A quick round-up, just of this month, reveals a troubling repetition of incest, rape and depraved family dysfunction stories from around the world. Whether this is an increase from the past or just the norm is yet to be determined.
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March 16th story of Daniel Rinehart, a Missouri man accused, among other charges, of fathering four children with his daughter. From the Kansas City Star:
Daniel Rinehart pleaded not guilty to multiple counts Monday in Harrisonville in a case where he's accused of fathering four babies with one of his daughters.
Judge Jacqueline Cook entered not guilty pleas for Rinehart in Cass County Circuit Court.
Authorities say Rinehart had an incestuous relationship with a daughter that lasted five years and produced four babies. Only one, a 3-year-old boy, survives. He is in state custody.
March 17th story of Josef Fritzl, an Austrian man who plead guilty to fathering seven children with his daughter. From the AP:
An Austrian who fathered seven children with a daughter he held captive for 24 years refused to even speak to her for years, coming into the squalid cellar only to rape her, often in front of the youngsters, a prosecutor said Monday.
Wearing a mismatched gray suit and hiding his face behind a folder as the trial began, Josef Fritzl pleaded guilty to incest and false imprisonment, but he denied enslaving his daughter Elisabeth or murdering her newborn son. He pleaded only partially guilty to additional counts of rape and coercion.
March 21st story of a Mumbai businessman, accused of raping his two daughters on the advice of his tantrik (astrologer). From the Hindu:
A local court on Saturday remanded the 60-year-old businessman, who allegedly raped his two daughters after a tantrik reportedly told him that the act would bring prosperity to the family, to police custody till March 26.
His wife and the tantrik, Hasmukh Rathod, at whose behest the crime was supposedly committed, were also remanded to police custody till March 26.
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According to police, the couple was under the influence of Rathod who told them in July 2000 that the family would prosper if the father was to have a sexual relationship with his elder daughter, who was then 11.
March 27th story of Michele Mongelli, an Italian man arrested for sexually abusing his daughter over 25 years and for teaching is son to do the same. From Times Online:
Neither the accused nor their victims were named. Police said the 64-year-old man's daughters and granddaughters had been kept in "conditions of slavery and mistreatment", with the man's 34-year-old daughter often locked up in the dark in her bedroom "without electric light".
The man and his son, both street traders dealing in scrap metal who moved to Turin from Apulia in southern Italy, have been charged with rape, incest, and obscene acts in public because some of the sexual abuse took place in a car.
March 29th story of Arcebio Alvarez, a Colombian farmer accused of conceiving eight daughters with his own daughter. From the AP:
A 59-year-old Colombian farmer accused of incest for allegedly fathering eight children with his daughter denies that he is the woman's biological father, an official familiar with the case said Sunday.
Arcebio Alvarez, a widower, was arrested Friday on charges of incest and sexual abuse, according to Bogota councilwoman Gilma Jimenez, a specialist in family-abuse issues who filed the complaint in the case.