Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Crime Alert 12.01.23

Episode Date: December 1, 2023

Estranged husband attacks woman while he's supposed to be watching their children. Parole violator found hiding in a couch.  For more crime and justice news go to crimeonline.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Alert, I'm Nancy Grace. Breaking crime news now. Chicago police say 35-year-old Marco Evidente jumped on top of his wife, shoved a chemical-doused rag in her mouth. During the struggle, officers find zip ties, a folding knife, the chemical-doused towel,

and a three-inch blade at the crime scene, plus three large garbage bags, a 20-pound dumbbell, and directions to the nearby Chatham Street Bridge in his backpack. Nancy, the items paint a gruesome picture of what could have happened had another resident of the apartment complex not called 911. When cops arrived, the victim's first question was about her three children, who were supposed to be under her husband's care during the attack. We're also learning that Evidente was out on bond for a previous sexual assault charge also involving his estranged wife. Evidente charged with two counts, aggravated battery, and attempted murder.

Stacey Usher tries to outwit Florida police using a good old-fashioned game of hide and seek. Surprise, surprise, they found her inside a sofa. Usher, 39, wanted for violating her probation for selling fentanyl, among other things. Usher, already a felon, has a criminal history of fraud, grand theft, obtaining property by writing a bad check, and now ruining a perfectly fine sofa. More crime and justice news after this. Now with the latest crime and justice breaking news, Crime Online's John Limley. This week saw the carjacking of an FBI agent in Washington, D.C., a crime coinciding with a dramatic rise in carjackings in the nation's capital.

For more, we turn to Sydney Sumner with Crime Online. A federal grand jury indictment released this week charges 26-year-old Charles Antonio Clippard and 28-year-old Michael Joseph Knox with forcing consumers in 2021 to give up cash, phones, and in one case, a vehicle, after following them home and holding them at gunpoint. The two men from the Columbia area of South Carolina deliberately selected victims who they thought to be Hispanic or Mexican, this according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice. A total of nine counts were brought against Klippert and Knox. The charges include three for hate crimes, three for firearms violations, one for carjacking, and one for conspiracy. The minimum sentence for offenses involving firearms

is 21 years in prison. The maximum sentence for a hate crime charge is 10 years behind bars and 15 years for a carjacking offense. In comparison to 2022, violent crime in general in Washington has increased by more than 40 percent this year. A Texas man who, in an anti-Semitic incident two years ago set fire to an Austin synagogue has been handed a 10-year prison sentence. 20-year-old Franklin Sechrist had already entered a guilty plea to charges of arson and hate crime resulting in damage to places of worship on Halloween 2021. The U.S. Department of Justice stated in a news release that he has also been mandated to spend an extra three years of supervised release once he leaves prison. Sechrist has also been ordered to pay $470,000 in reparations to Congregation Beth Israel. A student at Texas State University and a member of the Texas State Guard had written anti-Semitic and racist diary entries before starting the fire.

Federal hate crime charges have been leveled against two men in South Carolina related to robberies that targeted Hispanic customers outside of gas stations and a Mexican supermarket. Once again, Crime Online's Sydney Sumner. For almost five decades, the teenager was known as simply John Doe, but now, thanks to the results of DNA testing, his real name has been revealed as Michael Ray Schlitsch of Cedar Rapids. According to a news release by the Orange County Sheriff's Department in California, the teenager was long believed to be a victim of a man known as the scorecard killer, Randy Kraft. After being found guilty of torturing and murdering 16 men over almost three decades, a crime spree that culminated with his 1983 arrest, Kraft was handed a death sentence to

be served at San Quentin State Prison. Authorities have stated that in addition to the Orange County killings for which Kraft was found guilty in 1989, the 78-year-old is also accused of killing other victims in California, Oregon, and Michigan. On September 14, 1974, two people were off-roading on a fire road northeast of Laguna Beach, California, when the body of the teen now known as Schlicht was discovered. The 17-year-old's death was initially ruled to be accidental when an autopsy revealed high levels of alcohol and diazepam in its system. However, detectives began to connect other similar deaths that occurred in the years that followed and categorized those as homicides. Several of the deaths occurred just a few miles from the location

of where the teen's remains were found. The string of murders came to an end in 1983 when a California Highway Patrol trooper saw Kraft weaving and driving on the shoulder of a freeway and pulled him over. In the passenger seat of the vehicle was the body of a strangled U.S. Marine. South Carolina is one of just two states in the country that does not have laws allowing for heavier sentences for violent hate crimes. Wyoming is the other. Thanks, John. Twelve-year-old Jalen Griffin walks his new puppy then tells mom he's going to walk to a

local store 11 a.m. He doesn't come back. His family immediately reports him missing. He hasn't been seen or heard from since 2020. There have been reported sightings of him around Buffalo but none of them confirmed. When Jalen went missing his mom said she believed he was being influenced by someone. The mom, 48-year-old Joanne Ponzo, passed away this year without ever knowing what happened to little Jalen. If you have info regarding Jalen Griffin, contact Buffalo PD 716-853-2222 or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 1-800-THE-LOST. 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.