A journalist decided to write letters to 103 young people serving sentences in Florida prisons for murders. Could their stories shed light on what made Duval County Florida's "murder capital"?
Domestic Violence
Taking financial, emotional and physical abuse together, allegations of mistreatment have more than doubled in L.A. and Riverside counties since 2005. In Orange and Ventura counties, that number has nearly tripled over the same time period.
While child abuse and neglect take different forms, more than half of Alabama’s child abuse and neglect victims – 52 percent – experience physical abuse.
When people talk about our county, they often talk about vineyards, fine dining and upscale hotels. But that's not the reality for many of us who call the Napa Valley home.
Ashley wanted the abuse to stop. But Butch, her adoptive father, was always around.
I met Ashley for the first time in March 2015 at a Noodles & Company in Indianapolis. Her adoptive father Craig Peterson had arranged the meeting. He initially reached out to me about an article I'd written, then shared bits of Ashley's story.
Ashley stepped out of Sandy’s red-and-white van. The 10-year-old didn’t say a word, didn’t glance back at Sandy, her adoptive mother. And she refused to meet the hazel eyes of the man waiting in front of her.
This is Part 2 of a five-part series was produced as a project for the 2017 National Fellowship.
Other stories in this series include:
Ashley would be exploited, abused and, ultimately, abandoned by people who said they cared about her. And her invisible wounds would persist for decades.
This is Part 1 of a five-part series was produced as a project for the 2017 National Fellowship, a program of USC Annenberg's Center for Health Journalism....