A man has been arrested and charged with stealing packages in a Lexington neighborhood.

In response to recent reports of package theft, police have increased patrols in the Clearwater neighborhood of Lexington.

During one of those patrols, a policeman saw Ryan D. Walker take a package from someone’s home.

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When the officer stopped Walker, he noticed he had other packages in his vehicle.

Walker was arrested and charged with theft of mail matter.

It is not clear if Walker is involved in more instances of package theft at this time.

An Alabama woman was convicted on Wednesday for her role in what prosecutors say was an incestuous child sex abuse ring, according to local media reports.

Wendy Wood Holland, 35, is among 11 people – eight of them related – arrested as part of a group of family and friends who groomed and then shared children for sex, the Alabama Media Group reported.

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It is not clear how many children were victimized.

Holland was found guilty by a Baldwin County jury, in southwestern Alabama, of sodomy, child sexual abuse, sexual torture and child endangerment, and faces up to life in prison upon sentencing, the news group reported.

Authorities have said that Holland’s late husband, Donnie Holland, was the ringleader of the group.

He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 2012, days after the disappearance of his 19-year-old niece, Brittney Wood, who was last seen with him and who authorities have said was among the abuse victims, the news group reported.

Holland was the second defendant in the case to stand trial. William Brownlee, a family friend, was convicted in October of sodomy and sexual abuse of a girl who was 12 or 13 at the time, the news group reported.

Prosecutors with the Baldwin County District Attorney’s Office and Holland’s defense attorney, Mitzi Johnson-Theodoro, did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Lexington Police are looking for a possible package thief and warning everyone to be cautious.

A witness spotted the theft as it happened on the 3600 block of Windfair Lane.

The witness says a man in a red car appeared to be following a UPS driver through this neighborhood yesterday. It appeared as if the man waited until the driver dropped off a package where nobody was home. Then he made his move.

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“Why somebody do that kind of thing?” says resident Akemi Krill, who says the Christmas present her husband ordered was stolen.

Akemi was not home at the time, but her neighbor across the street was.

“We wouldn’t think that anything like that could really happen in your neighborhood, but it does,” says Akemi.

Jenna Gudalis also received a package. She managed to retrieve it from the porch, but not before her son noticed a man following the mail truck.

“I noticed I had a package on the front porch, so I picked up my package and just went inside, and I had my son home from school, and he looked out the window and saw a car pull up after the truck pulled away,” says Gudalis.

Her son told her that he saw a man in a hood in an older red car scanning the neighborhood. He also says the man was even looking through windows before taking off with the package.

They called the police about the theft.

Anyone with information on the UPS package theft is asked to call Lexington Police.

Friday, Lexington police picked up a man suspected of similar thefts during a surveillance operation. However they can’t yet say if the cases are connected.

A trial date has been set for the poisoning death case involving a Kentucky woman living in New York.

Police say Lacey Spears poisoned her son with table salt.

Spears lives in Allen County and is facing charges of second degree manslaughter.

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Prosecutors say that Spears used her five-year-old son, Garnett’s feeding tube to administer the salt.

He died a few days later.

Her trial is set to start Jan. 26.

Police have found the car that belonged to a Southern California couple and their four young sons, and the body of a woman was discovered in the trunk, authorities said.

The Honda Accord belonging to Daniel and Erica Perez and their sons whose ages range from 6 to 11 was found near a hospital about a half-mile from their home in Montebello, police Capt. Luis Lopez said at a news conference Wednesday night.

Lopez would say only that a dead woman was in the trunk, but would not provide her identity or cause of death, deferring those and other details to the coroner’s office. He said Daniel Perez is now considered a person of interest.

Lopez called the discovery “alarming.”

“We are concerned for their safety,” Lopez said.

The family had not been seen since Friday and neither adult had been answering their phone.

Lopez said an Amber Alert is now being issued for a 2014 black Toyota Camry with California license plate 7FDS891 connected to the family.

Family members told investigators the couple’s marriage was unstable and there was a history of domestic violence, police said.

Their four sons are Jordan, 11, Jaiden, 9, Tristan, 8, and Alex, 6.

Montebello is about 15 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

A teen arrested in a drunk driving crash in August that killed four people has been indicted by a grand jury.

Shawn Hardin is facing four counts of murder and one count of assault.

Joshua Thorpe, 20; Pearl Armstrong, 19; Lee Campbell, 24 and Adam Fugate, 31, were all killed in a drunk driving crash in August. Police say Hardin was driving the four men in the bed of his truck when the accident happened.The family says Hardin hit a ditch on Wolverine Road, rolled and then crashed into a house.

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Thorpe was thrown from the truck and the three other men were crushed. Hardin was arrested and charged with murder, assault and DUI.

Hardin was initially released from jail several months ago because the system in Breathitt County had failed in indict him within 60 days.

Police in Lexington say they have put a dent in a crime ring they say could stretch across the south.

Marcus Farris and Wanda Edwards have been charged in the case, accused of passing fake checks.

The investigation started when a Lexington construction company noticed withdrawals from their account on checks they didn’t write. They say someone passed fake checks to three banks in Lexington and one in Louisville, each time cashing the check under a fake identity.

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Detectives say someone saw through the scam on a fifth try and called police.

“One of the bank tellers caught on and when they knew that something wasn’t quite right. So they actually held the ID, called the police while the suspect thought they were waiting for their money and when police arrived, they were able to detain and arrest two individuals with this crime,” said detective Jason Rothermund.

Investigators believe Farris and Edwards may be part of a bigger crime ring across the south.

If you have any tips, call the Crime Stoppers tipline at 859-253-2020.

A German Shepherd detected something more than the custard powder in the suitcases of a passenger coming into Kennedy Airport from Georgetown, Guyana on Nov. 21, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced Wednesday.

After Elza, the K-9 drug-sniffing dog, alerted his handler to a suspicious suitcase, officials conducted a baggage inspection and found three bags of milk powder and three bags of custard powder determined to contain 13 pounds of cocaine worth an estimated street value of $230,000, officials said.

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Tricia Ann D’Aguiar, a U.S. citizen and the alleged owner of the suitcase, faces federal narcotics smuggling charges that will be prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the U.S. Eastern District Court of New York.

A Kentucky man is under arrest for a cold case murder of an elderly woman in Ohio. Daniel French, 56, was picked up in Rockcastle County on Wednesday.

By Wednesday night, French was being held at the Rockcastle County Detention Center, charged with killing 86-year old Barbara Howe. It’s an arrest her family said they have long awaited for.

“I knew at some point, something would happen, it had to. So, I really didn’t give up hope,” said Howe’s daughter Donna Wesselman.

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For Wesselman, hope got her through the two long years after her mother disappeared in 2012 while leaving a retirement center in Monroe, Ohio. Four days later Howe was found dead in the trunk of her car.

“There was that terrible fear that it would be like one of those cases where 10 years go by and I just couldn’t go there,” said Wesselman.

Therefor, she put her faith in Police. Then on Wednesday a grand jury indicted French. Kentucky State Police said he’s been living with his sister near the Rockcastle-Madison County line.

“When we arrived at the residence on Flat Gap Road in Rockcastle County, the suspect was inside the home and arrested without incident,” said Trooper Lloyd Cochran.

“There was police cars over there and I didn’t know what was going on. I heard it was a murderer,” said Herman Brockman. He lives next door to the home where French was staying.

Brockman said French had always been a nice quiet man, so this arrest was unexpected. “It’s kind of a shock to us,” said Brockman.

The crime itself was a shock to investigators in Ohio. The Butler County Prosecutor said “The shear brutality and diabolical nature of this case is unparalleled in the history of Butler County.”

French is charged with aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery, tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse. The long list of crimes also includes murder with the possibility of the death penalty.

“If he is guilty, I hope he gets the max,” said Brockman.

“It’s just putting this person behind bars and know he’s not going anywhere,” said Wesselman.

Kentucky State Police said French will be in court in Rockcastle County on Monday. If he waives extradition, investigators said he will likely go back to Ohio in the near future.

LEX 18 News asked if French or his family wanted to say anything about the case, however they declined.

A man from Michigan will go to prison for a year after trying to arrange sex with a 15-year-old in Minocqua. Oneida County Judge Michael Bloom sentenced 26-year-old Benjamin Lahti Friday. As part of a plea agreement, Lahti must register as a sex offender, undergo treatment, and provide a DNA sample to the court. Charges of using a computer to facilitate a sex crime and possession of drug paraphernalia were dismissed but read into the sentence.

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Investigators say Lahti posted an online advertisement seeking a sexual encounter, and then drove from his Ironwood, Michigan home to Minocqua to meet the child. That’s when he found out the alleged child was really an undercover officer.

The investigation was conducted by the Door County Sheriff’s Department, Minocqua Police Department, Oneida and Price County Sheriff’s Departments and the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation.