Nanny suspected of killing 2 kids in NY home

 A police crime scene vehicle is parked in front of the Manhattan apartment building where police say a nanny stabbed two small children to death in a bathtub

Left: 6-year-old Lulu. Right: 1-year-old Leo.

According to this article, a nanny was suspected of killing two young children she was looking after in an apartment in Upper East Side Manhattan. Marina Krim, the mother of the two children returned to the apartment that night, very confused and worried due to the dark home she returned to. She went down to the lobby to ask the doorman if the nanny had left with 1-year-old Leo and 6-year-old Lucia. She was told they hadn't left, so she went back upstairs to her apartment room. After searching around, she went into the bathroom where she found the bodies of the two children in the bath tub, with the body of the wounded nanny with a knife lying nearby. It is unclear how many times the children had been stabbed. "There was some kind of screaming about, 'You slit her throat!'" said music therapist Rima Starr, who lives on the same floor as the family, and said she heard screams coming from their apartment at around 5:30 p.m. The nanny, Yoselyn Ortega, was hospitilized in critical condition and was in police custody. The children were pronounced dead at the hospital. The children's father, CNBC digital media executive Kevin Krim, who was away on a business trip, was met by police at the airport and was an escort to the hospital. The couple's apartment building is a block from Central Park, near the Museum of Natural History and blocks from Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Seeing children accompanied by nannies is an everyday part of life there, making the idea of such violence even more disturbing to residents. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said it's unclear how long the nanny had worked for the family and the police investigation was ongoing. No charges had been filed. He believes that the nanny had just been working for them recently. "I met her in the elevator, the day before yesterday, and was making small talk," said Krim. After finding the bodies and after the police arrived, the mother remained in the building's lobby, screaming hysterically and clutching her barely surviving children. The eldest of the children, Lulu, is described as loving "art projects, ballet, and all things princess." The youngest, Leo, was said to be just learning how to walk. The family had moved to New York from San Francisco within the lat few years. Click this link to read more.

Police outside the Manhattan apartment at the scene.

 

Mr. Varley you are the best teacher ever.

Teacher's Aide Fired for 1965 Killing

Paula Baniszewski's current photo & 1965 mugshot

According to this article, Paula Baniszewski, who is now Paula Pace, a teacher's aide in Iowa was fired from her job due to the revelation that she was a member of an Indiana family notorious for torturing and killing 16 year old Sylvia Likens in 1965. "A week ago today we got an anonymous report that the now Paula Pace was the previous Paula Baniszewski involved in this 1965 murder case in Indiana and it was a real attention-seeker out there, a heinous crime," Grundy County Sheriff Rick Penning told ABCnews.com today. Paula was 17 years old in the summer of 1965, living in Indiana, when Likens and her sister came to stay with Paula and her family. Likens was beatened, burned, malnourished and branded for the few months she was living in the Baniszewski household. Her body was found in the following October of that year in the Baniszewski basement. Gertrude Baniszewski, Paula's mother, was charged with first degree murder and Paula was found guilty of second degree murder for her participation of the torture of Sylvia Likens. Other Baniszewski family members were also convicted of such crimes. Paula Baniszewski pleaded guilty to manslaughter. She received a sentence of 7 years in prison, and was released in 1972. She completed her parole and moved to Iowa. Paula, now 64, 47 years after the killing, changed her name to Paula Pace and has worked for the BCLUW school district in Conrad, Iowa, since 1998. She has done custodial work and has recently been working as a teacher's aide in the school for students with special needs. Recently, information about Paula's real identity had been revealed over Facebook. An anonymous person confronted the police to check her background. Police immediately notified the school and began doing background checks. Pace's background and birth date matched those of Baniszewski's, comparing a current photo to her 1965 mugshot. "The superintendent had called her in and she admitted to it, so she was suspended," Penning said. The school called for a board meeting, and the members agreed to fire Paula. "Paula Pace's employment was terminated at a board meeting yesterday," superintendent Ben Petty told ABCnews.com. "Her employment was terminated for providing false information on her application." Petty would not comment further on how she was able to lie on her application. Penning said that Baniszewski is not facing any criminal charges, she could not be reached for comment. An Iowa phone number listed for Pace had been disconnected. The 1965 killing of Sylvia Likens criminal case has become one of the most infamous crimes in Indiana and has been the subject of several books and movies.

BLOG OF THE WEEK!!!

Skydiver Baumgartner breaks record for highest freefall

In this article, Felix Baumgartner broke the record for the highest freefall ever recorded. Yesterday, Baumgartner went up 128,100 ft (24 mi) in a US helium balloon over New Mexico. It took nine minutes for him to reach the ground at an estimated 833.9 mph. "On the step, I felt that the whole world is watching," Mr Baumgartner said after the jump. "I said I wish they would see what I see. It was amazing." The capsule which the skydiver fell from was equipped with cameras to provide a live internet feed. More than 8 million people viewed the live stream on YouTube, the largest number of concurrent live streams in the website's history. "We congratulate Felix Baumgartner and the entire Red Bull Stratos team for their successful mission, and for creating a live stream with the most concurrent views ever on YouTube," BBC the company said on their blog. After a weather delay of several hours, he set off at 9:30 a.m. (11:30 a.m. ET) Sunday from Roswell, New Mexico, in breezy, clear conditions, strapped into a pressurized capsule that hung from a giant helium balloon. It took two hours to reach his target altitude. After running through a 40-step checklist, Baumgartner opened the door of the capsule and climbed out onto a step before falling "Guardian angels will take care of you," said Mission Control just before Baumgartner jumped. "The whole world is watching now," he responded. He then jumped and about three minutes in, he reported, "My visor is fogging up." Then he began to spin, sending blood to rush to his head and leave him out of control. "There was a period of time where I really thought, 'I am in trouble,' " Baumgartner said, recalling how he considered pushing a button that would have released a chute to stabilize his position and to attempt to break the sound barrier. "But after a couple of seconds, I had that feeling I'm getting it under control. And I did," he added. "And that's why I broke the speed of sound today." After free-falling for about four minutes and 20 seconds, he deployed a parachute for the last mile down to Earth. "There's the chute," said a specialist in Mission Control, and the control room broke into applause. As soon as Baumgartner landed, he dropped to his knees and raised his fists. The team at Mission Control in Roswell burst into applause. His survival was no guarantee. Baumgartner's life depended on his pressure suit. The temperature when he jumped was expected to hit 70 degrees below zero Fahrenheit and the atmosphere was so thin that his blood would have vaporized if he wasn't protected by the suit. The outfit had sensors and recorders to measure everything from his speed to his heart rate. Sunday's successful jump breaks Col. Joe Kittinger's record set in 1960. Kittinger fell from 102,800 feet as part of a U.S. Air Force mission. Kittinger acknowledged the ups and downs of the years-long effort. He said Baumgartner "did perfect," and all the others involved in making the mission a success. "It was a team effort, and Felix did a fantastic job," he said. "It was an honor for all of us to work with this brave guy."
 
Australian Felix Baumgartner as he  Baumgartner after he successfully lands.
jumps out of a capsule on Oct. 14.

This image provided by Red Bull Stratos shows pilot Felix Baumgartner of Austria as he jumps out of the capsule during the final manned flight for Red Bull Stratos, Oct. 14, 2012.

New bizzare species of miniature dinosaur found

Not every dinosaur grew up to be a mighty predator like the Tyrannosaurus Rex, or a hulking vegan like Apatosaurus. A few stayed small and some of the smallest dinosaurs that ever lived  tiny enough to nip at your heels were among the first to spread across the planet more than 200 million years ago. Fossils of these miniature fanged plant eaters, known as heterodontosaurs or different toothed reptiles have turned up as far apart as England and China. Now in a discovery that has been at least 50 years in the making a new and especially bizarre species of these dwarf herbivores has been identified in a slab of red rock that was collected in the early 1960s by scientists working in South Africa. In a report published Wednesday in the online journal ZooKeys Paul C Sereno a paleontologist at the University of Chicago and a dinosaur specialist described the strange anatomy of the newfound member of the heterodontosaur family and gave the new species the name Pegomastax africanus or thick jaw from Africa. He also apologized in an interview for not getting around sooner to this piece of research. When he first viewed the specimen at a Harvard laboratory Dr. Sereno said "my eyes popped as it was clear this was a distinct species." Embedded in the rock were remains of a creature with a short parrotlike beak one inch jaws sharp teeth and a skull no less than three inches long. The entire body was less than two feet in length and probably weighed less than a small house cat. "I'm embarrassed to say how many years ago that was 1983" he said. "But I was an enterprising graduate student then at the American Museum of Natural History." All the while since then I wondered if anyone else might spot the creature hiding among the lab drawers. The Pegomastax fossils were eventually returned to the South African Museum in Cape Town the true nature of the one slab still undiscovered Dr. Sereno said.