Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Crime Alert 01.17.23

Episode Date: January 17, 2023

Man's story that baby fell off couch not supported by hospital visit.  Teen asks Instagram friends to help him dispose of body. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Rinaldo Johnson's girlfriend leaves her four-month-old baby with him while she goes to work. When she returns, Johnson says the baby, quote, fell off the couch. They take the baby to the hospital. Doctors say the injuries, including a fractured skull, are not consistent with Jackson's story. North Carolina cops arrest Johnson, 35, for suspected child abuse resulting in serious bodily injury. 16-year-old Joshua Cooper sends a video to friends on Insta asking for help to dispose of a body. Cooper points the camera at a 13-year-old girl covered in blood from a gunshot wound. One recipient tells mom what she saw.

Mom calls police. Cooper tells Pennsylvania cops the death was an accident. He had access to guns because the lock on his dad's safe is inoperable. The teen now charged with murder. Damone Fleming's neighbors call NYPD over the 22-year-old's erratic behavior. Cops find Fleming naked, setting things in her apartment on fire. But where are her two children? Neighbors assume the Tots are with dad. Dad, however, is sleeping outside in the car. Fleming kicked him out after an argument. After seeing

Fleming taken into custody, he runs upstairs, finds the two tots dead. She'll undergo psychiatric evaluation. Right now, charged with two counts of murder. More crime and justice news after this. Now with the latest crime and justice breaking news, Crime Online's John Limley. The man charged in the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students will have a preliminary hearing in late June, when prosecutors will try to show a judge that they have enough evidence to justify the felony charges. Brian Koberger waived his right to a speedy preliminary hearing during a status conference. The 28-year-old Washington State University grad student

is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and burglary and has not yet entered a plea and is waiting to learn whether prosecutors in the high-profile case will pursue the death penalty. He appeared in court wearing an orange t-shirt and pants and gave the judge short one-word answers when she asked him if he understood his rights during the roughly five-minute-long hearing. Boston Marathon bomber Jahar Tsarnaev's attorney has urged a federal appeals court to throw out the 29-year-old's death sentence because of claims of juror misconduct just months after the death penalty was revived by the nation's highest court. Tsarnaev is making a renewed push to avoid execution after the Supreme Court last year

reinstated the death sentence imposed on him for his role in the bombing that killed three people and injured hundreds near the finish line of the marathon in 2013. His lawyers are now challenging issues that weren't considered by the Supreme Court, including whether the trial judge wrongly denied his challenge of two jurors who defense attorneys say lied during jury selection questioning. A former suburban Houston police officer has been executed for hiring two people to kill his estranged wife nearly 30 years ago, amid a contentious divorce and custody battle. 65-year-old Robert Frotta received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the November 1994 fatal shooting of his wife,

Farrah. He was pronounced dead Tuesday at 7.49 p.m., 24 minutes after the lethal dose of the powerful sedative pentobarbital began flowing into his arms. For about three minutes before the execution began, Frata's spiritual advisor, Barry Brown, prayed over Frata, who was strapped to the death chamber gurney with intravenous needles in each arm. The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear the appeals of two brothers who were sentenced to death for four fatal shootings on a Kansas soccer field in December 2000 known as the Wichita Massacre. Former Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said the high court's decision means Jonathan and Reginald Carr no longer have any direct appeals of their death sentences. However, he said they can still file lawsuits in state and federal courts

to try to prevent their executions by lethal injection. The U.S. Supreme Court's action came a little less than a year after the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the two brothers had received fair trials and upheld their death sentences. Los Angeles prosecutors will retry That 70s Show actor Danny Masterson on three rape counts after a hopelessly deadlocked jury led to a mistrial in his first trial in November. The L.A. County District Attorney's Office declared prosecutors' plans in court filings and at a hearing where Superior Court Judge Charlene Olmedo rejected a defense motion to dismiss the charges. The move comes despite prosecutors failing to even get half of the previous jury to vote to convict on any of the counts against Masterson, who's charged with the rape of three women,

including a former girlfriend, at his home between 2001 and 2003. A Texas man calls police after another driver crashes into him in a Walmart parking lot. Then he realizes the only one in the truck is a dog. The car was left running to keep the dog cool while owners went inside. The dog's leash caught on the shifter, putting the truck in drive. Two vehicles damaged by the dog crash, but thankfully no one injured. Is there really such a thing as doggy jail? For the latest crime and justice news, go to crimeonline.com. With this crime alert, I'm Nancy Grace. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.