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19 March 2024

Mom poses as dead son to get insurance money

Charlotte Schilling, 41, left, and her son Owen Schilling, 10. (AP)

Published
By AP

A Georgia woman pleaded guilty Tuesday to posing as her dead son to create an insurance policy that ended up paying out $151,000.

Donna Ellis Gibbs' son died in a car crash in December 2002. Not long after, Gibbs pretended to be her dead son and set up a life insurance policy in his name, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

She then altered documents relating to his death to reflect that he died in April 2003, before submitting a claim to Monumental Life Insurance Co., the company she used to set up the fictitious policy.

The company paid out $151,000.

Authorities were tipped off about the fraud when Gibbs' ex-husband, the father of her late son, found out about her scheme.

Gibbs was sentenced to 20 years on probation, 200 hours of community service and must undergo drug and alcohol treatment. She also must pay back in full the money given to her by the insurance company.

Mom arrested after cheering too loudly at daughter's graduation

A proud mother was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after cheering too loudly at her daughter's high school graduation ceremony in South Carolina.

Shannon Cooper says she spent several hours in jail Saturday night after being escorted from her daughter Iesha's South Florence High School graduation in handcuffs, WPDE-TV reported.

Police told the station they had warned attendees prior to the graduation ceremony that anyone who cheered or screamed would be escorted from the venue. While not commenting on Cooper's case directly, they said those who were disorderly as they were escorted out were arrested.

But Cooper said she could not believe the decision to remove her from the Florence Civic Center, where the ceremony was held.

"Disorderly conduct? What's the disorderly conduct?" she said. "How was I so disorderly you know any different from just a happy parent? I didn't resist arrest, nothing."

Cooper was booked into jail for several hours before posting a $225 bond.

Wife battered for breaking 'slave' pact

BRITAIN: In a bizarre incident, a British man battered his wife for breaking a rule of their strane slave and sex deal.

The 44-year-old man and his wife had allegedly entered into the agreement to save their decade-and-a-half old marriage. The man beat up his 45-year-old wife with a belt thrice in one day. He induced her to take her clothes off, slapped her on the face, struck her on the body with a belt, seized her by the hair and slapped her some more. The assault left the woman in such a horrendous condition that she needed to be treated in a hospital. The woman filed a police complaint in which she said that she was attached when she broke rules of the pact.

According to Daily Mail, the rules that she broke and received a beating for include: failing to answer a question quickly enough, opening the passenger door of their car instead of waiting for him to do it and refusing to have sex when he wanted".

The husband has pleaded guilty and is waiting to be sentenced to jail.

Mom chokes son and herself in the park

Police say a Nebraska mom, who disappeared last month with her son, strangled the 10-year-old boy before strangling herself in the woods of an Iowa state park.

Council Bluffs police said Monday that Charlotte Schilling, 41, of Plattsmouth, Neb. and her son, Owen, both died with plastic zip ties around their necks in a murder-suicide.

The Schillings were missing from May 10 until their bodies were found May 20 in Lake Manawa State Park, south of Council Bluffs in western Iowa, about 20 miles north of Plattsmouth.

Council Bluffs police say Charlotte Schilling tried to commit suicide with a plastic zip tie in November, but a family member intervened then. Once a zip tie is tightened, the only way to loosen it is to cut it off, so police said after Schilling tightened one around her own neck enough to restrict breathing it would have been difficult for her to remove it.

Council Bluffs Police Sgt. Chad Meyers said Schilling actually lost consciousness during her previous suicide attempt, and a family member heard her fall. Someone was able to cut the zip tie off Schilling's neck quickly enough for her to recover.

Investigators said friends described behaviour in the days before Schilling disappeared with her son that's consistent with someone contemplating suicide. For instance, Meyers said Schilling gave away some of her personal belongings.

"Individually, each one of these people probably wouldn't have known anything was different," he said. "When you put it all together and look at it, it paints a pretty clear picture of someone who is contemplating suicide."

Relatives have said it wasn't unusual for Schilling to surprise her children with short road trips to parks, zoos and other nearby attractions. But the woman always called home and past excursions never lasted long.

Her family grew worried when neither she nor Owen returned home, and Schilling's cellphone went unanswered.

Investigators believe the bodies of Charlotte and Owen Schilling had likely been lying in the woods near Lake Manawa since May 10 when Schilling checked Owen out of Wade Robin Elementary School in Bellevue, Neb. But police cannot determine the exact date of their death.

Police found Schilling's vehicle at the park where the mother and son's bodies were later found. Schilling's cellphone and wallet were in her car, about a half-mile from where the bodies were found. Authorities had to rely on autopsy results to confirm the identities because of decomposition.

Schilling and her son were last seen in surveillance video from a convenience store near the park. The video showed Owen hugging his mom, and Schilling kissing her son on the head, and the clerk said nothing seemed unusual in the store.

Meyers said some of the items that were purchased at the convenience store were found partially consumed near the bodies in the woods. There was no sign of a struggle.

Man attacks boy after water-balloon fight

A northeastern Pennsylvania man faces charges he assaulted a 9-year-old boy after losing a water balloon fight.

Investigators say 33-year-old Joe Mongeon started the water fight with the child but became angry when the boy hit him with a water balloon on Saturday in Scranton. Witnesses told police Mongeon chased the child down, pushed him to the ground and began kicking him.

The Times-Tribune of Scranton reports Mongeon also allegedly assaulted the child's mother after she tried to intervene.

Mongeon is charged with two counts of simple assault and harassment. He was released Monday on $5,000 bail.

A phone listing for Mongeon couldn't immediately be located. Court records don't list an attorney for him.(AP)

Man kills his wife and two daughters

A prosecutor said he may pursue the death penalty against a western Pennsylvania man jailed on charges he killed his two young daughters and his estranged wife at separate residences which were also set on fire.

Indiana County District Attorney Patrick Dougherty announced his intentions at a Monday news conference that detailed the killings Friday about 45 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

Online court records don't list an attorney for Lewis Beatty, 40, of Home, who was charged with three counts of criminal homicide in the deaths of his daughters, Sara, 6, and Amanda, 11, and his wife, Christine, 33, at two separate residences.

State police Trooper John Matchik said investigators believe Beatty killed his daughter, Sara, first by slitting her throat sometime Friday in her bottom bunk bed of the home they shared. Beatty then went outside and shot the family's pet pony, goat and dog before waiting for his 11-year-old daughter to return from school, at which point he slit her throat, Matchik said.

Police believe Beatty then stopped at a convenience store for a drink, went to a bank to try to add his mother's name to an account, and then followed his estranged wife home from her job as a bank teller in Marion Center.

Beatty choked the woman after she tried to leave, then slit her throat after she fell unconscious, killing her, before setting fire to the mobile home she had been renting in East Mahoning Township, Matchik said. Beatty then returned to his home in South Mahoning Township — where his daughters still lay dead — and set it on fire.

A neighbour rescued Beatty from the flames, and he was arrested after being treated at Indiana Regional Medical Center. The fires were reported between 7 and 8 pm. Friday, though it took investigators until early Saturday to sort out the carnage and charge Beatty.

Ron Smail, who identified himself as the father and grandfather of the victims, told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that his daughter and Beatty had separated and shared custody of their daughters. He said Lewis Beatty was attempting to reconcile with Christine, who had turned down his invitation for a dinner date on Friday, though he wasn't sure if that led to the killings.

The Presbyterian Church of Plumville, where the family attended church, posted the message "We love you Chris Amanda and Sara" on a sign in front of the sanctuary.

Beatty was jailed without bond following his arrest and preliminary arraignment Saturday. He faces a preliminary hearing Thursday, though that's expected to be continued once.

Kuwaiti couple fights in air

A Kuwaiti man and his wife on board a flight back home had an argument before it snowballed into a fist fight just as the aircraft was about to land at the emirate’s international airport, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The two were returning from a holiday in another Gulf country when an argument erupted, followed by a scuffle, Alwatan Arabic language daily said.

(Home page image courtesy Shutterstock)