Tony Alamo victims awarded $525 million, Murder brings more calls for national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women, Loretta Saunders' roommates charged with 1st-degree murder

Tony Alamo victims awarded $525 million; L.A. properties may be sold  By Paresh Dave March 1, 2014

Seven women who alleged they were sexually abused as children by former Christian ministry tycoon Tony Alamo were awarded $525 million by an Arkansas judge this week after an Alamo church failed to respond to a lawsuit.

Collecting the largest judgment in Arkansas history, according to one of the plaintiffs' attorneys, will likely require some help from a Los Angeles court, though. Texas attorney David Carter said he would "soon" file paperwork asking that a court here sell at least two Santa Clarita Valley properties connected to Alamo's operation....

Alamo, 79, has been serving a 175-year prison sentence in Tucson after being convicted in 2009 on 10 counts of sex trafficking minors. Attorney Rogers is appealing the conviction on the grounds that a previous lawyer botched the case.

During the 1960s, Alamo and his wife, Susan, founded a Christian organization in Los Angeles. They bused school dropouts and drug users into their shelters and provided food and anti-Catholic, anti-government religious lectures. The street preaching became a multimillion-dollar empire through a television show, events and merchandise cheaply manufactured by their adherents.

After years of evading arrest, Alamo served four years in prison during the 1990s for not paying about $10 million in federal taxes. His ultimate downfall came in 2008.

Authorities raided his Arkansas headquarters after allegations of child abuse, child pornography and polygamy. Alamo has said puberty signified an age of consent and that a godly man could take multiple wives.

The Arkansas lawsuit names Alamo, Twenty First Century Holiness Tabernacle Church and Jeanne Estate Apartments as defendants. The $525-million default judgment in actual and punitive damages was ordered against the church....

The Alamos...used the threat of hell to keep a tight rein on their Christian community, holding power over matters large and small, from approving clothes to selecting jobs and marriage partners. They built dorms, classrooms and play areas to keep children hooked, lawsuits have alleged....
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-tony-alamo-arkansas-victims-20140228,0,2016670.story

Loretta Saunders remembered at vigil on Parliament Hill
Murder brings more calls for national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women
The Canadian Press
Published: March 5, 2014

OTTAWA — It took the disappearance of a cousin to bring Holly Jarrett and her estranged mother together after a year of silence....

Saunders was an honours student at Saint Mary’s University when she disappeared. Two people have been charged with first-degree murder in her death.

One of them, 25-year-old Blake Leggette, appeared recently in a provincial court. The other, Leggette’s 28-year-old girlfriend, Victoria Henneberry, did not appear in court and was instead represented by her lawyer.

In a cruel irony, Saunders was writing a thesis on murdered and missing aboriginal women before she died.

Cheryl Maloney of the Nova Scotia Native Women’s Association, who spoke at the vigil, said she grappled with the question of who, if anyone, should finish Saunders’ work before coming to a realization.

“Maybe it wasn’t up to one person to finish Loretta’s thesis,” she said. “Maybe it was up to all of us as Canadians.”

Maloney and others at the vigil called on the Conservative government to hold a national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women.

But while the Conservatives renewed funding to combat violence against aboriginal women and girls in their recent budget, they have so far resisted calls for a formal inquiry.

It is estimated there are hundreds of cases of missing and murdered aboriginal women dating back to the 1960s.

A United Nations human rights investigator called that statistic disturbing last year during a fact-finding visit to Canada in which he also urged the Conservative government to hold an inquiry....
http://o.canada.com/news/loretta-saunders-remembered-at-vigil-on-parliament-hill/

Loretta Saunders' roommates charged with 1st-degree murder
Blake Leggette and Victoria Henneberry accused in Halifax student's death
CBC News Posted: Feb 27, 2014
Police have laid first-degree murder charges against the roommates of Loretta Saunders, a Halifax student whose body was found nearly two weeks after she was reported missing.

Victoria Henneberry, 28, and Blake Leggette, 25, who had been facing charges of being in possession of a stolen vehicle, were charged Thursday in the slaying of the 26-year-old Saint Mary's University student....

Yalcin Surkultay, who dated Saunders for 2½ years, told CBC News that when he last saw his girlfriend, she told him she was going to try to collect rent money from her roommates....
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/loretta-saunders-roommates-charged-with-1st-degree-murder-1.2554052