'We Beat the Odds': Abducted 6yo Girl Found Alive & Chained to Tree, Man in Custody

A six-year-old girl who was abducted from her North Carolina home has been found alive and chained to a tree. A convicted sex offender has been arrested and charged with first-degree kidnapping.

Police found Steffany Lenneth Lopez-Castro chained to a tree in a wooded area in New Hanover County on Thursday morning, about 2 miles (3.2km) from where she was taken from the driveway of her home the previous night, local CBS affiliate WNCN reported.

After locating the girl, police flagged down a nearby driver, asking if he had bolt cutters. The man gave officers a battery-operated saw to cut the child free.

The child was taken to a local hospital for evaluation and is said to be doing well.

                                video 0.48

“We beat the odds today, it’s safe to say,” Sheriff Edward McMahon said during a news conference. “We worked tirelessly, relentlessly through the night and I am glad to say, thank the Lord, we found her this morning alive and well.”

McMahon said the community assisted in the successful search and rescue operation, after coming forward with various leads.

Douglas Edwards, a 46-year-old registered sex offender, has been taken into custody and charged with first-degree kidnapping.


Edwards was arrested while riding a moped about 7 miles from the scene on Thursday morning, after being under surveillance for the entire night. Authorities said he did not know the child before her disappearance.

The 46-year-old was convicted of first-degree sexual offense and indecent liberties with a minor in 1996. That victim was also six years old, according to the North Carolina Sex Offender Registry. Edwards spent 16 years in prison for the crime and was released in May 2012.

North Carolina - 1st State to Block Local Transgender Anti-discrimination Laws

© Kai Pfaffenbach / Reuters

The Republican governor of North Carolina signed into law a preemption bill that blocks local governments from making their own rules against gender and sexual discrimination.

On Wednesday, House Bill 2 passed in North Carolina’s House of Representatives with a vote of 83-25, with 12 Democrats crossing the aisle to join every Republican with a “yes” vote. Within 10 hours, the bill was approved in the Senate 32-0, after all the Democrats walked out of the chamber in protest.

"We choose not to participate in this farce," said Senate Minority Leader Dan Blue of Raleigh after he left the Senate building, according to AP.

Governor Pat McCrory signed the legislation into law later in the day.

While the legislature wasn’t set to meet until late April, state GOP leaders were prompted to schedule a one-day session because of a city ordinance in Charlotte that had been scheduled to take effect April 1. That ordinance would have made it illegal to discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in housing and in public accommodations, such as restrooms.

House Bill 2 blocks such ordinances, mandating that all employment, wages and public accommodations measures by local governments be superseded by state law. It also restricts public bathrooms and locker rooms to people with the corresponding biological sex.

Transgender people who had their birth certificate changed would not be affected, however.

Supporters of the preemption bill argue that the Charlotte ordinance ‒ and others like it ‒ would allow any man to enter a woman’s bathroom or locker room just by identifying himself as transgender.

Indeed we have seen this happen already.

“The basic expectation of privacy in the most personal of settings, a restroom or locker room, for each gender was violated by government overreach and intrusion by the mayor and city council of Charlotte,” McCrory said in a statement. “This new government regulation defies common sense and basic community norms by allowing, for example, a man to use a woman's bathroom, shower or locker room.”

Despite every single Democrat walking off of the Senate floor, McCrory said in his statement that the legislation passed with a “bipartisan majority,” perhaps referring to the dozen Democrats who supported the bill in the House.

Critics of the legislation say that the local laws need to be in place to protect LGBT people from discrimination in public areas such as restaurants and hotels.

“This is really not about bathrooms,” said Democratic Representative Rodney Moore, according to the Los Angeles Times. “This is about fear.”

Excuse me, wasn't it Charlotte's law allowing transgenders to choose whatever bathroom they want the impetus of this bill?

Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts, a Democrat who threw her weight behind the city’s anti-discrimination measure, said that the state legislature’s new law appalls her.

"The General Assembly is on the wrong side of progress. It is on the wrong side of history," Roberts said in a statement.

Transgendered people are recognized by psychiatrists as mentally ill. 

Transgenders are considered to be suffering from “gender dysphoria” which is listed in the DSM-5 (the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). Gender dysphoria is usually accompanied by other forms of mental disorders.

Yet you think it is progress to allow such men dressed up as women to invade women's washroom, change rooms, etc. That's not progress unless you consider insanity to be the way to go.

McCrory’s Wednesday’s signing of the bill marks the first time a state has passed a law preventing transgender people from entering public bathrooms corresponding to their adopted gender identity. South Dakota’s legislature attempted to pass a similar law only to have it vetoed earlier this month, and a Tennessee transgender bathroom bill failed to pass the state House on Tuesday.

North Carolina Father Charged in Daughter's Death Now Facing Child Sex Abuse Charges

WTVD
The man charged in his 3-year-old daughter's death (see story below) is now facing several child sex abuse allegations.

Jamarkus Meshawn Smith was arrested Wednesday after his daughter was found unresponsive due to injuries she suffered at the hands of her father, police said. Smith's wife, a Fort Bragg soldier, was also arrested.

Octavia Bennett-Smith, 27, faces felony child abuse charges tied to her daughter's death earlier this week.

26-year-old Jamarkus Meshawn Smith and 27-year-old Octavia Bennett-Smith
(Fayetteville Police Department)

Friday, Fayetteville police obtained additional warrants to charge Jamarkus Smith with two counts of first-degree statutory sex offense and two counts of indecent liberties with a child. His bond was increased to $3,000,000. He remains in the Cumberland County Detention Center.

Certainly, if these allegations are proven against Smith, drugs must have been involved. No semi-sane person could do such things to his own daughter, still a toddler, unless they were stoned.

FAYETTEVILLE (WTVD) (3 days ago) -- A Fort Bragg soldier has been arrested and charged in connection to her three year old daughter's death.

First child also died

Immediately following the girl's passing Tuesday, Bennett-Smith's husband JeMarkus Smith was arrested and charged with the same offense. Authorities said more charges are possible, and they're also re-opening the death investigation for the couple's first child, who passed away last year of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS.

On Dec. 1, Fayettevillle police said they responded to a report of an unresponsive toddler in the couple's Regency Drive apartment. While the cause of death has yet to be determined, the girl, referred to as "J.S." in court, died a short time later at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center.

On Wednesday, prosecutors said Bennett-Smith was responsible for the child's busted lip and bruises to her inner thighs and back. While the allegations were read in court, Bennett-Smith shook her head and cried.

District court judge Tal Baggett originally told Bennett-Smith she faced Class E felony that could mean up to 88 months in prison. A prosecutor pointed out the offense as a Class D, which would increase the maximum sentence to 204 months.

Two women showed up to support Bennett-Smith. One of women identified herself as one of the soldier's superiors from her Fort Bragg unit. She declined to offer her name, but spoke highly of Bennett-Smith.

"She's an excellent soldier, and it's a shock and surprise," the woman said.

Both Bennett-Smith and Smith remain in the Cumberland County jail under a $1 million bond. They are scheduled to appear in court later this month.

Anyone having information concerning these incidents is asked to call Detective J. Littlejohn at (910) 818-3468 or Crimestoppers at (910) 483-TIPS (8477). Crimestoppers information can also be submitted by visiting http://www.fay-nccrimestoppers.org/send_a_tip.aspx and completing the anonymous online tip sheet or by text-a-tip on your mobile device by sending a message to 274637 (in the text box type "4Tip" followed by your message).

After 2 Convictions, Man Charged With Child Sex Abuse Again

ALAMANCE COUNTY, North Carolina -- For 30 years, it’s been hard for Christy Childers to talk about the abuse and suffering she endured as a young girl.

Christy Childers

 The man she says she should have been able to trust as her stepfather became a monster.

“I was 7 or 8 years old. I was in elementary school and he was molesting me then, off and on. He would sneak in my bedroom at night. We tried to make excuses to stay with my grandmother a lot,” Childers remembers.

She was silent about the abuse and pain for years. But when Childers was a teenager, she finally told a friend what was happening.

Sherman Forester Thompson was convicted for incest and a crime against nature in 1988 after she spoke up about the abuse.

“As a teenager you think, 'That was something bad that happened, so he’ll be in prison the rest of his life, he won’t get out.'”

Sherman Forester Thompson

Thompson did serve prison time until 1994. Less than a year later, he was convicted of rape and sexual offense for hurting someone else and was back in prison from 1995 to 2002.

His record shows he was incarcerated again from 2005 to 2008 for a felony charge of failing to register as a sex offender. Since then, Thompson has had multiple DWI convictions.

Another known name for him is Sherman Foster Thompson, according to the NC PS Offender Public Database.

“I know the judicial system can only do what the law says or what evidence they have at the time. However, it’s just that inner struggle of wanting to have him behind bars for the rest of his life because he’s a sick individual,” Childers pointed out.

She was heartbroken to hear Thompson was accused, yet again, of indecent liberties with a child earlier this month.

He’s now 65 years old.

Thompson is facing two charges in Alamance County after a parent reported the incidents to the sheriff’s office. The victim was a girl under the age of 15 years old.

“How many children out there are living in a mental prison because they can’t tell this, they can’t come out and say this happened to them?” Childers wonders.

She knows more than anyone what the other victims are going through and how such abuse will change their lives forever.

“I feel in my heart there may be more women or children out there that he has been exposed to, that he has molested or raped and that are afraid to come forward,” she said. “I want to do whatever I can do to empower other people to get help or report what happened to them.”

She hopes her story will help other survivors of sexual abuse understand they are not alone.

If Thompson is convicted in this latest case, Childers hopes he is never released again.

“When this happens, it’s a lifetime thing that never goes away [for the victims]. You don’t want to see it repeated,” she said.

The Alamance County Sheriff’s Office encourages any other victims or people with information to contact them.

Thompson is being held on a $250,000 secured bond and has a court appearance next week in Graham.