Latest news with #missingchild
Malay Mail
an hour ago
- Malay Mail
Zayn Rayyan's mum: I searched apartment blocks, not nearby garden where his body was found
PETALING JAYA, July 23 — The mother of the late Zayn Rayyan Abdul Matin admitted in the Sessions Court here today that she did not search the garden area near her apartment in Block R, Idaman Apartment, Damansara Damai, when her son with autism, went missing on Dec 5, 2023 Instead, Ismanira Abdul Manaf, 30, said she searched around the apartment complex and nearby premises. 'I searched every floor in Block R, then continued to Block S and Block A. All the apartment blocks have four levels. I searched alone at first while staying in contact with my husband (Zaim Ikhwan Zahari), who was then on his way home from work. 'He told me he was almost at Idaman Apartment and asked me to wait in front of Block E. When he arrived, we continued the search together,' she said during cross-examination by deputy public prosecutor Raja Zaizul Faridah Raja Zaharudin on the third day of her defence trial. Ismanira said she and her husband also looked for Zayn Rayyan at several places within a 500-metre radius from their home, including a petrol station, fast food outlets, her workplace, his school, Indah Apartment, Harmoni Apartment and Prima Damansara. Ismanira agreed with the prosecution's suggestion that all the locations she searched were farther away than the garden next to Block R. The first defence witness, however, disagreed with the prosecution's suggestion that she had encountered several people while searching the apartment blocks. 'Perhaps a few, but not many. It was during working hours, so the area was quiet except for the shop section. I only met people when I stopped at Block A, where there were stalls. My husband and I left our contact numbers at each shop we visited,' she said. When questioned by defence counsel Haresh Mahadevan about her decision to search areas 500 metres away instead of the nearby garden, Ismanira said, 'I know my son. He is on the autism spectrum, and he only goes to places he is familiar with. 'I never brought Zayn to the garden or to the location where his body was found. Unless something unusual had happened or someone took him there, he wouldn't have gone there on his own,' she said. On Monday, Judge Dr Syahliza Warnoh ruled that the prosecution had established a prima facie case and ordered Ismanira to enter her defence. Her husband, Zaim Ikhwan, 30, was discharged and acquitted of the same charge. The couple had been accused of neglecting Zayn Rayyan in a manner likely to cause him physical harm between noon on Dec 5 and 9.55 pm on Dec 6, 2023, in the vicinity of Block R of Idaman Apartment and the nearby river. They were charged under Section 31(1)(a) of the Child Act 2001, read together with Section 34 of the Penal Code. If convicted, the offence carries a maximum sentence of 20 years' imprisonment, a fine of up to RM50,000, or both. The trial continues this afternoon. — Bernama
CBS News
11 hours ago
- CBS News
Colorado toddler missing in open space in Silverthorne, police say; search and rescue effort ongoing
Police and Colorado search and rescue crews are looking for a missing toddler last seen in the Willow Grove Open Space in Silverthorne, police said Tuesday evening. The one-and-a-half-year-old boy was reported missing just before 4 p.m. at the area off Willow Way along the Blue River Trail. The area is just west of Blue River Parkway, about 8 miles north of Interstate 70. The boy was last seen wearing a green sweatshirt, blue jean shorts, and white Velcro Nikes. Anyone who sees him is asked to call 911 or non-emergency dispatch at 970-668-8600.
CBS News
11 hours ago
- CBS News
Melina Frattolin, 9-year-old girl found dead after N.Y. Amber Alert, died by drowning, medical examiner says
New York State Police have released the cause of death of the 9-year-old girl who was reported missing in Upstate New York over the weekend, sparking an Amber Alert. An autopsy determined Melina Frattolin's cause of death was asphyxia due to drowning, and the manner of her death was a homicide, New York State Police said. Melina's father Luciano Frattolin, 45, faces second-degree murder and concealment of human corpse charges in the case. Melina's body was found in a pond in the town of Ticonderoga Sunday morning after her father reported her missing Saturday night. Luciano Frattolin initially told police he had pulled over in a parking lot to urinate and while he was away from the car, Melina was abducted by two men in a white van. Police said after a thorough investigation of that claim, they determined it never happened. Police are asking for the public's help as they continue to investigate the incident. Specifically, they want to hear from anyone who might have been on the I-87 Northway between Exits 28-20 Saturday night who might've seen or made video of the vehicle Melina and her father were traveling in — a gray 2024 Toyota Prius. Police released an image of the car. Anyone with information is asked to call 518-873-2750. You can also submit a tip by emailing crimetip@ New York State Police said Melina and her father legally travelled to the U.S. from Montreal for vacation on July 11, and were expected to return home on July 19. Melina lived with her mother in Montreal, and her mother and father had been estranged since 2019. Melina spoke with her mother at around 6:30 p.m. Saturday, New York State Police said, and did not give any indication of being under duress. New York State Police believe Luciano Frattolin murdered his daughter sometime after that phone call, and before he called 911 with a fake Amber Alert claim at around 10 p.m. The motive remains under investigation. Luciano Frattolin has pleaded not guilty. He has no criminal record, police said, and no background of domestic violence.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Tulsa Police say homeless woman paid $50 to take now missing 3-year-old
Tulsa Police say homeless woman paid $50 to take now missing 3-year-old Solve the daily Crossword
CBS News
2 days ago
- CBS News
Etan Patz case: Pedro Hernandez found guilty of murder in boy's 1979 disappearance
Editor's note: On July 21, 2025, a federal appeals court ruled that Pedro Hernandez should have a new trial or be released. The Manhattan DA's office is reviewing the decision. NEW YORK -- A former store clerk was convicted Tuesday of murder in one of the nation's most haunting missing-child cases, nearly 38 years after 6-year-old Etan Patz disappeared on the way to the school bus stop. Pedro Hernandez showed no reaction as jurors delivered their verdict. Another jury had deadlocked following 18 days of deliberation in 2015, leading to a retrial that spanned more than three months. Hernandez, who once worked in a convenience store in Etan's neighborhood, had confessed, but his lawyers said his admissions were the false imaginings of a mentally ill man. This time, the jury deliberated over nine days before finding Hernandez, 56, guilty of murder during a kidnapping in a case that shaped both parenting and law enforcement practices in the United States. Some of the jurors from the first trial attended the second one, and several of them wept Tuesday as the verdict was read. The slain boy's father, Stan Patz, was being comforted by the ex-jurors and appeared to wipe tears from his eyes. "I am truly relieved and I'll tell you, it's about time," Stan Patz told reporters. He said he didn't expect the first jury to deadlock, but said the prosecutors' presentation answered questions for him about his son's disappearance. "I needed to know what happened to my son," Patz said. "This great prosecution team finally proved it – at least I knew it back then, regardless of the verdict, at least I know what happened." Patz said he had spoken on the phone briefly with his wife. He said she was crying. In a statement, District Attorney Cyrus Vance said Etan's case "will no longer be remembered as one of the city's oldest and most painful unsolved crimes," CBS New York reports. "The disappearance of Etan Patz haunted families in New York and across the country for nearly four decades," Vance said. "Etan's legacy will endure through his family's long history of advocacy on behalf of missing children. However, it is my hope that today's verdict provides the Patz family with the closure they so desperately deserve." The Patz family and authorities may never know exactly what became of the boy. No trace of him has been found since the May day he vanished, on the first day he got the grown-up privilege of walking alone to the bus stop about two blocks away in the then-edgy but neighborly SoHo section of lower Manhattan. Etan became one of the first missing children ever pictured on milk cartons, and the anniversary of his disappearance has been designated National Missing Children's Day. His parents lent their voices to a campaign to make missing children a national cause, and it fueled laws that established a national hotline and made it easier for law enforcement agencies to share information about vanished youngsters. And his disappearance helped tilt parenting to more protectiveness in a nation where many families had felt comfortable letting children play and roam in their neighborhoods alone. "It's a cautionary tale, a defining moment, a loss of innocence," Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi said in an opening statement. "It is Etan who will forever symbolize the loss of that innocence." Prosecutors said after the verdict was announced Tuesday it provided some measure of justice for the Patz family. "I just want to thank God this jury has worked so hard to a just and truthful verdict for the Patz family, who has suffered so terribly for almost four decades," Illuzzi said. The decades-long investigation took investigators as far as Israel, but Hernandez wasn't a suspect until 2012, when renewed news coverage of the case prompted a brother-in-law to tell police that Hernandez had told a prayer group decades earlier that he'd killed a child in New York. Authorities would later learn that he'd made similar, if not entirely consistent, remarks to a friend and his ex-wife in the early years after Etan vanished. After police finally came to Hernandez' Maple Shade, New Jersey, door, he confessed, saying he'd offered Etan a soda to get him into the store basement, choked him, put him in a box — still alive, he said — and left the box with a pile of curbside trash. "Something just took over me," Hernandez said in one of a series of recorded confessions to police and prosecutors. He said he'd wanted to tell someone, "but I didn't know how to do it. I felt so sorry." Prosecutors cast his confession as the chillingly believable words of a man unburdening himself, and they argued it was buttressed by the less specific admissions he'd made earlier to his relatives and acquaintances. Defense lawyers and doctors portrayed Hernandez as man with psychological problems and intellectual limitations that made him struggle to tell reality from fantasy — and made him susceptible to confessing falsely after more than six hours of questioning before recording began. His daughter testified that he talked about seeing visions of angels and demons and once watered a dead tree branch, believing it would grow. "Pedro Hernandez is an odd, limited and vulnerable man," defense lawyer Harvey Fishbein said in his closing argument. "Pedro Hernandez is an innocent man." Prosecutors have suggested Hernandez faked or exaggerated his symptoms. Defense lawyers also pointed to a different man who was long the prime suspect — a convicted Pennsylvania child molester who made incriminating remarks about Etan's case in the 1990s and who had dated a woman acquainted with the Patzes. He was never charged and denies killing Etan. Several jurors spoke to reporters, saying they overcame an initial split during the lengthy deliberations. "There had to have been a divide for us to deliberate that long," juror Cateryn Kiernan said. "…We approached it logically and compassionately. We were very nervous about making the wrong call." Another juror said the group did believe Hernandez suffered from mental illness, but said they ultimately decided he was not delusional and knew right from wrong. Stan Patz said he was confident the second jury's questions and requests for exhibits during the deliberations were "a positive sign they were concentrating on what I thought was the right thing."
