Cops: Parents Track Down Daughter's Pimp, Kill Him

Kind of reminds me of this story I just posted about...And this similar  f*cker got what he deserved too.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KTLA) -- A San Francisco couple is accused of allegedly tracking an alleged pimp across California before finally hunting him down and killing him.




Police say the couple, whose teenage daughter was allegedly being pimped by a 22-year old Compton man, shot him to death near Candlestick Park.

Attorneys for Barry Gilton and his longtime girlfriend, Lupe Mercado admit the couple tried to rescue their 17-year old daughter from Calvin Sneed, but say they didn't kill him.




On June 4, Sneed was in San Francisco, driving his Toyota Camry at 2 a.m., when someone shot him with a .40-caliber handgun.



Sneed, an alleged member of the Nutty Block Crips, crashed into a parked car and died a short time later at San Francisco General Hospital.



Authorities believe the pair were also responsible for a shooting last month when someone fired into Sneed's car in North Hollywood.



Gilton and Mercado face charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and one count of discharging a firearm at an occupied vehicle.



Gilton was also charged with possession of a firearm as a felon.



Both are being held on $2 million bail.

____________________________

LET THEM GO HOME!

This Day In History

May 3 1963
Eugene "Bull" Connor directs security forces in Birmingham, Alabama to unleash police dogs on civil rights protesters, and then blast them with high-pressure fire hoses. Unfortunately for segregationists, television networks bring the footage to a shocked national audience. In the wake of the overwhelming public response, President Kennedy quips that Connor "has done more for civil rights than almost anybody else."

May 3 1988
The White House confirms stories that President Ronald Reagan's travel and public appearances are scheduled around astrological data furnished by a mystic in San Francisco. The astrologer also supplies input to the timing of critical international events, such as a recent arms control summit in Iceland.

Brittany Smith Found Alive

(CNN) -- A missing Virginia girl and her alleged abductor were panhandling outside a San Francisco supermarket when someone nearby spotted them on Friday and alerted law enforcement, police said.

Brittany Mae Smith, 12 -- for whom police have been searching since Monday -- was found Friday afternoon, as was 32-year-old Jeffrey Scott Easley.

Easley is a "very good suspect" in the murder of Tina Smith -- his girlfriend and Brittany's mother -- who was found dead at her Salem, Virginia, home last Monday, Roanoke County, Virginia, Police Chief Ray Lavinder said Saturday.

Easley and Brittany Smith left Virginia early last Saturday or late on Friday, December 3 -- the same day that the girl's mother was killed, according to Lavinder.

A surveillance video from December 3 shows the pair shopping for a blue domed tent at a Walmart in Salem, Virginia.

A similar tent was found within walking distance of the Safeway store in northern California, where a witness saw Easley and Brittany Smith on Friday. The tipster recognized the pair after watching broadcast report's about the case on HLN's "Nancy Grace."

Lavinder said Saturday that he believes the girl and her alleged abductor were asking for money and holding up a cardboard sign when they were spotted.

Police were called, and the two were found shortly thereafter outside the store, more than 2,300 miles from where the girl was reported missing four days earlier, Lavinder said Friday. Police in San Francisco contacted their counterparts in Virginia with the news.

San Francisco Police Officer Albie Esparza said Brittany was turned over to California's Child Protective Services division after she was found. She has no visible injuries, has been in touch with family members and should return soon to Virginia, according to Lavinder. Easley did not resist arrest, he added.

"It's a fantastic sense of relief, and I know in my heart that it's due to information that you folks put out," Lavinder said Friday, thanking the media. "It's a party atmosphere, believe me."

Authorities found Easley's car relatively early in the manhunt. Lavinder said Saturday that authorities had located a silver 2005 Dodge Neon four-door sedan with Virginia tags that belonged to Tina Smith in a parking lot adjacent to San Francisco International Airport.

He said he believed the two had driven across country together, but he did not know when they arrived in California.

Police issued an Amber Alert for Brittany on Monday after finding the body of Tina Smith, 41, after her co-workers called to express concern that she hadn't shown up for work. Authorities in Florida and Alabama followed suit in subsequent days and notices went out to law enforcement nationwide .

Until Friday, Lavinder said the last known sighting of Easley and Brittany Smith was in December in the Salem, Virginia, Walmart.

The chief said Saturday that four Roanoke County detectives were heading to San Francisco, to help bring back Brittany Smith and to deal with Easley. Lavinder said he hoped "to get information back from them in the next 24 hours," though the earliest Easley could be extradited to Virginia is Monday, when California courts are back in session.

He could head east relatively soon if he waived extradition, or the process could be delayed for weeks if he contested the return.

Prior to his arrest, Easley was wanted for credit card theft, credit card fraud and abduction. Lavinder said that, "we are concentrating most of our efforts ... on the homicide investigation."

The chief has said Easley met Tina Smith online this summer, then moved into the family home in October. Authorities said they do not know if the girl went willingly with Easley.

Back east, the girl's great aunt told HLN's Nancy Grace on Friday night that Brittany already had talked to her father, and that there was widespread relief and joy from Salem to South Boston, Virginia, where many relatives live.

"Everybody here is just elated," said Lois Choquette, who is the late Tina Smith's aunt. "It's been a terrible thing, but we are just so thankful."

Family Sues Calif., Caltrans for Wrongful Death

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- The family of a trucker who lost his life on the Bay Bridge is filing a claim against the state of California and Caltrans for wrongful death.

Tahir Sheikh Fakhar fell to his death on November 9, 2009. He was driving his big rig over the Bay Bridge, but when he hit the S-curve, he lost control, hit a three-foot guardrail, his truck flipped over it and fell 200 feet.

He landed on Yerba Buena Island and died immediately.

Fakhar's family is claiming three things caused his death and Caltrans failed to warn drivers by not having adequate signage posted, having a faulty and poorly made design.

They say the S-curve formation is too sharp for drivers to handle and finally, the guard rail Fakhar slammed into was too short.

It was three feet high, while his rig was 12 feet high.

CHP has maintained from the beginning that Fakhar took the curve too fast. They say he was going 50 instead of 35 miles an hour.

"The indications are that he did not have to be speeding to have the type of accident that he did with this ineffective roadside barrier," Family's attorney Lew Van Blois said.

"After my brother died, the next day they put cameras up in the air, flashing lights and as soon as you pay that toll they say 35 mph speed limit S-curve. They could have put this thing before," the victim's brother Naveed Anjum said.

Fakhar was driving a load of pears to Daly City when he crashed. Anjum said it was Fakhar's first time crossing the bridge since the S-curve opened and that proper signage would have made all the difference.

Since the crash, Caltrans has added signs, rumble strips and stepped up patrol in the area.

ABC7 put a call into Caltrans and they said they have not seen the claim and cannot comment.

Note, Rat Poison Found In Teens' Hotel Room

EL DORADO COUNTY, Calif. -- A suicide note, rat poison and marijuana were among the items found in a hotel room occupied by a teen couple suspected of killing the girl's mother.

Tylar Witt, 14, and her boyfriend, Steven "Boston" Colver, 19, were captured last week in San Bruno. They're accused of killing Joanne Witt, 47, at her home in El Dorado Hills.

A search warrant of the Holiday Inn Gold hotel room in San Francisco was returned Tuesday. Some of the items police found include two purple bowls with cereal and rat poison, about 5 grams of marijuana, a marijuana pipe and a suicide note that said, "You will find us together, dead on a beach..."

Police in San Francisco found the teens' car in the city's Tenderloin neighborhood, and the pair was arrested after a manhunt in the Bay Area.

Condoms, a Rubio's apron, a nametag that said "Boston" and a "Donnie Darko" DVD were also found inside the hotel room on Van Ness Avenue. Colver's Facebook page said he worked at a Rubio's restaurant in Folsom.

Police believe the teens used a knife to kill Joanne Witt, whose body was found June 15 inside a home on Tattinger Court.

A statement from a detective said Joanne Witt was stabbed in the neck. She had cuts in her shirt consistent with stab wounds, her upper torso and face were covered in blood, and there was blood on her legs. A blanket was draped over her head.

Vincent Catapano, Joanne Witt's boyfriend, reported her as a missing person on June 15, the same day her body was found.

On Monday, Tylar Witt waived her right to hear the juvenile petition filed against her. The judge told Witt she could face 25 years to life. He ordered her to stay in custody of probation in juvenile detention.

Colver pleaded not guilty to murder charges on Monday.

A group of classmates of Witt and Colver, who both attended Oak Ridge High School gathered outside the courthouse on Monday. Some people described Witt as "self-centered." Another teen, who said he hadn't talked to Witt in a year or two, said his younger sister broke off a friendship with Witt.

"I know her mom loved her a lot and she just tried to do everything for her," classmate Joey Pacific said. "And Tylar just did not appreciate anything that her mom did."

Meanwhile, Kellyann Conway, an acquaintance of the victim, said Tylar was loving toward her mother and saw her "smile at her, laugh with her."

Witt's MySpace page details her changing moods. On June 9, Witt wrote, "I am the happiest person in the world... even though I'm surrounded by hell, I'm in heaven."

She also blogged, "and wen i brake down crying bcz im so lonely or i get in a fight with my mother.. and theres no other comfort in the world i can turn to.. "

Joanne Witt took steps in the past month to seek statutory rape charges against Colver, sources said. In addition, Tylar Witt was recently arrested on charges that she assaulted her mother.

S.F. Police Department Holds Up Zodiac Case

CBS13--CBS13 has uncovered a major roadblock in the FBI's investigation into the legendary Zodiac case. It's a lack of cooperation, not from a person, but from a police department.

The FBI began collecting DNA evidence last year, and now CBS13 knows why there are no results. The police agency that has most of the original evidence isn't sharing. There may also be another roadblock. The FBI has in their possession a copy of a report alleging someone made changes to what are supposed to be authentic Zodiac letters.`

The changes are subtle.

The Zodiac had seven victims in Northern California. In numerous letters, the psychotic killer revealed details of the attacks, taunted police and threatened to carry out more murders.

Dennis Kaufman claims his efforts to prove his late step father, Jack Tarrance, is the Zodiac uncovered changes to what are supposed to be copies of authentic Zodiac writings.

"They are different significantly," says Kaufman.

The theory is now capturing the interest of the FBI.

CBS13 has learned agents are looking at a report complied by Nanette Barto.

Barto is a forensic document examiner. She believes she identified dozens of similarities in the writings of Jack Tarrance and the Zodiac, and discovered the changes.

Barto believes an entire Zodiac letter was painstakingly traced.

"At the bottom of each of these letters, where you see these heavy little dots, indicators of somebody writing slow and coming to a stop, almost as if they didn't want to overshoot it or add anything extra to it," explains Barto.

The tracing, Barto believes, is an effort to make the ink throughout the letter consistent, trying to hide a single alteration.

"I believe the 'a' in watch was altered, this previously had a bell top 'a'," says Barto.

The lines blend together, but when compared to an older copy, the bell top or hood over the 'a' appears to have been removed.

Barto claims to have uncovered several cases of altered a's.

Changing a single letter may not appear significant, but in the world of handwriting analysis it can be crucial.

"One missing similarity can outweigh all similarities found," according to Barto. Meaning, Jack's Tarrance's a's were so distinctive, most containing that extra line above that never finding one could create doubt.

"Does it look like someone intentionally altered the letters," asked CBS13 reporter Kris Pickel.

"Absolutely," says Barto.

Dennis claims the changes began to appear after he showed his stepfathers handwriting to the San Francisco police department in 2001, and posted samples on the internet.

Who made the changes is unknown, but where they showed up is clear.

"We know in Graysmith's books they've been altered as well as Tom Voight's website," claims Kaufman.

An author and a webmaster, Tom Voight runs Zodiackiller.com. The site says it's committed to archiving all case related material.

The changes are also found in print.

Robert Graysmith wrote two books, 'Zodiac' and 'Zodiac Unmasked.' The books were the basis for the 2007 movie "Zodiac."

Both books contain the same Zodiac letter, but are clearly not the same. Numerous markings were removed.

The text could have been cleaned up to make the letter easier to read, but why change the 'a'? Was it intentional or perhaps improvements in the quality of the copies?

CBS13 made calls and emails to inquire which is the true text to Voight, but did not get a response. CBS13 was unable to contact Greysmith.

Handwriting is one piece of a much large puzzle the FBI is assembling to determine if Jack Tarrance and the Zodiac are one in the same.

Last August, the agency began running DNA tests on multiple items turned over by Dennis Kaufman, including a hood similar to one worn by the Zodiac.

If handwriting plays an important role, why wouldn't the FBI go straight to the originals?

CBS13 has uncovered what has been slowing down the FBI investigation: The San Francisco Police Department.

The FBI has been asking since the year 2000, nine years, to view the police department's evidence, so far they've been shut out.

Only one Zodiac murder was committed in San Francisco, but the department has the majority of the Zodiac letters and the only partial DNA profile of the killer.

The San Francisco Police Department denied our multiple phone and email requests for an interview, specifically asking if they will allow the FBI to examine their evidence.

And although the department has shown the evidence to reporters in the past, our requests to see what evidence still exists were shot down.

This Day In History

Apr 18 1906
A devastating earthquake strikes San Francisco at 5:13 a.m., followed by a major aftershock three hours later. More than 3,000 people are killed from either collapsing structures or any of the 59 separate fires which burn over the next three days. In the downtown area, the U.S. Army is forced to dynamite whole city blocks in order to contain the flames, due to the lack of water pressure.