A manhunt continues for a 44-year-old man and a 14-year-old girl he is believed to have abducted Tuesday in Clark County for the second time since September.

Sheriff Gene Kelly said the girl, Michaela Bruce, and the public could be at risk if the suspect, Mark Edwards, attempts to do something desperate to escape capture. He is possibly armed with guns and knives.

Tammy Bruce, the girl’s mother, told News Center 7 that Edwards “knows he’s going to be found… and it ain’t going to be good.”

She likened her daughter’s relationship with Edwards to being in a “cult.”

“It’s like her little brain has been drilled over and over and over that he loves her. I trusted him. His daughter was my daughter’s best friend. His wife was my friend,” Tammy Bruce said.

Earlier Wednesday night, Fred Stegner, who operates the Springfield Soup Kitchen, 830 W. Main St., told News Center 7 Edwards and Bruce visited the facility sometime before 8 p.m. Tuesday. That would have been roughly an hour before the girl’s mother reported her missing at 9:02 p.m. in German Twp., near Springfield.

Edwards eats at the facility regularly, Stegner said, but Tuesday night was the first time anyone there has seen him with the girl. There were 200 to 250 people there at the time. Springfield police and sheriff’s deputies showed photos of the man and girl to volunteers Wednesday morning.

Edwards “came in with the blond lady,” Stegner said. “I didn’t know she was 14 until I came in today [Wednesday], but many volunteers told me they saw them.”

Also Wednesday evening, sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Young said deputies have continued to receive hundreds of tips, the most credible of which is that Edwards and Bruce may have been near State Route 235 and Interstate 270 late Wednesday morning. Deputies also searched several vacant houses in the area where Edwards and the girl abandoned a rental car he was driving.

Acting on one of the early tips, deputies responded to a Knight’s Inn on West Main Street in Springfield at 2:30 a.m. Wednesday to look for Bruce and Edwards. Items believed to belong to Edwards and Bruce were located in a room. The state bureau of criminal investigation is analyzing items found in that room for DNA, Young said.

Deputies later spotted that rental car and pursued it but cut off that pursuit when the car ran a red light. Authorities found it abandoned at Rebert Pike and Cottage Drive in Springfield. A search of the area did not turn up Edwards or the girl. Officials said Edwards’ wife rented the vehicle Tuesday.

Officials believe Edwards and Bruce are on foot unless someone has offered them help. Deputies have no reason to believe the two have left the area. They said if he’s going to try to leave the county, he will need help or will have to commit a crime — such as rob or steal —  to do so.

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At first, Tavius Woods called a 9-year-old girl’s school, pretending to be her father and asking if she’d been picked up yet, police said.

Soon afterward, police said, he tried to touch the girl, then tried to solicit sex acts from her.

Woods, 35, has been charged with attempted aggravated sexual battery and solicitation of a minor. He is being held on $30,000 bond.

According to police, this began last February, when the girl’s mother informed police about the school incident. In an interview, the girl then said that Woods tried to touch her while she was in his home, then tried to convince her to perform a sex act. According to an affidavit, Woods admitted to calling the school and pretending to be her father.

A Johnson City man was bound over to a grand jury Monday on multiple sex charges, including eight counts of raping a child.

Anthony Eugene Newton, 49, 314 W. 8th Ave., was arrested Jan. 17 and charged with eight counts of rape of a child, three counts of aggravated sexual battery and two counts of sexual battery by an authority figure.

Newton had a court appearance in Washington County Sessions Court on Monday, and the charges were sent to the grand jury when it meets again.

A court affidavit filed by Johnson City Police Investigator Debbie Carey-Dunn said the victim, now a teenager, was first abused by Newton when the victim was 10.

The allegations are that Newton first began touching the boy, which brought sexual battery charges, and that led to further sexual contact that would constitute rape.

Newton was reported to police in September after another person witnessed an alleged sexual assault, Dunn’s report said.

Each allegation of battery or rape is a separate count, which means there were at least 11 times Newton touched or raped the child.

Newton remains jailed on $100,000 bond. He has an appearance in Criminal Court on March 17.

A San Francisco police officer pleaded not guilty Monday morning in Contra Costa Superior Court to 10 felony counts of child molestation and possession of child pornography.

Officer Richard Hastings, 38, of Concord, is accused of molesting a 15-year-old boy on several different occasions between June and August.

Deputy District Attorney Alison Chandler said Hastings was arrested in August after the boy was caught sneaking out of his own home to meet with the officer.

Defense attorney Eileen Burke said the pair had met on an online dating site and the boy had claimed he was of legal age.

Burke argued for Hastings’ $910,000 bail to be lowered because he “is no more danger than anyone who signs up for an online dating service.”

Chandler, however, said the boy was clearly underage and was stopped by police that night in August on suspicion of a curfew violation.

When police contacted Hastings, he allegedly said, “Don’t worry, I’m a police officer,” Chandler said.

“He was using his police status to get out of the trouble he was about to be in,” she said.

Chandler said prosecutors did not immediately charge him after his Aug. 21 arrest because further investigation was needed, including into the contents of his electronic devices.

She said the FBI reviewed those contents and found child pornography involving an 8-year-old boy.

Chandler said Hastings told investigators that after he was involved in a police shooting a few years ago, he began “doing riskier things.”

“He is reckless, he is cavalier,” she told Judge Bruce Mills.

Burke, the defense attorney, told Mills that her client “has been completely cooperative” and has not had any problems since his August arrest.

The judge decided to reduce Hastings’ bail to $100,000 and ordered him to return to court on March 7 to set a date for a preliminary hearing.

Hastings, a 13-year veteran of the San Francisco Police Department, was suspended without pay after his arrest.

Hastings is named in a federal civil rights lawsuit stemming from the 2011 death of Kenneth Harding, who police say accidentally shot himself during a shootout with Hastings and another officer after police tried to stop Harding for alleged fare evasion in San Francisco’s Bayview District.

At the time of the shooting, Harding was on parole in Washington after serving time for pimping a 14-year-old girl.

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A New Orleans man arrested last month on several rape and child pornography charges was booked last week on additional charges which included more than 1,300 counts of possession and production of child pornography, court records show.

The large number of charges, and their severity, prompted a magistrate judge to set a bond of about $10 million dollars — a rarely-seen figure.

On Dec. 18 police booked Edward Bush, 47, on a slew of charges including aggravated rape, forcible rape, production of pornography involving juveniles, possession of pornography involving juveniles, possession with the intent to distribute pornography, and molestation of a juvenile.

According to an arrest warrant filed in Orleans Parish Criminal District Court, detectives in NOPD’s child abuse division began investigating Bush on Nov. 3 after  allegations that he had been sexually involved with a minor.

Throughout the course of the investigation, NOPD detective Marcia Willis-Watson learned that Bush had forced a 13-year-old girl into sexual intercourse, and that he had used his computer and camera to film several acts between the two.

Bush was arrested on Nov. 6 and booked on four counts each of forcible rape, pornography involving juveniles and committing an aggravated sex crime.

After securing a search warrant for Bush’s Gentilly home in the 6000 block of Pratt Drive, Watson confiscated a computer and camera equipment found inside the house.

On the computer, Watson found hundreds of still images and videos showing Bush involved in sexual acts with a different young girl.

Police interviewed the second girl shown in the video, who is now 22-years-old, and she told detectives that she had been sexually involved with Bush beginning when she was 12-years-old.

In the images and videos, the warrant says, Bush is shown engaging in sexual acts with the young girl over a period of five years. In the footage, police said, Bush is seen several times “setting the scenes by placing video cameras in multiple positions to capture every angle of the sexual abuse.” Bush is also seen in the reflection of a mirror holding up the camera while he films the sex acts.

During several of the videos, the girl is seen wearing a makeshift blindfold over her eyes while Bush assaults her, the record states. The girl is seen making “several attempts to yell and move away to stop (Bush),” the record shows.

In addition to producing the hundreds of illicit images, police said they had grounds to believe that Bush was also selling the photos for profit: several of the images found on Bush’s computer were duplicates and the 13-year-old girl who first spoke with police told detectives that he had been selling the photographs.

Bush, who has been locked up since his Nov. 6 arrest, was booked on the following charges Wednesday: Three counts of aggravated rape, 26 counts of molestation of a juvenile, 1,334 counts of pornography involving juveniles, and one count each of forcible rape and possession of three or more pornographic photos involving children with the intent to sell.

Bush’s combined bond for all of his charges was set at roughly 10 million dollars.

If convicted of the aggravated rape charges, Bush could face life imprisonment.

Engaging in the production of pornography involving a child younger than 13 in the state of Louisiana is punishable by anywhere from 25 to 99 years.

A Cleveland County man will be in court accused of raping a 14-year-old.

The Gaston Gazette reported Michael Gober was arrested Saturday for statutory rape and indecent liberties charges.

Police said it happened at the girl’s home in Gaston County.

The Lawndale man’s bail was set at $100,000.

A Northampton County judge granted Scott Oliver’s request to represent himself as he tries to overturn his conviction in the 1989 rape and murder of an 11-year-old Easton girl.

Oliver, appearing via teleconference from State Correctional Institute Graterford in Montgomery County, told Judge Leonard Zito he would prefer to represent himself as he appeals his 1991 conviction with new DNA evidence. While he had no complaints about defense attorney Jeremy Clark, he said his legal strategy may make Clark uncomfortable about moving forward.

Oliver said he has educated himself over the past 24 years by conducting research in prison law libraries. While he is uninformed about most legal matters, he conceded, he is an expert in his own case and the relevant case law.

“I do have extensive knowledge of the wrong that was done to me as well as DNA evidence and how it applies in cases,” Oliver said. “Outside of my case, my knowledge of the law, it’s not there. But I know my case.”

Clark agreed that no one in the county could match Oliver’s own knowledge of his case, and he pointed to briefings Oliver filed on his own behalf to show Oliver was competent. While his writing style left something to be desired, no one can dispute he knew the law in this instance, Clark said.

“He’s more than competent to be representing himself on this case,” Clark said.

Zito granted the request in a brief motion filed this afternoon.

Oliver, 46, was sentenced to life in prison for the murder and rape of Melissa Jaroschak. The girl was last seen alive leaving a beer party on an island in the Lehigh River with Oliver on Aug. 20, 1989. Her body was found the next day in a wooded area near an abandoned railroad loading dock off Canal Street.

During Oliver’s trial, defense attorney Gary Asteak asked to be removed from the case for unspecified reasons. When Oliver first appealed his sentence claiming Asteak was ineffective, the attorney said Oliver had admitted to killing the girl and asked him to bribe people to give him an alibi.

“You know. You know. Stop, stop. You know I did it,” Asteak testified Oliver said, according to court documents.

Oliver’s appeal process received new life in 2009. The Innocence Project, an organization that reviews DNA evidence in hopes of exonerating those wrongfully convicted, accepted his case. While a preliminary test found evidence that a second man may have been involved in Jaroschak’s death, a second test could not rule him out as a suspect.

Oliver argued the DNA evidence should be enough to grant him a new trial, but Zito has twice denied the motion. After the first denial, the Superior Court found Zito erred by considering the second DNA test when making his ruling, but Zito reached the same conclusion a second time considering witnesses who saw Jaroschak with Oliver prior to her death and his confession to Easton police.

Oliver has filed an appeal with the Superior Court in an attempt to overturn Zito’s latest denial of a new trial.

A Kilgore man was booked into the Gregg County Jail Tuesday on multiple child sex charges, according to jail records.

A grand jury indicted Donnie Edward Graves, 39, this past month on one count of continuous sexual abuse of a young child, two counts of sexual abuse of a child and two counts of indecency with a child by sexual contact, according the indictment filed Oct. 10 in the Gregg Count District Clerk’s Office.

The five-count indictment charges Graves had intercourse with and inappropriately touched and a child younger than 14 years old and exposed himself to a child younger than 17 years old.

Graves was released from the Gregg County Jail on $35,000 bond the same day as his arrest, according to jail records.

Thursday morning’s South African front page headlines screamed out the latest scandal: For a final exam, high school drama students were asked to dramatize the rape of a baby using a broom and a loaf of bread.

But outrage over the drama test was swiftly eclipsed by a more shocking story that emerged Thursday. A 6-week-old baby girl from Galeshwe township, west of the diamond-mining town of Kimberley, was fighting for her life after being raped.

The girl’s 24-year-old uncle was arrested over the attack, which occurred Tuesday. Township residents had surrounded the suspect and threatened to kill him, according to local media, until relatives intervened to save him.

News of the alleged rape came as South Africa, with one of the highest rates of rape globally, was marking 16 days of activism against rape and violence against women, launched by President Jacob Zuma on Monday.

Western Cape provincial police Chief Arno Lamoer said he was sickened by the problem, saying there have been dozens of rapes reported in the Western Cape province alone since Zuma launched the campaign.

“If men don’t stand up, nothing will change,” Lamoer told Eye Witness News. “A 2-year-old was the youngest victim in this province. I don’t even want to refer to the 6-week-old baby in Kimberley. This is totally unacceptable.”

The 6-week-old baby had to have extensive surgery in Kimberley Hospital and was in intensive care in a critical but stable condition, according to an official from the Health Department.

The girl’s mother had put the baby to bed and was watching television in the next room when the child was abducted, according to local media reports.

Relatives of the infant said they heard the baby crying in a shack in the backyard, a local newspaper reported. “When I got there, the baby was lying naked on the bed and there was a lot of blood. She was crying,” a relative told the Diamond Fields Advertiser.

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A 19 year-old Hamden resident turned himself in to police today after learning there was a warrant for his arrest on sex assault charges.

Cameron Hough was charged with first-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor and is being held on a $150,000 bond, said Capt. Ronald Smith, the department spokesman.

Smith said police met with the girl’s parents in August, when the incident was reported, and learned that she had accompanied three men, including Hough, to an isolated area on Dixwell Avenue.

The victim told police that she was assaulted by Hough inside a large “cement tube” which is near a large Hamden store.

The suspect will be arraigned Nov. 25 in Meriden Superior Court.