The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "child killing" ...
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Who Killed Aiyana Stanley-Jones?
LeDuff investigates who death Aiyana Stanely-Jones, a seven-year-old who was shot and killed when Detroit police raided an East Side home where she slept on the couch. Police were looking for a murder suspect, and Aiyana ended up dead. The story "is a powerful heartbreaking elegy for a child, a city and our civic duties."
Tags: crime; murder; Detroit; poverty; police reports; FOIA; homicide
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Through the Cracks
The 1988 brutal rape and murder of a young mother and her daughter has left the child's grandmother, Phyllis Little, with 21 years of questions. In 2009, the NYPD announced they had arrested a man and charged him with the double-murder. Reporter Joshua Kors provides a detailed look at the lives of the murdered mother, as well as the man accused of killing her. Kors also describes the pain and guilt felt by Little for more than two decades.
Tags: crack; Bronx; low-cost housing; DNA; Five Percenters; Rikers Island prison; Bronx River Projects; West Farms
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Unprotected: An Investigation o Sacramento County's Child Protective Services
A dozen years after the 1996 torture-death of one boy triggered major reforms within Sacramento County's Child Protective Services, -- and resulted in a quadrupling of the agency's budget and doubling of its staff -- many of the same problems persist in 2008. The Sacramento Bee found that, despite the massive increase in resources, numerous children continue to be injured or killed who had prior involvement with Sacramento's CPS. Among the problems detailed by The Bee: inadequate supervision and training, sloppy investigations, poor evaluation of children's risk, lack of accountability for serious mistakes. In its follow-up stories, which prompted a grand jury investigation, The Bee used a new state law related to child deaths to push CPS to release case files and found it had illegally altered the records of one boy who died in their care.
Tags: child protective services; county government; torture; child welfare; government agency; government accountablity; child services
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I Lit the Fire: Jared Petrovich Admits His Role in the Killing of John Chamberlain. But why did he target the gay?
These four articles probed the culture of violence at tTheo Lacy Men's Jail in Orange, CA, beginning with an exclusive interview of Jared Petrovich, the accuse ringleader of the Oct. 5, 2006 murder of John Chamberlain, an inmate suspected of child molestation who was brutally beated inside the jail. That story included combined interviews with Petrovich and other inmates and guards at the facility with transcripts and notes of interviews with inmates and guards that the reporter obtained from lawyers representing inmates, including Petrovich, who were charged in the attack. The article contained allegations that Deputy Kevin Taylor, a prison guard who was never charged in the crime, told Petrovich that Chamberlain was a child molester, and that Taylor routinely use inmates like Petrovich to enforce prison rules and mete out punishment to various inmates. Petrovich provided an example of this behavior that I did not include in my original story, alleging that Taylor had known about--and approved--a previous beating of an inmate in Sept. 2006. He only knew the inmate's first name--Mark--but claimed the inmate had been a guitarist for the rock band Kiss. He claimed another inmate, nicknamed "Sick Dog" had witnessed Taylor being informed of the planned attack and, after it was carried out, rewarding the inmates with sack lunches. Through a California Public Records Act request, the reporter obtained the Sheriff Department's jail file on the beaten inmate, Mark Leslie Norton, aka Mark St. John of the rock band Kiss, and found information which corroborated Petrovich's account of the incident, and obtained his death certificate. St. John died of a brain hemorrhage several months after being released.
Tags: prison beatings; rock band Kiss; California; prisoner brutality; bribe; prison regulation
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Sealed Records
KLAS investigated Arash Hashemi, who was accused of torturing and almost killing his girlfriend's young daughter, and found that all his criminal cases were sealed.
Tags: court; records; sealed records; child abuse; deportation;
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Children of God
What began with the video diary of Ricky Rodriguez, a former child member of the religious sect "Children of God," led to an in-depth investigation into the group's history of sexual abuse of its child members. Rodriguez, the son of the group's religious leader was so distraught over the abuse that he murdered the woman he claimed had sexually abused him as a child before killing himself. Though the organization officially claims that its practice of having sex with children ended in 1986, this investigation documents the group's attempts to quiet their disturbing past.
Tags: religious sect; religion; sexual abuse; child molestation; Family International; sexual cult
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Killing Our Children
This heart-wrenching series of articles exposes how many perpetrators in child abuse that leads to death escape harsh punishment because of lack of evidence and unbelief on the part of juries that anyone could hurt a child. Abusers are often parents or guardians and are punished with probation or a few years in prison.
Tags: abuse; neglect; homicide; parent; caretaker; baby; infant; toddler; child; kid; shaken baby syndrome; criminal justice system; child welfare system; battered child syndrome; death; murder
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Backover Dangers
The Early Show demonstrates the blind spots that many family vehicles have,vehicles such as SUV's, pick-up trucks, and minivans. One man is interviewed who killed his own two-year-old son by backing into him, completely unaware the boy was there. Safety experts say a child is killed in this manner every week in the US, and there are several new safety devices to prevent such accidents.
Tags: car safety; accidents; child safety; new safety devices; cameras; Consumer Reports
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Foster Care
These stories are the result of a several year long investigation which found that as many as half of Los Angeles County's foster children were needlessly placed into the system. Furthermore, the system is sometime more dangerous than their original home. These placements are encouraged by financial incentives in state and federal laws, which allow counties to receive up to $150,000 for placing and keeping a child in foster care. Children in LA County's foster care systems are six to seven times for likely to be mistreated and three times more likely to be killed than children outside of the system.
Tags: FOIA; Department of Children and Family Services; DCFS; adoption; social workers; family
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A Child Removed
In this extensive three-day series, Jeff Lehr of the Joplin Globe examined the Missouri Division of Family Services, and found a system riddled with problems -- from mothers fighting to get their children back after baseless accusations to children being removed from their parents only to be placed in dangerous and abusive foster care where they were injured or killed. The Globe found that Jasper County had one of the highest rates of removal of children from their homes by the state than any other county in Missouri, while at the same time it was more difficult for parents to reunite with their children. Innocent parents caught in the gears of DFS could spend years trying to clear their names and regain custody of their children. The series takes a hard look at DFS, the courts, and those who are supposedly responsible for removing children from the home. Statistics and tables, as well as the personal stories of people affected, potential reforms to Missouri's laws, and the problem of a "revolving door" of underpaid, under-trained social workers are discussed in detail.
Tags: DFS; division of family services; family court; children; foster care; social work; social workers; death; parents; law