logo
FBI issues a reward info on the killer of Emily Pike a day after FBI Director Kash Patel meets with family

FBI issues a reward info on the killer of Emily Pike a day after FBI Director Kash Patel meets with family

Yahoo08-05-2025
The Brief
The FBI is issuing a reward for information regarding Emily Pike.
Pike, the 14-year-old teenager from the San Carlos Apache Tribe, was found dead after she was reported missing from her group home in Mesa.
The reward comes on the heels of a meeting between Pike's family and FBI director Kash Patel.
GILA COUNTY, Ariz. - The FBI is issuing its own $75,000 reward for information in the murder of 14-year-old Emily Pike.
This reward is offered on top of an additional reward of $75,000 from the San Carlos Apache Tribe.
The backstory
The 14-year-old was reported missing from a Mesa group home in January.
Her body was found dismembered in Globe over 70 miles away.
Dig deeper
It comes on the heels of FBI Director Kash Patel taking an interest in the case.
Patel met with Pike's family earlier this week to learn more about Emily and about what needs to be done to prevent similar cases from happening.
Tips can be submitted online.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Politics may have spurred August purge of 5 veteran FBI agents
Politics may have spurred August purge of 5 veteran FBI agents

CBS News

time14 minutes ago

  • CBS News

Politics may have spurred August purge of 5 veteran FBI agents

When the FBI fired five veteran agents earlier this month, Director Kash Patel offered no explanation. Shock at the firings has continued to reverberate through the storied agency. And now, details are emerging about the possible motivation, several sources close to the agents tell CBS News. "There is a despicable purge underway of senior FBI officials, all of whom have risen in their careers as nonpartisan, and who have been targeted for vindictive, political purposes," said Mark Zaid, a whistleblower attorney who represents a number of federal workers dismissed under President Trump. Without any public comment from FBI or Justice Department officials, the agents, including, Brian Driscoll, who served for a short time as acting director at the start of the Trump administration, and Steven Jensen, head of the powerful Washington field office, were summarily fired and given little explanation for their removal. None had reached retirement age, meaning the abrupt dismissals will deprive them of their full pensions. One agent's expulsion came a month after his wife died of cancer. CBS News spoke with multiple sources close to the agents for this story. All of those interviewed spoke on the condition they not be identified for fear of retribution. Some of the agents may have been targeted solely because they worked on one or more of the criminal investigations of Mr. Trump, while others who were ousted in an earlier spate of firings worked on the Biden administration's Jan. 6 investigations, sources close to the agents said. But the most senior agent, Driscoll, by outward appearances, was in good standing with Patel. Driscoll, a highly decorated agent who took part in numerous daring counterterrorism operations, began his short stint as acting director with what many agents viewed as a singular act of bravery, resisting calls from a top Trump appointee at the Justice Department to turn over the names of FBI employees who had participated in the Jan. 6 investigation. Nevertheless, Patel kept Driscoll on after his Senate confirmation, putting him in a high-profile post as head of the bureau's Critical Incident Response Group, which oversees the FBI's elite Hostage Rescue Team and its aviation unit. Jensen, a veteran agent who helped oversee the Jan. 6 investigation from his position as chief of the FBI's domestic terrorism section, was given a significant promotion by Patel to be the assistant director in charge of the Washington Field Office, one of the largest outposts in the country. One source with knowledge of the matter told CBS News that Patel relied on both agents and particularly admired Driscoll, whom he viewed as a swashbuckling tactical operator. Another said that the FBI director opposed some of the firings. "I think Kash tried to save these people, honestly," the source said. Yet there are also some indications that both men may have crossed FBI leadership over loyalty and personnel matters. Zaid is part of a team of lawyers preparing to sue the federal government on behalf of some of the fired FBI agents. He told CBS News he suspects outside political interference. "If you look at Patel's testimony from his confirmation hearing when he promised the committee there would be no politicization or retribution at the FBI under his leadership," Zaid told CBS News, "you have to conclude that he was either lying or, giving him the benefit of the doubt, that he was directed to take these actions, and that could only come from the White House or the Justice Department." Patel promised senators during that hearing, "There will be no retributive actions taken by any FBI, should I be confirmed as FBI director." Democrats on Capitol Hill see the firings as baldly political and damaging to U.S. national security. Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement to CBS News that he believes agents should be commended for their ability to enforce the law impartially. "When we start purging agents for doing their jobs, instead of toeing a partisan line, we weaken our defense against everything from violent crime to foreign threats, and that makes us all less safe," Warner said. When asked who ordered the termination of the agents, the FBI declined to comment. A White House official deferred to the FBI to discuss bureau personnel matters. There are other factors that have led some sources close to the agents and lawyers representing them to question whether the abrupt removals were the result of outside political interference, possibly by the White House. One question surrounds the role of a small band of right-leaning former agents who clashed with FBI leadership under directors James Comey and Christopher Wray and have been vocal critics of a bureau they believe was "weaponized" against them. Among them is Kyle Seraphin, one of several former FBI agents and whistleblowers who were suspended or had their security clearances revoked for alleged misconduct during the Biden administration. The former agents, including Seraphin, have referred to themselves as "the suspendables." They have been targeting FBI officials they believe to be politically motivated. Seraphin has been among the most outspoken – and effective – members of the group. He has at times been critical of Patel for not aggressively and swiftly cleaning house at the bureau, but he has also had Patel's ear. Sources say he exercises considerable influence from his social media perch on X and his podcast, "The Kyle Seraphin Show." Seraphin has publicly claimed some of the credit for last week's purge. On August 4, he posted a thread on X under the heading "VETTING CRISIS CONTINUES," in which he identified one of the fired agents, Christopher M. Meyer. Meyer had been serving as one of the pilots of the governmental planes used by Patel until he was notified of his termination. Seraphin had publicly speculated, correctly it turned out, that Meyer had previously been on a squad based in the Washington Field Office that investigated Mr. Trump's alleged mishandling of classified documents and conducted a search of Mr. Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. The Justice Department brought criminal charges against Mr. Trump over the discovery of documents, but a judge eventually dismissed the case. Seraphin told CBS News in an interview, "I identified that the person that ran the Mar-a-Lago case that resulted in a search warrant at the president's home was rubbing shoulders in close proximity with the FBI director" as his pilot. He was concerned that "this is a person that's now in the kind of buddy space of your FBI director, and he doesn't even know who he's speaking to." On Alex Jones's "InfoWars" he said he gave a "heads up" to an "administration insider" about Meyer. He told CBS News his "Trump administration insider" was "in the president's orbit." On that same day, Patel directed Driscoll to fire Meyer, sources told CBS News. When Driscoll asked on what grounds, he did not get what he considered a satisfactory answer from Patel, according to the source. Without itr, Driscoll refused. Two days later, on Aug. 6, Driscoll was contacted by J. William Rivers, the No. 3 official at the FBI, and told he was being terminated, the source said. He was given no reason why but later received a letter formally notifying him that he was being fired. Around the same time, Jensen was also relieved of his duties. A source with knowledge of that matter said it was because he, too, refused to fire a subordinate agent in the Washington Field Office, though CBS News was not able to identify the person. Walter Giardina, a WFO agent who was also dismissed in the purge, had worked on a number of cases involving Mr. Trump and other members of his administration, including the prosecution of senior Trump aide Peter Navarro for contempt of Congress. The fifth agent fired earlier this month was Spencer Evans, who had been the special agent in charge of the FBI's Nevada field office until earlier this summer, when he was abruptly told he was being transferred to Huntsville, Alabama. By then, Trump supporters, including Seraphin, had been publicly critical of him over his enforcement of FBI COVID policies during the tenure of former FBI Director Christpher Wray. In April, Seraphin posted this on X: "After @Kash_Patel was nominated, he asked me about people in the FBI who were problems. I said Spencer Evans, the SAC of Las Vegas, was the man who PERSONALLY denied the religious accommodations for Covid 19 shots and testing protocols." Seraphin's post continued: "Kash said 'Gone.'" Seraphin attached a video to his post that showed that months after that conversation, Evans was still leading the Las Vegas FBI office, and Patel was praising its work in tracking down criminals. Then, last Wednesday, two hours before getting into his car to drive across the country for his new assignment, Evans received a call notifying him that he too was being terminated. He was given no reason. Two days later Evans received a formal termination letter signed by Patel. It said Evans "demonstrated a lack of reasonableness and overzealousness in the implementation of COVID-19 protocols and policies." After the August firings, Seraphin told CBS News a colleague in the FBI said to him, "You have four scalps hanging off your belt this week." Seraphin excluded Driscoll from the count, and referred to him as "collateral damage," and said he probably didn't deserve to be fired. Graham Kates contributed to this report.

1 Student Dead, 1 Hospitalized After Stabbing at Phoenix High School
1 Student Dead, 1 Hospitalized After Stabbing at Phoenix High School

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

1 Student Dead, 1 Hospitalized After Stabbing at Phoenix High School

"Schools must be safe places,' State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne said, calling the incident a "terrible tragedy" NEED TO KNOW Two students got into a classroom fight at Maryvale High School in Phoenix on Tuesday, Aug. 19 One of the students was stabbed and transported to the hospital, where he succumbed to his severe injuries The other student sustained non-life-threatening injuries One student was fatally stabbed after a classroom fight escalated at Maryvale High School in Phoenix on Tuesday, Aug. 19, according to the Arizona Department of Education news release. Shortly before 11 a.m. local time, Phoenix police officers and fire crews responded to the high school, according to the Phoenix Police Department. It remains unclear whether the two teens knew one another and what prompted the fight. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne said in a statement that the school's safety officer responded immediately and 'rendered aid to the student.' Both students were transported to the hospital. One of the teens succumbed to his severe injuries and died. The other student sustained non-life-threatening injuries. The school was under an active lockdown after the incident, a Phoenix Union High School District spokesperson said, per AZ Family. All the other students and faculty were safe after the incident. The investigation is ongoing. 'The death of a student as the result of a stabbing at Maryvale High School is a terrible tragedy. Schools must be safe places,' Horne said. 'This terrible incident reinforces my commitment to doing everything possible to make schools safe.' Phoenix City Councilwoman Betty Guardado also issued a statement following the teen's death. 'I am heartbroken and deeply disturbed by the violent incident that took place today at Maryvale High School. My thoughts are with the student who was injured, their family, and the entire school community as they process this traumatic event,' she wrote, per Fox 10. 'Classrooms should be a safe place for all students. As a mother and a representative of our community, I want everyone to feel safe at school. Our community stands united in support, and I am committed to working with the school district, community and Phoenix Police to ensure their safety.' The school, with a student body of 2,850, is equipped with metal detectors already and a school security officer. 'Neither prevented this tragedy. These measures created the appearance of security—but they are not what our community truly needs,' councilwoman Anna Hernandez said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE. Hernandez also said her office 'will continue to push Phoenix City Council and Phoenix Union School District to redirect funding away from surveillance-heavy responses and toward mental health services, school counselors, peer support networks, and preventative care.' Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. Councilwoman Laura Pastor also expressed outrage in a statement shared with PEOPLE. She sent her "deepest sorrow and condolences to the family who lost their son in this tragic accident," adding, "At the same time, I am angry. I am angry that this happened at a school — a place that is meant to be a safe environment for learning, growth, and support." Noting that "safety is a top priority," Pastor said she will "support efforts to enhance safety measures in our schools" to help prevent another tragedy. Councilwoman Kesha Hodge Washington also expressed condolences before calling on the community to come together. "No parent should have to endure the pain of losing a child in this way, and no student should ever feel unsafe in a classroom," Washington said in part in a statement shared with PEOPLE. Representatives for the Phoenix Police Department and Phoenix Union High School District did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for more information on Tuesday. Read the original article on People

Kehoe appoints Hanaway as next attorney general
Kehoe appoints Hanaway as next attorney general

Yahoo

time2 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Kehoe appoints Hanaway as next attorney general

By Marie Moyer JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ) — With Attorney General Andrew Bailey set to head to Washington, D.C., this September to work for the FBI after being tapped by Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, Gov. Mike Kehoe has appointed a new attorney general. Kehoe said Tuesday that Catherine Hanaway will take over Sept. 8. She will be the first female attorney general. Hanaway was a Republican House Speaker from 2003-2005, the first and only woman to hold the post. Bailey, a Republican, previously challenged COVID-19 masking in schools as well as gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers. Bailey also created the anti-human trafficking task force and was a strong supporter of pro-law enforcement legislation. Bailey also has a record as a state official loyal to President Donald Trump, supporting administration policies with dozens of legal filings since he took office in January 2023. Former Gov. Mike Parson appointed Bailey in 2022, and he was elected to AG in 2024. Democratic House Minority Leader Rep. Ashley Aune said in a statement Monday that the House Minority Caucus hopes Kehoe will appoint a competent attorney general." "Bailey's departure gives the governor an opportunity to appoint a competent and professional attorney general who will defend the rights of all Missourians instead of wasting taxpayer money on frivolous culture war lawsuits that regularly get laughed out of court, Aune said. Hanaway works for the law firm Husch Blackwell, representing white collar clients in areas such as lobbying law, fraud and money laundering. One of her clients is the Grain Belt Express, a renewable energy project that Bailey staunchly opposed. Kehoe, in making the announcement, said Hanaway was a champion for conservative Missouri values.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store