Ernie Hernandez Jr. died of multiple stab wounds; Police say they see no motive in ‘a very brutal, a very violent’ attack

From KTXL-TV, Sacramento, the Modesto [CA] Bee, KTXL-TV, Sacramento, KCRA-TV, Sacramento:

Police in Modesto, California, are investigating the death of  37-year-old Ernie Hernandez Jr., who was stabbed multiple times in the head and neck Saturday as he walked between a local shopping mall and  his group home. Family members say Hernandez, who had an intellectual disability, had been fearful and often talked about being teased, ridiculed, and called “retard” at the mall.

A police spokesman said Hernandez didn’t have any gang affiliation or criminal history, and said they had not identified a motive Hernandez’ slaying.  “What we can determine from the scene and from the victim; it was a very brutal, a very violent attack,” said Sgt. Rick Armendariz.

Hernandez had worked on cleaning, maintenance and landscaping tasks with the City of Ceres and California Department of Transportation for about 10 years, with the help of services provided by the Howard Training Center in Ceres. Betty Arwood, the center’s vocational director, said the program’s clients are regularly subjected to taunts and teasing from teenagers and young adults while out in public.

“We’ve had our people teased and taunted,” Arwood said. “Our population carries a stigma.”

Co-workers remembered Hernandez as a good worker who was friendly and went out of his way to help others.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Pennsylvania officials have ordered a care center to close a program where an autistic man died July 24 in an overheated parked van, and said they would remove eight other residents and bar the program from accepting new clients pending an investigation.

Woods Services Inc., which serves about 1,400 people with disabilities, denied wrongdoing.

The state’s deputy welfare secretary called the death of 20-year-old Bryan Nevins  a “totally avoidable tragedy” and cited “gross incompetence, negligence and misconduct” as the reasons the unit’s license was being revoked. A counselor has been charged with felony neglect and other counts.

A 20-year-old with the mental ability of a toddler, Nevins was missing for nearly five hours when staffers found his body in the back of the parked van on one of the hottest afternoons of the summer.

See also:

Caregiver charged in death of autistic man — NBC Philadelphia

Felony charges filed in death of autistic man — Philadelphia Inquirer

State investigates more facilities related to man’s death in van– WHYY, public radio

Says she lied to investors about prenatal DS test

From a Los Angeles Times blog,  San Diego Union-Tribune, Business Week, Motley Fool:

The former head of research and development at Sequenom Corp. has pleaded guilty to lying to investors and analysts about a company effort to develop a noninvasive prenatal screening test for Down syndrome.

As part of a plea bargain, Elizabeth Dragon admitted she was part of a conspiracy to inflate the company’s stock price, and agreed to help prosecutors in related cases. She admitted to making false claims to investors and analysts about the effectiveness of the test, and said she and others manipulated data to make the test appear more accurate than it was. Dragon’s sentencing is set for August 30.

“Elizabeth Dragon knew the truth about Sequenom’s Down syndrome test, yet she told the public it was a near-perfect success,” said Rosalind Tyson, who heads the Los Angeles office of the Securities and Exchange Commission. “Her actions misled investors with exaggerated information about a significant new product that never materialized.”

From the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, WCVB-TV:

Seven young men and two youths were charged this week with beating and kicking a teenager on a busy street in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood. They face up to five years in prison — twice the usual sentence — because the victim has developmental disabilities.

“A crime like this just shocks the conscience,” Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said in a statement. “It’s obscene.’

Ninetten-year-old Jerome Brown, whom police described as “mentally challenged” or “of diminished mental capacity,” said the mob attacked him when he refused to surrender his cellphone. Lawyers for the defendants said their clients were not involved.

From Paris [Texas] News; Dallas Morning News:

A Texas appeals court has overturned the conviction and ordered a new trial in the case of Aaron Hart, a teenager with intellectual disabilities who had been found guilty of sexually abusing a young boy.

Disability advocates had been sharply critical of the 100-year prison sentence for Hart, calling it excessive punishment for someone who is said to have an IQ of 47. Hart’s lawyer during the appeal argued that the young man’s trial lawyer had failed to present evidence about Hart’s intellectual impairment. Hart’s parents say their son has been raped repeatedly since he has been in jail.

Aaron Hart’s punishment – 100 years in prison for a single incident – has stunned veteran disability rights advocates, who believed counseling, probation or even placement in a group home would have sufficed for a first-time offender with the mental maturity of a second-grader.

Odgren faces life in prison

From the Boston Globe, WHDH-TV

A jury has found 19-year-old John Odgren guilty of first degree murder in the fatal stabbing of a fellow student three years ago in their suburban Massachusetts high school, rejecting arguments that Odgren was legally insane at the time of the crime. He now faces a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without parole.

Odgren’s lawyers had argued that his behavior was affected by Asperger’s syndrome, anxiety, attention deficit disorder and mood disorders that include symptoms of bipolar disorder and depression. They said he had experienced a lifetime of bullying and harassment, causing him to lose touch with reality and act out violent fantasies. Prosecutors argued that Odgren was trying to act out the “perfect murder.”

Odgren was a student at the Great Opportunities Program at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, which was designed to integrate students with disabilities into the school. He brought a kitchen knife from home and attacked James F. Alenson, a freshman student whom he’d never met, in a bathroom at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School in January of 2007.

A review of Texas state records released to the Houston Chronicle shows that 36 people who have been convicted of or charged with felonies have been working with people with intellectual disabilities in state institutions.

Disability advocates say the disclosure demonstrates that weaknesses remain in state efforts to screen employees who work with people with disabilities, despite efforts to strengthen screening in the wake of the “fight club” incidents that came to light last year. Police found that residents of the state institution in Corpus Christi were repeatedly goaded into combat for the entertainment of state employees. The incidents were discovered when police found a lost cellphone that contained videos of the fights.