snapchat

Police: Couple thought murder plot untraceable on Snapchat

ST. JOSEPH, Mich. (AP) — A woman and her boyfriend were deployed with the U.S. Army in South Korea when they conspired via Snapchat to kill her husband so she could claim the life insurance money, police in Michigan said.

Berrian County Judge Sterling Schrock ruled Wednesday in a preliminary hearing that the murder trial of Kemia Hassel, 22, and Jeremy Cuellar, 24, will begin April 30.

Both have pleaded not guilty in the Dec. 31 killing of U.S. Army Sgt. Tyrone Hassel III. Cuellar was also charged with a felony firearms count.

Authorities say the 23-year-old Hassel was ambushed while visiting his family in St. Joseph Township. He died of multiple gunshot wounds, including one to the head, according to the autopsy report.

All three were soldiers stationed at Fort Stewart in Georgia.

Kemia Hassel told police in a signed statement that she spent months planning how to kill her husband so she could continue her romantic relationship with Cuellar, Township Police Officer Mike Lanier testified Wednesday.

Kemia and Tyrone Hassel married in 2016 and had a 1-year-old son. She told police she was unhappy with her marriage, but didn't want to go through a divorce because she then wouldn't be able to receive any life insurance money, Lanier said.

Hassel and Cuellar began plotting while they were deployed in South Korea last year, Lanier said. The pair communicated through Snapchat because they believed the social media app's temporary messages would make it difficult for police to trace, he said.

Army Specialist Jaquan Hamilton and Army Corporal Tatanya Butler testified that they were aware of Kemia Hassel and Cuellar's affair and their plan.

Edwin Johnson, Cuellar's lawyer, said it would be hard to pin the shooting on Cuellar.

"No one saw him at the scene. He was going to give up on this. He wasn't going to do it. There were several other suspects," Johnson said.

Kaitlin Locke, Kemia Hassel's lawyer, said her client shouldn't be charged with first-degree murder because she didn't pull the trigger. But Schrock said there was enough evidence to prove she aided and abetted.

Tyrone Hassel's father, Tyrone Hassel Jr., said it was difficult to hear the details about the plot to kill his son.

"It's hard to take it in without crying," Hassel Jr. said.

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Denver robber confesses to crimes after publicizing exploits on Snapchat

A man who allegedly smoked heroin and went on a carjacking and robbery spree in metro Denver has been indicted on federal charges after he publicized his criminal exploits on Snapchat, court records said.

The incriminating video was one of a succession of mishaps that plagued robbery suspect Gabriel Isaac Najera and two accomplices during a four-day crime spree between Jan. 12 and Jan. 15.

Other capers included stealing a black Audi in Wheat Ridge that broke down and crashing another carjacked vehicle into several cars. Both cars were abandoned, and the alleged thieves had to make a getaway in an RTD bus.

Detectives found evidence of pizza store robbery on Snapchat, and Najera cried when confronted, an arrest warrant said.

Najera has been indicted in U.S. District Court in Denver on six robbery charges linked to a series of carjackings in Denver, Wheat Ridge and Westminster.

Najera allegedly stole a black Audi in Westminster on Jan. 12. Two days later, on Jan. 14, Najera and two accomplices used the stolen car to carjack at gunpoint a silver Toyota Corolla in Wheat Ridge. When the Audi broke down a few blocks away, they abandoned it on the 3500 block of North Chase Street, an arrest warrant affidavit said.

On Jan. 14, Najara and two accomplices including a man and a woman robbed a Little Caesars Pizza at 2001 W. Alameda Ave. in Denver at gunpoint. At one point, Najara allegedly struck an employee in the head with a gun, the affidavit says. They took about $200 and fled in gold Chevrolet Cobalt that had been stolen in Boulder.

At 8:38 p.m. on Jan. 15, a Denver police officer tried to pull over the driver of the stolen Toyota after noticing that the back license plate was bent in half concealing the license numbers. A suspect in the car fled and crashed into several parked cars in the 4400 block of North Elm Court. Two men jumped out of the car and abandoned it in the middle of the street, the affidavit said.

The suspects broke the front window of a black Lexus but were unable to get inside the car and ran off. Two Denver police officers spotted Najera and another man running nearby and arrested the two including Najera.

Three weeks later on Feb. 6, two Denver detectives interviewed Najera at the Denver jail. Najera denied being the person featured in his Snapchat video in which he was holding a stack of bills. “Najera related that a lot of people have red polo sweatshirts and hold stacks of twenty-dollar bills,” the affidavit said.

But when one of the detectives told him that the Little Caesars robbery makes him look like a cold-blooded criminal, he cried and confessed that the Snapchat image was of him and that he committed the robberies, the affidavit said.

In doing so, however, Najera downplayed the seriousness of the Little Caesars robbery by explaining that while staging his Snapchat video he told detectives he put $20 bills on the outside of a thick stack of $1 and $10 bills. It made it like he got a lot more money than the $250 he took from the pizza place, the affidavit said..

Najera explained why the robberies were necessary when he told the detective that he owed money to a drug dealer and “they had to pay.”

Najera refused to identify his accomplices until a detective explained to him that evidence collected in the Little Caesar’s robbery pinpointed his brother, identified in the report only by his initials, A.G. At that point Najera began to cry.

03

More hockey highlights are coming to Snapchat

During the most anticipated matchups over the course of the season, the NHL will create stories using content from official sources and from fans. It will be the first professional sports league to use Snap's third-party curation tools to create stories. Snapchat's own team of editors will also be producing coverage of games and other events including NHL All-Star Weekend and the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The stories, similar to those made in partnership with the NFL, will provide behind-the-scenes footage and up-close action from inside the arena and on the ice.

As part of the expanded partnership, Snapchat will add outfits to Bitmoji for all 31 NHL teams so fans can equip their avatar with team-centric gear. New geofilters will also be available at every team's arena so fans can broadcast to others that they're at a game. Snapchat has offered similar features at NBA games.