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Diane Dimond
Diane Dimond (born November 15, 1952) is an American investigative journalist, author, syndicated columnist, and TV commentator. She is best known for breaking the story of child molestation allegations against singer Michael Jackson and her coverage of the subsequent criminal trial. She has worked as a correspondent for ''Hard Copy'', ''Extra'', ''NBC'', ''Entertainment Tonight'', ''Court TV'', and ''Investigation Discovery''. Early life Dimond was born in Burbank, California, the only child of Ruby and Allen Hughes. The family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico where her parents owned and operated the Hughes Meat Co. While attending Highland High School, Dimond worked as a receptionist at KGGM, a CBS-affiliated television station in Albuquerque. It was there that she became interested in broadcast journalism. Career Early career Dimond began her career working at KOB Radio as a reporter where she covered legal and police matters. In 1976, she won a Silver Gavel Award from th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Burbank, California
Burbank is a city in the southeastern end of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located northwest of downtown Los Angeles, Burbank has a population of 107,337. The city was named after David Burbank, who established a sheep ranch there in 1867. Billed as the "Media Capital of the World" and only a few miles northeast of Hollywood, numerous media and entertainment companies are headquartered or have significant production facilities in Burbank, including Warner Bros. Entertainment, The Walt Disney Company, Nickelodeon Animation Studio, The Burbank Studios, Cartoon Network Studios with the West Coast branch of Cartoon Network, and Insomniac Games. The broadcast network The CW is also headquartered in Burbank. The Hollywood Burbank Airport was the location of Lockheed's Skunk Works, which produced some of the most secret and technologically advanced airplanes, including the U-2 spy planes that uncovered Soviet Union missile components ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Washington D
Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on Washington, D.C. * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States Washington may also refer to: Places England * Washington, Tyne and Wear, a town in the City of Sunderland metropolitan borough ** Washington Old Hall, ancestral home of the family of George Washington * Washington, West Sussex, a village and civil parish Greenland * Cape Washington, Greenland * Washington Land Philippines *New Washington, Aklan, a municipality *Washington, a barangay in Catarman, Northern Samar *Washington, a barangay in Escalante, Negros Occidental *Washington, a barangay in San Jacinto, Masbate *Washington, a barangay in Surigao City United States * Washington, Wisconsin (other) * Fort Washington (disambiguatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jordan Chandler
In 1993, Evan Chandler, a dentist and screenwriter based in Los Angeles, accused the American singer Michael Jackson of sexually abusing his 13-year-old son, Jordan Chandler. Jackson had befriended Jordan after renting a vehicle from Jordan's stepfather. Though Evan Chandler initially encouraged the friendship, he later confronted his ex-wife, who had custody of Jordan, with suspicions that the relationship was inappropriate. Chandler wanted to resolve the issue with a financial settlement, but he and Jackson could not agree on an amount. In July, Jordan told a psychiatrist and police that Jackson had sexually abused him, triggering an investigation. Some of Jackson's staff reported inappropriate behavior, but the police dismissed their accounts as not credible as they had sold their stories to tabloids or had grievances against Jackson. Jackson's legal team maintained that Chandler was attempting to extort Jackson, citing a phone recording in which he said he was going to "humil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polly Klass
Polly Hannah Klaas (January 3, 1981 – October 1, 1993) was an American murder victim whose case garnered national media attention. On October 1, 1993, at age twelve, she was kidnapped at knifepoint during a slumber party at her mother's home in Petaluma, California, and was later strangled. Richard Allen Davis was convicted of her murder in 1996 and sentenced to death. Background On October 1, 1993, Polly Klaas and two friends were having a slumber party. Around 10:30 pm, an intoxicated Richard Allen Davis entered their bedroom, carrying a knife from the Klaas's kitchen. He told the girls he was there to do no harm and was only there for money. Davis tied both of her friends up, pulled pillowcases over their heads, and told them to count to 1,000. He then kidnapped Klaas. Over the next two months, about 4,000 people helped search for Klaas. TV shows such as ''20/20'' and ''America's Most Wanted'' covered the kidnapping. An APB (all-points bulletin) with the suspect's informati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Allen Davis
Richard Allen Davis (born June 2, 1954) is an American convicted murderer whose criminal record fueled support for the passage of California's "three-strikes law" for repeat offenders and the involuntary civil commitment act for sex offenders and predators. He was convicted in 1996 of first-degree murder with special circumstances (burglary, robbery, kidnapping, and an attempted lewd act upon a child under the age of 14) of a 12-year-old Polly Klaas. Davis abducted Polly on October 1, 1993, from her home in Petaluma, California and murdered her a few hours later; he led investigators to her mummified and skeletonized remains on December 4 of the same year, the day before searches for her body were to recommence. A Santa Clara County jury rendered a death verdict on August 5, 1996. After the verdict was read, Davis stood and made an obscene finger gesture at the courtroom camera with both hands. Later, at his formal sentencing, he read a statement during which he claimed that Po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeffrey MacDonald
Jeffrey Robert MacDonald (born October 12, 1943) is an American former medical doctor and United States Army captain who was convicted in August 1979 of murdering his pregnant wife and two daughters in February 1970 while serving as an Army Special Forces physician. MacDonald has always proclaimed his innocence of the murders, which he claims were committed by four intruders—three male and one female—who had entered the unlocked rear door of his apartment at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and attacked him, his wife, and his children with instruments such as knives, clubs and ice picks. Prosecutors and appellate courts have pointed to strong physical evidence attesting to his guilt. He is currently incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland. The MacDonald murder case remains one of the most litigated murder cases in American criminal history. Early life Jeffrey MacDonald was born in Jamaica, Queens, New York, the second of three children bor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martin Luther King Jr
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. An African American church leader and the son of early civil rights activist and minister Martin Luther King Sr., King advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through nonviolence and civil disobedience. Inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi, he led targeted, nonviolent resistance against Jim Crow laws and other forms of discrimination. King participated in and led marches for the right to vote, desegregation, labor rights, and other civil rights. He oversaw the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and later became the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As president of the SCLC, he led the unsuccessful Albany Movement in Albany, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Earl Ray
James Earl Ray (March 10, 1928 – April 23, 1998) was an American fugitive convicted for assassinating Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. After this Ray was on the run and was captured in the UK. Ray was convicted in 1969 after entering a guilty plea—thus forgoing a jury trial and the possibility of a death sentence—and was sentenced to 99 years of imprisonment. Early life and education Ray was born on March 10, 1928, in Alton, Illinois, the son of Lucille Ray (née Maher) and George Ellis Ray. He had Irish, Scottish and Welsh ancestry and had a Catholic upbringing. In February 1935, Ray's father, known by the nickname Speedy, passed a bad check in Alton, Illinois, and then moved to Ewing, Missouri, where the family changed their name to Raynes to avoid law enforcement. James Earl Ray was the oldest of nine children, including John Larry Ray, Franklin Ray, Jerry William Ray, Melba Ray, Carol Ray Pepper, Suzan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kenneth Bianchi
Kenneth Alessio Bianchi (born May 22, 1951) is an American serial killer, kidnapper, and rapist. He is known for the Hillside Strangler murders committed with his cousin Angelo Buono Jr. in Los Angeles, California, as well as for murdering two more women in Washington by himself. Bianchi is currently serving a sentence of life imprisonment in Washington State Penitentiary for these crimes. Bianchi was also at one time a suspect in the Alphabet murders, three unsolved murders in his home city of Rochester, New York, from 1971 to 1973. Early life Kenneth Bianchi was born on May 22, 1951, in Rochester, New York, to a 17-year-old alcoholic sex worker who gave him up for adoption two weeks after he was born. He was adopted in August 1951 by Nicholas Bianchi and his wife Frances Scioliono-Bianchi, and was their only child. Bianchi was deeply troubled from a young age, with his adoptive mother describing him as "a compulsive liar" from the time he could talk. He would often fall into i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pamela Smart
Pamela Ann Smart (née Wojas; born August 16, 1967) is an American woman who was convicted of being an accomplice to first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and witness tampering. In 1990, at age 22, Smart conspired with her underaged sex partner, then 15-year-old William "Billy" Flynn, and three of his friends to have her 24-year-old husband Greggory Smart murdered in Derry, New Hampshire. She is currently serving a life sentence at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, a maximum security prison in Westchester County, New York. Early life Pamela Smart was born Pamela Wojas in Windham, New Hampshire, on August 16, 1967, the daughter of John and Linda Wojas. She grew up in Miami, Florida, before her family moved to Derry, New Hampshire, when she was in the eighth grade. Pamela attended secondary school at Pinkerton Academy in Derry, where she was a cheerleader, and graduated from Florida State University (FSU) with a degree in communications. At FSU, she had b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heidi Fleiss
Heidi Lynne Fleiss (born December 30, 1965) is an American former madam. She ran an upscale prostitution ring based in Los Angeles and is often referred to as the " Hollywood Madam". Fleiss has also worked as a columnist and was a television personality regularly featured in the 1990s in American media. Early life Fleiss was born and raised in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. Her father, Paul M. Fleiss (1933–2014) was a pediatrician and her mother, Elissa (née Ash) was an elementary school teacher. Their marriage ended in divorce. She has a brother, Jesse, and had another brother, Jason, who drowned. She also has three sisters: Amy, Kim, and Shana. Prostitution and tax evasion At the age of 22, Fleiss began managing a prostitution ring under Madam Alex after meeting her in 1987 via Fleiss's film-director boyfriend Iván Nagy. Fleiss stated in 2002 that Alex and she had "a very intense relationship" and that she "was kind of like the daughter she loved and hated, s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baby M
Baby M (born March 27, 1986) was the pseudonym used in the case ''In re Baby M'', 537 A.2d 1227, 109 N.J. 396 (N.J. 1988) for the infant whose legal parentage was in question. Origins ''In re Baby M'' was a child custody, custody case that became the first American court ruling on the validity of surrogacy. William Stern entered into a surrogacy agreement with Mary Beth Whitehead, arranged by the Infertility Center of New York ("ICNY"), opened in 1981 by a Michigan attorney, Noel Keane. According to the agreement, Mary Beth Whitehead would be inseminated with William Stern's sperm (making her a Surrogacy#Traditional surrogacy, traditional, as opposed to Surrogacy#Gestational surrogacy, gestational, surrogate), bring the pregnancy to term, and relinquish her parental rights in favor of William's wife, Elizabeth. Mary Beth initially relinquished the child to the Sterns per the contract, but returned the next day, threatening to kill herself if she couldn't see the infant. The Sterns ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
