Child Abuse

A Riverside couple have been found guilty of torturing their 11-year-old nephew to death. Two juries, one for each defendant, Thursday found Raul and Cathy Sarinana guilty of first-degree murder. Police found the body of Ricky Morales in the Sarinana's bedroom closet the day after Christmas in 2005. Prosecutors said he had been beaten for not eating his breakfast. The body of his brother, Conrad, 13, was later found encased in concrete in a trash can. Investigators believe he was killed in Randle, Wash.

A Colombian man accused of sexually abusing his daughter from a young age and fathering eight children with her was arrested, causing an outcry over the lack of child protection in the nation. Arcebio Alvarez, 58, told a judge he was innocent, saying his accuser was not his biological daughter. He was jailed and the children, three boys and five girls, were put under state protection. He was transported to jail under military guard to keep angry crowds at bay. Earlier in the day, Alvarez was led away in handcuffs by agents from Colombia's attorney general's office after Alba Nidia Alvarez, the 35-year-old woman who claims to be his biological daughter, told police he had abused her since she was younger than 10.

Responding to a long-running pattern of child abuse deaths that might have been prevented, Los Angeles County supervisors unanimously ordered a renewed attempt Tuesday to ease communication among agencies that deal with troubled families. The order calls for an interlinked computer system that would expand child abuse investigators' ability to access records showing a family's criminal, educational and medical histories, including critical clues about dangers faced by children. Child advocates have pushed for such reforms for more than 18 years, to little avail.

A 35-year-old Cypress mother of three was arrested for allegedly leaving two of her children home alone in a house filled knee-high with trash and bugs, authorities said Wednesday. Police found the children Tuesday living in "deplorable" conditions, said Cypress police Sgt. Tom Bruce. "Frozen bugs were inside the refrigerator and the toilets were overflowing with human feces," Bruce said. The mother, Alison Le Anne Ebert, turned herself in to police, allegedly telling officers that she had been smoking marijuana and was addicted to methamphetamine and felt lazy and depressed.

Re "Court to weigh animal cruelty," Sept. 23 Free-speech advocates are urging the Supreme Court to strike down a law concerning marketing videos of animal cruelty and torture. According to David Horowitz of the Media Coalition: "The 1st Amendment is most necessary when unpopular speech is at issue." I agree that foul language or ugly speech must be tolerated under our Constitution. However, animals are not inanimate objects; they are not "speech." It is shameful and immoral to use our beloved Constitution as a shield for deranged people.

A prosecutor investigating the death of a malnourished 4-year-old quadruplet said he found "almost dungeon-like" conditions at the squalid condominium where the child and his siblings lived. Montgomery County Dist. Atty. Bruce Castor said he had not decided whether to charge the parents. Shawn Seymore was pronounced dead at a hospital Thursday after police were called to his family's Towamencin Township home.

For more than a year after a 15-year-old Lake Los Angeles boy shot himself to death, authorities have been building a case against his grandfather for abuse that they say prompted the suicide, including hitting the teen with a baseball bat. Greg Smith killed himself with a shotgun after grandfather Willie Davis beat him with an aluminum bat for not making his bed neatly enough, according to testimony by Davis' 16-year-old son, who also lived in the house and witnessed the Aug. 29, 2006, attack.

A 32-year-old woman accused of starving her baby to death has been ordered to stand trial on a child abuse charge, a district attorney's spokeswoman said Friday. Ranetta Maxwell is scheduled to be arraigned Jan. 31 on one count of child abuse involving the August death of her 7-week-old daughter, Jasmine. Maxwell had previously pleaded not guilty. Jasmine was found dead a day after a county children's social worker visited her at the Union Rescue Mission, a skid row shelter where she had lived since birth.

With tears streaming down her cheeks, Sheila Marie Sikat turned to search the sea of faces in a crowded Santa Ana courtroom Friday. "I'm sorry," she whispered to a sister, locking eyes as they both wept.

A Catholic priest whose absence during a sex-abuse case resulted in an attempt to hold Diocese of Orange Bishop Tod Brown in contempt of court is back in Orange County. Msgr. John Urell was released from a psychiatric facility in Canada after six months of treatment for an acute anxiety disorder, church officials confirmed Tuesday. He is currently in retreat with family and close friends and is expected to begin resuming his duties as pastor of St. Norbert Catholic Church in Orange sometime after Easter, a spokesman said.