apps80x80
Get the News 8 App

Get video, live streams and the latest news, weather and sports on the WQAD mobile app!

Iowa man gets prison sentence for stealing trees

Randall Todd Walker - photo from the Polk County Jail

A Des Moines man was sentenced to 15 months in prison for stealing black walnut trees from several locations in Iowa.

  • Crime

    Iowa shooting hoax blamed on ‘SWATing’

    Nearby homes were evacuated and dozens of police responded to a Des Moines report of an armed man shooting his mother and threatening to use explosives – and it was all fake.

  • Crime George Allen Woods III - photo from Scott County Jail

    Davenport man charged with bigamy

    A Davenport man is accused of marrying in March without first divorcing his previous wife.

  • Crime (l to r) Donald Brackett, Richard Groom and Lisa Moyer (photos from Galesburg Police)

    Galesburg shop busted for synthetic drugs for second time

    A 78-year-old man and two people in their fifties are charged in connection with the alleged sale of bath salts and other synthetic drugs out of a shop in Galesburg, Illinois.

  • Crime / News jail prison bars generic

    Iowa man imprisoned for holding wife hostage

    An Iowa man has been sentenced after pleading guilty to holding his wife hostage back in July of 2012.

  • Crime Ariel Castro photo from Cuyahoga, Ohio County Sheriff

    $8-million bond set for Cleveland kidnapping suspect

    A prosecutor claims Ariel Castro maintained his home as a prison for three young women, holding them in seclusion and sexually assaulting them for his own pleasure.

  • Crime / News Jodi Arias takes the stand in her own defense

    Jury finds Jodi Arias guilty of first-degree murder

    An Arizona jury Wednesday found Jodi Arias guilty of first-degree murder for killing Travis Alexander in June 2008.

  • Crime Dujor Simpson photo from Rock Island County Jail

    Carbon Cliff man accused of robbing Silvis store at gunpoint

    Police said it took a few hours but they caught a man they think is responsible for an armed robbery in Silvis, Illinois.

  • Crime Lawson Elementary

    Father charged after son takes gun to Iowa school

    The father of an 8-year-old boy who took a gun to an Iowa elementary school now faces criminal charges.

  • Crime Castro Brothers photos from police

    Brothers arrested in Ohio kidnapping case

    Nothing about their interactions prepared neighbors for the shocking allegations that Ariel Castro was holding three young women against their will in his home.

  • Crime Newberry Wright and Alex Kinser photos from Pottawattamie County Jail

    Iowa target shooters accused of firing shots at fishermen

    A fight between target shooters and fishermen ended with the shooters allegedly firing at the fishermen.

  • Crime (CNN) -- Amanda Berry was last seen after finishing her shift at a Burger King in Cleveland in 2003. It was the eve of her 17th birthday. Georgina "Gina" DeJesus disappeared nearly a year later, in April 2004. She was 14. Michele Knight vanished in 2002, at age 19, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper. All three were found alive in a home in a Cleveland neighborhood Monday night, police announced in a development hailed as a miracle by their families. "Help me, I am Amanda Berry," Berry told police in a frantic 911 call from a neighbor's house. "I've been kidnapped, and I've been missing for 10 years. And I'm here, I'm free now." Police swiftly moved in on the house where the three women said they had been and later arrested a 52-year-old man, identified as a former school bus driver. Two others, identified as his brothers, ages 50 and 54, also have been arrested, Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba told reporters late Monday. Police believe only the middle brother lived at the home, he said. The men are being held in the city jail awaiting charges. An FBI team is collecting evidence in the house. "This is a great, great outcome that we have them still with us," Tomba said. "It's just truly, truly amazing and it's a blessing to the community and to the members of the police department and their families that they're alive. I can't tell you how happy we are." Those feelings were echoed at Cleveland's Metro Health Medical Center where the three women and a fourth person were being treated. "This isn't the ending we usually hear to these stories, so we're very happy," said Dr. Gerald Maloney, an emergency room physician there. "We're very happy for them." The three women were in fair condition. Maloney would not identify the fourth person being seen at the hospital, but witnesses said Berry, who escaped from the house with the help of a neighbor, had a young child with her. The escape Neighbor Charles Ramsey was sitting down to a fast food meal when he heard screaming. "I see this girl going nuts trying to get out of a house," he told CNN affiliate WEWS. "I go on the porch and she says, 'help me get out. I've been in here a long time.'" Figuring it was a domestic dispute, Ramsey kicked in the bottom of the door and the woman came out with a little girl and said, "Call 911, My name is Amanda Berry," according to Ramsey, who admitted he didn't recognize the name or know she was missing. Free from the house where they had been held captive, Berry pleaded for a phone. "They were crazy, screaming, 'Help, call police, please help.' ... They were desperate, crying, running," said Angela Garcia, whose aunt provided the phone for them to call police. Ramsey also called 911, less than a minute later. "She's like, 'This (expletive) kidnapped me and my daughter,'" he told 911. DeJesus's mother, Nancy, met with her at the hospital, cousin Sylvia Colon, told CNN's "Piers Morgan Live." She had never given up hope of finding her daughter alive. "She has always said that she just could feel it, a link a mom can feel, but she always believed Gina was alive and well," Colon said. "She always believed that. I just want to say what a phenomenal Mother's Day gift she gets this Mother's Day." Suspect's identity Brian Cummins, a councilman who represents the area where the women were found, identified the suspect in whose home the women were found as Ariel Castro. The Plain Dealer reported that Castro was arrested at a nearby McDonald's. His uncle, Julio Castro, told CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" that his family had grown up in the same west Cleveland neighborhood and knew the DeJesus family. Castro used to work as a bus driver for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, according to district spokeswoman Roseann Canfora. She did not have specifics Monday night on how long he was employed, when he left or whether he was fired or left voluntarily. Ramsey told reporters the suspect wasn't known for anything exciting -- "until today." "We see this dude every day. I've been here a year. I barbecued with this dude. We eat ribs and listen to salsa music," Ramsey said. And Garcia said neighbors "never saw nothing suspicious." "We never saw the girls there, and we were always outside," she said. "We only saw the guy." Amanda Berry - center - found alive

    Kidnapped women found alive

    Police hailed it as a miracle that three women, missing for years, were found alive in a Cleveland home.

  • Crime atchison

    Charges upgraded against woman who allegedly shot and killed husband

    A woman accused of shooting her husband in the head is telling police it was an accident.

More ›‹ Previous

Most Viewed

Photo Galleries

More galleries ›
apps80x80
Get the News 8 App

Get video, live streams and the latest news, weather and sports on the WQAD mobile app!