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Paul Marshall
Rear Admiral
Joined: 30 Aug 2002
Posts: 2976
Location: Winston-Salem, North Carolina
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 Fri May 28, 2004 4:10 pm Police detain 2 in children's slayings |
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| Newsday.com wrote: | Police detain 2 in children's slayings
Related suspects believed to be uncles of 1 victim, but no motive; More arrests possible; 3 youngsters identified; 'Act of someone who ... has no conscience'
Map
Location of slayings
May 28, 2004
Photos
Mayor visits scene (Sun photo by Karl Merton Ferron)
May 27, 2004
Police at scene (Sun photo by Karl Merton Ferron)
May 27, 2004
The Day in Pictures
By Stephanie Hanes, Ryan Davis and Richard Irwin
Sun Staff
May 28, 2004, 3:38 PM EDT
Baltimore police today said two men have been arrested in the gruesome slayings of three young children whose bodies -- one decapitated, two partially beheaded -- were found in an apartment in a quiet Northwest Baltimore neighborhood yesterday.
Police identified the suspects as Adan Espinosa Canela, 17, and Policarpio Espinosa, 22. The two are cousins and are believed to be uncles of one of the victims. Last-known addresses for the men were not immediately available. Police said a motive was unclear.
The victims were identified by police and friends today as Ricardo A. Espinosa, 9; Lucero Quesada, a girl, also 9; and another boy, 10-year-old Alexis Quesada.
The suspects are believed to be the uncles of Ricardo, police said. The children were third- and fourth-graders at Cross County Elementary School in Mount Washington.
Police said Alexis and Lucero are related on the maternal side and that the other child, Ricardo, may also be a half-sibling.
"This is an act of someone who obviously has no conscience," Deputy Police Commissioner Kenneth Blackwell said at a news conference today.
"We are making strides in the investigation," he said. "We're still delving into the matter to determine what the motive might have been."
Joseph Sviatko, a spokesman for the city state's attorney's office, said the two suspects were each charged with three counts of first-degree murder and one count of possession of a deadly weapon.
Antonio Williams, the chief who oversees the police department's detectives, said today there is no indication the crime was gang-related and that more arrests are possible.
The person who police announced last night that they had detained after being identified by one of the mothers of the children remains a person of interest, Williams said at the news conference.
The children were likely home alone at the time of the attack, Williams said. There was no indication of forced entry through the apartment's front door.
Williams said investigators removed a lot of property from the scene, adding, "This case will have a heavy forensic component."
The suspected murder weapon is a 10- to 12-inch butcher knife, according to Williams. He said police believe the knife was used to kill all three children.
Mayor Martin O'Malley, speaking at today's news conference, called the crime, "brutal and heinous."
"I really want to thank the people of Northwest Baltimore for their strength and their courage," the mayor said.
Talking about the case, he said, "There is still a whole lot of work to be done."
Police earlier identified the victims as two girls and a boy, but said this morning that they had made a mistake. Police had said they believed there were two families living in the apartment.
The mothers of the children discovered the bodies hours after the youngsters had returned from elementary school. It was a scene that would later stun even veteran city police officers.
"There's blood all over my apartment," police dispatch reported a woman saying in a 911 call made around 5:25 p.m. "They've killed my family!"
Police said the call was probably made by a neighbor translating for the mothers, who have difficulty speaking English.
The principal at Cross Country Elementary, Matthew Riley, said today the children were Mexican. He described them as "good students, wonderful children." All were in English as a Second Language classes.
Grief counselors were at the school today, along with psychologists and social workers.
Riley greeted children as he normally does in a recreational area at the school. He said he spoke to the students and told them about the slayings.
"We want them to understand that school is a caring place to be," Riley said.
Some staff members were crying this morning at the school. "There's going to be tears and anger -- we're human beings," Riley said.
Bonnie S. Copeland, the chief executive officer of city schools, said the Cross Country staff "is holding up well." No plans have been made for a memorial service, Copeland said. "We're just trying to take care of the children and teachers now."
O'Malley visited the scene last night and urged members of the community to "reach out to one another, support one another." He described the crime then as a "brutal, tragic, unfathomably sad murder of three young children."
The man who detectives had been questioning was described by police yesterday as "a person of interest only" and has not been charged with any crime. He was picked up a couple of blocks from the scene and was described by police as cooperative.
Police said yesterday they believe the man had some sort of dispute with the children's relatives, and one of the mothers had pointed investigators to him.
The fire department's Medic 14 was the first to arrive at the Art Deco-style apartment complex in the 7000 block of Park Heights Ave. late yesterday afternoon.
"You can imagine their feeling when they saw what was inside the apartment," said Fire Department spokesman Kevin Cartwright.
The emergency workers found the children on the floor in two different bedrooms.
The mothers had apparently returned home from food shopping, according to a police source, to find the bodies. The source said the women became frantic and brought a neighbor into the apartment for assistance. The neighbor helped them call 911.
The children were a trio that neighbors said always seemed to be together -- playing in the nearby willow tree, asking for the phone number for Chuck E Cheese's.
The first police officer to enter the apartment was overcome by the scene, which Blackwell described as "gruesome" and "something I've not seen before in all the years I've been a part of the agency."
Blackwell said investigators recovered the knife from outside the apartment. No weapons were found inside the apartment, and there was no trace of drugs or drug use, Blackwell said.
Police picked up two priests from St. Ambrose Roman Catholic Church in Central Park Heights to counsel grieving family members. They spent all evening with the two mothers -- and the husband of one of them -- in the apartment building's leasing office.
"The family is absolutely stunned," said Brother Dennis Klemash.
The 1930s-era Samester Parkway Apartments -- which was listed in 1998 on the National Register of Historic Places -- is on the southern edge of a neighborhood considered largely Orthodox Jewish.
Neighbors described it as a safe place, one unaccustomed to the swarm of police cars and detectives present yesterday. Police records back that notion: not once in the past six months have officers responded to any unit at the apartment complex, according to a police spokeswoman.
"This is highly unusual for this neighborhood," Blackwell said.
Gregory Carter, who lives in another apartment in the building, said yesterday he had seen the children the day before, describing them as "carefree kids."
"Every time I saw them, they was playing cheerfully out in the yard," Carter said. One time, he said, the children came upstairs and knocked on his door asking for a phone number for Chuck E. Cheese's.
Theresa Hopson, 58, who lives nearby, said that she knew the children and would often see them playing together under a willow tree near her apartment window.
"They were beautiful children," she said. "When you saw one, you saw all three. They appeared to be very close to each other. ... It's devastating, absolutely devastating."
Sun staff writers Bill McCauley, Ben Pillow, Michael Dresser, Jason Song and Lynn Anderson contributed to this article. |
You know how mad this makes me???? 
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Leo Wyatt
Sweetest Angel
Joined: 25 Feb 2004
Posts: 19045
Location: Investigating A Crime Scene. What did Quark do this time?
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| Fri May 28, 2004 4:38 pm |
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I know what you mean. This is sad. 
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Paul Marshall
Rear Admiral
Joined: 30 Aug 2002
Posts: 2976
Location: Winston-Salem, North Carolina
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| Fri May 28, 2004 10:43 pm |
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I don't see how someone could go and decapitate or even try to decapitate a child. 
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Leo Wyatt
Sweetest Angel
Joined: 25 Feb 2004
Posts: 19045
Location: Investigating A Crime Scene. What did Quark do this time?
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| Sat May 29, 2004 5:22 am |
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There are alot of evil people in the world Paul and they do sick things. I would be outrage with anger. I hope they find all who did it or if it is that one? It is just so sad Children are so precious and people just want to kill them.
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Oliver
Thought Maker
Joined: 28 Feb 2004
Posts: 6096
Location: Antwerp, Belgium
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| Sat May 29, 2004 1:02 pm |
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I just heard this on the evening news about half an hour ago. It sure grossed me out. Some people really are sick.
But, did I hear correctly? The police are not sure they have the killers? They got 2, Adan Espinosa Canela and Policarpio Espinosa, but are not sure they did it?
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Pah-Wraith
Sheikh
Joined: 30 Nov 2001
Posts: 6012
Location: Londonistan.
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| Sat May 29, 2004 4:06 pm |
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That really is a disgusting thing to do, and I don't know what makes these people even psycologically comprehend or want to do these sort of actions 
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