The Crime Ledger: September 19, 2026

Bondi: Murder Charge After Stabbing of Woman in 90s

Eastern Suburbs Police Area Command officers found a woman in her nineties with torso wounds at a Chambers Avenue unit in Bondi Beach about 5:15 p.m. Saturday after a stabbing call. NSW Ambulance treated her; she died at the scene.

A 47-year-old man known to her was arrested at the property, taken to Surry Hills, charged with domestic violence murder, and refused bail. He is due before the Bail Division Local Court on Sunday. Names have not been released. He is presumed innocent.

The Bondi killing landed on a day NSW also saw a 23-year-old woman fatally stabbed in a Kooringal home in Wagga Wagga (an 18-year-old arrested then released; a 31-year-old arrested later Saturday night) and a woman in her seventies found dead after a Mole Creek property fire following a rural domestic call. Homicide squad inquiries are open at those scenes.

She has been named as Valentina Spivak, 90, and the accused as her grandson, Sergei Mitnik, 47, 7NEWS and Nine report. Police allege she was stabbed 19 times. Neighbours remembered her as a “nice, quiet woman.” He was charged with domestic-violence murder, did not apply for bail at a Sunday video-link hearing and was refused it; the case was adjourned to Oct. 1. He is presumed innocent.

Bengaluru: Neighbour Arrested in 13-Year-Old Ransom Killing

Bengaluru police say Wala Bhaskar Reddy, 28, a UK-returned MTech graduate who had just started a Whitefield finance job, abducted Class VIII student M Prajwal, 13, from Vinayakanagar in Yelahanka on the night of September 16.

Officers allege Reddy and an accomplice, Edukondalu, lured the boy with firecrackers and a chance to drive, took him to construction ground near Bagalur, filmed a ransom appeal aimed at Prajwal’s realtor father Manohar (police say a crore-rupee demand to cover family debts), then beat the boy with a branch and hollow bricks until he died. Reddy, drunk, crashed the SUV near Chikkajala; passers-by found the body in the boot. A case is registered at Chikkajala under BNS abduction and murder sections. Edukondalu remains wanted. Reddy is presumed innocent.

Police allege the pair recorded ransom videos and killed the boy, planning to demand ₹1 crore to clear Reddy’s family debts, and that his body was discovered in the boot of Reddy’s SUV after a crash, the Hindustan Times and Times of India report. Edukondalu, the second accused, was later arrested in Andhra Pradesh, The Hindu reports. Both are presumed innocent.

Zapopan: Arrest in Medical Student Femicide

Jalisco’s Fiscalía said Friday that Investigative agents from the Feminicides command detained Eduardo Issac “N” (also rendered Eduardo Isaac “N”) as a suspect in the femicide of Karla Margarita Pérez Jiménez, 22, a sixth-semester medicine student from Irapuato.

Pérez was last seen September 14 in Prados Vallarta, Zapopan, after boarding a platform rideshare. Search teams found her body September 16 in a field near Camino a Nextipac and CUCBA in Las Agujas, with a burned motorcycle nearby. Vicefiscal Blanca Jacqueline Trujillo Cuevas confirmed the identification. Omar García Harfuch publicly noted the arrest. The accused is at the disposal of a judge. He is presumed innocent. (Yesterday’s Cuautla card on Spanish student Claudia Tacoronte stands; Morelos also secured pretrial prison for Francisco Javier “N” Friday.)

Update, Oct. 11, 2026: Eduardo Isaac “N”, described in reports as a motorcycle driver for a ride-hailing app, was ordered to stand trial (vinculado a proceso) for femicide on Sept. 23. A judge at Puente Grande imposed two years of mandatory pretrial detention and gave investigators until Dec. 22 to close the complementary investigation, Proceso and Infobae report. He is presumed innocent.

Salento: Suspect Jailed Pending Trial in Dutch Tourist’s Death

A Quindío control judge ordered Eduardo Ramiro Mendoza Nare held in prison after Colombia’s Fiscalía charged him with aggravated feminicide and aggravated qualified theft in the May 25 killing of Dutch tourist Marlies Minke Genz.

Prosecutors say Genz left her lodging for a rural coffee-farm tour toward vereda Palestina, was attacked with a blunt object for her belongings, and died of cranioencephalic trauma; her body was found in a creek on May 31. CTI work allegedly tied Mendoza, a Venezuelan national, to the scene and a bus flight toward Medellín. He was caught on a Salento street, denied the charges, and was remanded Friday. He is presumed innocent.

Genz, 41, was found dead on May 31, six days after she went missing, El Tiempo and Caracol Radio report. Mendoza Nare is a 38-year-old Venezuelan national captured by the Fiscalía’s CTI investigators. The detention order keeps him in prison while the case proceeds. He has not been convicted and is presumed innocent.

Frederick: Arrest in 2003 Birthday Apartment Murder

Frederick County Sheriff Charles Jenkins announced Friday that Tavon Jamar Willis, 46, of Frederick, is charged with murder, armed robbery, intent to commit theft, and false imprisonment in the July 2, 2003 killing of Joshua Wayne Crawford.

Crawford was beaten and stabbed in his Exeter Court apartment and found with duct tape on his legs and face on his twenty-first birthday; cause of death was sharp and blunt trauma plus asphyxia. Sheriff’s officials said new forensic work and a fresh look at old evidence put Willis on the board: his name had appeared only once, on Crawford’s funeral visitation log, and never in interviews across twenty-three years. Mother Terri Horman spoke at the news conference. The investigation continues. Willis is presumed innocent.

Crawford was killed on his 21st birthday, WJLA reports. The sheriff’s office said advances in forensic technology helped identify Willis after 23 years; earlier reporting said a hair recovered from Crawford’s hand had been sent for possible genetic-genealogy testing, and a 2010 grant paid for crime-scene DNA to be reanalysed. Officials did not say which evidence was decisive. He is presumed innocent.

Fond du Lac: Roommate Charged in 1995 Disappearance

Fond du Lac County Sheriff Ryan Waldschmidt said Jerome P. Baier, 83, was arrested at his rural Spencer-area home and charged with first-degree murder in the October 1995 disappearance of James “Jim” Ruland, then 40, of Ripon: Baier’s roommate at the time.

Ruland was last confirmed seen October 24, 1995; his vehicle turned up at the Stretch Truck Stop in North Fond du Lac. Remains have never been found despite K-9, GPR, excavations, dive teams, and a manure-pit search. Detectives say 2021 crime-lab retesting plus fresh interviews flipped the missing-person file into a homicide with probable cause. Baier is in the county jail awaiting first appearance. He is presumed innocent.

Update, Oct. 11, 2026: At an Oct. 1 preliminary hearing, Judge Anthony Nehls bound Baier over for trial on first-degree intentional homicide and he pleaded not guilty, FOX 11 reports. Ruland’s body has never been found; a court has declared him dead. DA Eric Toney cited Baier admitting he lied to police, giving varying stories, and cashing checks made out to Ruland; Baier was convicted in 1997 of forging Ruland’s signature on two checks. The complaint says Baier claimed Ruland stole $1,200 and ran up the phone bill, but records showed Ruland paid both in full. Ruland’s ex-wife told investigators a childhood brain shunt meant a blow to the head could kill him. Cadaver dogs and ground-penetrating radar at the farmhouse found nothing. Bond is $1 million; a status conference is set for Nov. 2. Baier is presumed innocent.

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