From the Los Angeles Times

Suicide bombers attack worshipers in Iran

Details are conflicted in the aftermath of the attack, with the number of deaths estimated between 21 and 50. A militant Sunni group reportedly claims responsibility.

By Ramin Mostaghim and Meris Lutz

Special to The Times

December 15, 2010

Reporting from Tehran and Beirut

Dozens of Iranians were feared dead or injured after a coordinated suicide bombing Wednesday morning in the southeastern port of Chabahar targeted a procession of worshipers observing an important Shiite Muslim holiday, state media reported.

Conflicting reports of one or more explosions estimated the number of deaths between 21 and 50.

Initial reports described an attack outside the Hossein Mosque in Chabahar and another one or two failed bombings. The Jundallah organization, a militant Sunni group that claims to represent Iran's ethnic Baluch minority, took responsibility for the attack shortly after it happened, according to Dubai-based Al Arabiya news channel.

Two suspects were killed by their explosives, one was shot dead by police and a fourth was arrested after his explosive belt failed to detonate outside the office of the provincial governor, the semioffficial Fars News Agency reported.

Immediately after the attack, Ali Abdollahi, Iranian deputy minister of interior for security affairs, lashed out at the United States, telling the official Islamic Republic News Agency that the "equipment" used in the attack indicated that Jundallah had received support from U.S. and regional intelligence agencies.

"One of these blasts has been prevented since we knew about that beforehand, and it caused relatively fewer casualties than the second one," he was quoted as saying, adding that the attacks took place shortly after 10 am.

"One of the terrorists was identified and shot before he could do anything, but he detonated the bomb, which did not cause any casualties," Abdollahi said.

Chabahar is a mostly Sunni city near the Pakistani border, and Iran's only port on the Oman sea, making it vital to Iranian trade with Central Asia. The attacks coincided with Ashura, the annual Shiite religious holiday commemorating the 7th century slaying of Imam Hossein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammad.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-bombing-20101215,0,2665329,print.story

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Pot smoking makes a comeback among teenagers

More high school seniors report using marijuana than smoking cigarettes in the last 30 days, a government survey finds. The U.S. drug czar blames Prop. 19 and similar measures.

By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times

December 15, 2010

After nearly a decade in decline, marijuana is making a strong comeback among teens, with more high school seniors reporting that they had recently smoked pot than cigarettes, according to a government survey issued Tuesday.

This year, 21.4% of high school seniors said they had used marijuana in the last 30 days, while 19.2% reported smoking cigarettes in the same time period, according to the annual "Monitoring the Future" survey from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. It was the first time since 1981 that pot surpassed tobacco in that age group.

The remarkable crossover is a victory for public health campaigns aimed at stamping out cigarette smoking among teens. But the federal office that tracks illicit drug use said it was driven by an uptick in youth marijuana use that is broad-based and likely to continue, with even eighth-graders reporting softer attitudes about the risk of smoking pot.

The Obama administration's drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, blamed state medical marijuana measures like California's Proposition 19 for making pot seem less dangerous to younger Americans.

"Calling marijuana 'smoked medicine' is absolutely incorrect," Kerlikowske said at a news conference in Washington to present the findings. Young people, he said, have taken the "wrong message" from the debate.

In the survey, the proportion of 12th-graders who acknowledged daily use of marijuana reached 6.1% — the highest point since the early 1980s — and the numbers of eighth- and 10th-graders smoking pot daily also climbed, to 1% and 3%, respectively. As these younger students advance toward graduation, rates of pot-smoking will continue to climb, researchers said.

Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, called the rise in daily marijuana use particularly troubling given that frequent use has been shown to be more damaging to learning and memory than occasional use — especially in teenagers, whose brains are still developing. Daily smokers are also at far higher risk of developing dependency on marijuana and other drugs, she said.

Attitudes toward the club drug Ecstasy also softened among eighth- and 10th-graders, and use increased. Researchers called the increase an example of "generational forgetting," in which a lull in use is followed by an uptick among younger people who were not exposed to anti-drug messages.

Among high school seniors, 8% said they had abused the prescription pain medication Vicodin in the previous year, down from 9.7% in 2009. Illicit use of the opioid painkiller OxyContin held steady in that group and was up among 10th-graders. Twelfth-graders continued to report the nonmedical use of drugs prescribed for attention deficit disorder — about 6.5% acknowledged taking them in the last year, and roughly the same number used amphetamines.

Pot, however, outpaced all of those, with roughly 1 in 3 seniors — and 1 in 4 10th-graders — reporting that they had smoked marijuana in the last year.

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-teen-pot-20101215,0,3745857,print.story

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Woman killed, six men wounded in strip-mall shootout

Police say the mother was putting her toddler in an SUV when a gun battle started in a barber shop. One man had life-threatening injuries and five others were shot in the stomach, shoulders and legs.

By Michael J. Mishak and Jack Dolan, Los Angeles Times

December 15, 2010

Reporting from Sacramento

A mother putting her toddler into a car seat was killed and six men were wounded Tuesday in a rolling gun battle that started inside a Sacramento barber shop.

At least two armed men walked into Fly Cuts and Styles and opened fire just before 1 p.m., authorities said. At least one of the customers pulled a weapon and returned fire, sparking a gunfight that lasted two to three minutes, according to a witness interviewed by local TV station KVOR Channel 13.

Investigators said they don't yet know the motive for the shooting, which began in the barber shop and spilled into the parking lot of the strip mall on Stockton Boulevard in south Sacramento. The gunfire continued as at least one of the suspects climbed into a white sedan to flee. That's when police believe the mother was hit. Her child was not injured.

Officials have not released the dead woman's name or the names of the injured. No arrests have been made.

The woman had stopped at the barber shop to say hello to someone before the shooting began, said Sgt. Tim Curran, spokesman for the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department. When the gun battle erupted and the shooters poured out of the building, she was outside helping her son into his car seat, investigators said.

A bullet struck the woman in the chest, but police do not believe she was the intended target. Her son, who is about 2, was placed with child protective services, Curran said.

One man, whose age was not provided, suffered a life-threatening gunshot wound to the chest, Curran said. A 46-year-old man was hit in the stomach, but the injury is not life-threatening, Curran said.

All of the other wounded men were hit in the shoulders or legs, he said.

Among them was a 37-year-old barber who took a bullet in the ankle, Curran said. KVOR reported that the injured barber said he managed to crawl out the back door of the shop during the gunfight, which he believed lasted for several minutes.

Curran said police don't know how long the shooting lasted, but witness statements indicate between 15 and 30 rounds were fired. Several dozen rounds could be squeezed off in seconds, he said, but it might feel like a very long time for someone caught in the middle.

Investigators said they didn't know what prompted the shooting, but they do not believe robbery was the motive.

"We believe some of those who were wounded will eventually turn out to be suspects." Curran said.

Bullets pierced the window of the No. 1 Buffet, a restaurant across the wide, busy thoroughfare from the strip mall. No injuries were reported in the restaurant.

Sunny Singh, a clerk in a liquor store across the street, said he was cleaning when he heard what he thought were firecrackers before he realized something more serious was happening.

"I never heard, in my life, a gunshot," Singh said.

http://www.latimes.com/la-me-1215-sacto-shooting-20101215,0,4812878,print.story

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16 in global child porn 'club' indicted

Four Southland men are among those who allegedly belonged to the 'Lost Boy' Internet forum, which contained graphic images and videos of young boys.

By Nardine Saad, Los Angeles Times

December 15, 2010

Federal authorities Tuesday announced the indictments of 16 men who allegedly accessed a password-protected Internet forum on child pornography containing thousands of graphic images and videos of young boys.

The two-year investigation into the "Lost Boy" Internet group found that members were encouraged to regularly post sexually explicit photos of young boys to "remain in good standing" and not get removed from the online message board, according to the indictment.

Members of the site were given instructions on how to entice children into engaging in sexual activity, authorities said. The posts also gave members advice on how to move on to other victims when boys "grew too old," said U.S. Atty. Andre Birotte Jr.

"This network was reserved for your most serious traders of child pornography and those … with a sexual interest in young boys," he said. The pictures depicted children engaging in sexual activity with other children or men.

The defendants were charged with child exploitation, possession of child pornography and other offenses. Most of the victims were 7 to 12 years old and included one 9-year-old boy with Down syndrome.

Authorities had been actively investigating the case even though they shut down the site two years ago. Defense attorneys asked a judge to block Tuesday's announcement of the indictments but were denied, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles.

The initial tip in the case came in October 2008 when European authorities approached FBI agents in Copenhagen with information that a 25-year-old North Hollywood man, Harout Hagop Sarafian, allegedly had been communicating with an Italian national about how to obtain child pornography and engage in child sex tourism in Romania, said FBI Assistant Director in Charge Steven Martinez. Sarafian is in custody and awaiting trial.

Members of the Lost Boy site advised one another on techniques to evade law enforcement using screen names to mask their identities, Martinez said.

Four defendants are from Southern California, authorities said, and several defendants are registered sex offenders.

One defendant, James Criscione, 53, of Atlanta, died in custody earlier this year. He was homeless and would access the site at public libraries, authorities said.

Eight men are awaiting trial and five have entered guilty pleas, including Justin Lee, 33, a Phoenix-based pediatric anesthesiologist who is awaiting sentencing for transporting child pornography, which carries a minimum sentence of five years in prison.

A second indictment names an additional 14 alleged Lost Boy members believed to be living in Brazil, Canada, France, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Half of those defendants have been identified only by their website screen names, Mrozek said.

The initial case has prompted dozens of spin-off investigations, authorities said.

"These investigations are about one thing: protecting children," Birotte said. "You know when something is amiss, you feel it. Trust your gut."

Iraq's war on Christians

Oil and geopolitics prevent the United States and Western European countries from speaking out against what amounts to genocide against Christians in the Middle East.

Tim Rutten

December 15, 2010

As much of the world once more prepares to celebrate the birth of Christ, it is a melancholy fact that many of the most ancient churches established in his name are being pushed to the brink of oblivion across the region where their faith was born.

The culprits are Salafist Islam's increasingly virulent intolerance, the West's convenient indifference and, in the case of Iraq, America's failure to make responsible provisions to protect minorities from the violent disorder that has persisted since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

When America intervened to overthrow Saddam Hussein, Iraq's Christians — mostly Chaldeans and Assyrians — numbered about 1.4 million, or about 3% of the population. Over the last seven years, more than half have fled the country and, as the New York Times reported this week, a wave of targeted killings — including the Oct. 31 slaying of 51 worshipers and two priests during Mass at one of Baghdad's largest churches — has sent many more Christians fleeing. Despite Prime Minister Nouri Maliki promises to increase security, many believe the Christians are being targeted not only by Al Qaeda in Iraq, which has instructed its fighters "to kill Christians wherever they can reach them," but also by complicit elements within the government's security services.

The United States, meanwhile, does nothing — as it did nothing four years ago, when Father Boulos Iskander was kidnapped, beheaded and dismembered; or three years ago, when Father Ragheed Ganni was shot dead at the altar of this church; or two years ago, when Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho was kidnapped and murdered; as it has done nothing about all the church bombings and assassinations of lay Christians that have become commonplace over the last seven years.

The human tragedy of all this is compounded by the historic one. The churches of the Middle East preserve the traditions of the Apostolic era in ways no other Christian rites or denominations do. The followers of Jesus were first called Christians in Antioch Syria, and it was there that the Gospels first were written down in Koine Greek. For 1,000 years, the churches of Iraq and Syria were great centers of Christian thought and art. Today, the Christian population is declining in every majority Muslim country in the region and is under increasingly severe pressure even in Lebanon, where it still constitutes 35% of the population.

Putting aside America's particular culpability in Iraq, the West as a community of nations has long turned a blind eye to the intolerance of the Middle East's Muslim states — an intolerance that has intensified with the spread of Salafism, Islam's brand of militant fundamentalism. Our ally Saudi Arabia is the great financial and ideological backer of this hatred. In fact, when it comes to religion, the kingdom and North Korea are the most criminally intolerant countries in the world.

Oil and geopolitics prevent the United States and Western European countries from speaking out against what amounts to genocide, though something more sinister than self-interest also is at work. The soft bigotry of minimal expectation is in play, an unspoken presumption that Muslim societies simply can't be held to the same standards of humane, rational and decent conduct that govern the affairs of other nations.

Paradoxically, the one country in the Middle East whose Christian population has grown in recent years is Israel, where more than 150,000 Christians enjoy religious freedom. That lends a particular pathos to the way in which the current persecution of Christians mirrors that which destroyed most of the region's ancient Jewish communities following Israel's establishment in 1948. Iraq, for example, was home to one of the Mideast's largest and most vibrant Jewish populations, one that predated Christianity by many centuries. It was in the great Jewish academies along the Euphrates that the more authoritative of the two Talmuds was argued out and compiled after the Second Temple's destruction. All that was swept away in a wave of hatred, as were all but vestiges of the equally ancient Jewish communities in Morocco, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and, more recently, Iran.

As one of the recent Christian refugees from Baghdad told the New York Times this week, "It's exactly what happened to the Jews."

A world still dazed and distracted by a world war's aftermath stood by and did nothing then. The West has no such excuse now.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-1215-rutten-20101215,0,5334956,print.column

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From the New York Times

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Immigrants Make Paths to Suburbia, Not Cities

WASHINGTON — Immigrants fanned out across the United States in the last decade, settling in greater numbers in small towns and suburbs rather than in the cities where they typically moved when they first came to this country, new census data show.

Following jobs to rural and suburban areas, in industries like construction and the food business, immigrant populations rose more than 60 percent in places where immigrants made up fewer than 5 percent of the population in 2000. In areas that had been home to the most immigrants, the foreign-born population was flat over that period.

In Los Angeles County, long a major destination for new immigrants, the foreign-born population remained largely unchanged for the first time in several decades. In contrast, it quadrupled in Newton County, in central Georgia outside Atlanta.

Tuesday's report represented the biggest single data release in the Census Bureau 's history, with more than 11 billion individual estimates for 670,000 specific geographic locations — areas as small as several blocks.

Unlike the 2010 decennial census, which counts every American, Tuesday's survey, the American Community Survey, details characteristics using samples taken from about one in 10 Americans between 2005 and 2009.

They show a portrait of a rapidly changing America, whose young population is much more diverse than its older one.

About 48 percent of newborns last year were members of minority groups, compared with just a fifth of those over 65, a statistic that raises questions about possible generational tensions for the United States in coming decades, particularly over the cost of education and health care, said Kenneth Johnson, senior demographer at the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire.

It also foreshadows a growing divide: Graduation rates for blacks and Hispanics — the overwhelming majority of all immigrants in the United States — are far below those for whites. The trend line therefore suggests that the country will be facing a growing shortage of educated Americans as global competition intensifies, particularly as other countries' graduation levels rise.

In the last large immigration wave, in the late 19th century, immigrants took several generations to assimilate into American society through education. But the United States cannot afford to wait that long as its declining economy struggles to compete with developing countries like China, said Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco, co-director of an immigration research center at New York University.

“Today we have two elevators,” he said. “One stuck in the basement and the other moving up faster than it ever has before.”

“It is placing us at a huge disadvantage,” Professor Suárez-Orozco added.

The spreading of immigrants throughout the United States reflects their mobility in the work force, particularly because of the booming housing industry last decade.

Roberto Suro, author of “Strangers Among Us: Latino Lives in a Changing America,” estimated that several years ago, before the housing bubble burst, one out of every three newly arrived Hispanic immigrants was working in construction.

These workers were joined by their families, and communities that had never encountered immigrants in large numbers suddenly saw large influxes. Friction often followed.

Stafford County, Va., for example, where residents have demanded a crackdown on illegal immigrants, saw its immigrant population nearly triple.

“It was a kind of deficit spending, borrowing against the future in very human terms,” said Mr. Suro, a former reporter for The New York Times and The Washington Post. “The leveraged asset was the work of the immigrants. The long-term payout was the social requirement to settle them and look after their children.”

The country's biggest population gains were in suburban areas. But, in a departure from past decades when whites led the rise, now it is because of minorities. More than a third of all 13.3 million new suburbanites were Hispanic, compared with 2.5 million blacks and 2 million Asians. In all, whites accounted for a fifth of suburban growth.

Even in rural America, where the population grew the slowest — just 2 percent since 2000 compared with 7 percent nationwide — foreign-born residents accounted for 37 percent of that growth. Three-quarters of them were not citizens, suggesting that they had arrived only recently in the states.

Demographers did not agree on what the new data said about segregation trends.

William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, said his analysis of the data showed a decline in racial segregation in 61 of the top 100 metro areas.

One example is New Orleans, where segregation has declined noticeably, probably because blacks from segregated areas left the city after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Black segregation is still higher than it is for Asians and Hispanics in the United States.

“Nationally we are moving to greater integration,” Mr. Frey said.

A study by John R. Logan, a demographer at Brown University, and Brian J. Stults, a demographer at Florida State University, came to different conclusions by looking closely at neighborhoods of between 3,000 and 5,000 people. They concluded that black segregation had changed little from 2000 in the metropolitan areas, and had actually increased in areas where blacks are a smaller share of population.

The data also showed an increasingly pinched middle class. Median income declined by almost 5 percent in the past decade, with a few exceptions, including Maryland, Rhode Island and Wyoming. The deterioration was worse in counties dependent on manufacturing, where income dropped by 9 percent.

Of the five counties with poverty rates higher than 39 percent, four contain or are in American Indian reservations in South Dakota. The fifth, Willacy County, Tex., is in the Rio Grande Valley.

The Washington suburbs were home to some of the most affluent, educated people in America. The three places in the country with the highest median household income are all in Virginia — Falls Church, and the counties of Fairfax and Loudoun. Seven of the 17 counties where more than half of people 25 and older had a bachelor's degree were in Washington's suburbs.

There were 62 counties where fewer than 10 percent of the adult population had a bachelor's degree. Fourteen of these counties were in Georgia, nine in Tennessee, eight in Kentucky and five each in Florida and West Virginia.

The county with the lowest median home values for owner-occupied housing units was Reeves in Texas, at $29,400. The county with the highest median home values was Nantucket, Mass., at more than $1 million.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/15/us/15census.html?_r=1&ref=us

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Video Captures Man Confronting School Board Before Shooting

With news cameras rolling, a 56-year-old gunman entered a school board meeting in Florida on Tuesday and took several members of the board hostage, then fatally shot himself during a shootout with a security guard.

The episode was captured on video and broadcast on WMBB.com News 13 in Panama City, which ran several clips of the incident, including one in which the gunman fires a shot at a board member.

One extended clip shows the man, identified as Clay A. Duke, calmly walk up to a podium at the front of the room with a pistol after painting a mysterious red encircled “V” on the wall.

As people watched in shock and panic, the man ordered everyone to exit the room “except these clowns behind the counter here,” gesturing to several members of the board. He then engaged in an argument with board members, complaining that the school board “fired my wife,” later saying, “We're broke.” After the board members tried to talk him down – engaging in a discussion about local taxes – he then opened fire on the superintendent, Bill Husfelt, but missed.

Moments later, a security guard entered the room and engaged in a shootout with Mr. Duke, hitting him at least once. Wounded, Mr. Duke turned the gun on himself and took his own life, the police said.

Ginger Littleton, a school board member, told The Associated Press that as the man held his gun out she tried to create a diversion by striking him with her purse, an encounter also captured on the video. Ms. Littleton said she fell to the ground and the gunman turned and aimed at her, but didn't pull the trigger.

According to Florida state prison records, Mr. Duke has an extensive criminal record. He was charged in 1999 with aggravated stalking, shooting or throwing a missile into a building or vehicle, and obstructing justice. He was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison on each charge, and was later placed under community supervision.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/video-captures-man-confronting-school-board-before-shooting/?ref=us

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From Google News

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Arlington man charged with terror threat

by Maria Glod

December 15, 2010

A 25-year-old Arlington County man was arrested after threatening on his Facebook page to use explosives in the Washington area, writing that he could put pipe bombs on Metro cars or in Georgetown at rush hour, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Virginia.

Court papers do not indicate that Awais Younis, also known as Mohhanme Khan and Sundullah Ghilzai, ever acted on the threats. He has been charged with communicating threats via interstate communications.

In conversations with another Facebook user, Younis described how to build a pipe bomb and indicated what type of shrapnel would cause the most damage. He talked about putting bombs on the third and fifth cars of a Metro train, which he said held the largest number of passengers. In one posting, he said, "Christmas trees were going to go boom."

Younis's case is the second in recent days in which Facebook has pointed authorities toward suspects in terrorism investigations. Federal authorities cited the popular social networking site in the case against a Baltimore man accused of plotting to blow up a military recruiting center. Authorities said they learned of Antonio Martinez's radical leanings on Facebook, joined his plot and supplied him with a fake car bomb that he tried to detonate last week.

Arthur Hulnick, a Boston University professor who worked with the CIA for 28 years, said the most serious and deadly terrorists want to act in secret. But he said authorities must devote resources to checking out threats to identify those that might be serious.

"A real terrorist who is going to blow up the Washington Metro wouldn't put an advertisement on Facebook. He'd just do it," Hulnick said. "But they have to check it out. You can't ignore it."

Younis came to the attention of authorities in late November when a Facebook user corresponding with a man known as Sundullah Ghilzai became worried and contacted FBI agents in New Orleans. FBI Special Agent Joseph J. Lesinki described the online contact between the two in an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria.

Ghilzai wrote that a bomb in Georgetown at rush hour would cause the greatest number of casualties, according to the affidavit. He wrote that he could put pipe bombs on Metro train cars without being noticed. When the correspondent replied, "you wouldn't do that," Ghilzai answered, "watch me," the affidavit said.

Authorities obtained a search warrant for the Facebook account that Ghilzai used and determined that his legal name is Awais Younis, court papers said.

On Dec. 5, the person who had conversed with Ghilzai again reached out to the FBI. The two had chatted again through Facebook, and Ghilzai seemed angry and agitated.

"You are sticking your nose where it doesn't belong into something bigger then you and I," he wrote. "that is the problem with Americans they cant leave well enough alone until something happends then they sit there wondering why we dropped the twin towers like a bad habit hahaha."

The correspondent said Ghilzai posted a photo on his Facebook page showing himself holding an AK-47 rifle and standing with his uncle in front of a tent filled with explosives. The caption read: "My family business," according to court papers. Another photo, with the caption "bullet behind every rock," showed a hand holding rifle rounds.

Ghilzai also mentioned the correspondent's father, who lives in the Washington area and takes Metro, in a menacing way. "Do yourself a favor and tell your father to cancel work tomorrow," he wrote.

Younis was arrested Dec. 6, and the case was unsealed Dec. 9. A judge has ordered a mental health evaluation before a court hearing scheduled for this month, authorities said.

The arrest came months after authorities charged Farooque Ahmed, 34, of Ashburn with conspiring with people he thought to be al-Qaeda operatives to bomb the Arlington Cemetery, Pentagon City, Crystal City and Court House Metro stations. The operatives were actually working with the FBI.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/14/AR2010121407020.html

A dog searchs the brush in the area between Gilgo Beach and Cedar Beach off Long Island. So far, the remains of four people have been discovered, and cops fear a serial killer.

Cops call in FBI as serial killer case develops - none of four bodies on beach is Shannon Gilbert by John Lauinger DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER December 15, 2010 Cops who feared a serial killer has turned a Long Island beach into a dumping ground Tuesday called in the FBI for help. The New York City medical examiner is also helping Suffolk County police identify the four decomposing corpses a cadaver dog discovered in Oak Beach, L.I. Cops were looking for clues to the fate of prostitute Shannon Gilbert when they discovered the remains on Saturday and Monday. An early analysis suggests none is Gilbert - who vanished in May after a sex romp in a gated community in Oak Beach. "Preliminarily, it doesn't look like it is her," Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer told the Daily News yesterday. The bodies - at least two are women - were found on a narrow island off Long Island's South Shore, between Gilgo Beach and Cedar Beach.

Officer John Mallia and his dog Blue were walking along the shoulder of Ocean Parkway on Saturday when the pooch's tail suddenly perked up.

"At that point, I saw the skeletal remains of the body," Mallia said.

He and Blue were called in for followup searches Monday, and they found the other three bodies within a quarter mile of the first - about 50 feet apart.

It's unlikely that any of the discovered bodies is that of missing prostitute Shannon Gilbert.

Dormer said police are operating on the assumption the victims were slain by a single murderer who drove to the area and dumped the bodies in the roadside brush. "We could have a serial killer," he said. "I don't think it's a coincidence that four bodies ended up in this area." He would not say if there was any sign of trauma or confirm a report that two of the bodies were wrapped in burlap. "It does look like the bodies were there for some time," Dormer said. "You can tell from the physical evidence that it's possible they were there for a year, a year and a half, two years." He declined to say whether cops were trying to link the bodies to any missing-persons cases beyond Gilbert's. The tattooed 24-year-old, who lived in Jersey City, was last seen by her pimp running frantically out of a john's pad inside the gates of the Oak Island Beach Association, a private community. Oak Beach resident Gustav Coletti, 75, said Gilbert was crazed and clearly high when she pounded on his door, begging for help. "She was just screaming at the top of her lungs and banging on the door," he told The News. "When I opened the door, she almost fell into the house. I said, 'What is the matter?' She just looked at me and started screaming.

"She said, 'Help me! Help me!' She didn't say anything about people trying to hurt her," Coletti said, adding that she ran off when he offered to call police.

Dormer said cops interviewed the john and the pimp in May. Gilbert used craigslist to find escort work - as did a Maine woman who went missing in Hauppauge during the summer.

Maine cops investigating the disappearance of Megan Waterman, 22, have spoken with Suffolk police about the Oak Beach bodies.

Atlantic City prosecutors said they have spoken with cops about similarities between the Long Island cases and four dead prostitutes found dead behind the Black Horse Pike motel four years ago.

Cops said they asked the FBI to get involved because of the likelihood the case could cross state lines.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/12/15/2010-12-15_maniac_on_loose_4_bodies_found_at_beach_in_li_hint_at_slayer.html

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Virginia abduction suspect waives extradition

Jeffrey Scott Easley, 32, appeared in San Francisco Superior Court and decided to return to Roanoke, where he faces abduction and credit card fraud charges, Roanoke County spokeswoman Teresa Hall said.

He will probably return Wednesday or Thursday, Hall said.

Police say Brittany Mae Smith, 12, was abducted and taken on a weeklong cross-country trek.

The girl's father, Benjamin Smith, expressed gratitude Monday to the numerous people who worked on the case and who publicized the names and faces of Brittany and her alleged abductor. He singled out Theresa Shanley, who recognized the pair outside a San Francisco supermarket, as "my hero."

Two detectives from Roanoke County escorted the girl from California back to Roanoke on Monday, Hall said.

Roanoke County police Chief Ray Lavinder has called Easley a "very good suspect" in the death of Tina Smith, Brittany's mother.

Police believe that 41-year-old Smith, who was Easley's girlfriend, was killed between the morning and evening of December 3, Lavinder said. On that day, surveillance video shows Easley and Brittany Smith shopping for a blue domed tent at a Wal-Mart in Salem.

Lavinder said authorities believe that the two left Virginia, heading toward California, that night or early the next day. They traveled cross-country in Tina Smith's silver 2005 Dodge Neon sedan, which was found in a parking lot adjacent to San Francisco International Airport after authorities found Brittany Smith and Easley.

The pair were holding up a cardboard sign and asking for money when they were spotted, Lavinder said. The Safeway was within walking distance of the makeshift campsite containing the tent in which Easley and Brittany Smith had been staying.

Easley did not resist when police arrested him shortly after 2 p.m. Friday, San Francisco police Officer Albie Esparza said.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/12/14/virginia.missing.child/

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