David P. Santuomo, 43, was very excited on December 3rd, 2008. No, it wasn’t because Santa Claus would be coming soon. He and his girlfriend were about to take the vacation of their dreams, a week-long cruise complete with all the amenities you’d expect from what amounts too a floating five star luxury hotel. He worked hard and deserved this break from his stressful job as a firefighter for the city of Columbus, Ohio.

But what to do about Sloopy and Skeeter, the two mutts he had adopted for the Humane Society in 2007. Money was tight, so he couldn’t afford to pay to board them, and for some reason, he chose not to let a neighbor watch the dogs while he was away, despite the fact that the neighbor twice offered to do it for free.

Rush Limbaugh, who once was a local radio personality in California’s Sacramento region before his national fame, used to call the subdivision of Rio Linda the “armpit of Sacramento”. Rio Linda is also the childhood neighborhood of Eric Royce Leonard, a kid remembered by his peers for doing weird things like eating his pet snake for a dollar.

In early 1991 I was attending college in Sacramento while working as a supervisor at a fast food restaurant on Auburn Blvd. And I was scared. My coworkers were also scared. The entire neighborhood was scared. In fact, the police were scared. We were afraid of Sacramento’s latest serial killer, nick-named the “Thrill Killer” but also known as the “Beef Jerky Killer” by Sacramento homicide detectives outside the hearing of the public. Sacramento has a long history in the serial killer arena, ranking as the 20th largest United States metropolitan area but according to the Sacramento News and Review, it has been home to a whopping 15% of the nations known serial killers.

COPS: SUSPECT IN MIAMI-DADE CAT KILLINGS A ‘SOCIOPATH’
by David Ovalle, The Miami Herald

In an interview with police, accused cat killer Tyler Weinman eagerly detailed how to dissect cats, even describing the ”tearing sound” made when cutting open a feline’s flesh, according to an arrest affidavit released Monday.

Miami-Dade police detectives concluded Weinman fits the bill of a “sociopath.”

The arrest affidavit, released one month after Weinman’s arrest, details a circumstantial case based on the teen’s suspicious late-night forays, cat claw scratches on his body and cryptic, disturbing comments about feline dissection.

The document reveals for the first time evidence used to arrest Weinman in a case that terrorized pet owners and generated national headlines. The warrant ”speaks for itself,” said Miami-Dade prosecutor Elijah Levitt.

RAUL SARINANA, CATHY SARINANA SENTENCED TO DEATH IN NEPHEWS’ MURDERS
by Alicia Robinson, The Press Enterprise

The marriage of Raul and Cathy Sarinana was “a match made in hell” that resulted in the deaths of two defenseless boys, a judge said Friday before sentencing the Corona couple to death.

Raul Ricardo Sarinana, 42, and Cathy Lynn Sarinana, 32, were convicted in March of torturing and murdering 11-year-old Ricky Morales, their nephew. Authorities have said they believe the couple also killed 13-year-old Conrad Morales, Ricky’s brother, in Randle, Wash. Charges have not been filed in that death.

In pronouncing sentences for the Sarinanas in Superior Court in Riverside, Judge Paul E. Zellerbach followed the recommendations two juries made in April. A sentence of death in California is automatically appealed.

I’d like all of you to meet 26-year-old Justin Shine. Justin Shine likes children, and he especially enjoys playing silly games with the neighborhood kids. Wow, it sounds like Justin Shine is a really sweet guy, doesn’t it?

On June 29th, 2009, Justin Shine saw a six-year-old girl who lived in the same Hanover Woods apartment complex as his ex-girlfriend. Shine’s ex-girlfriend, Holly Hersh, kicked Shine out of the apartment two weeks prior to the attack after he became hooked on drugs and she found a hypodermic needle in the apartment they shared with her young son, but he broke in over the weekend.

On January 11th, 2006, at around 4:00 AM, New York City emergency services responded to a report of an unconscious child at an apartment in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn. When they arrived, they found a 7-year-old girl lying on a wooden floor, naked from the waist up, a pair of red sweatpants hanging off her malnourished frame. Bruises and ugly cuts covered her torso. Her half-opened eyes were blackened.

Little Nixzmary Brown was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy would later reveal that Nixzmary weighed only 36 pounds, about half the weight of a normal girl of her age. She had a gash on her forehead and a huge scab on here chin to go along with the two black eyes. Bruises of all different colors ran up and down her painfully thin frame. There were raw wounds on both her ankles, apparently from being tied to a chair or some other object. The direct cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head. She had also been sexually abused.