MCSO

Yusra Farhan says she was just giving her daughter some discipline, "like any parent would."

​Yusra Farhan -- the Phoenix mother who cited "Iraqi culture" as the reason for alleged assaults on her daughter -- said at her initial court appearance yesterday that she was disciplining her daughter "like any parent would."

Most parents haven't been arrested twice in the past week for tying their children to beds and beating them or burning them with hot spoons, and -- at least in America -- aren't citing "Iraqi culture" as the reasoning behind it.

According to court documents obtained by New Times, Farhan was first arrested on February 10 after her daughter was hospitalized, as Farhan admitted to police that she'd hit her daughter several times with her hand, and with a shoe, after becoming angry because the girl had started speaking with a boy.

She went on to explain that she'd carried out the beating while the girl was tied to a bed at their home.

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MCSO

Left to right: Tabarek Altameemi, Mohammed Altameemi, and Yusra Farhan.

​Yusra Farhan, the woman who police say beat her daughter with a shoe and tied her to a bed because she was seeing a boy -- and cited "Iraqi culture" as the reason for it -- was arrested again yesterday.

This time, her husband and another daughter were also arrested on aggravated assault charges related to the incident that resulted in Farhan's last arrest.

According to court documents obtained by New Times, it began when the 19-year-old woman skipped out on night school to go hang out with a boy.

The woman's father, Mohammed Altameemi, got a call from the teacher about his daughter not going to class, which apparently didn't go over too well when she got back to her Phoenix home.

Police say Altameemi admitted he hit the woman when she got home, but she told the cops he also put a knife to her neck and said he was going to kill her.

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MCSO

Yusra Farhan

​Yusra Farhan's daughter recently started talking with a boy. So, Farhan beat her with a shoe and tied her to a bed because her "Iraqi culture states that a female is not allowed to be having contact with males because females are not allowed to have boyfriends," she later told police.

Unfortunately for Farhan, she's in America -- where beating your children is illegal, regardless of whatever draconian culture you subscribe to.

According to court records obtained by New Times, Phoenix police contacted Farhan on Wednesday at St. Joseph's Hospital, where she was visiting her daughter who was admitted for injuries she'd sustained the night before.

As Farhan told police, she's the person who caused her daughter's injuries.

Farhan told police that she'd hit her daughter several times with her hand, and with a shoe, after becoming angry because the girl had started speaking with a boy.

Additionally, Farhan told police, she tied the girl to her bed to keep her from leaving the house.

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Phoenix Police Department

This woman is NOT the mother of a newborn who was dumped in front of a Phoenix home on Tuesday.

​Phoenix police said yesterday that the woman to the right could potentially be the mother of a newborn who was dumped in front of a Phoenix home on Tuesday. They've since contacted the woman, and it turns out she is NOT the mother of "Baby Kathleen."

"The woman pictured in the photos has been contacted and she DOES NOT have any connection to Baby Kathleen or this case," Phoenix Sergeant Tommy Thompson says. "We are still looking for the Baby Kathleen's mother."

Thompson says Baby Kathleen was found about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday in front of a home in the 900 block of West Kathleen Road -- near Greenway Parkway and 7th Avenue.

The baby was found wrapped in a blanket about 25 feet from the front door of the home.

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Front lawns: No. Hospitals, Police Stations, Fire Houses: Yes.

​If you happened to have had a baby yesterday, and then dumped it in front of a home in north Phoenix, police would like to have a word with you -- and make sure you're not bleeding out after giving birth.

Oh...and don't worry about naming your newborn, the cops did it for you -- ya know, since you dumped her in front of a house in north Phoenix, and everything.

According to Phoenix Sergeant Tommy Thompson, the baby's been "affectionately nicknamed Baby Kathleen" by detectives who are investigating the case.

We're not quite sure if the nickname is adorable, or creepy as hell -- the cops named the newborn after the street where she was dumped by a person authorities presume was her own mother.

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Bullhead City Police Department

Staci Lynn Barbosa and Jonathan Edward Vandergriff are accused of brutally "raping" their one-month-old son.

​A story we wrote a few years ago about a Bullhead City couple accused of killing their newborn baby during what's described by authorities as a "brutal" sexual attack has been getting a lot of attention as of late -- and we have no idea why.

Regardless, we figured we'd provide an update on the case.

We spoke to Greg McPhillips this afternoon, the Mohave County prosecutor assigned to the case, who tells us not much has been happening. However, he says he's decided to not seek the death penalty for the two suspects, 20-year-old Staci Lynn Barbosa and 24-year-old Jonathan Edward Vandergriff.

McPhillips says he never sought the death penalty for Barbosa, but had for Vandergriff. However, because of the costs associated with trying a death penalty case -- and the fact that evidence in cases of murdered children is often hotly contested by defense attorneys -- he backed off.

On the morning of June 15, 2010, police were called to Western Arizona Regional Medical Center's Emergency Room where the one-month-old baby was "fighting for his life."

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Glendale Police Department

Glendale police suspect the body of 5-year-old Jhessye Shockley is in a landfill south of the Valley.

​Glendale police announced this morning that investigators will start searching a landfill south of the Valley for the body of missing 5-year-old Jhessye Shockley on February 6.

Shockley was reported missing in October. The case is now a homicide investigation, with her mother, Jerice Hunter, as the prime focus of the investigation -- police suspect she murdered the girl and dumped her body in a trash can in Tempe.

Authorities say at least 40 people from agencies including the Glendale Police Department, the FBI, and the Child Abduction Response Team, will be at Butterfield Landfill in Mobile everyday until the search is complete.

Investigators have narrowed down a 180x200-foot area of the landfill where they suspect Shockley's remains might be. The area is 20 feet deep, which amounts to about 6,000 tons of trash investigators will have to sift through. 

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MCSO

Kristen Torres

​A Phoenix man was "too tired" -- and his wife's blood-pressure was "too high" -- to take an extremely ill 13-month-old baby to the hospital in November of 2010 -- despite having been told by doctors the baby needed medical attention.

The result: the baby died.

Now, the baby's mother, 21-year-old Kristen Torres, faces a murder charge.

According to court documents obtained by New Times, on November 8, 2010, 13-month-old Aiden Torres was found dead in his crib at his parents' Phoenix home.

An autopsy later revealed that the baby had died from acute peritonitis, an inflammation of the membrane which lines the inside of the abdomen and all of the internal organs.

Torres and her husband, Robert Torres, told police Aiden had been sick for two or three days prior to his death. They told detectives the baby had a fever and a distended stomach.

Torres called the baby's doctor, who instructed her to take the baby to a hospital immediately.

That never happened -- Robert Torres said he was "too tired" from helping his in-laws move to get the baby the medical attention that probably would have saved his life.

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Glendale Police Department

Jhessye Shockley, 5, has been missing since October. She's presumed dead.

​The Glendale Police Department announced yesterday that it plans to move forward with plans to search a landfill for the remains of 5-year-old Jhessye Shockley, who's been missing since October and is presumed dead.

Since Shockley's disappearance, the case has gone from a missing person investigation to a homicide investigation -- with Shockley's mother, Jerice Hunter, the number one suspect.

Get all the details of Shockley's disappearance here.

Finding the 5-year-old's body in acres of trash is not gonna be easy for investigators; the area they'll have to search is roughly the size of two football fields and is 30 feet deep -- and that's only if they can accurately narrow down when the girl's body was tossed into a trash can in Tempe, and which truck brought it to the dump.

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Glendale PD

Jhessye Shockley was reported missing on October 11. Police suspect her mother killed her and threw her body in a trash can.

​The Glendale Police Department says it will move forward with plans to search a landfill south of Phoenix for the body of 5-year-old Jhessye Shockley, who's been missing since October.

Glendale police told New Times last month that the case is now a homicide investigation, with Shockley's mother, Jerice Hunter, as the primary focus.

The decision to search the landfill comes after police say they received information that the 5-year-old's body was thrown in a Tempe trash can.

Trash from the location where police suspect Jhessye was dumped is taken to the Butterfield Landfill south of the Valley.

Detectives, as police told us last month, will only search a landfill if there's a likelihood that they'll be able to find a body.

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