CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
April 21, 2014 | By Paloma Esquivel
A man who allegedly used Facebook to try to recruit a 17-year-old girl for prostitution has been charged with human trafficking, Orange County prosecutors said. Dwight Lamith Garris, 34, allegedly believed he had befriended a minor, but he was actually communicating with an undercover Anaheim police officer, the Orange County district attorney's office said Monday in a statement. Garris, a Palmdale resident, tried to recruit the girl over a period of about eight days in early April to work as a prostitute and to recruit other sex workers for him, according to the statement.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
April 18, 2014 | By Adolfo Flores and Paloma Esquivel
The father of a man accused of raping and killing four women in Orange County said he doesn't believe his son is capable of carrying out the attacks. Dean Gordon said the family is embarrassed and trying to cope with the accusations. "He's been charged with something that is very serious," Dean Gordon said. "I'm devastated but I don't think my son is capable of that. " Steven Dean Gordon, 45, and Franc Cano, 27, are charged with the rape and murder of four women who disappeared in Orange County since last fall.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
April 14, 2014 | By Adolfo Flores
Murder and rape charges were filed Monday against two registered sex offenders accused of killing four women who vanished from the streets of Orange County. Franc Cano, 27, and Steven Dean Gordon, 45, were formally charged Monday with murder in the commission of rape and lying in wait, accusations that would make them subject to the death penalty. Both have prior convictions, and have done time in prison for sex crimes against a child under the age of 14. The two transients were arrested Friday in an industrial area of Anaheim, not far from the trash-sorting facility where the body of 21-year-old Jarrae Nykkole Estepp was found last month on a conveyor belt.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
April 13, 2014 | By Paloma Esquivel and Adolfo Flores
Two transients arrested in Orange County on suspicion of killing four women were registered sex offenders who were required to wear electronic monitoring devices and check in with police every 30 days, according to law enforcement authorities and court records. Franc Cano, 27, and Steven Dean Gordon, 45, were arrested Friday evening in an industrial part of Anaheim, just blocks from the trash-sorting center where the body of one victim, Jarrae Nykkole Estepp, 21, was found last month.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
April 10, 2014 | By Rong-Gong Lin II
It was a lone F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet that produced the sonic boom Wednesday that produced the rumbling so intense some Los Angeles and Orange County residents insisted it was an earthquake. The confirmation Thursday from the U.S. Navy came as some questioned that the rumbling came from an aircraft, while others suggested it was a test of the fabled Aurora spy plane. “It's maddening these things draw up these conspiracy theories,” said Peter Merlin, an aerospace historian and an author on military and experimental aircraft.
SPORTS
April 4, 2014 | By Eric Sondheimer
Ted Mullen, who was a successful high school football coach for 18 years at Villa Park, Irvine University, Santa Ana Foothill and Anaheim, died on Friday morning. He was 81. He won two Southern Section titles and was inducted into the Southern Section Hall of Fame in 2013. Mullen is survived by his daughter, Jodi. Funeral arrangements are pending. Eric.sondheimer@latimes.com