Neighbor charged in death of Bellevue woman in home. Police say suspected illegal immigrant admitted killing.
By CHRISTIAN BOTTORFF Staff Writer
The remnants of a brutal and lengthy fight were scattered throughout Mary Sadler's 229 Cross Timbers Drive home on Tuesday.Police found Sadler's cockatiel, Aussie, cowering in a corner with a broken wing. The bird later died at an emergency clinic.A glass panel from a grandfather clock was shattered. A mirror in the front foyer was cracked, and glass spilled out onto the floor.Nearby, police found Sadler, 74, dead, her beaten and bloody body by a rear sliding-glass door inside the home."It was one hell of a fight," her grandson-in-law, Paul Woods, said Tuesday as he helped clean debris from the living room. "I think she did a good job for being 74 years old and trying to defend herself."According to Metro police, the man who on Monday killed Sadler, and perhaps Sadler's bird, was Ivan Moreno, 30, a next-door neighbor.Moreno, who is thought to be an illegal immigrant from Mexico, admitted to police that he struck Sadler after he went to her house to get money, said Metro police spokesman Don Aaron.Moreno was arrested yesterday on a charge of criminal homicide.He also faces two charges of assaulting police officers during his arrest and a domestic assault charge after threatening his wife in Spanish that he would kill her if she cooperated with authorities, police said.Moreno's possible illegal presence in the country was a sore spot yesterday for Sadler's family and neighbors. They expressed contempt for landlords who rented a duplex to Moreno and his family.Police initially said Sadler had been beaten to death, but an autopsy yesterday found that she had also been strangled, Aaron said.It was not clear exactly what touched off the violence inside the home. Moreno had gone to Sadler's house to ask for money.Sometime after the killing, he went to a Mapco on Highway 70 South where he became belligerent after being refused cigarettes because he didn't have enough money, police said.Moreno left the Mapco before police arrived and drove back to his neighborhood. Neighbors saw him driving recklessly through yards and called police.Officers arrived at Cross Timbers Drive to find his car abandoned with a shredded tire, police said.He was identified moments later and found to have an outstanding warrant for failing to show up in court in June on a charge of driving without a license, police said.Officers went to his home at 233 Cross Timbers Drive, but Moreno wasn't there. As they prepared to leave, they spotted him behind Sadler's home with blood on his clothes, police said.According to police, Moreno kicked two officers who tried to arrest him.Moreno appears to have used false documents and a fake name to land a job at a West End Avenue restaurant, police said. Federal authorities are working to determine his immigration status.The killing prompted a joint statement by Metro police Chief Ronal Serpas, Sheriff Daron Hall and District Attorney General Torry Johnson, announcing plans to reform the way criminal immigrants are handled in Nashville."While it is premature at this point to announce any plans or initiatives, suffice it to say that the three of us are working closely with the federal government to develop a system to better protect our citizens from immigrants who commit criminal acts and show a blatant disregard for our laws," the statement said.Investigators have said they didn't know of any animosity between Moreno and Sadler before Monday, though a police spokesman said a hand-held video game and other undisclosed items from Sadler's home were found in Moreno's home, police said.Sadler's family and neighbors yesterday told The Tennessean there had been disputes between them.One recent spat involved one of Moreno's children shooting a BB gun at tomatoes in Sadler's back yard, a family member said.Police yesterday declined to comment about that."We are still early in the investigation," Aaron said. "We will be talking to Mrs. Sadler's family in more detail."Officers found Aussie, the bird, wounded in a corner of a room in the residence, Aaron said. Aussie's cage had been knocked over, apparently during the struggle.Officers wrapped the bird in a soft fabric and took it to an emergency veterinary clinic. Doctors administered oxygen and diagnosed the bird with a broken wing, Aaron said."The bird died at the veterinary clinic," Aaron said. Sadler's two ferrets were found inside the home unharmed, police said.Sadler's family remembered her yesterday as a perennial volunteer for many area organizations.Her family pointed to a plaque on the wall that showed she had recently surpassed 584 hours during 26 years as a volunteer helping veterans through the Tennessee Department of Veterans Affairs. She also volunteered through St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.She worked at polls during elections and with a Masonic Lodge in west Nashville, her family said. Neighbors described her as an active e-mailer who would send messages to other residents about everything from coyotes roaming the streets to trash pickup times.Her husband suffers from Alzheimer's disease and was unaware of his wife's death as of Tuesday afternoon, said Woods, Sadler's grandson-in-law.Linda Martin, a neighbor for three years, said she knew Sadler as the captain of the Neighborhood Watch. Sadler was the first person to welcome her to the neighborhood, Martin recalled.Mindy Van Tassel, director of the area's Neighborhood Watch program, recalled Sadler as a woman who looked and acted much younger than her age.•
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Friday, August 18, 2006
Our Tax Dollars At Work (NOT)
This is just outrageous! What about the rest of Americans? Why do these people get special treatment and "free" services that us taxpayers have to fork out for?????
New Federal Program Helps Hispanic Couples Beat Odds Of Divorce
AR Articles on Hispanic Family Values
The Myth of Hispanic Family Values (March 2004)
More news stories on Hispanic Family Values
Analisa Nazareno, Dallas Morning News, August 10, 2006
Juan and Magdalena Hernandez have been married for eight years.
What they love most about each other—he’s uncommonly patient and respectful; she’s especially decisive and determined—are the very things they now know they can improve on: He can be more communicative and quicker to respond; she can be less headstrong and more deliberative.
While they’ve always known this about each other, earlier this year they learned how to work with that knowledge to make their marriage better. The Hernandezes, who attended a Healthy Marriage Initiative class at their church, St. Mark’s Catholic Church in Plano, are among the first couples in the U.S. to benefit from a new federal government program to support Hispanic marriages.
Hispanics, who now make up the nation’s largest minority group, have had high dropout and poverty rates, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration on Children and Families.
The federal government believes that by strengthening Hispanic marriages, it can provide families a foundation to better address issues of poverty and education. Children whose parents are married fare better and present less of a burden to the state than children of single parents, says Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families.
The idea of voluntary marriage education, particularly for low-income Hispanics, is evolving. Marriage therapists, Hispanic community leaders and researchers are still laying groundwork for curriculum, implementation and review. This spring, they met for a national conference in San Antonio, where they discussed those topics.
“The whole rationale of this initiative is not moralizing or pushing people to get married or insisting that they stay in marriages that are unhealthy. It is simply about educating people who voluntarily want to consider marriage,” says Frank Fuentes, who is heading the Hispanic Healthy Marriage Initiative in Washington, D.C.
Building credibility
Last year, Congress approved the Healthy Marriage Initiative, which would spend $150 million a year to promote marriage and active fatherhood nationwide, particularly among low-income and minority families.
This year, the federal government is spending $100 million on marriage education for Hispanic couples in particular. There’s also an African- American Healthy Marriage Initiative.
Mr. Fuentes says his office is working with groups that have developed trust within minority communities. For Hispanics, that means the federal government will contract with predominantly Hispanic school districts, churches and groups, and will start marriage classes on a larger scale this year.
“We need to work with Latinos in their culture and traditions so they’re not going to blow you off,” Mr. Fuentes says. “They’re not going to participate if they don’t trust you or if they think you don’t know where they’re coming from.”
Assimilation
The idea is controversial for some who have studied Hispanic marriage patterns. They say such efforts are better directed toward improving wages and employment opportunities for Hispanics. Those are among the greatest factors leading to divorce for all ethnicities.
“Everyone can benefit from learning how to communicate better with their spouse or their co-worker or their family members,” says Kim Lloyd, assistant professor of sociology at Washington State University.
“But if you wanted to get to the root of the problem, what we need to do is make sure that every American family had a living wage, could find a job and provide health care for children. These are the things that keep families together.”
Dr. Lloyd argues that Hispanics, who divorce at the same rate as the general population, actually have lower rates of divorce when researchers factor in poverty rates and income.
“In spite of the greater economic instability that Hispanics face, the divorce rate is the same,” she says.
Mr. and Ms. Hernandez, who have lived in the U.S. for more than a decade and are lay leaders in their church, have their own ideas about why the divorce rate of about 50 percent among their immigrant peers is high when compared with the divorce rate in Mexico—roughly 6 percent.
“It’s part of the environment here,” Mr. Hernandez says. “As they become more assimilated, it’s what people do.”
Ms. Hernandez puts it this way: “I think it sometimes depends on the economic and financial independence of the women. Many women come to this country, and this is the first time that they have any kind of financial independence. And they become influenced and less tolerant.”
Academics who study the subject confirm what the Hernandezes say.
“The women are adopting egalitarian norms and want greater equality in marriages. And the men tend to resist,” says Norval Glenn, a sociology professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
Advocates say marriage education can help men learn how to adapt to gender-equity norms in the United States to prevent divorce.
“We try to bring up the machismo in the classes and give it a new perspective,” says Mercedes Pérez de Colón, vice president of Avance, a San Antonio-based nonprofit group that provides parent education at more than a dozen North Texas locations. “It can be a positive thing. You’re not being ‘not macho’ if you help with the children. You’re being more macho. You’re being a great father and husband.”
Preserving identity
{snip}
“In this country, where life is faster and devoted to work, we have to work to conserve our traditions and customs and beliefs and not lose our identity. We have to adapt. But we have to take what’s good and make it better, without forgetting everything we were taught,” Ms. Hernandez says.
New Federal Program Helps Hispanic Couples Beat Odds Of Divorce
AR Articles on Hispanic Family Values
The Myth of Hispanic Family Values (March 2004)
More news stories on Hispanic Family Values
Analisa Nazareno, Dallas Morning News, August 10, 2006
Juan and Magdalena Hernandez have been married for eight years.
What they love most about each other—he’s uncommonly patient and respectful; she’s especially decisive and determined—are the very things they now know they can improve on: He can be more communicative and quicker to respond; she can be less headstrong and more deliberative.
While they’ve always known this about each other, earlier this year they learned how to work with that knowledge to make their marriage better. The Hernandezes, who attended a Healthy Marriage Initiative class at their church, St. Mark’s Catholic Church in Plano, are among the first couples in the U.S. to benefit from a new federal government program to support Hispanic marriages.
Hispanics, who now make up the nation’s largest minority group, have had high dropout and poverty rates, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration on Children and Families.
The federal government believes that by strengthening Hispanic marriages, it can provide families a foundation to better address issues of poverty and education. Children whose parents are married fare better and present less of a burden to the state than children of single parents, says Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families.
The idea of voluntary marriage education, particularly for low-income Hispanics, is evolving. Marriage therapists, Hispanic community leaders and researchers are still laying groundwork for curriculum, implementation and review. This spring, they met for a national conference in San Antonio, where they discussed those topics.
“The whole rationale of this initiative is not moralizing or pushing people to get married or insisting that they stay in marriages that are unhealthy. It is simply about educating people who voluntarily want to consider marriage,” says Frank Fuentes, who is heading the Hispanic Healthy Marriage Initiative in Washington, D.C.
Building credibility
Last year, Congress approved the Healthy Marriage Initiative, which would spend $150 million a year to promote marriage and active fatherhood nationwide, particularly among low-income and minority families.
This year, the federal government is spending $100 million on marriage education for Hispanic couples in particular. There’s also an African- American Healthy Marriage Initiative.
Mr. Fuentes says his office is working with groups that have developed trust within minority communities. For Hispanics, that means the federal government will contract with predominantly Hispanic school districts, churches and groups, and will start marriage classes on a larger scale this year.
“We need to work with Latinos in their culture and traditions so they’re not going to blow you off,” Mr. Fuentes says. “They’re not going to participate if they don’t trust you or if they think you don’t know where they’re coming from.”
Assimilation
The idea is controversial for some who have studied Hispanic marriage patterns. They say such efforts are better directed toward improving wages and employment opportunities for Hispanics. Those are among the greatest factors leading to divorce for all ethnicities.
“Everyone can benefit from learning how to communicate better with their spouse or their co-worker or their family members,” says Kim Lloyd, assistant professor of sociology at Washington State University.
“But if you wanted to get to the root of the problem, what we need to do is make sure that every American family had a living wage, could find a job and provide health care for children. These are the things that keep families together.”
Dr. Lloyd argues that Hispanics, who divorce at the same rate as the general population, actually have lower rates of divorce when researchers factor in poverty rates and income.
“In spite of the greater economic instability that Hispanics face, the divorce rate is the same,” she says.
Mr. and Ms. Hernandez, who have lived in the U.S. for more than a decade and are lay leaders in their church, have their own ideas about why the divorce rate of about 50 percent among their immigrant peers is high when compared with the divorce rate in Mexico—roughly 6 percent.
“It’s part of the environment here,” Mr. Hernandez says. “As they become more assimilated, it’s what people do.”
Ms. Hernandez puts it this way: “I think it sometimes depends on the economic and financial independence of the women. Many women come to this country, and this is the first time that they have any kind of financial independence. And they become influenced and less tolerant.”
Academics who study the subject confirm what the Hernandezes say.
“The women are adopting egalitarian norms and want greater equality in marriages. And the men tend to resist,” says Norval Glenn, a sociology professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
Advocates say marriage education can help men learn how to adapt to gender-equity norms in the United States to prevent divorce.
“We try to bring up the machismo in the classes and give it a new perspective,” says Mercedes Pérez de Colón, vice president of Avance, a San Antonio-based nonprofit group that provides parent education at more than a dozen North Texas locations. “It can be a positive thing. You’re not being ‘not macho’ if you help with the children. You’re being more macho. You’re being a great father and husband.”
Preserving identity
{snip}
“In this country, where life is faster and devoted to work, we have to work to conserve our traditions and customs and beliefs and not lose our identity. We have to adapt. But we have to take what’s good and make it better, without forgetting everything we were taught,” Ms. Hernandez says.
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