Sisters Vanish in Chicago

The pictures below show what Diamond and Tionda Bradley may look like now at ages 10 and 17. Police use computer aging technology to determine this.


On July 6, 2001 on a warm summer day two sisters vanished from their local home in Chicago. Tionda Bradley, 10 years old, and her sister Diamond, 3 years old, went missing when their mother went to work. She left the house at 6am that morning and left the girls to sleep some more. When she retured to the house at 11am the girls werent there, but there as a note. The note said that they were going to go play at the community park. Hours later she started to worry because there was still no trace of the girls. She then called the police and had the entire neighborhood searching for her baby girls. There was still no luck, however, 7 years later there is a lead on where Tionda may be. There was a myspace page resembling what the police thought would look like her. The aunt of the sisters demand a DNA check, and they are still looking into that.

If I was that mother I would be so scared for my girls. I'm not sure what it feels like to be a mother yet, however, I asked my mother what she would do if this were to happen to her. She told me that she would never be able to live with herself. She would think it was her fault for leaving the girls alone. She said, "I don't know what I would do with myself if I were to lose you and your sister, having you away at college is hard enough for me". It must be really hard for the girls mother to cope with the idea that she may never see her little angels again. Police are still looking for them and there is a $30,000 reward for any information about where the girls may be.

Deadly blast targets Marriott Hotel in Islamabad

This week in the news, a deadly car bomb explosion was set off at the Marriott hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan. Police and witnesses said that at least 200 people were injured in the attack in Pakistan's capital. 34 have already been confirmed dead. Witnesses at the seen claim to have seen the gates of the hotel rammed open by a small car, followed by an explosive-filled truck that exploded not long after. A Pakistani news reporter named Hamid Mir, who was at the explosion site, said he saw at least 52 bodies. Most of the dead, according to Mr. Mir, appeared to be drivers who were waiting with their cars outside the hotel, and hotel staff. According to investigators at the scene, The blast caused a leak in the gas system at the hotel, which set the top floor of the five-story hotel on fire. The fire from the explosion quickly filled the entire building. Witnesses said that the explosion was so loud, that it could be heard two miles down the road at the CNN building.

This is another sad event in the world's ongoing battle against terrorism. I think that something drastic needs to be done very quickly, otherwise situations such as this will continue to go on, and more innocent civilians will die. Ironically, this car-bombing took place hours before the newly elected President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan was scheduled to sit down with parliament and discuss rooting out the terrorism in Pakistan. More of these meetings need to take place in order for our world to be restored to the kind of place we all want it to be.

30 Year Old Sex Offender Pretends

This week in the news there was a thirty year old man named Neil Havens Rodreick II. He is a sex offender who was pretending to be a twelve year old 7th grader to enroll into school in Arizona. He pleaded guilty for not one but seven criminal charges, and will be sentenced to 70 years in jail. There was no sign of abuse to anyone at the schools that this man went to. However, when the local police searched his house they found an abundance of child porn. He was apart of twenty-eight crimes however he only admitted to about a forth of them. He admitted to four counts of sexual exploitation of a minor mainly stemming from the pornography found in his house.

He named him self Casey and plastered on make up to look like a 7th grade boy. There is also cases of him grabbing girls in inappropriate places in a charter school that he also was at. There has not been a settled sentence for this man, however its not looking good on his behalf.

I think that this man clearly is not in the right state of mind. In simpler words he is crazy. I, and I'm sure a lot of people would agree that he does not look like a 12 year old boy. He is 30 years old, there are a ton of different features that he would have that a boy of that age would not. For example, his voice would have already changed while a young boy would still not have hit puberty. The school board should have looked into it more because he did have a sex offender record long before this criminal act. Any relatively smart person should have been able to realize that there was something wrong with this man. I also can not fathom the fact that there are people out in this world that would actually do this. I think that this man should be held accountable for all that he has done and that he should be sentenced to the full 70 years in jail.

Man Kills Wifes Lover

Recently in the news there has been a court case about a man named Eric McLean from Knoxville, Tennessee. He is a thirty three year old man who terminally shot his wifes eighteen year old lover. The eighteen year old was a student of Erin McLean, and also was the boy she was having an affair with. The husband found out not long after and killed the young boy. There is now controversy to whether or not he should be held totally accountable for the murder or if he can plead insanity. The court is taking many precautions to this case such as gathering a well trained jury. The jury members are not allowed to talk about the case to anyone and are also not allowed to watch news stations about the case. They are only allowed to watch Animal Planet, HG-TV and C-Span in their hotel rooms that the court got for them.

I think that although the wife was having an affair with the eighteen year old boy Eric did not have an excuse to take his life. He took a life of a young boy and admitted to it. He is the one that pulled that trigger, insane or not he made that choice. I think that he should undoubtedly be held accountable for this kill and be sent to jail. I think there is no excuse for taking the life of another or to even threaten to do so. This man is clearly unstable and needs to be held in jail. As for the wife, she should not have cheated on her husband, however, she also made that choice. It may have been the wrong one, but she did it. I'm not at all saying she deserved to have her lover killed, but cheating never solves any relationship problem. It only makes it worse. One of my favorite quotes is "You never expect what you get, and you never get what you expect". I think this quote ties in perfectly with this case because no one would have saw any of it coming if the two were happily married as the article told.