department.
Llorens and the child assumed new identities and moved frequently to evade capture, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which assisted in the hunt for the girl. The pair was found Tuesday in Mexico and the 17-year-old was reunited with her father yesterday, authorities said.
‘I am overjoyed that Sabrina has been found alive and is safe,’ Greg Allen, Sabrina’s father, said in a statement yesterday. ‘Our entire family would like to thank the investigators that made this happen. They never gave up. We look forward to being reunited very soon.’
According to charging documents, Llorens, now 44, took the child for a scheduled weekend visit on April 19, 2002, as part of a court-ordered custody arrangement. She failed to return the child to the father, who had primary custody, at the end of the weekend.
According to an account of the girl’s recovery provided by Klein Investigations & Consulting, agents with the Mexican Federal Police, the US Department of Justice and the US Marshals Service took custody of Llorens near Mexico City, on Tuesday morning after help from a confidential informant.
Llorens was wanted on warrants that include interference with child custody and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, the Klein group said.
One Mexican police officer sustained a minor injury in the apprehension of Llorens during a struggle, the group said.
Investigators followed up on hundreds of leads and tips over the 12-year search, and the case was profiled twice on the television show ‘America’s Most Wanted.’ REUTERS (Reuters)
Florida man convicted in loud music case
MIAMI: A Florida man faces life in prison after being convicted of first degree murder at his retrial for the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager during an argument over loud music in 2012.
Michael Dunn, a 47-year-old white man, was found guilty of attempted second degree murder last February, but a racially-mixed jury was deadlocked on the more serious first degree murder count he was convicted of on Wednesday.
Jordan Davis, 17, was shot three times after an altercation in a gas station parking lot in November 2012 over what Dunn described as loud “thug music.”
In testimony Dunn said that he approached the teens, who were in a sports utility vehicle, and asked them to turn down the music but the teens refused.
Dunn said he feared for his life when one of the teenagers started to get out of the car and approached him. Dunn pulled a pistol out of his glove box and opened fire.
The software engineer testified that he kept firing as the car drove away, saying he was afraid that he or his fiancee — who had rushed out of the gas station shop when she heard the shots — might get hit by returning fire.
Police found no evidence of a gun in the teens’ vehicle, and the three surviving teenagers testified that they never threatened Dunn.
Prosecutor Erin Wolfson said Dunn was shooting to harm, and supported the conviction.
“He wasn’t shooting at the tires. He wasn’t shooting at the windows. He was shooting to kill, aiming at Jordan Davis,” she said in her closing arguments Tuesday.
The case recalled the killing of 17-year-old black teen Trayvon Martin by a white Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman in Florida in 2012, a case that sparked outrage over racial profiling and lax US gun laws.
The United States has been rocked by several racially-tinged shooting incidents in recent years.
In August, unarmed black teen Michael Brown, 18, was shot by a white police officer, sparking days of sometimes-violent protests in the St. Louis suburb and igniting a national debate on race relations. (IANS)
US sends 700 soldiers to Liberia to fight Ebola
Washington: US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel has authorised the deployment of 700 soldiers to Liberia to help with the fight against the Ebola epidemic there, the Defence Department said in a statement on Wednesday.
The troops will be deployed in late October to supervise the construction of Ebola treatment units, conduct site surveys and provide engineering expertise in an area with a range of infrastructure repair needs, Xinhua reported.
Last week, 15 construction-specialty sailors from the US Army arrived in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, to offer engineering support to the Operation United Assistance, conducting site surveys for future hospitals, and supply storage and training facilities for health care workers.
The deployments are part of a whole-of-government response to the Ebola outbreak, according to the statement.
About 195 Defence Department personnel are now in west Africa, and over the last weekend the equipment for a 25-bed hospital and two mobile labs arrived in Monrovia.
The hospital will be in operation around mid-October, the statement said, adding that US military personnel are not and will not be providing direct care to Ebola patients. (IANS)