Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Crime Alert 12.29.23

Episode Date: December 29, 2023

Married teacher arrested for sex with a student. Unusual thief steals backyard cams. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Alert, I'm Nancy Grace. Breaking crime news now. A 17-year-old Mississippi high school student reports her physics teacher to police. The teen girl says James Hawkins II starts a sex relationship with her and wants to elope to another state, Louisiana.

When Hawkins is questioned, he admits having sex with a student roughly once a month. At least that's what he admits to. Nancy, Hawkins too specifically admitted to having relations with the 17-year-old while parked at a Walmart grocery store and at the home he shared with his wife and toddler. Hawkins claims the couple had plans to elope to Louisiana

and that, quote, things were moving faster than they originally expected. The teacher-student relationship lasted at least eight months before Hawkins was arrested. James Hawkins, 2, 38, now charged with sex battery. An Arizona homeowner gets three motion-activated cameras as a gift and sets them up in the backyard, hoping to catch wildlife passing through. Well, someone takes exception to being watched by the paw-parazzi and steals the backyard cams. When all three cameras are offline, the homeowner reviews the latest recordings and discovers a gray fox pulls

the cameras down one by one, then brought them back to his den. The thief's mugshots posted all over social media, but the homeowner says they refuse to prosecute. More crime and justice news after this. Now with the latest crime and justice breaking news, Crime Online's Jackie Howard. Charges have been brought against a South Carolina couple for allegedly killing four family members. The gory Halloween attack took place at the victim's residence in 2015. For more, we turn to Sydney Sumner with Crime Online. Amy and Ross Moore Ross Velarde are now each accused of four murders and remain behind bars in South Carolina's Anderson County.

A court date of February 20th is set for a preliminary hearing. The couple has maintained their innocence in interviews with the media over the years since the killings. Sheriff Chad McBride declined to comment during a press conference regarding the reason the charges were filed so long after the murders, saying that information of that nature would be discussed in court. The murders were a shock to the residents of Pendleton where the crimes took place. The little town in western South Carolina with a population of around 3,500 people is located approximately 110 miles northeast of Atlanta. Sheriff McBride said that it was on November 2, 2015, that Amy Velarde called the police to report the deaths of her 60-year-old mother, Kathy Scott, her grandmother, 85-year-old Violet

Taylor, her 58-year-old stepfather, Mike Scott, and his mother, Barbara Scott, who was 80. According to our friends with Fox Carolina, the victim shared a home with Amy and Ross Velarde. The shooting and stabbing scene, according to the authorities, was gruesome and among the worst that some detectives had ever seen. Despite the crimes having received a lot of media attention over the past several years, no one was ever taken into custody until this month. Now to Pennsylvania. Officials have announced that a man accused of recently wounding people with a large knife as he rode his bicycle along a Philadelphia street

is now a person of interest in a cold case murder of a medical student in a large city park 20 years ago. Forty-six-year-old Elias Diaz is accused of using a machete-style knife to injure people on the Pennypack Park Trail in northeast Philadelphia in late November and early December. He now stands charged with aggravated assault, along with other charges. According to Interim Police Commissioner John Stafford Jr., Diaz's DNA seemed to link him to other sexual assaults that may have occurred in

Philadelphia's expansive Fairmont Park, as well as to the 2003 strangulation murder of a medical student. Stanford also stated that Diaz is currently a person of interest and charges are pending on the completion of the DNA comparison. Hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur was killed in Las Vegas, and now a one-time gang leader from Metro Los Angeles is accused of the killing. He's calling the charges against him baseless and based only on hearsay. Now he's requesting a judge to place him under home arrest until his trial. Once again, Crime Online's Sydney Sumner.

Dewan Keefe D. Davis's request to be freed on a $100,000 bail has been granted and a hearing date of January 2nd is now on the court schedule. According to his court-appointed attorneys, their 60-year-old client's health has worsened while in jail. They also claim that despite being in remission from colon cancer, Davis is not receiving the necessary medical care. their 60-year-old client's health has worsened while in jail. They also claim that despite being in remission from colon cancer, Davis is not receiving the necessary medical care. Davis, a native of Compton, California, was taken into custody on September 29, just outside a house near Las Vegas after police there executed a search warrant on July 17. Davis' bail application contends that his 2019 tell-all memoir and various interviews,

including those in which he described arranging the drive-by shooting that killed Shakur, and injured rap music entrepreneur Marion Shug Knight, should not be used as evidence against him. Davis is the only survivor of the vehicle from which the fatal gunfire erupted on September 7, 1996. Thanks, Jackie. Jane McDonnell Crone leaves work at a Houston tool company but doesn't make it home. That night, Jane's seen at a country dance club with a man her friends don't know. He's got dark hair and a mustache and said his name was David. The pair leave separately that evening, but Jane never makes it home. Her 1982 Mustang abandoned a few blocks from her home,

all her personal items gone. No sign of a struggle, but cops believe she may have been taken against her will. Jane McDonald Crone now missing 30 years. If you have info, contact Montgomery County Sheriff's 936-760-5800. 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.