A 28-year-old man in Missouri has been arrested for allegedly killing a 35-year-old pregnant woman and the child she was carrying, as five kids — all of whom were under the age of 10 — watched in horror.

Vanier J. Jones was taken into custody last week and charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the slayings of 35-year-old Christina Lynn Rentchler and her unborn child, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.

Jones is also facing charges of armed criminal action, first-degree assault, endangering the welfare of a child, and unlawful possession of a handgun.

According to a probable cause affidavit obtained by Law&Crime, officers with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department on April 23, 2025, responded to a call regarding a shooting at a residence located in the 4100 block of Farlin Avenue. Upon arriving at the address, first responders said they quickly located the victim, later identified as Rentchler, who appeared to be suffering from multiple gunshot wounds, including a single shot “in the back of the head.”

A subsequent autopsy performed by the county medical examiner concluded that the victim was in the second trimester of her pregnancy at the time of her death. The exam further concluded that Rentchler’s death was the direct cause of the death of her unborn baby.

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The affidavit also included a harrowing detail about the fatal shooting and who was forced to witness the alleged crime take place.

“In the house during the murder were five juveniles Victim 4, Victim 5, Victim 6, Victim 7 and Victim 8,” the affidavit states. “The juveniles’ ages ranged from ages of 2 to 10 years old. Some of these juveniles were [Rentchler’s] children.”

Following the shooting, investigators interviewed the eldest child at the hospital, who they said identified Jones as the shooter, adding that he had recently begun staying at the house with her and her family. The child also provided a brief description of what led to Rentchler’s tragic murder and how the child avoided suffering the same fate.

“She stated the Defendant had gotten angry and shot [Rentchler],” according to the document. “She stated that she then played dead, and heard the Defendant ask Victim 1’s children where their mother was prior to the Defendant killing Victim 1.”

After being taken into custody, Jones allegedly told police that he had nothing to do with Rentchler’s murder, claiming he was with an individual identified in the document as “Witness 1.” However, when police spoke to the witness in a taped interview, they stated that “not only was Witness 1 not with the Defendant when the homicide occurred, but that the Defendant admitted to Witness 1 that he had just killed a woman.”

Further investigation revealed that Jones had previously been convicted of multiple prior felonies and had “absconded from his federal supervised release at the time of the homicide.”

A Missouri couple is accused of nearly starving their 1-year-old son to death, allegedly failing to feed the special-needs toddler despite ample food in the home, with the father blaming their failures on smoking pot and “falling asleep.” Braxton Blevins and Emily Katz were taken into custody earlier this week and charged with one count each of child abuse and one count each of child endangerment, records show.

According to a probable cause affidavit, officers with the Carthage Police Department on March 1, 2025, responded to a call from Children’s Mercy Hospital regarding a 1-year-old male juvenile who had been admitted with “severe malnutrition, starvation, recurrent infections, and failure to thrive.”

Medical personnel told authorities the victim had been hospitalized multiple times in his short life for similar conditions.

“In each instance, when placed under hospital-supervised care and fed according to the prescribed protocol, the juvenile gained weight and improved,” the affidavit states. “Hospital staff stated this demonstrated the victim’s medical complications were treatable with proper care and nutrition, which Blevins was trained on and said he was providing.”

Despite the couple claiming that Blevins had been providing their son with proper care at home and following the prescribed feeding plan, officers said they recovered between 10 and 20 unused bags of the victim’s “Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN)” that was stored in the family’s refrigerator. One bag of TPN, required daily, delivers nearly 80% of the child’s required total daily caloric intake.

The bags were administered through a central line feeding tube.

“The presence of excess TPN supplies indicated the juvenile was not receiving the prescribed nutrition,” police wrote.

While hospital staff told authorities that both parents had completed the medical training required to care for their son’s nutrition needs, but said that each subsequent time the victim was hospitalized, neither parent was “consistently unable to explain the home care provided or account for the juvenile’s weight loss and deteriorating condition.”

The hospital’s safety, care, and nurturing team concluded that there was sufficient evidence that the victim was consistently missing feedings and that his repeated hospitalizations were “the result of Blevins’ neglect.”

A 21-year-old man in Michigan has been arrested for allegedly killing his fiancee, shooting her in the neck and claiming his firearm accidentally discharged while he was cleaning it. Michael Devon Webb was taken into custody last week and charged with one count of first-degree murder and using a firearm in the commission of a felony in the slaying of 23-year-old Rachel Renee Wooten, authorities announced.

According to a news release from the Oakland Sheriff’s Office, deputies at about 4 p.m. on Tuesday, April 15, 2025, responded to the Highland Township home in the 200 block of Maple Drive, which is about 40 miles northwest of Detroit, Michigan, regarding a reported shooting. Webb and Wooten lived in the home where the shooting is alleged to have occurred with their 6-month-old child.

The caller identified himself as Webb and allegedly told the emergency dispatcher that he “had shot his fiancee and himself,” per the release.

Upon arriving at the scene, first responders located Wooten, who appeared to be suffering from a gunshot wound to the neck “at very close range,” prosecutors said in a release. She was pronounced dead on the scene. The couple’s child was not harmed during the incident.

Police placed Webb under arrest at the residence. When speaking to police, Webb originally said of the shooting, “it was an accident” that happened “while cleaning his gun,” police wrote. However, the news release said that the evidence recovered from the residence “did not support” an accidental shooting being the cause of Wooten’s death.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has reportedly directed authorities in the Sunshine State to stop immigration arrests from being carried out under a new law, which was signed into effect by Gov. Ron DeSantis in February, after a federal judge ripped local cops in court for ignoring an order she gave blocking such arrests.

“There is no such basis,” proclaimed U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, a Barack Obama appointee, in court on Friday, according to the Miami Herald. “Why aren’t these people being released immediately?” she reportedly asked.

Robert Schenck, a lawyer who is representing the Office of the Attorney General, which is being sued over the new state law that was signed into effect by DeSantis — allowing for the arrest and prosecution of undocumented immigrants in Florida — claimed during the hearing that while state officials were blocked from issuing arrest warrants under Williams’ order, the state believed that law enforcement officers did not have to comply because they don’t act “in concert” with one another, per the Herald.

A 29-year-old special education teacher in Kentucky was arrested this week after she allegedly got drunk before driving to school, hitting and critically injuring a pedestrian on the way.

Jamie Caldwell was taken into custody at the school on Wednesday morning and charged with one count of aggravated operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol and one count of leaving the scene of an accident with failure to render aid or assist with death or serious physical injury, authorities announced.

According to a news release from the Lexington Police Department, officers at about 6:50 a.m. on Wednesday responded to a call regarding a hit-and-run involving a pedestrian in the 1000 block of Georgetown Road, which is about 75 miles east of Louisville.

Upon arriving at the scene, first responders located the pedestrian and emergency medical personnel transported them to a local hospital for treatment of “life-threatening injuries.”

Police then utilized the department’s “Real-Time Intelligence Center” to quickly locate the vehicle and driver — later identified as Caldwell — involved in the collision. The “intelligence center” allows the department to access public traffic video feeds and footage from private surveillance cameras, with permission, to aid in investigations.

A copy of the arrest citation obtained by Lexington ABC affiliate WTVQ provided additional details about the circumstances of Caldwell’s arrest.

According to the report, police located Caldwell at Glendover Elementary School, where she is employed as a teacher. Officers at the scene said that Caldwell’s vehicle was in the school parking lot with visible damage.

They also reportedly noted that when they came into contact with Caldwell, her “eyes were bloodshot and watery.” They also said they “smelled alcohol coming from her,” Lexington NBC affiliate WLEX reported.

A 28-year-old mother and a 31-year-old man were arrested in Michigan in the death of the woman’s 3-year-old son, who investigators say was killed in his home nearly seven years ago.

Amanda Maison and Maurice Houle, her boyfriend at the time of the incident, were taken into custody on Friday and charged with one count each of first-degree murder in the 2018 slaying of young Matthew Maison, authorities announced. Houle is also facing three counts of assaulting, resisting, or obstructing a police officer stemming from his alleged conduct during Friday’s arrest.

According to a Friday news release from the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Office, Matthew was found dead in his bed inside of the family’s Port Huron Township home on Feb. 18, 2018. While no details surrounding the circumstances of the arrests were provided last week, the sheriff’s office said that the arrests were made following “significant recent developments” in the investigation into the toddler’s death.

During their arraignment hearing on Monday, prosecutors said that Matthew suffered “years of abuse at the hands of both defendants,” per courtroom footage posted by Detroit NBC affiliate WDIV.

“We came to realize of a scheme where both defendants conjured up this lie of previous injuries to the victim in our case, Matthew Maison, and came up with the lie about how the injury occurred prior to talking to investigators,” Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Josh Sparling said Monday, adding that both defendants “admitted” that the other abused Matthew.

Sparling alleged that Matthew was subjected to “very cruel, torturous abuse and punishment” such as “being placed in timeout on his knees where his head would be banged off the drywall” and being “locked in his room for hours on end without food or water.”

“There was a prior time where Maurice place a pillow over this child’s face and pretended like he was playing, but yet we know from the autopsy that Matthew died from blunt force trauma from all of the injuries he sustained as well as suffocation,” Sparling said.

The proceedings then took on an even more depraved tone as the prosecutor relayed another pernicious allegation levied against Maison and Houle.

“Not to mention this plan that was put forth to kill Matthew to make room for a child the two of them could have together,” Sparling said.

The Macomb County Scanner reported that during the duo’s arraignment on Monday, it was revealed that Matthew was likely beaten and choked to death, with investigators determining that his manner of death was a homicide.

“It is my opinion that Matthew Maison died secondary to blunt traumatic injuries with features of asphyxiation,” St. Clair County Medical Examiner Daniel Spitz reportedly wrote in the autopsy report. “The extent, severity, and distribution of the traumatic injuries is indicative of inflicted trauma.”

Prior to Monday’s proceedings, authorities had not released any details about the boy’s death.

The Times Herald reported that on the morning of Feb. 19, 2018, deputies and emergency medical personnel responded to the Maison residence in response to an unresponsive child in the home. Upon arriving at the scene, first responders found Matthew inside the home, already dead.

The newspaper in February 2020 submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the 911 call placed in connection with the boy’s death, but was told that the recording system for St. Clair County Central Dispatch automatically deletes recordings after one year.

Amanda Maison’s brother, Andrew Maison, and his wife, Hilery Maison, are currently serving sentences of life in prison without the chance of parole for the 2015 murder of Andrew Maison’s 5-year-old daughter Mackenzie Maison. They were also found guilty of severely abusing his 3-year-old daughter, Makayla Maison.

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The parents of a newborn baby in Pennsylvania have been arrested in connection with the child’s tragic death after authorities say they didn’t set up a bassinet or crib, instead letting the child sleep in their bed where he died. Ashley Susana Usadel, 31, and Travis Scott Smart, 34, were arrested Thursday morning and charged with one count each of child endangerment in the tragic death of young Zane Scott Usadel-Smart, records reviewed by Law&Crime show.

Usadel is also facing an additional charge of involuntary manslaughter.

According to court documents obtained by NorthCentralPA, officers with the Sunbury Police Department responded at about 2:30 a.m. on April 10 to a home on North Sixth Street in regard to a call about an unresponsive infant. Upon arriving at the address, first responders said they saw the father performing CPR on the child, who was face-up on a bed in the living room of the home, and took over performing lifesaving procedures.

Emergency medical personnel arrived a short while later but were not able to provide any assistance. Zane was pronounced dead at the scene and authorities contacted the Northumberland County Coroner’s Office as well as the county office of Children and Youth Services.

Both parents were reportedly transported to the police station, where they underwent interviews with detectives.

According to a report from PennLive, Usadel said that she laid down in bed at about 9:30 p.m. the previous evening with the baby. She was allegedly holding Zane in her right arm and breastfeeding him while using her left hand to hold her phone and scroll through her TikTok feed. At some point, she said she fell asleep and believed Zane rolled out of her arms and onto the bed. She said she awoke to find him unresponsive next to her on the bed.

A 38-year-old man in New York City has been arrested after he allegedly performed an illegal plastic surgery procedure inside his home on a 31-year-old woman who was left brain-dead. Felipe Hoyos-Foronda was taken into custody at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Friday and charged with one count of second-degree assault and one count of unauthorized practice of a profession.

According to a criminal complaint obtained by The Independent, the victim went to Hoyos-Foronda’s home in Queens on the evening of March 28, 2025, because she wanted to have her butt implants removed. Shortly after she arrived at the residence, which reportedly doubled as a makeshift medical office, authorities say that Hoyos-Foronda administered several lidocaine injections.

Unfortunately, the injections soon caused the victim to go into cardiac arrest, police said. Hoyos-Foronda reportedly called Emergency Medical Services to his home before fleeing the scene in his car.

Upon arriving at the scene, first responders entered the home where they found the victim unresponsive. She was transported to Astoria General Hospital for treatment, where doctors believed she suffered lidocaine toxicity due to excessive amounts of the drug being in her system, The New York Daily News reported. The condition typically causes seizures and an irregular heartbeat, but in extreme cases leads to cardiac arrest.

The building’s landlord reportedly provided authorities with information on Hoyos-Foronda and his photograph.

Bodycam footage shows police taking in a teenage girl, who was later convicted of murder for speeding into a wall at up to 100 mph to kill her boyfriend and another young man.

“Could you please be careful taking this one off so it doesn’t break the bracelet,” Mackenzie Shirilla said as an officer began to switch handcuffs.

An Ohio judge convicted her in a bench trial in August 2023 of charges including murder for killing both her boyfriend, Dominic Russo, 20, and Davion Flanagan, 19.

Surveillance video showed that Shirilla, now 20, turned slowly from Pearl Road onto Alameda Drive, then she sped down the three-quarter mile street into a brick wall.