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Millionaire’s husband claims self-defense after wife’s body found in Texas field – blames infidelity, while trial testimony tells a darker story

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Andreen McDonald’s dreams of success began to come back true until five years ago when her stays were found scattered amongst cow bones in a farmer’s field in San Antonio, Texas.

The enterprising mother and wife had vanished into thin air, and her husband, Air Force Major Andre McDonald, refused to talk to police. With no official reason for death or known enemies, the case hinged on a yellow carpenter’s hammer found hidden in a trash can in her garage.

Andreen McDonald (Facebook/Andreen McDonald)

Who was Andrea McDonald?

At 29, Andreen’s labor and dedication have led her to the life she at all times imagined. Originally from Jamaica, she fell in love with a handsome U.S. Air Force major, 10 years her senior, when he visited the island for a funeral. They began a whirlwind romance, married, moved to the United States and welcomed a daughter, Elena, into their family, reports “48 hours” in “Andreen McDonald: The Millionaire Vanishes.”

While Andre was working as a cyberwarfare analyst at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, McDonald began an assisted-care company that quickly grew into a multimillion-dollar enterprise.

The businesswoman prided herself on her punctuality and exercised frequently, so when she failed to indicate up on the gym or at work on the morning of March 1, 2019, her co-employees knew something was mistaken.

In the times after her disappearance, police uncovered tiny clues that pointed to something terrifyingly near home. Her blood was found on the lavatory light switch, and a strange pile of charred stays was found in the sprawling backyard. Within a day, her husband, Andre, had turn out to be the prime suspect, however it would take 4 long years to bring him to justice.

Accusations of infidelity

To outsiders, the couple was the epitome of happiness, but detectives say their life went into crisis when Andre discovered that his wife had renewed her affair along with her old flame in Jamaica.

In 2018, Andreen got tattoos of the person’s initial and date of birth. The couple narrowly avoided divorce, but after Andreen covered up her tattoos and ended the affair, family and friends believed they’d already come to terms with the event.

But text messages from the night before she disappeared, obtained by police, painted a different picture, as Andre furiously accused her of cheating on him. He told police he went to a gas station to get gas and funky down, then went home and slept in one other bedroom, and that was the last time he saw her.

The day after she disappeared, undercover officers followed him to a gun shop, where he bought a handgun and ammunition. Thinking he intended to commit suicide, authorities detained him for a psychiatric evaluation and issued a search warrant for the couple’s home, where they found a smoking gun.

Evidence results in arrest

They found a yellow carpenter’s hammer in the corner of the garage and Andre’s bloody clothes in a garbage can.

A shovel, axe, hatchet, gas cans and gloves were found in her automotive, and a torn up Lowe’s receipt for those items was thrown in the trash. When DNA evaluation confirmed Andreen’s blood was on the hammer, police moved in and arrested Andre on charges of tampering with evidence for tearing up the receipt.

At that time, her body had not yet been found and the case was still not officially ruled a murder.

Detectives turned to the general public for help, spreading the story to the media and asking for support from the Air Force, which sent a special team to look a whole lot of miles for clues to her whereabouts.

The breakthrough in the case finally got here on July 11, 2019, when a farmer discovered a human skeleton covered in cow bones in his field. Although Andreen had injuries consistent with blunt force trauma, pathologists were unable to find out a reason for death resulting from the degraded state of her stays.

Despite this, McDonald was charged and pleaded not guilty to murder. Days before his trial in April 2021 began, he made a shocking confession that will change his fate endlessly.

Some imagine it was a clever tactical move to avoid being charged with murder. He shared details of Andreen’s death along with her family, claiming he killed her in self-defense.

He stuck to that story throughout the trial, recounting details from the stand in regards to the horrific fight they’d the night she died. He claimed she had began a second business and kept it a secret from him for greater than a 12 months, prompting further divorce threats and a brutal fight.

“She got extremely angry at the thought of us dividing up and she ran into the room to confront me … she got right in my face, at this point she spits in my face. That’s when I grabbed her and I think our heads collided and I think she got a cut somewhere on her face,” he said in video testimony obtained by “48 Hours.”

Andre noted that she was extremely “strong” and will bench press as much as 300 kilos. When she became enraged and started hitting him, he threw her to the bottom, fearing for her safety, he said.

“Then I kicked her twice and on the second kick, I think I heard some kind of wheezing sound,” he testified.

After putting his daughter to bed, he returned to the lavatory and found Andreen dead.

“I never thought about calling someone to resuscitate a dead person,” he said. Instead of calling 911, he dumped his wife’s lifeless body in a field, stripped her naked and burned her clothes.

What about Hammer?

Armed with that information, the jury had to make your mind up whether the person had deliberately murdered her, it was manslaughter or self-defense — but they still couldn’t find an evidence for using the hammer.

Andre explained on the stand that after investigators searched his home, he returned to the field and set her body on fire. After the flames subsided, he attacked her burned stays with a hammer.

Although he was charged with murder, which carried a life sentence, a jury in February 2023 delivered a lighter sentence of manslaughter after an almost 11-hour stalemate. He is currently serving 20 years in prison, and his appeal of the conviction was rejected in August 2024. Andreen’s mother and sister have custody of their young daughter, Elena.

This article was originally published on : atlantablackstar.com
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Politics and Current

Video captured of Miami police officer picking up 15-year-old girl and throwing her to the ground because he thought she was going to attack him

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Ikeria Tate, a 15-year-old black girl from Miami, is facing felony charges after she was thrown to the ground by a Miami-Dade Public Schools police officer last week.

The incident occurred at Edison High School in Miami and was captured on video that was posted to Instagram last week, which is why the full, unedited footage appears to not be available online.

However, Local 10 obtained the video and used edited portions in its news story that showed a person identified only as Miami-Dade Public Schools Sergeant Odige throwing Tate to the ground during a fight at the school after a football game.

'I didn't throw a punch': Black girl says she was just trying to avoid another hit, but now faces charges for assaulting police officer
Ikeria Tate, a 15-year-old black girl from Miami, is facing charges after a Miami-Dade Public Schools police officer threw her to the ground last week, claiming he was only defending himself. (Photo: YouTube)

The footage shows that after he threw her body to the ground, the man approached her and grabbed her by the hair. At that time, she waved her right hand twice.

Miami-Dade Public Schools police believed the flapping of her arms was an attack on an officer, so she was charged with assaulting an officer, resisting arrest and disturbing a college.

An arrest report obtained by Local 10 stated that Tate “became aggressive, tensing up and pulling away. The defendant continued to be aggressive and attempted to strike the sergeant with a closed fist.”

However, Tate claims she tried to grab the officer to avoid further attack.

“When he hit me, I tried to hold him so I could get up because he couldn’t hit me,” she said. NBC station in Miami.

“I didn’t mean to hit him, I just told him to leave me alone,” Tate told Local 10.

The arrest report also said police were trying to separate the fighting women when Tate intervened, pushing Sergeant Odige away and punching him, causing him to “redirect” her to the ground, which is police jargon for throwing someone to the ground.

However, the footage released by Local 10 doesn’t show the moments leading up to the impact, which might support the allegation that the woman pushed and swung at the officer.

“When I got up, he pulled me back down, like threw me back down, and one of the cops started stomping on my hair,” she told NBC Miami. “And then they handcuffed me and put me in the back of the police car.”

The incident occurred on September 11 after a football game at Edison High School, a college positioned in the Little Haiti neighborhood of Miami.

Police say a fight broke out between parents and students outside the school’s locker room. They tried to separate the attackers when Tate intervened.

However, Tate claims she was only one of several individuals who saw the fight when the officer grabbed her and began throwing her around.

The Miami-Dade School District and Miami-Dade Public Schools Department said they’re investigating the incident.

For now, nevertheless, Tate faces up to five years in prison for his third offense of assaulting a law enforcement officer.

Local media reported she was charged with resisting arrest, but didn’t specify whether she was charged with resisting arrest with violence or without violence, as those are two separate charges in Florida.

The former is a third-degree felony, also punishable by up to five years in prison, while the latter is just a misdemeanor, punishable by up to one 12 months in prison.

But she likely faces the former, as she also faces an assault charge. The charge can’t be confirmed through online public records because she is a minor.

“I don’t think he should have done that to my child. If anything, you should have tried to stop her in a better way,” Tate’s mother, Monique Warner, told Local 10.

“He shouldn’t touch anyone’s children like that. You should help them. That’s why children are afraid of the law.”

This article was originally published on : atlantablackstar.com
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Kamala Harris Stresses She Needs to Earn Black Male Votes and Doesn’t ‘Assume’ She Has Them During NABJ-WHYY Panel

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Kamala Harris, NABJ-WHYY conversation with Vice President Kamala Harris, theGrio.com

“Black men are like any other voting group; you have to earn their votes,” Harris told the panel, co-moderated by Gaynor, Poltico’s Eugene Daniels and NPR’s WHYY’s Tonya Mosley. “So I work to earn my votes. I don’t assume I’m going to get them because I’m black.”

Although a majority of black voters surveyed — 77 percent — plan to select Harris, Pew Research Center — Many headlines are repeating reports that more and more black men are declaring support for former President Donald Trump this election cycle.

Harris also discussed her plans to increase the deduction entrepreneurs can claim when starting a business from $5,000 to $50,000, saying the $5,000 deduction is much too little to help people get their businesses off the bottom.

“Part of my approach is to understand the obstacles that traditionally and currently exist that prevent anyone, including black men, from achieving economic prosperity, and I will tell you that I don’t think that just talking about economic policy focused on reducing unemployment is enough,” Harris continued.

During the interview, Harris also addressed the provision of childcare and lower housing costs.

Policy

She also responded to questions on the Gaza conflict, emphasizing the necessity for a hostage deal as Daniels pressed her on questions on the United States’ role in supplying weapons to Israel. Mosley also asked her whether the United States had the resources to support the Palestinians of their right to self-determination.

“I have been actively participating, for example, in meetings not only with Israeli officials but also with Arab officials to talk about how we can construct a scenario for the day after that in which we participate in ensuring those exact goals that I have outlined, including … that there will be no reoccupation of Gaza,” Harris told Moseley.

Harris also addressed false and racist rumors spread by former President Trump and his vice presidential candidate, J.D. Vance, about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, calling the situation “shameful” and saying those in positions of authority have a responsibility to understand the ability of their words.

“When you have a microphone like that in front of you, you really have to understand on a very deep level how much your words matter,” Harris said. “There’s a deep responsibility that comes with it, which is an extension of … this concept of public trust. You’ve been given a trust to be responsible for how you use your words, and even more so for how you conduct yourself, especially when you’ve been and then you’re trying to become president of the United States of America again.”

In contrast to her extremely aggressive and tense interview with Donald Trump on NABJ in July, Harris ended the interview by thanking NABJ and the reporters for making the conversation possible.

You can watch your entire conversation here.

This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
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Politics and Current

National Voter Registration Day: Harris-Walz Campaign, DNC Launch Nationwide Outreach Campaign at 60 HBCU Campuses – Essence

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Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

As a part of a significant effort to mobilize young Black voters ahead of the 2024 election, the Harris-Walz campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) have launched a comprehensive voter registration drive to coincide with National Voter Registration Day (September 17) and National Black Voter Registration Day (September 20). This comprehensive push will concentrate on key swing states and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) ahead of the 2024 presidential election, which is fast approaching in only 49 days.

The campaign will include in-person and virtual campaign events at 60 HBCU campuses in key swing states like Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, (*60*) and Michigan. Harris-Walz’s campaign is tapping into the energy of HBCUs, which have long played a key role in black civic engagement. This week, the campaign will hold nine in-person voter registration events in North Carolina, the state with the second-largest variety of HBCUs within the country.

Vice President Kamala Harris may also mark National Voter Registration Day with a high-profile event in Philadelphia, where she’s going to take part in a moderated Q&A with National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ)). The event will happen in front of an audience of scholars from Lincoln University and Cheyney University, two historic HBCUs, in addition to NABJ members.

“We look forward to our members and student journalists hearing from Vice President Harris as our panel asks the tough questions that are most pressing to the communities served by NABJ members,” said NABJ President Ken Lemon. he said in an announcement to WHYY radio, which can host the interview at its headquarters.

This speech got here just a few month after the NABJ was met with widespread criticism for inviting former President Donald Trump to the annual convention, which drew a backlash from some members and the general public. The invitation, which was a part of the organization’s effort to have interaction with diverse political voices, led to a backlash, particularly from communities critical of Trump’s record on issues affecting Black Americans. Harris’ event is seen as a chance to refocus on voter engagement, particularly amongst Black youth, ahead of the 2024 election.

Lemon added, “As we have always said, NABJ does not endorse political candidates as a journalistic organization. As we demonstrated during our interview with former President Trump at the convention, this event will not be a campaign rally, but it will be conducted with respect for journalistic principles.”

NABJ will broadcast PolitiFact fact-checks survive its website and social media accounts using the hashtag #NABJFactCheck.

In addition to on-the-ground efforts, the campaign will engage voters through digital platforms. The campaign has partnered with Revolt to take over the homepage of the hip-hop culture and news website. This digital initiative, together with other media partnerships, will leverage platforms that resonate with Black Americans, particularly younger voters, to convey the message of getting out the vote.

The campaign can be launching a national voter registration text line, with information available in English and Spanish. The resource is meant to simplify the voter registration process and guide voters through the DNC’s IWillVote.com platform. The campaign says the text line is an element of a broader effort to make sure voters have access to clear and reliable details about registering and casting ballots.

“Every voter deserves to have their voice heard and cast their vote for the future they want to see, which is why we’ve invested millions in our I Will Vote programme and launched a new text helpline so young voters can get real-time information and live support straight to their phones in the run-up to Election Day.” DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison said in an announcement to NBC News.

On Friday, Sept. 20, National Black Voter Registration Day, the Harris-Walz campaign will further ramp up its voter registration efforts with one other media partnership aimed at registering black voters. Focusing on key swing states like Georgia and (*60*) is seen as crucial to each the campaign’s success and the Democrats’ broader electoral strategy. Black voters played a pivotal role in flipping those states within the 2020 election, and the Harris-Walz campaign appears to be prioritizing reaching those communities to maintain that momentum going.

While black voters have historically leaned Democratic, engagement stays a challenge for each parties, especially amongst younger voters. Campaigns are increasingly specializing in young voters, recognizing their potential to influence elections in key swing states.

This article was originally published on : www.essence.com
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