FBI Asks Public For Help Hunting For 13-Year-Old Girl’s Killer In Cold Case

These are the crime stories making headlines today, September 1, 2016 …

• The FBI’s Chicago Division has appealed to the public for help solving a cold case involving the brutal murder of a 13-year-old girl. On August 13, 2005, Alexandra Anaya — known to friends and family as Alex — was reported missing from her home in Indiana. Three days later, boaters on the Little Calumet River in Chicago found her dismembered body floating in the water. Despite investigations by both the Chicago Police Department and the Hammond Police Department, her killer remains at large. Her case is one of many now being reviewed by FBI Chicago’s recently established Homicide Initiative Task Force. “We believe this was not a random act of violence and that Alex knew her assailant,” FBI Chicago Special Agent Michael J. Anderson of the Homicide Initiative Task Force said during a press conference. “It has been more than a decade since Alex was murdered, and during that time people and relationships have changed. We are hopeful that someone will come forward now.” [FBI]

Lanny Bush’s mug shot

• A Texas appeals court has reversed the capital murder conviction against Lanny Bush. The 11th Court of Appeals reversed the April 2014 decision of Bush, 57, earlier this month after ruling that evidence was insufficient to support a conviction for capital murder based on kidnapping. However, the court found that there was sufficient evidence to support the “lesser included offense of murder” in the death of Michele Reiter, his 38-year-old ex-girlfriend. Bush is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for killing Reiter, whose body was found in September 2012 in a shallow grave in Coleman County. Prosecutors sought a capital-murder charge by arguing that Bush kidnapped Reiter before killing her. During the trial, Bush admitted to setting up a fake Facebook account to communicate with Reiter in order to harm her. The crime was the subject of the Investigation Discovery show Web of Lies. The court case ordered a new trial on punishment only for murder. [Brownwood News]
• A woman set herself on fire in U.S. Representative Danny Davis’s office in Chicago. Police say an unidentified woman walked into the congressman’s office on Chicago’s West Side at around 3 P.M. on Tuesday and drank out of a bottle of hand sanitizer, which she then poured on herself before setting herself on fire with a lighter. She was taken to a hospital in serious condition, but police say her condition has stabilized. Davis, a Democrat, has said he has no idea why he was targeted. [CBS News]
• A recently unsealed Drug Enforcement Agency affidavit describes how Sonia Martinez-Gamboa allegedly arrived at Dayton’s airport with more than a pound of heroin inside her body. Martinez-Gamboa, 38, is the third woman to be charged in a federal drug-smuggling case that involves couriers hiding drugs in their body cavities. She allegedly made 25 minutes worth of cell-phone calls from the airport before taking a taxi, which was pulled over for speeding. She was later taken to a hospital and found to have 625 grams (1.37 pounds) of heroin concealed in her vagina, according to court documents. Martinez-Gamboa was charged with and later indicted on counts of conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute. She is the fifth person to be charged in connection to the case, following Fernando Villegas Montoya, 31; Jose Mercado Herrera, 30; Angelica Perez Martinez, 23; and Susana Castro Beltran, 24. [WHIO]

• Sonia Martinez-Gamboa’s mug shot [Montgomery County Jail]

  Police in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, are hunting for an armed — and naked — candy bandit who robbed a convenience store at gunpoint. The robber walked into a Scotchman store just before midnight last Monday, according to a Horry County Police Department report, wearing nothing but a bandana and a pair of black shoes. He then pointed a gun at a 51-year-old worker while running toward the candy. The perp then grabbed “Reese’s peanut butter cups and left,” police say. Police estimate that the robber is between 18 and 30 years old. [The Smoking Gun]
• Now aliens are being blamed for a string of mysterious cat killings in Croydon, England. RSPCA chiefs have been hunting the twisted “Croydon Cat Killer” for months, and since the case has made headlines and sparked a police investigation the charity and investigators have been inundated with calls claiming that the killer is a neighbor or relative — and some even believe that the slayer is an extraterrestrial who came in a UFO from outer space. Three cats have been killed in Croydon this month alone, and the total number of deaths now tops 100 since last October, which prompted the police investigation. The latest death linked to the prolific pet killer is a black cat called Pebbles, who was attacked and lost her leg before passing away at the emergency vet. Commenters on the South Norwood Animal Rescue and Liberty (SNARL) Facebook page have posted photos of Pebbles and appealed to the public for help in the investigation. [Daily Express]

• A prisoner at a Staten Island hospital has been charged with attempted murder after attacking a rookie cop with her own gun. Dante Martin, 36, was handcuffed to a gurney at Richmond University Medical Center on Sunday when he asked to use the bathroom after urinating on himself, according to police. When she unhooked him, he punched her repeatedly and knocked her down before trying to grab her gun. [New York Daily News]
• Police have released surveillance footage of the man wanted for stabbing a Walgreen’s employee to death in Tallahassee, Florida. The Tallahassee Police Department has named 25-year-old Tavon Q. Jackson a suspect in the murder of Javona Glover, a 25-year old mother of one, who was working at the drugstore on Tuesday morning when Jackson allegedly attacked her. The video released by police appears to show images of Jackson at the scene of the crime during the time of the homicide. Rapper T-Pain, whose real name is Faheem Rashad Najm, is Glover’s uncle and used social media to get the word out about the killer on the loose. “The police are still lookin for the coward ass n*gga that just killed my niece at Walgreens in Tallahassee. If you got info pls help us out!” T-Pain tweeted Tuesday, adding, “if anybody in 850 got any info on this then step up pls.” [WCTV]
  
  Main image: Alexandra (Alex) Anaya [Photo: FBI]