A Colorado woman was arrested this week after a she orchestrated a Craigslist transaction that went very wrong. Thirty-four-year-old Dynel Lane of Longmont, Colorado allegedly cut out 26-year-old Michelle Wilkins’ unborn child from her womb, leaving Wilkins to call 911 herself and pretending that the baby was hers via miscarriage. The two women did not know each other and Wilkins had gone to Lane’s home in order to purchase baby clothes that Lane had advertised on Craigslist.

Read More: Slideshow: Killers of Craigslist

Law Street’s investigation into killings associated with making transactions on Craigslist, the popular buying-and-selling website, yielded the discovery of 58 murderers and 45 murder victims since 2009. This brutal attack is reminiscent of the 2009 attack on a pregnant 21-year-old woman in Oregon. Korena Roberts arranged to sell baby clothes to Heather Snively through an an on Craigslist. When Snively arrived at Roberts’ home, Roberts hit hit more than 30 times before cutting her open and taking her unborn child. In that case Snively died of major blood loss and Roberts pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated murder. She is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Michelle Wilkins survived Dynel Lane’s attack, with surgeons noting that the incision in her abdomen “appeared to be well performed.” Lane was a licensed nurse aide between July 21, 2010 and January 31, 2012. Wilkins’ baby, however, did not survive the grisly attack.

Police are now investigating the crime, as well as Lane’s history, as prosecutors determine how exactly to charge her. According to Boulder County District Attorney Stanley L. Garnett,

Under Colorado law, essentially, there’s no way murder charges can be brought if it’s not established that the fetus lived as a child outside the body of the mother for some period of time. I don’t know the answer yet as to whether that can be established.

Wilkins pregnancy was seven months along at the time of the attack, and the hospital report indicates that the baby “would have been viable.”

Lane was arrested on attempted first-degree murder, first-degree assault, and child abuse that knowingly and recklessly resulted in death. Charges are expected to be filed next week.

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Chelsey D. Goff

Chelsey D. Goff was formerly Chief People Officer at Law Street. She is a Granite State Native who holds a Master of Public Policy in Urban Policy from the George Washington University. She’s passionate about social justice issues, politics — especially those in First in the Nation New Hampshire — and all things Bravo. Contact Chelsey at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Craigslist Post Ends in Grisly Attack on Pregnant Colorado Woman appeared first on Law Street.

Elrey “Bud” Runion, 69, and his wife, June, 66, went on Craigslist looking to finally purchase their dream car, a 1966 Ford Mustang convertible. That dream sadly turned into a nightmare after the missing Georgia couple was found dead on Monday, both shot in the head.

Two bodies found near car of a couple who went missing while checking out a Craigslist listing http://t.co/vttIorV7zHpic.twitter.com/bM0XYGaQXp

— Sky News (@SkyNews) January 27, 2015

Ronnie “Jay” Towns Jr., 28, who was the owner of the phone that last sent messages to the Runions’ phone, turned himself in to the police and has been officially charged with murder and armed robbery.

Ronnie Adrian Towns has been charged with malice murder after shooting the Marietta couple he lured from Craigslist. pic.twitter.com/IzQ6vxa8E2

— Everything Georgia (@GAFollowers) January 27, 2015

According to CBS, Bud had posted an ad on Craiglist looking for the specific type of Mustang, and the suspect responded saying he had one for sale, sending the couple photos. The Runions were later reported missing after leaving their home in an Atlanta suburb to drive 200 miles across the state to buy the vintage car from Towns.

The Telfair County Sheriff’s office Facebook page says they found the 2003 GMC Envoy owned by Mr. and Mrs. Runion submerged in a lake, without revealing exactly where said lake was. Police suspect Towns lured the couple into the woods, attempted to rob the two before killing them.

Shortly before Towns turned himself in Telfair County Sheriff Chris Steverson  told CNN:

Early on in the investigation, we did contact Mr. Towns, and we did interview him and by the information he provided, we found it to be false and deceptive. After we interviewed him, our efforts to contact him were unsuccessful. Today we’ve contacted his family, and they’ve been helpful in locating him.

In a Telfair County court Tuesday, Towns waived his right to a preliminary hearing, and a judge denied his bail.

Ronnie Towns Sr.  told a CNN affiliate WSB on Tuesday that he helped convince his son to turn himself in.

He said, ‘Daddy, I ain’t had nothing to do with this.’ It ain’t Jay. I don’t believe he did it.

This isn’t the first time Craigslist has been in the news for a high profile murder case. The website made headlines when Philip Markoff, the infamous “Craigslist Killer”, was arrested in 2009 after allegedly robbing and killing Julissa Brisman. Markoff later committed suicide in jail while awaiting his trial. There have also been other incidences of Craigslist-related killings, often robberies gone wrong. Check out our “Killers of Craigslist” slideshow here.

Whether or not Towns will be found guilty remains unknown, but it seems like this tragic case has ended up with the correct suspect in custody.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Craigslist Crime: Suspect Charged With Murder of Georgia Couple appeared first on Law Street.

In the final week leading up to a big election there’s never any shortage of political news. Know what else there isn’t a shortage of? Exhaustion over political news. Last week at Law Street, though, our top three stories came from the world of crime. The Crime in America team produced the number one article of the week with the first-ever definitive coverage of the Killers of Craigslist; writer Anneliese Mahoney covered the disturbing case of California highway cops who routinely steal nude photos from detained women’s cell phones; and the third most popular article detailed Americans’ biggests fears — both warranted (identity theft) and not (mass shootings, which you are highly unlikely to ever experience firsthand). ICYMI, here is the best of the week from Law Street.

#1 Killers of Craigslist

Since the arrest in 2009 of Philip Markoff, aka the “Craigslist Killer,” the website has faced increased scrutiny by the media. Law Street decided to take a closer look at the site and its media coverage to see how dangerous Craigslist really is. We wanted to know: Was Markoff’s an isolated act, or an incident on a continuum? Our findings are noteworthy. This marks the first tabulation of all Craigslist murders since 2009. Law Street identified 58 murderers and 45 murder victims connected to Craigslist postings through last June. Read full article here.

#2 California Police Officers Found Stealing Suspects’ Nude Photos

Today’s “wow, people really suck” story comes straight to you from the California highways. Or, to be more specific, California’s Highway Police. Apparently, a few officers from Contra Costa County, California, have created a new, sick game to pass the time. They began accessing the cell phones of female suspects brought into custody, and then sending nude or semi-nude photos of these women to themselves. Allegedly, the pictures were then passed to the other officers playing the “game.” Read full article here.

#3 Just in Time for Halloween: What Are Americans’ Top Fears?

What scares you the most? That’s the question that Chapman University decided to ask America in a recently released study called the “Chapman Survey on American Fears.” In the study, researchers surveyed 1,500 Americans from different walks of life in order to create a strong representative sample. They split the types of fears into four categories: personal fears, crime, natural disasters, and fear factors. They were able to determine the most pressing concerns in each of the categories, as well as overall. Read full article here.

Chelsey D. Goff

Chelsey D. Goff was formerly Chief People Officer at Law Street. She is a Granite State Native who holds a Master of Public Policy in Urban Policy from the George Washington University. She’s passionate about social justice issues, politics — especially those in First in the Nation New Hampshire — and all things Bravo. Contact Chelsey at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post ICYMI: Best of the Week appeared first on Law Street.

Since the arrest in 2009 of Philip Markoff, aka the “Craigslist Killer,” the website has faced increased scrutiny by the media. Law Street decided to take a closer look at the site and its media coverage to see how dangerous Craigslist really is. We wanted to know: Was Markoff’s an isolated act, or an incident on a continuum? Our findings are noteworthy. This marks the first tabulation of all Craigslist murder trials and convictions from 2009 through June 2014. Law Street identified 58 murderers and 45 murder victims connected to Craigslist postings through last June. Twenty-two murder cases are still pending. The oldest pending case dates to 2012, and eight are from 2014, indications that the killings continue. Craigslist did not reply to multiple inquiries.

Click here to read the Killers of Craigslist in single-page format.

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Research and Analysis by Law Street’s Crime in America team: Lexine DeLuca, Jake Ephros, Chelsey Goff, Anneliese Mahoney, Marisa Mostek, Kevin Rizzo, Nicole Roberts, and Trevor Smith.

Featured image courtesy of [Janine via Flickr]

Chelsey D. Goff

Chelsey D. Goff was formerly Chief People Officer at Law Street. She is a Granite State Native who holds a Master of Public Policy in Urban Policy from the George Washington University. She’s passionate about social justice issues, politics — especially those in First in the Nation New Hampshire — and all things Bravo. Contact Chelsey at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Killers of Craigslist appeared first on Law Street.

The popular picture-sharing social network Instagram has definitely cornered the market on sharing brunch memories and beach photos. But now there’s a new, surprising, industry developing from the network that originally made a name for itself with teenage and college-aged girls. Instagram has now become a forum to sell guns.

Gun regulations vary state by state, but many states do not have laws in place governing online sales. While companies and official sellers have laws that they must follow, individual private sellers are not necessarily held to the same constraints. For the most part, the ATF does not get involved in occasional private sales. They encourage sellers to go to a licensed dealer and get a background check for the people to whom they are selling; however, it’s not really enforced. This market, which is at least superficially anonymous, is almost completely unregulated. On Instagram, you can find everything from small handguns to assault rifles.

Sam Hoover from the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, in a statement to the Daily Beast stated, “private sales to in-state buyers are almost completely unregulated by federal law. No background check and no record of sale are required unless state law fills this gap.” That is the venue through which most of these sales are made. Essentially, private sellers are selling firearms almost completely anonymously to people within their state who have no need to pass a background check or anything of the sort.

Online sites that are created for the purpose of sales—for example Craigslist or Ebay—have rules that prohibit the casual selling of firearms. But a site like Instagram, which has no innate sales function, does not have any rules of those sorts.

The issue isn’t that these types of sales are by any means illegal—the issue is that the vast majority of them are. Technology allows a forum for sales that laws never thought to outlaw. Before the Internet, if someone wanted to buy a gun privately, they would have to hear about the sale from a friend, or possibly go to some sort of semi-black marketplace. Laws weren’t created to prevent these kinds of sales, because they were relatively sparse. Now, with the Internet, these sales are incredibly easy to complete. Just searching Instagram for the keywords, or tags, that indicate sales, yields the ability to purchase firearms.

The actual magnitude of this marketplace is unknown—the Daily Beast reported as though there were many sales happening each week, while a Slate article disagreed and estimated that only a few sales happened in a given week. Regardless of who’s right, these sales do appear to happen. And if they happen on Instagram, a site that is a social network and by no means created for sales, there’s every possibility that they could be happening on other forums.

There have been a few select cases of legal action being pursued against sellers on Instagram. A few months ago, a rapper and DJ in Brooklyn, NY, talked about selling guns on Instagram and Youtube. Authorities went forward with a gun bust that resulted in a net raid of 254 guns. Because these were not simply occasional sales made between individuals, charges could be pressed. Unfortunately, that will not be the case with most of these gun sales.

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Anneliese Mahoney (@AMahoney8672) is Lead Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Brent Danley via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Follow Your Friends…And Arms Dealers on Instagram appeared first on Law Street.