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Relatives and friends became concerned when they couldn’t contact Michael and asked law enforcement to check on his well-being.  When police went to the house that the twelve year-old shared with his mother, they found Michael’s body lying in the bathtub with his hands and fee duct-taped together and covered in cat litter.  They also found large buckets, plastic bags, googles, a knife, and a hatchett.  They arrested Angela Mann, 46, just before she was able to dismember the body and dispose of it.

The body was so badly decomposed that dental records were obtained to make the final identification.  The state of deterioration also made it impossible to determine cause of death.

For the sixth grader’s father, Lenny Belitz, Michael’s death was especially sad.  Belitz had just reestablished a relationship with his son after completing rehab.  Michael told his dad about his mother’s sometimes irrational behavior.

He claims his son told him that he would sometimes barricade himself in his room though, away from Mann. “When his mom would go on a rampage he would just go in his bedroom and shut the door.”

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Reports indicate that family members had also been concerned about Michael and his living conditions, but there was never an investigation launched even after Manns called social services requesting that her son be put in foster care.

Once Michael’s remains were examined, Belitz had to petition for custody of his son in order to arrange for burial after Manns refused to sign a release form.

Manns has been ruled competent to stand trial for first degree murder in her son’s death.  She could face up to life imprisonment or even death if found guilty.

Michael was remembered fondly at a vigil held in his honor at the school he attended.

Michael was full of energy, talked a lot and loved to be around adults.

“He was one of those kids who as soon as you knew him, you loved him,” said his fifth-grade teacher, Dana Barker.

She would read a book aloud to the class, and within a month, Michael would have the whole series read, she said.

If she was having a bad day, she remembered, he would notice and ask what was wrong.

“He was so selfless,” Barker said. “I couldn’t wait to see where he would be in 10 years.”

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Tags: Michael Belitz

Lavion was to young to have the concept of fear and especially fear of one of his caretakers.  Robert Long, however, has been charged with the six month old’s murder.

Lavion was found dead Wednesday of multiple blunt-force injuries, said Jim Wesley, a deputy Jefferson County coroner. His death was ruled a homicide.

Long, who is Lavion’s father, has been charged with murder, menacing, tampering with physical evidence and abuse of a corpse. He is being held at Metro Corrections.

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Leslie Gamble, Lavion’s mother, left the infant in his father’s care while she went to work her night shift job.  She had checked in with Leon around 10 pm and assured the baby was asleep and fine.  When she got in the next morning, Long and Lavion were gone, but the diaper bag had been left behind.  At that point Gamble become concerned about her son’s whereabouts.

Police became involved and were on the verge of issuing an Amber Alert when in SUV that had gone missing at the same time as Lavion and Long, was found outside the residence of his current girlfriend.  Inside the vehicle was the body of the infant.  Long himself was found inside the house asleep.  He was arrested and charged with murder, menacing, tampering with physical evidence and abuse of a corpse.

The death of Lavion is tragic enough but this is not the first time Long has murder his child.  In 1991, he was the caregiver when his son Robert Leon Long also died.  Long gave conflicting stories about what happened to the five week-old but was brought to trial for murder.

Long was tried twice for that son’s death.During the first trial, in November 1991, Long claimed that police coerced his confession, in which he said that he’d beaten the baby and let him fall off the bed.

In a 26-minute taped statement to police, Long said that the baby would not stop crying and he tried to comfort him. But he said nothing worked — not a bottle, pacifier or a new diaper.“Something just came over me, and I hit him,” Long said in the statement, according to newspaper accounts of the trial. He told police that he struck the child three times and “just went blank. I could see myself doing things to him and it was like, one side of me, it was like, stop, and the other side was like, no. …”

But during his testimony at the first trial, Long claimed that police forced him to make that confession when, in fact, he’d lost control of his son when he started to squirm. Long said his son accidentally fell down the stairs.

Although the first trial ended in a mistrial, jurors on the second trial found Long guilty and sentenced him to 35 years.  He was released under supervised probation after twelve years.  A year later a woman obtained a restraining order against him claiming that he was violent.

n the complaint, the woman said she had lived with Long for about eight months. She said she ended the relationship because of Long’s “violent ways.”

He tried to run her off the road while her children were in the car, attempted to choke her and threw her up against the wall, her complaint said. She said he stalked and threatened her.

“I am afraid of him,” she wrote. “I want him to stay away.”

Despite this, Long’s probation was not revoked and the family of his mother, Leslie Gamble, said they did not know about his violent past.  Instead they blame police for not taking the missing infant seriously assuming it was a custody issue.  There appears to be enough blame to go around in Lavion’s death.

Tags: Lavion R. Gamble

Malachi’s mother wrote a warm and touching entry to her MySpace the day before Mother’s Day.

“Happy mothers day weekend 2 all u mom’s,” read her Saturday afternoon status update. “Enjoy every moment with ur fam…”

Ironically, Belinda Janette Magana, 23, had along with her boyfriend, Naresh Michael Narine, 37, murdered her two year-old son.  To cover up their crime, the next day they reported the toddler had gone missing during a family picnic at a local park.

Malachi was reported missing from Lincoln Park in Corona at 6 p.m. Sunday. Police scoured the area by foot and with a helicopter, but turned up no clues.

When Magana and Narine were interviewed, detectives began to doubt their story, said Corona police Lt. Mark Johnson. The boy’s body was found in the early morning hours Monday, five to ten miles off Interstate 15 in rugged terrain off of Lytle Creek Road.

Authorities said Monday that they believe Malachi was killed Saturday inside the apartment on Hearthside Drive where the boy’s mother and Narine had lived for about a month.

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Magana’s relatives blame Narine, a DJ that goes by the name “Flipside.”  They contend that he is solely responsible for Malachi’s death and that Magana is totally under his influence.

The police, however, have charged both with first degree murder, torture, and assault.  Prosecutors have said that the death penalty will be sought in the case.  Malachi’s 4 1/2 year-old brother has been taken into protective custody.

Autopsy result indicate that Malachi died of blunt force trauma but evidence of prior abuse was present.

Tags: Malachi Magana

What could have happened to three girls who disappeared on a holiday trip to a local mall over three decades ago?

Vanished: Three young girls disappeared from a Fort Worth mall in 1974

On the morning of Dec. 23, 1974, three girls from three different families set out on a shopping trip to the then-rather glitzy Seminary South Shopping Center in south Fort Worth. They were supposed to be home by 4 p.m. — but they never returned.

Rachel Arnold Trlica, 17, picked up her friend Renee Wilson, 14, and when little Julie Ann Moseley, who lived across the street from Renee’s grandmother, begged to go along, the older girls said she’d have to get permission.

Julie Ann was only 9 that morning and simply didn’t want to spend the day alone. She persuaded her mother to let her go.

The mystery surrounding their disappearance continues to confound law enforcement officials while it haunts and tangles the lives of all the families involved.

For some, time stopped that December day.

For others, the tragedy created a seedbed of suspicion that now divides a sister from a brother and a mother from a son. It is a chasm no bridge can span, a riddle with no answers; it is a constant grieving.

Just after the disappearance, the families walked creek beds and country roads looking for their missing children. Psychics and pranksters called. Private investigators poked into the case. The police chased a hundred empty leads.

The slow days stretched into long years and the puzzle of the missing girls remained unsolved. Winters turned to summers and back again and still the families waited for answers. What happened to their children? Why?

“One thing’s sure,” says Rayanne Moseley, the mother of the youngest missing girl. “Somebody knows. Somebody knows for sure what happened.”

Rayanne is right. For 25 years, someone has lived knowing the truth and never whispered a word. Someone has kept the secret.

When 14-year-old Renee Wilson went to her grandmother’s house on Gordon Street that December morning in 1974, she wore red and white sneakers and a pale yellow-green T-shirt with “Sweet Honesty” printed across the front.

Her shoulder-length hair had a hint of red and a mind of its own. She probably hadn’t planned on going shopping, but when her longtime friend Rachel Arnold Trlica, a married high school student with a car, called and suggested a trip to Seminary South, Renee was game.

Rachel and Renee had been friends for years. Their families camped and fished together, but Rachel hadn’t known Julie Ann Moseley very well at all.

Julie Ann and her family lived across the street from Renee’s grandmother’s house, where Renee stayed when her mother worked at a dry cleaners. Renee knew all the Moseley children. In fact, she had a crush on Julie Ann’s older brother, Terry.

That very morning, Terry had surprised Renee with a delicate “promise ring.” He’d slipped the little ring on her finger and vowed to love her forever, he remembers now with an embarrassed grin.

Terry, now 41, was 15 then, with long brown hair and a devil-may-care attitude. The girls asked him to go shopping, but he shook his head. No. He wanted to see a sick friend instead.

Renee was determined to be back by 4 p.m. so she’d have plenty of time to primp for a Christmas party that night – a party Terry was going to attend with her.

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Note to readers:  This story was originally published ten years ago.

The family’s website which includes age-enhanced photos of the three girls  Missing Trio

Tags: Julie Ann Moseley, Lisa Wilson, Rachel Arnold Trlica