Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Crime Alert 03.28.24

Episode Date: March 28, 2024

Woman shoots herself on 911 call to cover up boyfriend's murder. Three children rob a bank! For more crime and justice news go to crimeonline.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Alert, I'm Nancy Grace, breaking crime news now. Ohio cops responding to a home break-in find Deborah Frazier suffering from a gunshot wound. Frazier says she walked in on two burglars in her boyfriend's apartment who shot her and left. Cops find Frazier's boyfriend, Thomas Waddell, wrapped in a blanket and a garbage bag, shot dead. Autopsy reveals Waddell was dead nearly 12 hours before the girlfriend's 911 call. Frazier's hair was found stuck to duct tape securing the blanket around his body. Nancy, cops searched Frazier's phone and found Google searches such as how to load a revolver pistol and where's place to get hit in the head.

CSIs determined Frazier shot Waddell in the back of the head while he sat in a recliner in the living room. Frazier then wrapped the body and staged the burglary, actually shooting herself while on the line with 911. Deborah Frazier, 36, pleads guilty to murder, tampering with evidence, and abuse of a corpse in the death of Thomas Waddell. Three Houston children, 11, 12, and 16, make off with a bag of cash after passing a threatening note to a Wells Fargo teller. It's unclear whether the children were armed, but the teller thought they were. After the FBI released surveillance photos, the parents of two of the boys turned them in. Texas cops recognized the third child while breaking up another schoolyard fight. The three boys, dubbed the Little Rascals, all face a charge of robbery by threat in Jeevy Court. You know, I don't remember the Little Rascals actually robbing a bank.

More crime and justice news after this. Now with the latest crime and justice breaking news, Crime Online's John Limley. We begin in Mississippi as two former deputies weep openly in court as a federal judge sentences them to years in prison and denounces their cruelty in storming into a home with four other white officers and torturing two black men. For more, we turn to Sydney Sumner with Crime Online. 29-year-old Christian Dedman was sentenced to 40 years in prison by U.S. District Judge Tom Lee, while 28-year-old Daniel Opdyke received 17 and a half years. Judge Lee stated that the two black men, Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker, as well as a white man at a traffic stop weeks earlier, were the targets of Dedman's most,

quote, shocking, brutal, and cruel attacks imaginable. As Dedman apologized in court, saying he would never forgive himself for the suffering he has caused, he did not look at Jenkins or Parker. In a statement given by his attorney, Jenkins, who was shot in the mouth during the attack in January 2023 and now has difficulty speaking, claimed that Dedman's actions were the most heinous of all those who attacked him. Earlier in the week, Lee sentenced 46-year-old Jeffrey Middleton to 17 and a half years behind bars and 31-year-old Hunter Elward to almost 20 years. Their behavior was deemed egregious and despicable by the judge. The two men were Rankin County Sheriff's officers during the attack, as were Opdyke and Dedman. Last August, the four men, along with two other law enforcement officers, entered a guilty

plea, acknowledging that they had broken into Jenkins and Parker's house without a warrant and subjected them to torture after a neighbor had claimed that the men were staying there with a white woman. Opdyke sobbed uncontrollably just hours before Edmund's sentencing, turning to face Jenkins and Parker. He said that his time in isolation while incarcerated had allowed him to consider, quote, how I transformed into the monster I became that night. Before Opdyke could finish speaking, Parker put his head in his hands, closed his eyes, got up, and left the courtroom. Jenkins expressed his feelings of being broken and ashamed by the abuse he received. Some of the former cops who participated in the attack dubbed themselves the Goon Squad. The judge stated that while Opdyke

may not have fully understood what it meant to be a member of the group when Middleton urged him to join, he was aware that it involved employing excessive force. Months before federal prosecutors brought charges in August, an investigation by our friends with the Associated Press in March of last year connected some of the deputies to at least four violent interactions with black men since 2019, incidents that resulted in two deaths and one lifelong injury. Following a shooting at a bus stop earlier this month that left eight high school students in Philadelphia injured, a fifth suspect has now been charged. Once again, Crime Online's Sydney Sumner. According to an announcement from city police, 15-year-old Jeremiah Jefferson of Philadelphia is charged with attempted murder,

aggravated assault, conspiracy, reckless endangerment, and weapons charges. Police say the teenager had spoken with the gunman prior to the shooting, had recognized and supplied details on a few possible targets, and had even noted what he was wearing to avoid being a victim himself. Additionally, authorities say Jefferson alerted the gunmen when the target victims were approaching the bus. The shooting occurred on March 6th as students at Northeast High School were waiting to board the bus. Investigators say that three masked individuals began shooting, hitting eight teenagers. All were eventually classified in stable condition, including a 16-year-old who

was initially thought to be gravely injured after being struck by gunfire nine times. With more than 3,000 students, Northeast High School is the largest public high school in Philadelphia. Thanks, John. Lacey Bunch, 72, lives with his sister in Enfield, North Carolina. Early one morning, his sister hears the front door shut and she can't find him. Lacey reportedly left without shoes or a coat in the middle of a sleet storm. He also left behind his glasses, wallet, and keys. Searches of the area turn up no clues. Lacey Bunch, African-American, 5'5", 130 pounds, grayish red hair. If you have info on Lacey Bunch, now missing three years,

call Halifax County, North Carolina, Sheriff's, 252-583-8201. For the latest crime and justice news, go to crimeonline.com. With this crime alert, I'm Nancy Grace. This is an iHeart Podcast.