Father murdered 5 year old son

Police in North Carolina discovered a deceased infant buried in a couple’s backyard over the weekend.

Dustin VanDyke, 28, and Gracie Riddle, 18, were charged with first-degree murder in connection to the death of their baby.

The remains were discovered after police received a tip from a family member on Friday night of an unreported death. The age and gender of the infant have not been released.

A family member told WRAL that VanDyke and Riddle are allegedly related and “panicked” when they discovered Riddle was pregnant.

Filicide

Filicide occurs when a child is killed by a parent, with the majority of murders occurring within the first year of a child’s life—called infanticide.

According to a study published in the National Library of Medicine, about 2.5 percent of all homicide arrests in America are parents who killed their children—or about 500 per year.

Of all filicides, 90 percent are perpetrated by biological parents and 10 percent by a stepparent. Studies have also found that female perpetrators often commit filicide within the first year of life while men often target older children.

‘Needed to Talk’

Police said they believe the family member who called knew about the situation but waited until now to report the crime, WRAL reported.

“I think this person just finally got to the point to where their conscience got to him and they decided they needed to talk about it and tell someone and that’s how we initially got the report,” Erwin Chief of Police Jonathan Johnson told WRAL .

Police obtained a search warrant and a cadaver K-9 located the infant in the backyard. Officers said they believe the baby has been deceased since last Thanksgiving.

Both VanDyke and Riddle are scheduled to appear in court on Monday.

Newsweek reached out to the Erwin Police Department for comment.

Other Filicides

On August 6, a Florida couple was arrested after allegedly beating their 6-year-old son to death for drinking out of the toilet.

“The child was transported to the hospital where he was placed on life-support for life-threatening injuries,” Osceola County Sheriff Marcos R. Lopez said. “Throughout our investigation, it was learned the child was drinking from the toilet, but that had nothing to do with why he wasn’t breathing.”

In April, two Georgia parents were charged with murder in the death of their 4-week-old infant who was given alcohol in a baby bottle.

A 10-year-old Michigan boy was also killed after his mother allegedly committed a murder-suicide . Police initially described the incident as a “nightmare situation” and said the child was at the hospital in extremely critical condition before his death.

Updated 08/22/2022, at 2:08 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional information and background.

The family of a 19-year-old woman receptionist who was killed in Uttarakhand allegedly by her employer refused on September 25 to conduct her last rites until they get the final postmortem details, even as a preliminary report said she died due to drowning.

The draft report released by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh, also said antemortem injuries (injuries before death) have been found on Ankita Bhandari’s body, suggestive of a blunt force trauma. However, she died of drowning, said the preliminary report.

Bhandari’s body was recovered from the Cheela canal close to Rishikesh early on Saturday, six days after her parents found her missing from her room. The postmortem was conducted by a four-member team of doctors at AIIMS on Saturday.

An illegally built resort, belonging to Pulkit Arya, after it was partially demolished by authorities overnight, in Pauri Garhwal district on September 24, 2022. | Photo Credit: PTI

The details of injuries and other findings will be given in the final report, said the draft.

Ankita’s father and brother on Sunday refused to perform her last rites until they get the final postmortem report.

“I am not satisfied with the provisional postmortem report. Her last rites will not be performed until we get the final detailed report,” said her father Virendra Singh Bhandari.

SDRF personnel recover the body of a female resort receptionist, who was murdered allegedly by the resort owner, from the Cheela canal, in Pauri Garhwal district on September 24, 2022. | Photo Credit: PTI

Her brother Ajay Singh Bhandari said the provisional report is lacking in detail.

They also spoke against the demolition exercise carried out at the resort where she was working as a receptionist. “It may be an attempt to destroy evidence,” Ajay said.

The woman worked at the Vanantara resort in Pauri district’s Yamkeshwar block owned by Haridwar BJP leader Vinod Arya’s son Pulkit Arya.

Pulkit and two other employees have been arrested in the case.

Protesters block Rishikesh-Badrinath national highway in Srinagar

Srinagar: People block the Rishikesh-Badrinath highway in protest against the killing of Ankita Bhandari, at Srinagar in Pauri Garhwal district, on Sunday, September 25, 2022. | Photo Credit: PTI

Meanwhile, the Rishikesh-Badrinath national highway was blocked for several hours in Uttarakhand’s Srinagar area on September 25 by people demanding justice.

As the protesters sat on a dharna on the highway on Sunday, police tried to pacify them by bringing Ankita’s father Virendra Singh Bhandari to the spot to talk to them. The protesters, however, refused to budge.

They demanded the perpetrators of the crime be hanged immediately. A section of women at the dharna site also demanded that the accused be handed over to them so that they could be punished appropriately.

Some of the protesters also said they would lift the blockade only after a written assurance from the administration of compensation and a job to Bhandari’s family.

Additional Superintendent of Police Shekhar Chandra Suyal appealed to them to end the protest, saying all necessary action was being taken against the accused.

Virendra Singh Bhandari, who was brought in to try to pacify the protesters, told the crowd that the police were cooperating with him and investigations were being carried out properly.

The protesters, however, claimed that he was making the statement under pressure from the administration.

Shops in Srinagar kept shutters down in protest against the murder.