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.”

After discarding his wife’s legs in a dumpster, a California man had the nerve to open credit cards in her name, sell their home, and “pocket all profits” amid his obsession with a woman he met at a strip club. Justice came for Jack Dennis Potter, 72, on Friday in a courtroom in San Diego County after he had pleaded guilty back in February to second-degree murder for killing his spouse, Laurie Diane Potter, 54. He was sentenced on Friday to 15-years-to-life in prison. Now 72, he’ll be well into his 80s even if he serves the shortest possible version of this punishment.

An Arizona mother who murdered her two kids, ages 7 and 9, using a meat cleaver “designed to cut the bones of animals” will die behind bars after being handed two consecutive life sentences on Friday for her heinous crimes.

Yui Inoue, 44, was sentenced by Maricopa County Superior Judge Jeffrey Rueter, according to AZFamily, and he didn’t mince words when speaking to her.

“Words can’t adequately describe what occurred,” Rueter said, per AZFamily.

“I can’t imagine what those children went through in their last minutes,” he told the court. “The fear, the pain, the suffering. It’s incomprehensible.”

Inoue, who spoke through a Japanese interpreter, said that she believed her children were not dead. She was given the two life sentences plus two 20-year sentences to be served consecutively.

“They are spending time with my parents,” Inoue reportedly said. “I love my children very much so it’s very strange. My children are with my parents.”

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Inoue, who lived in Tempe, was accused of killing her two kids in a heinous 2021 murder case that wrapped up in February with her conviction.

“Mia and Kai Inoue were sleeping soundly in their beds when their own mother came into their bedroom holding a knife, a meat cleaver … and she attacked them with it,” prosecutors said during closing arguments, according to AZFamily. “She had to think. She had to act. And there’s nothing unclear or speculative about any of that.”

A Maricopa County jury found Inoue guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of child abuse in connection to a prior investigation by the Arizona Department of Child Safety and the May 2021 murders of her children Mia and Kai Inoue, who were identified by local officials.

Prosecutors say Inoue set upon her two children after claiming to hear “voices telling her to kill” them. She called 911 afterward and then went to flag down officers at a police substation on East Apache Boulevard near Arizona State University. The distraught mother was primarily speaking Japanese, police said, and she reportedly confessed to the officers on the spot about the slayings. Authorities went up to her apartment in response and found the mutilated bodies of Inoue’s kids.

“[S]he was hearing voices telling her to kill her children,” charging documents said.

Inoue later told police that she woke up with blood on her hands around 4:30 a.m. to find her children dead and also covered in blood near a doorway. After that, she said she took a bath and finally “woke up” to the reality of the violence she committed. Her lawyers claim Inoue had no memory of carrying out the killings. According to local ABC affiliate KNXV, Tempe police said a blood-soaked meat cleaver was discovered inside the vehicle Inoue drove to the police substation.

“We are here because this woman tried to decapitate two souls,” said Maricopa County prosecutor Shaylee Beasley during her closing arguments in February, according to the Arizona Republic.

Beasley described in detail how Inoue “delivered chop after chop” to the children while they both “tried to protect their heads.” She reportedly showed close-up photos of the children’s horrific injuries to the jury and claimed their deaths were connected to a bitter divorce she was having with their father.

Inoue’s attorney, Rebecca Felmly, had previously said that she believed there was enough reasonable doubt presented at Inoue’s trial for the jury to deliver a verdict of not guilty. During her first court appearance in 2021, Inoue told the judge “I did not kill anybody” through her interpreter.

“(The medical examiner) likened the amount of force to a guillotine,” Felmly said, according to AZFamily. “She is a very tiny, very slightly-built woman. She doesn’t have the energy, the power, or the strength to cause that type of injury to those kids.”

The child abuse case that Inoue was convicted of stemmed from a report made by Inoue’s husband in March 2021 — just months before the killings — saying Inoue “took Kai” and their whereabouts were unknown. “Police eventually located Ms. Inoue and Kai behind a convenience store,” DCS officials said in a May 2021 statement. “Ms. Inoue was taken to a psychiatric hospital and Kai was returned to his father.”

DCS investigators said they did not observe any “visible signs of abuse or neglect on the children” and the kids claimed “they felt safe with their parents.” The investigation did not find any evidence to warrant removal from the home, according to DCS officials.

Colin Kalmbacher contributed to this report.

Jurors in North Carolina have convicted a man for murdering his mother and injuring his father in a beating he claimed was fueled by drugs and sleep deprivation.

Christopher McCullough was found guilty of first-degree murder Friday in the 2023 death of his 75-year-old mother Mary McCullough. Local ABC affiliate WTVD reported that McCullough was not convicted of other charges, included the attempted murder of his father and larceny of a dog.

He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The jury had deliberated for around seven hours after receiving the case on Thursday.

More from Law&Crime: ‘I wish you well in hell’: Daughter rejoices at sentencing of nurse mom who tortured her younger sister to death

The defendant’s father, John McCullough, testified against his son. According to a courtroom report from local CBS affiliate WNCN, the father told jurors ever since his son was seven, he was “uncontrollably violent” and had “superhuman-like strength.” They tried everything to treat his issues from sending to boarding school to stays at mental health hospitals. None of it worked. Eventually, he and his wife and obtained a domestic violence injunction against him and forbade him from entering their home.

But he ignored that order and entered the home on Aug. 8, 2023. He reportedly told jurors he was high on Adderall and other drugs and hadn’t slept in six days. He said he asked his parents for gas money. When they refused, he began beating his father — all in the presence of his 4-year-old son — though he did not admit to hurting his sickly mother, who used an oxygen tank and weighed just 100 pounds.

“Me and my dad got in a fight, I struck him twice to the ground, I noticed that my mother was face down,” he said, according to local NBC affiliate WRAL.

The younger McCullough then took his son and fled. Cops rushed to the home to aid the elder McCulloughs. There was blood everywhere and both victims were unconscious, cops testified.

“I noticed she had bruises and cuts on her arms,” Raleigh police Officer Phillip Merle said, per WNCN. “Because of the way she was laying, I noticed she had a large puddle of blood underneath her neck. My training officer asked who did this to her. And she was able to grunt out, ‘My son’.”

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She was rushed to the hospital where she died nearly a week later.

Christopher McCullough’s son, now 6, was not physically injured in the incident but has experienced post-traumatic stress disorder from witnessing the incident.

“[The boy] has disclosed witnessing the defendant hurting nanny and poppy,” his therapist Tara Pawlyk reportedly testified. “That poppy was on the ground while the defendant covered his mouth, limiting his ability to breathe. He has also disclosed nanny was laying on the stairs, [which] the defendant had bashed her head against repeatedly.”

A Connecticut man allegedly beat a woman to death with a baseball bat over $200 in cocaine, then lived with her body in their apartment for a week-and-a-half before he dismembered her, put her torso in a suitcase and rolled it to a nearby cemetery.

Donald Coffel stands accused of murder in the death of 58-year-old Suzanne Wormser in the city of Groton. According to a probable cause arrest affidavit posted to local CBS affiliate WFSB, Groton city police began investigating on March 19 when a passerby smelled a foul odor from a suitcase at the entrance of Colonel Ledyard Cemetery. The caller told cops he had noticed the suitcase near some trash cans and became curious about what was inside. When he walked up to the suitcase, it smelled as if something was rotting inside, so he called police.

More from Law&Crime: ‘Identification took some time’: 70-year-old woman found chopped up in closet, her body parts stowed away in over a dozen trash bags — son in custody, cops say

Cops got on scene and opened the suitcase to find the torso of a woman’s body that was missing the head and other extremities. Police on April 11 posted a press release on its Facebook page about the death along with an FBI tip line. Wormser’s sister called in to say she hadn’t heard from her in months and she didn’t call to wish her a happy birthday, which was unlike her. She gave cops Wormser’s address and detectives went to check out the apartment in the 100 block of Allen Street, which happens to be less than 1,000 feet from the cemetery.

Officers also learned that Coffel had lived with her for a time. Neighbors told cops they hadn’t seen Wormser in months and Coffel was in the hospital. Cops entered the home and it was evident there had been a crime committed, the affidavit said. There was blood on the walls, rugs, furniture and clothing. Investigators also found a baseball bat hidden behind a bookcase. On the bat, there appeared to be dried blood and strands of brown hair matted on it, according to the cops.

Detectives went to the hospital to speak with Coffel, who was receiving treatment for pancreatic cancer. During a noncustodial interview, Coffel explained that he used to be Wormser’s neighbor before he moved to Arizona for a few months to live near his sister. That didn’t work out, so he moved back to Groton. Since he didn’t have anywhere else to live, Wormser allowed him to live with her starting in late November. He told cops Wormser had drug and mental health problems, and he didn’t particularly like her, but he tolerated her since she was allowing him to live in the apartment.

Coffel said he had back surgery in late December and stayed in the hospital before returning home in late January. He said she was there when he came home, but later left. Cops noted in the affidavit he “seemed to settle on the idea of the victim going missing between January and February when he came back from a hospital visit.” Coffel allegedly said he didn’t know where she went and it wasn’t unusual for her to leave for a day or two at a time and return.

Police in Florida arrested a 29-year-old man after he allegedly stabbed his ex-girlfriend to death in her car in Miami.

The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office said in a press release it began investigating shortly before 4 p.m. Saturday when the grandmother of a 3-year-old flagged a deputy down in the area of Southwest 144th Street and Southwest 134th Avenue. The girl had been walking alone in the residential complex. She had what appeared to be dried blood on her face and clothing, cops said.

More from Law&Crime: ‘This is how ruthless these kids have become’: 20-year-old murdered over ‘perceived slight’ in rap video, cops say

Deputies went to the girl’s home in search of her mother but she wasn’t there. During a search of the area, cops found the mother’s vehicle and found her unresponsive with apparent stab wounds. Paramedics responded to the scene and pronounced the woman, later identified as 24-year-old Maria Camila Garcia-Molina, dead.

Through “investigative means,” cops arrested 29-year-old Joy Chandra Nath on charges of second-degree murder and child abuse.

Local NBC affiliate WTVJ obtained an arrest report that further detailed the incident. It said deputies found Garcia-Molina’s body covered in blankets in the passenger seat of her car. She suffered from stab wounds on her neck, torso and other extremities. Deputies reportedly believe the girl was with her mother at the time of the murder. The girl told deputies that her mother was hit in the head and was sleeping, according to the affidavit. It did not appear the girl suffered any physical injuries in the incident.

A Georgia man has been indicted on murder charges after his wife died after being diagnosed with AIDS — and prosecutors say he knew he was HIV-positive and never told her.

Cleveland Broadie, who is in his early 60s, was previously charged with reckless conduct after his wife, Denise Broadie, died in April 2022, two days after she was diagnosed with having AIDS. Now, a grand jury has indicted him for malice murder and felony murder in connection to Denise Broadie’s death.

After she passed away, Denise Broadie’s family members suspected that their stepfather knew full well he was HIV-positive when he married their mother in 2014 and neglected to tell her about his status. WAGA, a local Fox affiliate, spoke to the family, who hired a private investigator to look into the life Cleveland Broadie had before he joined their family.

A Georgia woman will spend the rest of her life behind bars for admittedly killing her 7-year-old disabled daughter and then allowing the child’s tiny body to mummify in a closet for months.

On Wednesday morning, Alondra Hobbs, 29, pleaded guilty to one count of malice murder, two counts of felony murder, and two counts of cruelty to children in the first degree.

Immediately following Hobbs’ guilty plea, DeKalb County Superior Court Judge LaTisha Dear Jackson sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“She does not want me to make excuses for what she’s done,” her defense attorney said during the sentencing portion of the hearing. “She does not want a trial. She wants to take responsibility. Something that she has not done … it is something she wishes to do now.”