Pray for Harlem!!

One person is dead after building collapse on hundred and 116,

Five years for justice???

After 5 years, family of fatal hit-and-run victim finds relief in driver's arrest

Steve Sweet always hoped the day would come when the man allegedly responsible for his sister's death would finally face the law.

"I think my first words was, 'What?'" Sweet said. "I was just tickled to death after all these years, five years and four months, they had finally located him."

Harlin Alvarez was arrested in an Atlanta airport while trying to leave the country for his native Guatemala. Police say he is an illegal immigrant who has been dodging the law for years.

"A lot of people way back always said that they'll probably never catch him," Sweet said, "that he's gone back to Guatemala. Or he's got a new name, and they'll never find him. But I felt like, sooner or later, he would always turn up."

Police say Alvarez was driving a red pickup truck in September of 2008 when he crossed the center lane, hitting Samantha Roach and her friend Billy Lynn Bell head on as they rode on their motorcycle. Alvarez fled the scene. 

Roach left behind her children, a husband, siblings and her parents, one who could not bear the grief.

"My mom died 19 months after the accident," Sweet said. "She was never the same after Sam died. To me, he killed both of them."

While bittersweet, Alvarez's arrest is the start of a long-awaited journey. But forgiveness will take even longer.

"That will never happen," said Steve Sweet Jr., Roach's father. "If he would have stuck around, I might have been able to, but for him to run, no. He doesn't deserve to be forgave," he explained. 

Sweet Jr. identified his daughter in the crash after he drove past. He says the memories are still fresh, and he thinks about her daily. After years of wondering where Alvarez escaped to, they find solace in the fact that he can run no more. 

"I feel good at the fact that he's going to come back and finally have to face us," Sweet said. "Being that he was a coward and run and wouldn't face us at the time, Now, he won't have a choice but to face us, face the judge and the jury."

The Sweets still keep in contact with Billy Bell's family, consoling each other from time to time. "It's a struggle for them as well," Sweet said. "He had two daughters."

Alvarez is currently awaiting extradition to Warren County from Georgia. His brother and friend served two years in prison for helping him leave town. After the sentence, they were both deported to Guatemala.

Annual cause of death????!!

COUPLE FOUND DEAD!!!

Couple found shot to death at Sumner Co. apartment

Two people were found shot to death Wednesday afternoon at a Sumner County apartment complex.

The bodies of a married couple in their 20s were discovered about 4 p.m. at Wellington Farms Apartments in the 200 block of Big Station Camp Boulevard in Gallatin.

Police said they first received word of the shooting after a phone call from New York.

But by the time officers arrived, it was too late.

"Young people - 20s - they've got their whole lives ahead of them. Whatever it is that brought them to this point really isn't worth losing your life over," said Gallatin police Ofc. Bill Storment.

What caused the shooting is still not known, but Storment says the couple filed for divorce Tuesday.

The identities of the people killed have not been released.

Word of the shooting brought sadness to neighbors, including Rhonda Wilson, who said she's holding her son a little tighter tonight.

"Anybody dead, it's a horrible thing, and I hate that so bad," Wilson said.

PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN SMACK DEALER ARRESTED

Suspected heroin dealer arrested in connection to Philip Seymour Hoffman’s overdose granted bail 

JEFFERSON SIEGEL/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Robert Vinberg, 57, was arrested on Feb. 4, two days after Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead of an apparent heroin overdose.

A longtime jazz musician who was busted for heroin possession in the wake of the apparent fatal overdose of Philip Seymour Hoffman was granted bail Friday.

Robert Vineberg, 57, who was once on tour with Wyclef Jean and played on an Amy Winehouse album, sat glumly in Manhattan Supreme Court as a judge gave him a bail of $200,000 bond or $40,000 cash.

His attorney, Edward Kratt, pleaded for lower bail, calling Vineberg an “accomplished musician” who has “been in the business since the late 1980s and has been associated with some really great musicians.”

He said he's a “heroin addict and has been a consistent user of heroin for a long period of time.”

RELATED: PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN'S FAMILY, FRIENDS ATTEND WAKE

The 300 bags of smack allegedly in his two apartments in the Mott St. building are largely for his own use, Kratt argued.

VICTORIA WILL/VICTORIA WILL/INVISION/AP

Hoffman’s cellphone was saved in at least three cellphones found in Vineberg’s Mott. St. apartment, sources said.

THE SON IN LAW DID IT !!!!!

Victims' son-in-law charged in deadly Lebanon explosion
Updated Yesterday at 10:50 PM
Reported by Carley Gordon

The son-in-law of a Wilson County couple killed when a package exploded at their home has been charged in their deaths.

Richard Parker, 49, was indicted Thursday on two counts each of first-degree murder and premeditated first-degree murder in the deaths of 74-year-old Jon Setzer and 72-year-old Marion Setzer.
Parker is also charged with unlawful possession of a prohibited weapon.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said Parker was arrested Thursday and lives on the same property where the deadly blast occurred.
The explosion happened about 5 p.m. Monday at the Setzers' home in the 500 block of Vance Lane, near Hartsville Pike.
Jon Setzer died in the explosion, and Marion Setzer was airlifted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, where she died from her injuries Wednesday evening.
Officials have not yet described the package but said it was not delivered to the home through the postal service or another parcel delivery company.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the FBI, state fire marshal's office and Wilson County Emergency Management Agency were among those investigating.
Authorities have not released any information on a possible motive in the deadly explosion, but they say the community can rest assured this was a targeted and isolated case.
"Certainly any time an explosive device is used or a firearm is used, it terrorizes an area. But I think the neighborhood and the region should be calm to know this was an event inside the same family," said ATF investigator Jeffrey Fulton.
The Associated Press reported Parker was convicted of arson in 1993 in Giles County and sentenced to four months of probation, according to records.
Copyright 2014 WSMV (Meredith Corporation). All rights reserved.

TROUBLE TEEN JUMP TO HER DEATH IN NYC!!

FACEBOOK

Jayah Shaileya Ram Jackson, pictured, went straight to the roof the building where her grandmother lived and jumped at about 10:40 a.m. Thursday, neighbors say.

A tormented 15-year-old girl who mused on Facebook about committing suicide jumped to her death Thursday from the roof of her grandmother’s Upper West Side building, police said.

Jayah Shaileya Ram Jackson’s recent posts portray an emotionally troubled teen who was gripped by loneliness and struggling with depression.

“I'm actually just going to wait for someone to make a petition for me to kill myself because it's inevitable,,, like, we all see it coming,” Jayah wrote on Tuesday.

Two days later, Jayah followed through on her suicidal threats.

The teen walked up to the roof of her grandmother’s Amsterdam Ave. building about 10:40 a.m. and plunged 27 stories, police sources said.

MARCUS SANTOS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

This building on 94th St. and Amsterdam Ave. is where Jayah Shaileya Ram Jackson, 15, jumped to her death in an apparent suicide Thursday.

“Rest in peace,” a friend wrote on Jayah’s Facebook page Thursday night. “To all the kids that disrespected you they only wanted what you had. Prayers to your family.”

RELATED: SUICIDE VICTIM AT SWANKY NYC HOTEL ID’D

Jayah — who was a student at NEST+m, a lower East Side school for gifted children — arrived at her grandma’s place earlier in the day and headed straight for the roof, sources said.

A surveillance camera captured her sitting there alone for two hours. Jayah then went downstairs and casually chatted with her grandma for 30 minutes before she returned to the roof and jumped.

The teen gave no indication to her grandmother that she was suicidal and did not leave a note, sources said.

FACEBOOK

On Facebook, Jayah Shaileya Ram Jackson talked about suicidal thoughts and criticism about her weight.

18 years for justice???

Florida man executed for 1995 rape, killing of 9-year-old boy 

Jimmy Ryce's legacy

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STARKE, Fla. — A man was executed Wednesday night in Florida for raping and killing a 9-year-old boy 18 years ago, a death that spurred the victim’s parents to press nationwide for stronger sexual predator confinement laws and better handling of child abduction cases.

Juan Carlos Chavez, 46, was pronounced dead at 8:17 p.m. Wednesday after a lethal injection at Florida State Prison, according to Gov. Rick Scott’s office.

Chavez made no final statement in the death chamber, though prison officials said he had submitted something in writing. He moved his feet frequently after the injection began at 8:02 p.m. but two minutes later stopped moving.

Chavez abducted Jimmy Ryce at gunpoint after the boy got off a school bus on Sept. 11, 1995, in rural Miami-Dade County. Testimony showed Chavez raped the boy, shot him when he tried to escape, then dismembered his body and hid the parts in concrete-covered planters.

Ellen Fullwood, of Ft. Myers, Fla. stands in vigil across the highway from the Florida State Correctional Prison near Starke, Fla. Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2014, before the execution