Leslie Martinez won't be winning any mother-of-the-year awards anytime soon. She thought it was a good idea to drop her 9-year-old daughter off at a Miley Cyrus concert by herself.

What was she doing instead, you might ask?

Martinez headed to a casino to pass the time.

The girl was scared and hungry and sought out a security guard. Arena personnel took the girl to the concession area and returned her to her seat for the remainder of the show. A worker stayed in eye-contact range with the girl throughout the show.

The girl's mother actually told police that she had dropped the girl off 2 years prior at another Miley Cyrus concert and had no problem.

What in the world was this mother thinking?? Who lets a 7-year-old go to a concert alone?!? Don't they realize how many pedophiles could be lurking at a concert that is geared towards children?

The woman was cited for misdemeanor child neglect. Seems to me she deserves something harsher.

This may be the strangest thing I have written about.

A South Carolina man named Rodell Vereen was caught on video having sex.

Wait, that's not the odd part.

He was having sex with Barbara Kenley's 21-year-old horse, Sugar.

Yep, you read that correctly.

Grossed out yet? No? Well, I'm not done.

This was the SECOND time he was caught having sex with the SAME horse.

Poor Sugar!

Kenley noticed that her horse was acting strange and getting infections. She also noticed that things were being moved around, so she did a weeklong stakeout to catch the predator on camera.

When it happened the first time in 2007, Vereen was given probation after pleading guilty to buggery. This time, he received 5 years in prison. He will serve three years of that in jail.

Anyone else get the heebie jeebies from this one?

I think I might be surprised if this person isn't the worst mother ever.

35-year-old Aimee Louise Sword of Waterford Township, MI, gave her son up for adoption over ten years ago. She recently used the Internet to find her son.

She found him.

Then, she seduced and raped him.

Yes, you read that correctly. The woman raped the son she gave up for adoption!

Prosecutor's have said the boy is still a minor but haven't disclosed if he knew it was his biological mother or not.

"I don't think I've heard of another case like this in my career," said Dr. Gerald Shiener, chief of Consultation and Liaison Psychiatry at Sinai Grace Hospital in Detroit. "I'm at a loss for words because it's something that we consider to be so out of the normal, so prohibited in every culture that it unnerves every man just to think about it."

Sword's attorney Kenneth Burch told the Press that his client "maintains her presumption of innocence" and said the accusations of incest have been very difficult for her.

But Sword herself has spoken since she first was arrested, writing on her MySpace page that she was inspired by rapper and former jailbird Lil' Kim because "she rises during the worst of obstacles."

Anyone else thoroughly disgusted here?

I understand feeling the need to seek out the child you gave up for adoption. That happens all the time. But how deranged do you have to be to seduce your child - knowing they are your child - and have sex with them? She deserves life in prison - just like the sentence she has now given her son.

I think most of us have been in public and had to endure screaming and crying children.

Nothing ruins an outing like strange children running around and screaming loud enough for people on the moon to hear them, right?

So, imagine you're at Walmart and some brat decides it is time to try to break the sound barrier. Do you say anything to the child's parent? Make a comment loud enough for them to hear it?

Or would you do what Georgia-resident Roger Stephens did in the same situation ... smack the child.

That's right. The 61-year-old man asked the mother of the 2-year-old crying child to get the toddle to knock off the racket. According to the police report, the man approached her and said, "If you don't shut that baby up, I will shut her up for you."

So, he did. He smacked the child at least FOUR times!

He has been charged with felony cruelty to children.

Ironically, the baby started screaming when he struck her.

Who in their right mind would think it is okay to strike someone else's child??

Her name is Angela Simpson.

She's a Phoenix woman who admitted to torturing and killing 46-year-old Terry Neely, who was wheelchair-bound.

Simpson said she lured Neely to her apartment with a promise of sex and drugs. Once there, she beat him with a tire iron, pulled out his teeth and strangled him during 3 days of torture. Then she dismembered his body and set it on fire.

Why?

According to Simpson, he was a snitch.

Never said what he supposedly snitched about though.

Is it just me, or did this woman go a wee bit too far? The chick actually said she enjoyed torturing the guy! She was getting off on it!

How much you wanna bet this woman tries to use the PMS defense?

Sandstone, MN - 29-year-old Ludusky Sue Hotchkiss has been charged with second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the death of her 10-year-old daughter, Lakesha, in 2006.

Lakesha had cerebral palsy, autism and a seizure disorder. She got her nourishment through a feeding tube. At the time of her death, she had gone from 50lbs to 31lbs ... in one month. Apparently, her mother had starved her and end up killing her. A sibling found the girl dead at the family's home back in 2006.

I know it is tough to care for a developmentally disabled child but if it was that tough, why not ask for help?? I can't imagine how a parent could kill their child in such a brutal, senseless way. I could never imagine the pain and suffering the poor child had to have endured at the hands of her caregiver.

Cameron County, TX - Sheriff Deputies arrested Griselda Gaytan Wednesday after her children were found left alone in her vehicle outside the county jail. She'd left them there while she visited someone in the jail.

As you may know, TX and LA have been experiencing a heat wave lately, with temperatures of up to 100 degrees or higher. Fortunately, the children had only been in the vehicle for approximately 15-20 minutes and were unharmed.

The children, ages 5 and 10 months, have been turned over to their grandmother. Gaytan was arrested.

With all the heat advisories and media reports about stupid parents leaving their children to die from heat related deaths & injuries in automobiles, you would think that people would finally start making better decisions about child safety. Why have children if you're not going to bother keeping their interests in mind?

It amazes me how people like these are able have children but many states still do not even allow gay couples to adopt unwanted children. Maybe if they could, children like these would have better lives.

Or even still be alive to have one.

Apparently, the answer to that question is how to act in public.

More so, respect for other people.

Case in point.

Two parents in West Yorkshire, U.K., took their 2 children to see the new Harry Potter film. During the movie, the 46-year-old mother asked a group of at least 5 teenagers to stop making noise.

Following the movie, the family went to a nearby restaurant to have dinner.

Two members of the group had followed the family to the restaurant and threw bleach over the mother's head and back. She suffered burns to her skin and possible permanent eye damage. Both teens, 16, have been arrested for the crime.

First, why do teenagers think it's okay to act like idiots out in public? It's like the rules at home get forgotten when they're out of their parents' sight. Now, having worked at a kids' retail store I know that many parents don't even practice what they preach to their kids. Seems as times goes on, teenagers have become even more disrespectful in public venues.

Second, why in the world would these teenagers think that pouring bleach on someone was a reasonable reaction to the woman calmly asking them to keep down the noise so people could enjoy the film? What the hell are they getting (or not getting) as a role model at home? Is this really what our teenagers are becoming?

Why do people continue to abuse animals just so they can gamble??

In Shelton, CT, police arrested 19 people in connection with a bird fighting operation. No, they were not fighting roosters!

Would you believe it was canaries??

Yep! The people were actually fighting songbirds! Apparently, while the birds are normally docile, they will act aggressively towards one another. Especially in breeding season.

When are people going to understand that you can't treat animals this way?

The photo above is Olympic figure skater Nicole Bobek, who was the U.S. National Champion in 1995. She had a long amateur career, winning several titles as well as competing Internationally.

But that was then.

And this is now.

This is what Nicole Bobek looks 14 years later. She was one of 20 people arrested in a New Jersey methamphetamine ring. She was arrested in Florida and now faces charges of conspiracy to distribute meth. She is now facing up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

I remember watching her skate on television and to me, she was one of the best skaters to come out of the U.S. in my lifetime. I remember she was one of the hardest working, determined athletes I knew at the time. She was one who always persevered when no one expected her to do well. It's such a disappointment to see that this is who she has become.

I just wonder if she couldn't handle not being America's sweetheart anymore or just fell in with the wrong people?

I know that people don't like to read about horrible things happening to children, but I think it is important that these stories get told. Sure, people know bad things happen but I think people just kind of blow it off these days. If they don't know what is happening, it's like it doesn't really happen.

I've read and blogged about some terrible behavior of parents but this might be the worst yet, or at least one of the worst.

Frank Lombard, the Associate Director of the Center for Health Policy at Duke University, was arrested when he got caught in an Internet sting. Apparently, an unnamed informant (who is also facing molestation charges) led police to Lombard.

It seems that Lombard identified himself online as "perv dad for fun," admitted molesting his 5-year-old adopted son and tried to persuade a person (an undercover cop) to travel to North Carolina to have sex with his son. He even suggested which hotel he should use!

Lombard is now facing up to 20 years in federal prison. It's times like these when I kind of wish that he could be castrated. Maybe then he'll know what it's like to be violated.

Well, maybe he'll become someone's bitch in prison.

Lombard, meet your cellmate, Bubba. Enjoy.

Not having taken a school bus to school as a kid, I don't know how well people know the bus driver. After all, you're entrusting your child's safety to a complete stranger!

Do you know their name?

Their driving record?

What about if they have a criminal record?

Chances are you barely know their name. In fact, in Baton Rouge they have a system of busing kids from one side of town to the other where kids have to change buses in the middle of the trip. Many people haven't even met their child's bus driver. Even if you have, you may not know the secrets their bus driver is keeping.

A lot of folks in Bossier City, LA, wish they had known.

A few weeks ago, 75-year-old bus driver, Thomas Smith Jr., was arrested for having sexual contact with two teenage boys who live near him and used to ride his bus. Apparently, the man use money to entice the boys into his home and have them insert objects, such as cucumbers and toys, into his rectum. He paid them $20 for each occurrence. He did not molest the boys.

He retired from his job the day after being arrested, before the school could fire him.

Apparently, his secret was pretty well-known around his neighborhood. He admitted to paying teens and even adults who need money for drugs to perform his fetish on him. Smith told investigators he got the fetish 40 years ago after watching a porn video. That same day, while living in New Orleans, he stopped at a grocery store and bought vegetables to use and has been that way since.

As revolted as I am by his actions, I am more troubled by the teens. They'd been doing this for 2 years. What have their parents been teaching them, or not teaching them, that they'd be so willing to continue this behavior for the little amounts of cash he offered them? Hopefully the teens' parents will get these kids some help and begin teaching them why this behavior was so wrong.

Well, in this case it was an arm and a leg for the cell phones and guns that four Somali men allegedly stole. That's right. The men were found guilty of theft and therefore they each had one arm and one leg amputated.

"We have convicted them of theft, so they deserve to have their arms and legs amputated," said Sheik Abdul Haq, the al-Shabab judge in the capital, Mogadishu.

The U.S. considers Al-Shabab a terrorist group with links to Al Qaeda, a claim that Al-Shabab vehemently denies. The group, which controls much of Somalia, is trying to drive out the government and replace it with a strict form of Islam.

"These sentences were ordered by a sham al-Shabab court with no due process or guarantees of fairness," said Tawanda Hondora, Amnesty International's Africa deputy director. Amnesty International had appealed to Al-Shabab to not carry out the sentence but obviously that fell on deaf ears.

Am I the only person who finds this disgusting? I cannot imagine why any rational person would want to live under this kind of system. There's the catch though ... these are NOT rational people.

Is it just me or are we seeing a lot of stories about idiotic behavior from teachers?

The first one I read about tonight was a North California elementary school teacher named Crystal Defanti, who sent her students home for the summer with a video of class memories for them to enjoy. Dumbass should have thought to watch the DVD before giving it to the students. Had she done that, she'd have caught a huge mistake she made.

The DVD contained 6 seconds of her having sex on her couch!

Initially, the Sacramento area school sent a letter home to parents asking them to return the DVDs, but then switched to asking them just to destroy them. No word on any kind of punishment for the bonehead teacher. What would y'all suggest?

The second teacher was a Yakima, Wash., woman named Sue Graham who decided to send a 5-year-old student home with a surprise in his backpack.

Feces! That's right, the woman put a plastic bag containing poop with a note that read, "This little turd was found on the floor in my room." The child was moved out of her classroom following the incident.

Initially, the district had said that "appropriate action" was taken against the longtime teacher but KIMA-TV had requested public disclosure of the incident. A letter sent to the teacher in May was released by the school. In the letter, the teacher was warned that similar behavior in the future will result in disciplinary action, including termination.

Wait, does that mean she wasn't punished? If all she got was a warning letter, I don't see how that is "appropriate actions" being taken.

Seems to me these two are in the wrong line of work.

Meet Asia Thomas from Dallas, Texas. Apparently, she got thirsty. So thirsty in fact that she took her three children to the Lakewood Landing bar in Old East Dallas. No, she didn't bring her kids into the bar.

She left them in the car!


The kids were left in the car for at least 45 minutes while their mother was knocking back cocktails with friends. Fortunately it was at night and wasn't as hot as it would have been in the daytime.

How stupid can someone be to leave their three children (ages 6mos-4yrs) in their car while they party it up in a bar? I understand she is 23 and probably not a competent mother, but common sense should tell you that this is a bad idea.

I know of churches or organizations that think they can "rehabilitate" a homosexual person to make them 'heterosexual', but until now I had never heard of anyone thinking they could perform an exorcism on someone to make them straight. Not only did members of the Manifested Glory Ministries (CT) conduct the exorcism, but they also posted a video of it on YouTube. The original was 20 minutes long, but the church has since removed it from the site. Others had copied it and posted it. Here is an excerpt:

Multiple gay and youth advocates are calling the practice abuse and are calling for a full investigation. The church has denied that the teen was injured or that they are prejudiced. According to Rev. Patricia McKinney, the church has "nothing against homosexuals" ... yet they think that homosexuals have demons in them. It amazes me how people through around that phrase even though it is clear that there is evidence of prejudice.

McKinney has tried to say the boy is 18, but the youth confirmed that he is only 16. The boy was eager to have his inner demons driven out of him, though I doubt he knew just what the church leaders would do. What this church did was clearly not in the best interest of the child. At one point they held the boy in a headlock as he was convulsing.

"It's been a hard time for me, but I'm looking good and I'm standing strong because when you have a mandate like mine you're not going to say what you want without the adversary coming after you," McKinney said. "If you are a true prophet you're not going to be popular with the people."

It is people like this who give Christians a bad reputation. This woman is clearly delusional and perhaps a bit narcissistic. It amazes me still that there are people who think you can just "become" straight by prayer or exorcism. All you can do is live a lie and hide in the closer for the rest of your life ... but you'll still be a homosexual.

I have a couple candidates for our Worst Mother of the Year Award. And let me tell you ... these are a couple of real winners.

First up is the Voodoo Queen of New York City.

A NYC woman and her mother burned the woman's 6-year-old daughter in a Haitian Voodoo ritual called Loa. She doused her child with accelerant and made her stand naked in the middle of a ring of fire. Naturally, the child was engulfed in the flames. The woman and the grandmother both ignored the girl's cries and screams. Instead, the grandmother washed the child and then put her to bed. The next day, a relative found the girl. The child had life-threatening burns over 25% of her body! Thankfully, the girl is now in foster care and the women have been arrested on felony charges.

I don't care what your religion is ... NOTHING gives you the right to do this to a child!

Our second nominee is a Maryland woman who gives new meaning to killing in 'cold blood'.

43-year-old Renee Bowman has been indicted on charges of killing her two adopted daughters, which Bowman kept in her freezer! The case against her began when her 7-year-old daughter jumped out of a window and was found in her neighborhood. She had also been abused by her mother. Allegedly, the woman killed the two girls sometime between 2005 and 2007 when they were living in Montgomery County, MD. Bowman had even been receiving payments from a Washington, D.C. agency! I'm glad that the third girl survived but now I fear for her. The trauma she has endured will most likely scar her for life. Hopefully, Bowman will go to prison for life.

The last candidate is perhaps the sickest of all three. This is also the most bizarre. Yes, even more bizarre than keeping your dead children in the freezer.

This one actually starts in the United Kingdom but ends in a small town in Maine. Apparently, police in West Midlands, England, received information that a local man was using the Internet to view child pornography. What he was viewing was taking place in Mars Hill, Maine, which is a town of only 1500 residents.

What was he watching? He was watching Julie Carr, 30, sexually abusing one of her four children on a webcam! Carr's children range in age from 18 months up to 5-years-old. It's bad enough that she was abusing her child but it's even worse that she was feeding the sexual addiction of pedophiles. I know what her older children are in for during the rest of their lives. I wouldn't wish that upon any child. Carr faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted of all the charges. I say give her life in prison!

There are some truly sick people in this world. My heart goes out for these children. I know it's difficult to read about these stories but it is important that they get told. People need to know these kinds of things are happening and it is happening closer to them than they think.

Yes, that is a boa constrictor.

Pretty, huh?

Now imagine waking up in your bed to find one of them staring up at you.

That's what happened to an 18-year-old in New York City Sunday morning. About 10 a.m., Kareem Lewis woke up to see the snake in his room. He started to panic when the snake began to slither towards him.

He called 911 and the police came to his rescue. They held the boa in a pillowcase until Animal Control was able to get there.

I know it's not a huge thing but could you imagine waking up to something like that??

Sex is a useful tool when trying to recruit young men into the Marines?

Well, one recruiter seemed to think it was a good idea.

Staff Sgt. Bryan Damone Cunningham is accused of pimping out a 14-year-old girl to entice men to enlist. He plead not guilty on 7 felony counts, including felony pimping and kidnapping. According to police in Orange County, CA, the girl was found in a car with Cunningham and two men, ages 18 and 19. The two men are described as potential recruits.

The girl told police she met Cunningham online and had sex with all three men. The recruits face felony charges of having sex with a minor.

Is it really so hard to get people to enlist in the Marines that they need to get the potential recruits laid? I have heard of cults using this tactic ("The Family" for one) but I didn't realize that the military was in such dire need of new blood.

This makes me wonder if SSgt. Cunningham had used this tactic before or if this was the first time. It also makes me wonder how hard the Marines checked into his background. Clearly, he is a sexual predator and needs to be locked up for a long time.

Well kids ... we have another candidate for "Mother of the Year" ...

For those who haven't seen my MOY posts, that really means "Dumbass Mother of the Year" ...

Emily Beth McDonald, 23, from Austin, TX, was charged with felony injury to a child. Now I have heard of parents beating their children, starving their children and neglecting their children. This one probably takes the prize for weirdest way to abuse your child: feeding them human feces.

Yes, you read that correctly. She literally fed her child crap.

McDonald's 3-year-old daughter had been admitted to Dell Children's Medical Center with a "high fever and a long history of chronic diarrhea." She had a catheter and doctor's conducted a blood test which tested positive for foreign bacteria common in feces. Doctors inserted a feeding tube.

Because of their suspicions, doctors placed a camera in the child's hospital room. The mother was caught on tape using a soiled diaper and smearing feces on the cap of the feeding tube which has a direct link to the child's bloodstream. Based on medical history, it seemed the child would get better and then feces would most likely be introduced to her system so she would get sicker.

Allegedly, the mother confessed to the action and she admitted knowing that her actions could harm, and possibly kill, her child.

WTF? I would say that she probably did this because of some mental illness but if that were true, she wouldn't acknowledge knowing that her actions were wrong. Why would anyone think to make their child sick by feeding them their own excrement?

Her lawyer actually had the audacity to release a statement saying that she is "a fine young woman from a fine family who loves her children very much."

Yeah, nothing says I Love You like forcing them to eat poop.

The good news is that she has been ordered to stay away from her children. She has two other children, ages 6 and 4. She faces possible life in jail if she is convicted. No matter what, that nutcase shouldn't be allowed to ever be those children's caretaker.

Apparently, it isn't too safe to order a blue sno-cone at the Sedgewick County Zoo in Wichita, Kansas. Well, now you can't even get one!

Why?

Four people got sick after consuming a blue sno-cone recently. Did you know that the syrup bottle is the same size, shape and color as the degreasing agent the park uses? I don't think one of the employees realized it either.

Somehow, a bottle of degreasing agent was accidentally placed next to the bottle of blue syrup. Instead of reading the bottle, an employee just grabbed it and poured into the sno-cone machine. Fortunately, the patrons who consumed the poisoned sno-cones didn't ingest enough of the toxic degreaser to be seriously injured.

Having been partnered to a chef for the past 5 years, I know how easy it is to put some things in the wrong place ... but why in the world do they keep cleaning products anywhere near a food product that could get contaminated??

I really hope that someone is held responsible for what happened.