Suffer the Little Children

Last week, I told you the story of 14-year-old Giovanni Melton, who was shot to death by his father on November 2, 2017. Wendell Melton claimed the shooting was an accident, but many, including Giovanni’s mother, believe the murder was perpetrated by a man who couldn’t stand having a gay son. In this episode, you’ll hear my conversation with Giovanni’s mom, Veronica Melton, who has channeled her g...

On November 2, 2017, a tearful man called 911, telling the dispatcher he had shot his teenage son. Wendell Melton claimed that during an altercation with his 14-year-old son, Giovanni Melton, his gun accidentally went off, striking Giovanni in the chest. Giovanni was rushed to the hospital, but he did not survive. After Giovanni’s death, multiple people came forward with information indicating the...

The day after his fourth birthday, Zachary Dutro-Boggess was rushed to a hospital in Portland, Oregon, suffering from suspicious internal injuries. After Zachary died on August 16, 2012, his mother, Jessica Dutro, and her boyfriend, Brian Canady, were charged with murder, accused of beating Zachary to death as well as abusing two of Jessica’s other children. During Jessica’s trial in 2014, Zachary...

On January 7, 2017, police in Cravinhos, Brazil discovered a charred body in a sugarcane field and soon identified the remains as belonging to 17-year-old Itaberli Lozano, whose grandmother reported him missing days earlier. Before long, the investigation uncovered a diabolical murder plot orchestrated by Itaberli’s own mother, Tatiana Ferreira Lozano Pereira, who hired two young hitmen to kill he...

As an infant suffering malnutrition and broken bones, Ronnie Paris was removed from his teenage parents’ custody and placed into a wonderful foster home. After two years of nurturing and love, he was returned to his parents, and just six weeks later, three-year-old Ronnie was dead, the victim of chronic, vicious abuse at the hands of his father. This is the story of a religious man who feared his...

On a seemingly mundane Monday afternoon in February of 2021, a 911 call summoned police to an unassuming two-story brick home in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. On the front porch, officers found 48-year-old Krisinda Bright waiting for them, covered in what she freely admitted was the blood of two of her children: 16-year-old JJ Bright and 22-year-old Jasmine Cannady, both of whom were inside the home, de...

On May 7, 2021, a helpless seven-week-old infant was reported missing from his mother’s apartment in Washington, DC, but police were alarmed when they learned that baby Kyon Jones had been gone for two days by the time his disappearance was reported. After his mother gave several conflicting statements, both to police and to the public through a Facebook live interview with a local activist, it be...

In my last episode, I told you the story of three-year-old Moko Rangitoheriri, who was brutally abused for weeks by his caretakers, Tania Shailer and David Haerewa, who were ultimately found guilty in Moko’s death and sentenced to 17 years each in New Zealand prison. This week, you’ll hear about the killers’ attempt to appeal their sentences; the coroner’s inquest into the circumstances surroundin...

In 2015, single mom of three Nicola Dally-Paki’s oldest child needed to be hospitalized with a severe infection. She couldn’t leave him alone in the hospital, but she had no family nearby to care for her two younger children, aged seven and three. With few options, Nicola asked her longtime friend, Tania Shailer, to care for the kids for a while. She had no idea she was leaving her children in the...

On the morning of Wednesday, March 18, 2020, police in Bakersfield, California responded to an apartment on a report of an eight-year-old child not breathing. Although Ger’Mya Alexander was rushed to the hospital, she died of her injuries the same day. Her mother’s boyfriend, 37-year-old Clint Mason, who had been caring for Ger’Mya when she was fatally injured, fled on foot and was apprehended the...

Last week, I told you the first part of the story of three-year-old Tesslynn O’Cull, whose murder in 1997 became known as the worst case of child abuse in Oregon’s history. After Tesslynn’s battered body was found in a shallow grave, her mother, 21-year-old Stella Kiser, and the woman’s live-in boyfriend, 20-year-old Jesse Compton, were charged with murder. This week, I’ll tell you the rest of Tes...

On June 17, 1997, police in Springfield, Oregon found the battered, desecrated body of three-year-old Tesslynn O’Cull buried in a shallow grave. The torture perpetrated against Tesslynn by her mother’s boyfriend, 20-year-old Jesse Compton, and knowingly allowed by her mother, 21-year-old Stella Kiser, was cruel beyond belief, and both were immediately charged in Tesslynn’s murder, which became kno...

Jesse René Gibbs spent most of her childhood in small town North Carolina under the thumb of a narcissistic mother who twisted religion to fit her interpretation and gave birth to child after child while utterly failing to care for them. Jesse’s stepfather did nothing to protect his children from his wife’s abuse, often dealing out physical punishments when his wife was unable to do it herself, an...

In the last episode, I told you the story of two-year-old Lorenzo Velasquez and his nine-month-old sister, Brooklyn, whose mother, Brittany, left them in a hot car all day while she worked a twelve-hour shift. When she returned home, Brittany found her children dead in the car, and she was charged in their murder, later accepting a plea deal in exchange for a twenty-year prison sentence. In this e...

When first responders arrived at the Velasquez family home in Superior, Arizona on the evening of March 26, 2018, they encountered an unfathomable tragedy. Two young children had been locked into a car for over thirteen hours in the Arizona heat, and by the time help arrived, two-year-old Lorenzo Velasquez and his nine-month-old sister, Brooklyn, lay dead on the floor of their great-grandparents’...

Last week, I told you the story of Heaven Watkins, an eleven-year-old autistic girl with cerebral palsy who was well known to the child protection system in her home state of Minnesota. When her family moved to Virginia, however, Heaven fell off the radar of those tasked with protecting children, and despite the warnings of concerned family members, Heaven was beaten to death in May of 2018 by her...

When eleven-year-old Heaven Watkins was found dead in her family’s Virginia home on May 18, 2018, her mother, Latoya Smith, and the woman’s live-in boyfriend, Demont Harris, told neighbors the little girl with autism and cerebral palsy had died from natural causes. In truth, Heaven’s death was anything but natural, and Latoya and Demont were charged with murder, accused of beating Heaven so severe...

On December 9, 2020, in Sandy Springs, Georgia, two-year-old Fallon Fridley was spending the night at the home of her babysitter, who was also a good friend of Fallon’s mom, Kristin. The babysitter, Kirstie Flood, called 911 that evening to report little Fallon unresponsive, and Fallon was taken by ambulance to the hospital, where she was later pronounced dead. Kirstie claimed Fallon had taken a f...

Last week, I began telling you the story of four-month-old Sterling Koehn, who was found dead in an infant swing in his dark, sweltering bedroom on August 30, 2017. An investigation determined that Sterling had not been fed, changed, bathed, or moved from the swing for between nine and fourteen days prior to his death, which was caused by malnutrition, dehydration, and an infection from severe dia...

When Zachary Koehn called 911 on the afternoon of August 30, 2017, reporting his infant son appeared to be dead, first responders could never have guessed the horror that awaited them. In the back bedroom of an apartment in Alta Vista, Iowa, separate from the room shared by Zachary, his girlfriend Cheyanne, and their twenty-month-old daughter sat a powered infant swing, facing the back wall of the...

Last week, I told you the story of two-year-old Jaxson Love, whose wicked stepmother, Chalsey Maynard, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and five child abuse enhancement charges, accused of throwing Jaxson in the air and letting him fall to the floor out of anger and jealousy that he was born of his father’s infidelity. In this episode, you’ll hear my conversation with Jaxson’s mom, Brittan...

When two-year-old Jaxson Love was rushed to the emergency room in Stockton, California on July 25, 2017, his father and stepmother, Willard and Chalsey Maynard, said the toddler had been injured by falling from a trampoline. However, when Chalsey was further interviewed, she admitted to throwing her husband’s son in the air and letting him fall to the ground over her anger that Jaxson was the prod...

Last week, I told you the first part of the story of Teghan Skiba, who was left to live in a shed in Smithfield, North Carolina for a week in July of 2010. During that week, her mother’s boyfriend, 21-year-old Jonathan Richardson, subjected the four-year-old to every imaginable form of physical, psychological, and sexual torture. When she became unresponsive on July 16, 2010 after a blow to the he...

In July of 2010, Helen Reyes left for Army reserves training, leaving her boyfriend of six months, 21-year-old Jonathan Richardson, to care for her four-year-old daughter, Teghan Skiba. Over the next ten horrendous days, Jonathan kept Teghan confined in a shed on his grandparents’ property in Smithfield, North Carolina and subjected the four-year-old to every imaginable form of physical, psycholog...

The day after her second birthday, Darisabel Baez was rushed to the hospital in York, Pennsylvania covered in so many bruises that her appearance was likened to “camouflage” by first responders. After Darisabel died from her injuries, her mother, Neida Baez, and Neida’s boyfriend, Harve Johnson, were arrested and ultimately charged with murder. This is the story of another child whose life was cut...