Texas
Woman pleads guilty, sentenced to 52 years for boy’s death
HOUSTON (AP) — A woman on Wednesday agreed to a 52-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in the 2021 death of her boyfriend’s 5-year-old Houston son, whose body she had kept hidden in a storage unit before it was discovered in an East Texas hotel, according to prosecutors.
During a court hearing, Theresa Balboa, 31, pleaded guilty to murder in the death of Samuel Olson. Her plea was part of an agreement with prosecutors, who reduced the charge against her from capital murder to murder.
“This woman robbed the world of a little boy with a big smile and bright future, and there is no prison sentence long enough for someone like her,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a statement.
Anthony Osso, Balboa’s attorney, said his client will be eligible for parole after serving half her sentence.
“She didn’t want to put the victim’s family through a trial, nor did she want to risk dying in prison ultimately. She has some light at the end of the tunnel with this alternative,” Osso said in a telephone interview following the hearing.
Balboa did not say anything during Wednesday’s court hearing.
Sarah Olson, Samuel’s mother, disagreed with the prison sentence Balboa received.
“Today she admitted to what she did, for 52 years and the chance of parole in 26. My son did not even get six years of life and she still gets a chance at one? This is not justice,” Sarah Olson told reporters after the hearing.
Andy Kahan, the director of victim services and advocacy for Crime Stoppers of Houston, said he and others will fight any efforts to release Balboa on parole
“And 26 years from now, God forbid, we’ll be there and make sure that she never breathes free air again,” Kahan said.
Prosecutors said Balboa, who had been dating Samuel’s father, had been watching the boy in her suburban Houston apartment when she hit him with a “blunt object” on May 12, 2021. Samuel would have turned 6 on May 29, 2021.
Neither the weapon used to kill the boy or a motive for his death were ever determined, according to prosecutors.
Balboa reported Samuel missing on May 27, 2021, initially claiming the boy’s mother and a man who presented himself as a police officer had taken the boy. Samuel’s parents had been involved in a bitter custody battle since filing for divorce in January 2020.
Authorities said Samuel’s body was kept in a bathtub at Balboa’s apartment until she and her roommate put it in a plastic tote and hid it in a storage unit. The body was later moved to a motel in Jasper, about 135 miles (215 kilometers) northeast of Houston.
Balboa’s roommate and a friend who helped her move the body to the motel in Jasper were each charged with evidence tampering counts.
California
Court record: Wife says doctor purposely drove family off cliff
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP) — The wife of a California radiologist accused of trying to kill his family when he drove his Tesla off a cliff along the Northern California coast told rescuers her husband was depressed and needed a psychological evaluation, according to a newly unsealed search warrant affidavit.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported Wednesday that Neha Patel repeatedly told rescuers that Dharmesh Patel intentionally drove off a San Mateo County cliff on Jan. 2 in a bid to kill her and their two children, ages 4 and 7. All four survived in what one official called an “absolute miracle.”
Dharmesh Patel, a Pasadena radiologist, said he pulled off the road to check on a possibly flat tire, according to the warrant. Witness testimony does not appear to back up his account.
“He drove off. He’s depressed,” Neha Patel told a California Highway Patrol officer as she was flown away from the crash site, according to the Chronicle. “He said he was going to drive off the cliff. He purposely drove off.”
Dharmesh Patel, 41, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted murder. He is in custody without bail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 12, at which time a judge will decide if there’s enough evidence to move ahead with a trial.
Patel was driving his white 2021 Tesla Model Y along the Pacific Coast Highway south of San Francisco when the car plunged several hundred feet off the cliff at Devil’s Slide. Firefighters had to cut the family out of the wreckage.
The warrant affidavit includes an interview with Patel while he was recovering from major lower body injuries. In the interview, he said his wife was irritated shortly before the plunge off the cliff because she didn’t want to stop at his brother’s house in San Mateo County before making their drive home to the Los Angeles area, the Chronicle reported.
He said he was not really depressed but that he felt down because times were bad in the world, according to the affidavit.
“Asked if he felt suicidal, he said, ‘You know, not like a plan, not usually,’” the affidavit said.
Massachusetts
Man charged with killing 5-year-old who was found dead in a suitcase 9 years ago
WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — The man charged with murder in the death of 5-year-old Jeremiah Oliver, whose body was found in a suitcase beside a Massachusetts highway in 2014, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on Thursday and was held without bail.
Alberto Sierra Jr., 32, was the former boyfriend of Jeremiah's mother and was arrested on Wednesday, according to the office of Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early Jr.
An email seeking comment was left with Sierra's attorney.
Jeremiah's body was found in April 2014 along Interstate 190 in Sterling, about an hour west of Boston. But the boy was last seen alive in September 2013, and was not reported missing until December of that year.
The case shocked the state, with even then-Gov. Deval Patrick saying he was trying to “keep my own rage in check.” The boy's death also led to three employees of the state's child welfare agency getting fired, and spurred reforms at the agency.
Jeremiah's family, which lived in Fitchburg at the time, was being supervised by the state Department of Children and Families. Even before his body was discovered, an investigation found that a social worker with the child welfare agency went months without visiting the family's home — despite reports of abuse and neglect.
The death was not ruled a homicide until February of 2016 when an autopsy by the state medical examiner said that he died of “homicidal violence of undetermined” causes.
Sierra was convicted in 2017 of assaulting Jeremiah's mother and siblings and sentenced to up to seven years in prison. He was not currently incarcerated when he was arrested Wednesday, the district attorney's office said.
Jeremiah's mother, Elsa Oliver, also pleaded guilty in 2017 to assault and battery and reckless endangerment in connection with her other two children and was sentenced to more than seven years in prison.
Prosecutors dropped charges against both of them in connection with Jeremiah's disappearance and alleged abuse in order to avoid possible double jeopardy claims, prosecutors said at the time.
Sierra is also charged with disinterring a body. He is scheduled back on court on May 25. The investigation into the death is ongoing, prosecutors said.
Idaho
Mom convicted in deaths of 2 kids and romantic rival faces new Arizona charge
PHOENIX (AP) — A woman who was convicted in Idaho last week in the deaths of her two children and a romantic rival has been indicted for a second time in Arizona, this time on charges that she conspired to kill her niece’s ex-husband.
Lori Vallow Daybell was found guilty last week of conspiring to kill and killing her two youngest children, 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, as well as conspiring to kill Tammy Daybell, her fifth husband’s previous wife. The case included bizarre claims that she called her son and daughter zombies and said she was a goddess sent to usher in the Biblical apocalypse.
She was already facing a separate felony case in Arizona, after a grand jury indicted her in 2021 on a charge of conspiring to kill her fourth husband, Charles Vallow.
A second Arizona indictment was unsealed this month that charges Vallow Daybell with conspiring to murder Brandon Boudreaux.
Charles Vallow was shot and killed by Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox, on July 11, 2019. Police say Cox shot at Boudreaux on Oct. 2, 2019, but missed.
The Maricopa County, Arizona, prosecutor’s office on Wednesday confirmed the indictment charging Vallow Daybell in the attempted shooting of Boudreaux. The indictment was first reported by Phoenix television station Fox10.
Under Arizona law, indictments are generally sealed until a defendant is served with the document. Vallow Daybell cannot be extradited and served in Arizona until she is sentenced in the Idaho case, which is expected to happen later this year.
Daybell, her fifth husband, is awaiting trial on the same charges Vallow Daybell was convicted of.
One member of the jury that convicted her, Saul Hernandez, said in an interview broadcast on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday that deliberations took two days because he wasn’t initially convinced that they had the evidence to convict Lori Vallow Daybell.
But after reviewing the evidence on the second day, he said, he agreed that she was guilty.
Hernandez said he was “disgusted” by the photos prosecutors presented of Lori and Chad Daybell dancing at their wedding on a beach in Hawaii.
“I just couldn’t believe how someone can be that happy when your kids are in the ground and the person that was key in all of this is sitting across from you smiling at you and dancing with you on the beach,” he said.
As more evidence and testimony was shared, Hernandez said it became harder for him to look at Lori Daybell.
“You know, growing up you talk about good and bad, God and evil,” Hernandez said. “And I think for the first time in my life, I put a face to evil.”
New Hampshire
Judge finds bathroom graffiti violated civil rights act, orders teen to write essay
MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — A New Hampshire teenager has been ordered to write a 3,000-word essay discussing “the impact of racism and racist speech on society” after a judge found that he violated the state's civil rights act by carving graffiti inside a high school bathroom directed at a Black teen.
In the order filed Wednesday, the judge said the 17-year-old must also do 100 hours of community service to avoid a $3,500 fine. He also was forbidden from engaging in or threatening physical force or violence against the victim and his family, or anyone else, or damage or trespass on their property.
His lawyer did not respond to a message seeking comment. Prosecutors had asked for a $5,000 fine, the maximum penalty.
Judge Amy Messer found that the teen carved “Blacks stand no chance,” and part of “KKK” on a bathroom stall at John Stark Regional High School in Weare in April 2022. There already was other race-motivated graffiti on the wall and the name of a Black student who was “purportedly” one of the defendant's friends, she wrote.
An attorney for the teen, who had faced a separate charge on the matter in juvenile court, argued he wasn't motivated by race because he thought it was a joke, and that two other friends had pressured him into writing the graffiti. The lawyer also argued the words themselves “are not egregious and are historically accurate and not racially motivated,” according to Messer.
Prosecutors said the words are “steeped in race.”
Messer said she was “not convinced that the defendant was motivated to make a reflection of historical fact about the plight of Blacks in America in a public high school bathroom where racially charged graffiti already existed.”
