Zarchary Christie and the Spork

6-year-old Zachary Christie is a first-grader at Downes Elementary School in Newark, Del., He received a 45-day suspension from school. His crime - he took a camping utensil that contained a spoon, fork, bottle opener and knife (commonly called a spork) to school.

School administrators deemed Zachary to be in violation of their zero-tolerance ban on weapons, and he may have to attend the district's reform school.

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Zachary's mother, Debbie Christie, is speaking out against the suspension and saying he should not have to face 45 days of reform school as a consequence.

"I got a call from the principal, telling me to come down, that Zach had carried a dangerous weapon into school and was going to be suspended," Christie told "Good Morning America"

School administrators deemed Zachary to be in violation of their zero-tolerance ban on weapons, and he may have to attend the district's reform school.

The decision has been widely criticized as being too harsh, and Debbie Christie started a Web site with a petition of support that garnered thousands of  signatures.

At the school board meeting supporters came out to rally for change. The board relented and changed its rules. Children in kindergarten and first grade will only be faced with a three to five day suspension.

See Video Clip Below

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Mom Leaves Kids on Roadside

Madlyn Gleich Primoff, 45, of 36 Olmstead Road, Scarsdale, NY did what just about every parent has threatened to do at one point or another - she ordered her two warring daughters out of the car and drove off leaving them behind. She was charged with endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor and released on minimal bail.

Madlyn Primoff is a prominent Park Avenue lawyer, a partner at the law firm of Kaye Scholer LLP located at 425 Park Avenue New York, NY. Her expertise is in Bankruptcy & Creditor/Debtor Rights. She works in the Business Reorganization and Creditors' Rights Practice Group and has clients such as Bank of America, Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo, according to the firm's website. She lives with her husband and daughters in a $2 million home in an upscale neighborhood. She is not the type of person one would expect to abandon her kids - but she did!

According to police, Sunday evening (4/19/09) Madlyn was travelling through downtown White Plains with her two daughters aged 10 and 12 when she could no longer take the bickering coming from the two quarrelling siblings. She stopped the car at the intersection of Post Road and South Broadway and ordered both of them to get out of the car. She then drove off leaving the two girls behind.

The 12-year-old, after realizing that her mom intended to leave them there, ran after the car, caught up to it and was allowed to get in. Madlyn then drove off leaving the 10-year-old behind.

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Madlyn Primoff left her 10-year-old daughter in White Plains, which is about 3 miles from their home in Scarsdale. The exact route to her home is laid out on the map. It is a 7 minute trip by car. However, walking at a normal pace, it would take about one hour to cover that distance. Did Madlyn really expect her 10-year-old to find her own way back home?

A stranger found the little girl wandering on nearby Mamaroneck Ave, bought her some ice cream and called the White Plains police. The little girl was able to give the police her mother's name and address.

Shortly afterward Scarsdale police notified the police in White Plains that the mother had just called to report the 10-year-old as missing. The White Plains police told them that the girl was safe and sound and in their custody at police headquarters.

Madlyn, accompanied by her husband and other daughter, showed up at headquarters later that evening. She was immediately arrested and a temporary order of protection was issued, barring her from contact with the girls. The District Attorney's office said she was arraigned Tuesday on one count of endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor, and released on minimal bail.

Barry Willner, managing partner of Kaye Scholer, said in a statement:

"Madlyn Primoff is a very well respected partner at our firm, and we consider this matter to be personal and private."

A man who answered the phone at the Primoff's home said she would not be commenting.

Melissa Huckaby Charged in Sandra Cantu Death

Melissa Huckaby, 28, of Tracy, Ca., a Sunday school teacher and mother of a 5-year-old girl has been charged with murder. She is accused of the gruesome killing of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, her daughter's playmate. She made her first appearance in San Joaquin County court where the charges against her were made public.

Melissa Huckaby is charged with one count of murder with the special circumstances of rape with a foreign object, lewd or lascivious conduct with a child under 14 and murder in the course of a kidnapping. She could be eligible for the death penalty or life in prison if convicted.

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It all began when Sandra Cantu was reported missing from her home on March 27, 2009. She was last seen heading to Huckaby's house to play with Huckaby's 5-year-old daughter, just 5 houses down the road. When she did not return home, a massive search party was organized with volunteers searching through a landfill, rivers, homes and fields all over the Tracy area where Sandra lived.

Posters of the little girl were widely distributed throughout northern California and a reward of $26,000 was offered for information leading to Sandra's whereabouts. Many people were questioned by the police including Sandra's father who lives in Mexico and a 60-year-old man who admitted he kissed Sandra on the lips two years ago.

The search for Sandra Cantu came to a tragic end on April 6, when a suitcase was found by farm workers who were draining a pond to water a field at a dairy farm about two miles away from her home. Inside the suitcase police discovered the remains of the 8-year-old little girl.

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Further investigations led the police to zero in on Melissa Huckaby. She was booked on suspicion of murder and kidnapping early Saturday morning, April 11, 2009, after a five-hour interview with Tracy police, during which she wept and indicated that she deliberately killed Sandra Cantu on March 27. Police offered no motive for the murder.

"Finding out, one, that it's a woman, and that it was a member of the community was one blow," said Tracy police Sgt. Tony Sheneman, referring to the suspect. "But then finding out it was someone the family knew was a double blow. This case has been hard on everyone. The fact that there's been an arrest will never reverse what happened. There is no joy in this."

Melissa Huckaby lives in a mobile home with her 5-year-old daughter and grandparents, Lane and Connie Lawless. Investigators spent several days searching that home and the nearby Clover Road Baptist Church where Lane Lawless, 77, is a pastor.

Huckaby had been in trouble with the law before. She pleaded no contest in January to a burglary charge in San Joaquin County and has a 2006 theft conviction in Los Angeles County.

What is so shocking about this case is that women are rarely sexual predators - only about 5 percent to 15 percent, according to experts - and when they do molest children, they are more often accomplices.

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Children Raping Children

"11-Year-Old Girl Charged with Rape", was the headline of a story I came across at the  Zanesville Times Recorder. It was the story of this pre-teen girl who was charged with three counts of rape. According to Detective Randy Ritchason the girl had some type of sexual contact with three other children - two boys and a girl -all under the age of 10. She was charged in Muskingum County Juvenile Court.

"I believe it's the youngest perpetrator we've had," Ritchason said. "We've had young teens before, but she is about the youngest I've ever dealt with."

Apparently, this is a very rare case but there seems to be an increasing number of kids who are the perpetrators of sex-based crimes, usually committed against other children. Rhonda Hinkle, a supervisor with Muskingum County Children's Services, thinks that there are societal forces at work that encourage young kids to engage in sexual activities.

"I think a lot of it has to do with society today," Hinkle said. "We have so many blended families today, we have all the technology that children at young ages are allowed access to and we have entirely different sets of values and issues then ever before."

There is much evidence to support her suspicions: from sexy billboards, to scantly clad women selling everything from underwear to cars, to increasing sexual content being shown on TV, to the latest celebrity scandal, to Presidential infidelity on the evening news, to adult (and child) pornographic websites, its seems that society is obsessed with sex and the kids are absorbing all of it.

Rhonda Hinkle said her office investigates about 10 to 15 cases a month where a young person is the perpetrator of a sex abuse. The crimes range from rape, gross sexual imposition, sexual imposition, pornography and even "sexting" - forwarding lewd images on cell phones. Hinkle said she has seen children as young as 10 or 11 having consensual sex.

It makes one wonder if kids are not being pressured in adult activities by their environment and perceived expectations of what it means to be a grown-up. After all we, the adults, set the examples for our kids to follow. It is doubtful whether a pre-pubescent child would have sexual urges, so where does this kind of behavior come from?

"These kids are watching this stuff on television, they see it on the computers, they are seeing their parent or guardians in relationships where more physical or sexual stuff is being shown then used to be or even should be," Ritchason said. "Young kids are being exposed to things today through technology and lifestyles that they really shouldn't be."

The sad thing is that in many cases the young perpetrators and the victims either live in the same household and are related or are in close contact with each other. John Shaffer, court director for the Muskingum County Juvenile Court system, who has been involved in the court system for 27 years said that most of the offenders he has seen in the court system have lower IQs. and their victims usually are younger children in the same home.

"It's not that they're out stalking younger children," Shaffer said. "They're already in a situation where they find children they can take advantage of."

"One of the biggest problems is not knowing where your child is and who your child is with," Hinkle said. "Parents need to know that child's friends and their parents. Don't send your child on a sleepover to someone's home thinking that the same rules you have is going to apply in that household, too."

There are signs to look out for in cases of suspected abuse: Bedwetting, withdrawing, sleeping in their clothes, making sure a belt is tightly secure on their clothes while in bed, sleeping with lights on when they've been sleeping just fine with the lights off are just a few.

It should be noted however that observing some of these behaviors in children does not necessarily mean that they are being abused. They are nevertheless signs that all may not be well and some form of attention or intervention may be needed.

3-Year-Old Girl Frozen to Death

The following is a sad, tragic story of a little 3-year-old girl named Cassandra Weronick. She was found frozen to death in the snow less than a mile from her home. It is so very hard when parents have to bury their children but what makes this so much more poignant is that it was so unexpected. This little girl wandered away from home in the middle of the night with only a shirt and diaper on. She most certainly died a slow, painful, bone-chilling death in the snow with the temperature outside in the single digits. Her parents are devastated.

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"There's not too much you can say about it other than its a sad, sad event," said State Police Capt. Wayne Olson.

It was a neighbor, a newspaper carrier, that found little Cassandra in the snow less than a mile from her home at 33 Aldrich Road, Mountaindale in upstate New York. At first she thought it was a doll lying in the snow but when she got out of her car to investigate, she saw it was a little child.

Around the same time Cassandra’s father, Douglas Weronick, called 911 at 7:03 am to report his daughter missing. He handed the phone over to his wife, Lisa, so that he could begin searching the neighborhood. Only three minutes later—while Lisa Weronick was still on the phone with dispatchers — the neighbor called 911 to report she’d found a little girl’s body.

While out searching for his missing daughter, Douglas Weronick heard the call for a child with cardiac arrest broadcast over another neighbor’s police scanner. He went up the road to the address - to his neighbor Diana Dimilia's house -  and discovered his daughter’s body in the snow just off the road. She was pronounced dead at the scene. She was the youngest of three children.

"When I left this morning it was about 9 degrees, so it was down in the single digits, I mean bitter, bitter cold last night and you know it's amazing that she could have even gotten this far," said neighbor Diana Dimilia.

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The police believe that it was around 3 am that Cassandra wandered off in the cold. The family dog started barking about that time. Cassandra's mom, Lisa, was woken up by the noise. She discovered that the door was left slightly open and - believing that the dog had opened the door - shut it and bolted it and then went back to sleep.

Police say Cassandra had wandered away from home before, but was quickly found her at a neighbor's house. The Weronick's had even made efforts to prevent her from sneaking off again.

"The parents had a couple locks on the door, evidently she was able to bypass the latch and lock to get out of the house so I think her own ingenuity was probably part of the problem," said Olson.

At the Spring Glen Grocery, the owner, Ramila Patel, told CBS 2 the parents often stopped in with Cassandra and their two older boys.

"I know the family, husband and wife, [they're] wonderful. This is so sad, oh my gosh," said Patel.

The investigation continues, but police say there are no signs of foul play, just a tragic set of circumstances.