Was Baby Yair Carrillo For Sale?

30-year-old Maria Gurrolla was not only devastated at the loss of her 4-day-old son, Yair Anthony Carrillo, she was also a bloody mess. A woman, later identified as Tammy Renee Silas,39, approached Maria at home at 3816 East Ridge Dr., Nashville, Tn., claiming to be an immigration officer who had come to arrest her.

The "immigration officer" proceeded to attack Maria, stabbing her multiple times. Maria managed to escape and ran to one of her neighbors for help. When she returned to her home she discovered that the "immigration officer" had left, taking Maria's 4-day-old son with her. An amber alert was also issued.

The police were able to locate and arrest Tammy Renee Silas, at her home in Ardmore, Alabama about 80 away. Silas is charged with the federal offense of kidnapping. She is also accused of attacking Maria Gurrolla with a knife and stealing her then 4-day-old baby. The FBI is holding Silas in the Morgan County Jail in Alabama. She'll appear in federal court when U.S. Marshals bring her back to Nashville.



Maria Gurrolla was notified that her baby was found. She went with her other 3 children, aged 3, 9, and 11 to get her infant son. After allowing her a brief visit with him, state welfare officials took him and the other three children and placed them in foster care, without much explanation except to say that it was for the safety of the children.

It was later learned that Department of Children's Services received credible reports that Maria was trying to sell her baby.

A statement released by DCS had said, in part, that "the Department of Children's Services still had concerns about the well-being and safety of (her other) children, based on credible and serious information that we are currently receiving."

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However, one day later, Metro police agreed that Yair should be returned to the custody of his parents and a Juvenile Court agreed. Maria Gurrolla has now been reunited with all of her children. A family member said that Gurolla and her family are currently staying with another relative right now because she is afraid to go back to her home where the attack happened.

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Father Rapes His Infant Daughter

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Reginald Davis, 18, of Forrest City, AR, has been accused of raping his 8-day-old baby daughter. Police also charged him with second-degree battery, because the baby also suffered a fractured skull in the attack, which occurred on Labor Day, Sept. 1, 2008. He was sent to St. Francis County Jail. At his first court appearance, the following Wednesday, the judge, citing the severity of the crime, raised his bail from $50,000 to $100,000.

According to police Davis was visiting with the 15-year-old mother of his daughter. The mother went into the bathroom to take a shower before going to bed. When she came out she found blood on her newborn baby. The girl and her family, accompanied by Davis, took the baby to Forrest City Medical Center where she was treated for rape and a fractured skull. The hospital also notified the police. It turned out that the little girl's injuries were so bad she was transferred to the Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock. The police arrested Davis.

Investigators say that at the time of the attack, there were other people in the house. The case is still under investigation and it is unknown if any other arrests will be made. Reginald Davis, according to the police, has had no criminal record since turning 18. They could not comment on whether he had a juvenile record because that information could not be released under Arkansas state law.

Reginald Davis' mother said in a telephone interview that "he suffers from mental health issues." According to Dr. Allen Battle, a psychologist with the UT Medical group:

"Seeking a baby is extremely rare." He says "so many of the patience have been exposed to this behavior themselves. When they were kids in their formative stages."

According to the Children's Advocacy Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, recent reports of child sexual abuse is staggering:

• 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 5 boys have been abused, with the average age being 3-years-old


• 96% of the abusers are someone the child knows, loves and trusts
  


• 75 cases were reported in 2000, 471 cases were reported in 2007

Davis is being held on a $100,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in circuit court on September 17.

Kids Perform in "Sex Shows"

The depth of human depravity has hit a new low in the case of kids, 5-7 years old, being taught how to perform sex shows in front of adults. They were were fed powerful painkillers (Vicodin) they knew as "silly pills". They danced for the audience. They were forced to have sex with each other on stage. They were videotaped in sexual positions.

The case came to light in August 2004 in Mineola, Texas. Involved were three siblings: a 7-year-old girl, a 6-year-old boy and a 5-year-old girl, along with their 6-year-old aunt.

Six adults have been charged; two (Jamie Pittman, 36, and Shauntel Mayo, 29 both from Tyler) have been already sentenced to life in prison; jury selection is set start for a third, Patrick “Booger Red” Kelly, 41 of Tyler. The others awaiting trial are: Dennis Boyd Pittman, 45, of Tyler; Shelia Darlene Sones, 48, of Mineola; and Jimmy Dale Sones, 33, of Brownsboro.

It has also been reported that a 7th person, Rebeca Lynn Pittman, has signed papers to be extradited from Washington state to face charges of aggravated sexual assault on a child, in connection with this case. Authorities are still investigating and are looking for others, including anyone who may have attended shows a what is being called The Mineola Swinger's Club.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=yXLfDF2mRk0]

During the trial of Jamie Pittman, the first defendant to go to trial, the jury was shown a 2 1/2 hour videotaped interview Texas Ranger Sgt. Phillip Kemp conducted with the oldest victim when she was 8 and her 7-year-old brother. Their foster mother was also there to make the children feel more comfortable during the interview in November 2005, about eight months after the children were removed from their home by CPS. The girl drew a diagram and described the inside of the club where they danced. She said there were two guards standing inside the front door and "Dennis" would sit at the front desk where people had to pay for tickets to watch the movies made of the children performing sex acts.

The girl said there were eight kids who would perform in the club. Her brother had to have sex with a teenaged boy for the movies, she said, and she would make movies with some of the other children. Jamie Pittman filmed the movies, she said.

The movies would be filmed in one area of the club and people would watch the movies in another area. People would also watch as they danced and performed sex acts. Each time she was asked about what they did, the girl would spell out "s-e-x" but refused to say the word. The girl said the children were made to watch their own movies to see how they turned out and they made a new movie each week.

At age 5, the children would begin "kindergarten", where they were taught sex acts using dolls. At the school, the kids were called by numbers, such as Kid One. She said she was in the older group and had graduated from kindergarten.

Jamie Pittman would buy "silly pills" all of the children would take every time they went to the club, she said. "They made us feel like, to do anything. They made us feel silly and stuff ... They made us crazy," she said.

The 7-year-old boy told Kemp "nasty" things happened to him in kindergarten, but he didn't want to talk about it. He said his sister had to touch him when they were at the club and they played doctor for people. He also said they took "silly pills" and he named other children he did plays with. He said Pittman videotaped the skits they made.

Sgt. Phillip Kemp testified he began investigating the "Mineola Swinger's Club" in November 2005 after the Smith County District Attorney's Office asked him to investigate the allegations. He said Pittman orchestrated and videotaped an incident where the two siblings were forced to have sex with each other.

Kemp also said people came to watch the children's shows, but he was never able to identify any of the spectators. He believes other people were there and didn't do anything to protect the children. He said he believed a lot more than the four children were involved, but he hasn't been able to find them yet.

It took the jury just 4 minutes to find guilt and 2 minutes to sentence Jamie Pittman to life in prison charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child.

In the case of Shauntel Mayo it took the jury 4 minutes to find her guilty and 6 minutes to sentence her to life in prison.

The third person to go on trial, Patrick Kelly, 41, is charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child, tampering with physical evidence and engaging in organized criminal activity. Kelly also faces a life sentence if convicted, and Smith County prosecutors hope for another swift verdict.

Thad Davidson, Kelly's attorney, said his client passed a lie-detector test proving his innocence and worries about getting a fair trial in Tyler, 25 miles southeast of Mineola, which is in Wood County.

"I think it's impossible to get a fair trial within 80 miles of Smith County," Davidson said.

Mineola, about 80 miles east of Dallas, is a close-knit, conservative bean-processing town of with more than 30 churches. Residents there want to put the scandal behind them as quickly as possible. The one-story building, where prosecutors say four children were trained to perform in front of an audience of 50 to 100 once a week, has been vacant since the landlord ousted the alleged organizers in 2004.

The Rev. Tim Letsch is opening a church in the yellow-plastered building where the children were abused. He acknowledges that building a congregation might be difficult because of the stigma attached to the property.

"You got to decide whether you're willing to forgive those kind of things," Letsch said. "It's a hard deal. Especially for a spiritual person to walk in and say, 'This happened here.'"

Permanent custody of the three siblings was given to John and Margie Cantrell. However, this week, in a surprising turn of events, prosecutors in California charged John Cantrell with sexually assaulting a child in the state 18 years ago. Margie Cantrell said her husband is innocent. Patrick Kelly's attorney has moved to postpone the trial in light of the allegations against Cantrell, a state witness, who had testified in the previous two trials.

The Wounds of Elisabeth Fritzl and Family

Elisabeth Fritzl's mental, physical and emotional wounds will require a network of case managers. So says Jeff Dolgan, senior psychologist at Denver Children's Hospital, adding that he had never heard of a case this horrific.

"It's beyond creepy," he said. "This takes the cake. Trauma is like throwing a big rock into a pond. The waves go out and we are all sadly traumatized. She will need a system of care, not just one person but an adult psychiatrist who will coordinate the rehabilitation. Her world has been this basement. It's like our waking up 500 years from now. This is all she's known."

Elisabeth Fritzl was incarcerated in a basement cellar for 24 years by her own father. She was repeatedly raped by him and bore him 7 children, one of which died shortly after birth and was incinerated in a furnace to get rid of the body. Elisabeth and her children were freed from their prison after a police investigation, prompted by the hospitalization of her eldest daughter Kirsten, 19, discovered their dungeon. Read the entire story here.

Physical Exam

After living for so long in the cramped, low-ceiling dungeon, called home for 24 years, Elisabeth and her kids have developed some serious physical problems. In her first medical exam after she was found, Austrian doctors said Elisabeth's teeth were horrifically decayed. She and her three children have a myriad of medical problems, including vitamin D deficiency, anemia and bad posture.

Vitamin D deficiency can cause rickets, a disease of malnutrition caused by lack of sun exposure that is rarely seen today. Her bones are weakened and deformed. Because of the cramped space, low ceilings and little opportunity to exercise, Elisabeth may also have problems with movement. She looks haggard, hunched over, lined and gray. The 42 year-old looks more like the sister of her 67-year-old mother than her daughter. Because of the scarce oxygen supply in the cramped quarters, Elisabeth and her kids had to spend long spells sitting or lying down. Kerstin, her 19-year-old daughter, is in an induced coma after collapsing. She is still in a critical condition and fighting for her life.

According to Dr. Stuart Goldman, a psychiatrist at Harvard University's Children's Hospital in Boston, "This case is so unique, we can only look for approximations."

"If you don't use muscles and stretch them out, your motion is limited," said Goldman. Muscles can be retrained, but senses like vision and hearing could be permanently impaired. He continued "All our senses are trophic. You have to use nerves for nerves to develop. If you patch an eye, you eventually go blind, even if the eye is mechanically normal."

Mental and Emotional Problems

Aside from the physical challenges facing the family, also of concern is the mental and emotional damage their incarceration may have caused. Although the Austrian doctors are worried about the three children, Elisabeth may have suffered the worst.

"She was older when it started happening, but at the same time, she had years and years of deprivation and limited stimulus," said Jay Reeve, associate professor of psychology at Florida State University and executive vice president of the Apalache Center for Mental Health. "It's exactly as if she was held in captivity in jail......She had some period of her life when, presumably, she was able to interact with others and be in school and have some social interchange," said Reeve. "But the rape and sexual abuse that she experienced was a pretty stark betrayal of trust."

Initially, her father Josef Fritzl, reportedly handcuffed Elisabeth to a metal pole and kept her in total darkness, returning only to bring her food or to rape her. She told police she was kept in a single room for the first nine years of her captivity where their children had to watch as her father repeatedly raped her. Often she had to decide whether to have sex or starve. She told officers how she quaked with fear every time she heard the door click as her dad came down for his vile sex sessions. He beat her if she struggled, so she soon stopped putting up a fight.

Police chief Franz Polzer said: "The man is evil beyond words. The misery he has inflicted on his family is unimaginable. It will take (Elisabeth and) the children years to recover."

With the complexity of her trauma, Elisabeth most likely has shut down emotionally as a way to cope with the pain and may need myriad therapies and time "to handle her memories and make sense of how why this happened," said Reeve.

Since being rescued, the family has been living in an isolated room in a psychiatric unit near their home. Doctors have placed a cargo container outside so that Josef Fritzl's captives can retreat there if they feel too traumatized by the daylight and the open space.

"She needs reassurance that she has not lost everything," said psychologist Dolgan.

On the video-sharing website Youtube there is a 5 part documentary on the discovery of the "House of Horrors" that Elisabeth and her children lived in. It is full of details about the experiences that she endured. Below is the first part of this documentary entitled The Josef Fritzl Story. Click here to see the entire series.

Elisabeth Fritzl and Family say "Thanks"

Elisabeth Fritzl was held captive by her father Josef Fritzl for 24 years in a cellar. She bore him 7 children while in captivity. It was only when one of her children Kerstin, 19, became very sick and had to be taken to the hospital, that Elisabeth was found and freed by the police. Josef Fritzl is in jail facing a multitude of charges. Elisabeth and her children have been placed under psychiatric care. To read the entire rescue story click here.

With the backing and encouragement of her doctors, Elisabeth,42, and her kids (Stefan 18, Lisa 16, Monika 14, Alexander 12 and Felix 6) made a huge 'Thank You' poster to express their gratitude for the support and concern from the public. The 8ft x 5ft illustrated poster features a thank you note with the family members' hands surrounding it, each with personal messages written inside. It is on display in a shop window in their hometown of Amstetten. The main message reads:

"We, the whole family, would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your sympathy for our fate.

"Your compassion is really helping us get through this difficult time and shows us that there are good people out there who care for us.

"We hope that the time will soon come when we can find our way back to a normal life."

Each person wrote an emotional individual message containing their wishes for the future. A heart shape marks their sister Kerstin, 19, who is still seriously ill and has been placed in a medically induced coma.

Here is a closer look at some individual messages

Stefan 18, who until his release two weeks ago had never seen the sun, or stood fully upright, wrote: "I like the sun, the fresh air and nature.

Lisa, 16, who was not locked in the dungeon but who lived with Fritzl and his wife upstairs, wishes for "love, happiness, health" and "that everything turns out well again".

Felix, 6, said he is dreaming of going by car again and by sledge, and he wants to play with other children and "run across a meadow". He had his first ride in a car when he was collected by police and officers spoke of his delight at the trip.

The doctors taking care of the family say that they will need time to adjust to the real world. Berthold Kepplinger, who runs the clinic, said it was becoming more apparent how much time the family needed to heal. He said that the Fritzls would "need to remain here for several more months".

He continued: "They all need to be very carefully protected and very slowly reintroduced to the real world, and to each other. In particular, Elizabeth and her two children from the cellar need to have further therapy to help them adjust to the light after years in semidarkness. "They also needed treatment to help them cope with all the extra space that they now have to move about in.

In an appeal to the public to respect the privacy of the family, Berthold Kepplinger also said:

"If the treatment is to work properly, then it is especially important that we get respect for their privacy, the need to this cannot be underestimated."

He added that the family reunion had "gone extremely well". The children were playing and enjoying activities such as painting. They had also been given a computer. However, balancing the needs of each family member was complex, he said. For example, the two cellar children and their mother needed peace and quiet and were being kept inside, whereas the three children that had normal lives until now were suffering from the enforced isolation.

Natascha Kampusch, the Austrian girl abducted as a 10-year-old and held captive in a basement for more than eight years until she escaped in 2007, also offered her help to the family, but questioned the decision to move them from the cellar into psychiatric care.

"Pulling them abruptly out of this situation, without transition, to hold them and isolating them to some extent, it can't be good for them," said Kampusch, now 20, in an interview. "I believe it might have been even better to leave them where they were, but that was probably impossible. This case is not like mine, where that was not my environment. They were born there and I can imagine that there is a strong attachment to that place."

Elisabeth's lawyer, Christoph Herbst said: "Elisabeth is very happy to be rediscovering the world. She is very keen to go outside and feel the rain on her skin. But it is important for them to adjust slowly." He also said that Elisabeth and her children who lived in the cellar have no concept of time and of the future. However, rumors that she has no teeth and cannot talk are not true.

Elisabeth's sister Gabriele Helm, 36, says she is surprised at how well her sister has endured the ordeal of being locked in a cellar with her children for 24 years.

"None of us can believe how normal Elisabeth seems. She is healthy and very chatty and doing very well. Every day she gets a bit stronger. I can't say what the family is going through. It's more than anyone can believe. It has devastated us."

"We are working together to support Elisabeth. She is overjoyed to see her children. She told them they were beautiful and she is spending all the time getting to know them."

Elisabeth tells her family that all she longs for is a normal life - or as normal a life as they can get. That's her only wish. One of her children, Felix, is keeping the family in good spirits says her lawyer: "They are all happy and there is a lot of laughter, which you might not expect. Felix makes everyone laugh. They are teaching him to run because inside the cellar he could not run. Elisabeth is really an impressive person. She is very strong. She's happy now for the first time."

Josef Fritzl,73, who imprisoned and raped his daughter for 24 years claims he is not a monster and blamed both Hitler and his mother for making him the way he is. He said he did not have sex with Elisabeth until she was older than 12, which is when she claims he first abused her. "I am not a man that has sex with little children."

"I knew that Elisabeth did not want it, what I did with her. The pressure to do the forbidden thing was just too big to withstand."

Fritzl would visit Elisabeth every few days, delivering food and repeatedly raping her. "It was an obsession with me," he said. Fritzl also described the amazing planning and secrecy behind his crime, admitting he had thought about it for years. Fritzl claimed he had kidnapped the teenage Elisabeth to "rescue" her from alcohol and bad company. He said he got into a "vicious circle":

"My situation just got more crazy. I was scared of being arrested, and that my family and everybody that knew me would know my crime … I always knew over 24 years what I did was not correct, and that I must be mad."

"I am not a monster," Fritzl said. "I could have killed all of them and no one would have known. No one would have ever found about it."

In a bizarre admission, Fritzl said he had incestuous feelings for his mother, whom he described as the greatest woman in the world. "She taught me discipline."


He went on to complain that the coverage of his daughter's abuse was one-sided. He remains in jail under tight security. His attorney said Fritzl was a "broken man" who belonged in a mental hospital rather than prison.

Reinhard Haller, a leading forensic psychiatrist in Austria, disagreed with claims that Fritzl was insane: "His main motivation was the exercise of power. It is not a sign of mental illness but rather of an extreme personality disorder."

And Fritzl may be in more trouble. The Austrian authorities have revealed that there are more rooms in the underground dungeon that have yet to be examined, which Fritzl is believed to have sealed off years ago. Fritzl has a history of sex crimes including a conviction for rape and attempted rape as well as being investigated for an unrelated murder, and now police fear the extra rooms may contain evidence of further crimes.

Police are set to break down walls in the cellar to get to the hidden rooms this week and plan to investigate the electrics and plumbing to ascertain whether Fritzl - an electrical engineer - could have built the dungeon, or whether he had help. They will also scan the ground surrounding the cellar to check if more rooms exist or if there are any objects buried in the garden. The dogs and radars being used can detect human body parts underground.

Meanwhile, the murky depths of Fritzl's mind are being examined by Austria's leading forensic psychiatrist, Dr Adelheid Kastner. Prosecutors want Dr Kastner, 46, to determine whether he is fit to stand trial.

"I am conducting exploratory conversations to get to know every possible part of the defendant's personality. The court wants me to probe several questions and has given me a deadline. But if I need longer, then the court will have to wait" said Dr Kasner.

It remains a mystery as to how Fritzl managed to smuggle two beds underground unnoticed as well as a large washing machine and supplies for Elisabeth and the children.