MeLisa Cleary was 30 years old and a mother of three when her marriage started to fall apart. She was in the process of separating from her husband, Daniel, when she was last seen on June 6, 2008. Her body was found three days later.

The estranged brother-in-law of singer and actress Jennifer Hudson was indicted Tuesday on three counts of murder, according to the Cook County, Illinois, prosecutor’s office.

A teenager whose arrest in a racially charged assault case drew protesters to his Louisiana hometown was in a hospital after a shooting that his lawyer called accidental. Mychal Bell was also arrested last week after allegedly stealing clothes from a department store.

The man who police say dressed as Santa Claus and killed nine people at a Christmas Eve party lived with guilt from an incident that left his son from a previous relationship a paraplegic, according to an attorney who once represented the woman in that relationship.

A man angry that a family was talking during a movie threw popcorn at the son and then shot the father in the arm, according to police in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

After shooting several people at the home of his former in-laws, police say Bruce Jeffrey Pardo, dressed as Santa Claus, sprayed gasoline in the home. The house exploded, and he suffered third-degree burns. That’s why, police say, Pardo decided to kill himself rather than use the airline ticket to Canada that was in his pocket.

Meagan McCormic faced television cameras on Christmas Day to plead for the return of her missing 5-month-old son.

Reality television featuring law enforcement officers on the beat is nothing new. A show featuring a lawman who makes jailed inmates wear pink underwear and uses actors to trick suspects, however, is a new twist.

A 9 mm handgun, a rifle, ammunition and blood-stained jeans were confiscated during a search of the New Jersey home of Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress, police said. Burress faces gun charges after accidentally shooting himself in the leg at a Manhattan nightclub. He has been suspended from regular season play.

A former Utah cop is suspected in at least three of Monday’s four rush-hour shootings near Dallas, Texas — including one fatal attack, police said. The suspect, Brian Smith, tried to commit suicide after the shootings and was in a hospital in serious condition, police said.