News

(NEW YORK) — The body of a Nevada teenager who was allegedly kidnapped from a Walmart parking lot over two weeks ago has been found, authorities said.

Naomi Irion, 18, was last seen inside her car outside a Walmart in Fernley, Nevada, outside Reno, on March 12, according to the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office. Surveillance video captured a man getting into the driver’s seat of her car and leaving in an unknown direction with Irion in the passenger seat.

A tip regarding her disappearance led investigators to a remote part of neighboring Churchill County on Tuesday, where they found a “possible gravesite” and recovered the body of a woman from the scene, authorities said. On Wednesday, the remains were identified as Irion’s by the Washoe County Medical Examiners Office.

Her death is being investigated as a homicide, authorities said Thursday.

“The exact cause of death is known however cannot be released at this time as the circumstances around that event if released would compromise the ongoing investigation,” the Lyon County and Churchill County sheriff’s offices said in a statement.

No further information is being released at this time due to the ongoing investigation, authorities said.

“We would like to extend our sympathy and condolences to the Irion family and thank all the volunteers for their hard work in trying to find Naomi and bring closure to the family,” the Churchill County Sheriff’s Office and the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office said in a joint statement.

Irion was waiting for a shuttle bus on March 12 around 5 a.m. to take her to her job at Panasonic Energy of North America in the Reno area. Her brother reported her missing the following day when she did not come home from work.

The sheriff’s office initially characterized her disappearance as “suspicious in nature.” After locating her car on March 15 in an industrial park about a mile from the Walmart, the sheriff’s office said investigators found evidence suggesting her disappearance was “criminal in nature.”

A suspect in the alleged kidnapping was arrested last week. Troy Driver, 41, of Fallon, Nevada, has been charged with first-degree kidnapping and is being held on $750,000 bail following his first court appearance Wednesday, according to Reno ABC affiliate KOLO.

The FBI was offering a reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to Irion’s location. The Lyon County Sheriff’s Office also released multiple photos and a video of the man authorities say entered Irion’s car in hopes of identifying him.

Driver’s next hearing is scheduled for April 5, KOLO reported.

ABC News’ Alex Stone contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Police are seeking a suspect in an assault on a New York City subway train that is being investigated as a hate crime after the assailant allegedly used an anti-gay slur.

The New York Police Department recently released video and images of the attack, which it said occurred March 19 on an uptown A train in Manhattan.

The assailant approached the 22-year-old male victim on the train as it approached the 190th Street subway station at around 2:22 p.m., police said.

“The unidentified individual sat across from the victim and stated ‘I wish I had my pepper spray’ before spitting at him,” the NYPD said in a statement.

The suspect then reportedly said, “I have to start carrying my pepper spray” before spitting at the victim again, police said.

When the victim stood up, the assailant “charged” at him and “grabbed him by the hair before punching him several times in the face and head,” police said.

An apparent cellphone video of the attack released by police showed the perpetrator punching the victim on the moving train.

“The perpetrator then ripped hair from the victim’s head and stated ‘I’m sick of all you f—,'” police said.

The victim was transported to a nearby hospital in stable condition with cuts to his head, the NYPD said. He also lost hair during the attack.

The NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force is investigating the incident.

Police are also seeking a suspect in a separate subway attack that occurred Wednesday afternoon at a station in Manhattan. The suspect slashed a 47-year-old man on the arm before fleeing the Wall Street 2-train station, police said.

The city has increased the police presence in the subways in an effort to reduce crime in the public transit system since Mayor Eric Adams took office earlier this year. The killing of 40-year-old Michelle Go, who died after a stranger pushed her in front of an oncoming train, drew further attention to subway safety concerns.

“While we are by no means out of the woods, and there is a lot of progress that needs to be made on subway safety, I just want to acknowledge that the work has begun,” MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber said at an MTA board meeting Wednesday. “Serious effort is underway.”

Anyone with information on the incidents is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-8477 or online at crimestoppers.nypdonline.org.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Skippy Foods announced a voluntary recall of some peanut butter products due to the possibility that a limited number of jars may contain small fragment of stainless steel from a piece of manufacturing equipment, according to a statement released by the Food and Drug Administration.

The recall includes a limited number of dates of Skippy Reduced Fat Creamy Peanut, Skippy Reduced Fat Chunky Peanut Butter Spread and Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter Blended with Plant Protein. The recalled items have use by dates from early May 2023.

The products were sold in 18 states: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma and Wisconsin.

There have been no consumer complaints to date and all retailers that have received the affected product have been notified.

No other sizes, varieties or packages of Skippy brand peanut butter or peanut butter spreads are included in this recall.

“From our family to yours, we want you to know that we take the quality of our products very seriously and apologize to our fans for this situation,” Skippy said in a statement. “Our company is committed to product quality and will continue to invest in our processes to ensure the quality and wholesomeness of our products.”

ABC News’ Sasha Pezenik contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Nearly two months after the unexplained death of Navy SEAL candidate Kyle Mullen, his mother broke her silence, saying she wants to prevent another family from experiencing the same type of tragedy.

“I wake up every night thinking of him, thinking of how he died probably not breathing,” Regina Mullen said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

The 24-year-old former football player from New Jersey had just completed “hell week,” a grueling 5 1/2 sleepless days of underwater and tactical training designed to push seal candidates to their physical and mental limits. Those who drop out during hell week or “ring the bell” have to wait two years to try again. But Kyle Mullen made it through and texted his mom to let her know of his success.

“Hell Week secured,” he wrote.

“I saw it and I call him, and he says, ‘I did it, Mom.’ And he was so happy,” Regina Mullen said.

“And I heard him outta breath. And I said, “Kyle, are you OK? Are you hurt? Are you in a hospital?” And he just responded, ‘Don’t worry, Mom, I’m good. I love you.’ And he hung up.”

She texted her son again immediately after the call, worried about his condition, but she never reached him or spoke to him again.

As a mother and a nurse, she said she knew something was off when she last talked to her son.

“It was just his breathing. He could — it was difficult for him to form the words with the airflow. It sounded labored. He couldn’t breathe properly.”

The day after Kyle Mullen’s death, Navy officials arrived at Regina Mullen’s house, a dreaded sight for anyone with family in the military.

“I let them in, and I said, ‘He’s not coming home, is he?’ And they said, ‘No ma’am, he’s not coming home.'”

At the time of his death, the Navy released a statement saying Kyle Mullen and another sailor had “reported symptoms” and were taken to the hospital. The other sailor recovered. Kyle Mullen’s death is now under investigation and no official cause has been released.

Regina Mullen believes her son was abandoned when he was most in need.

“I believe…they laid him flat, and he had SIPE, and he most likely couldn’t breathe, and he probably suffocated from his own bodily fluids.

SIPE stands for swimming induced pulmonary edema, fluid buildup in the lungs without choking on water. The majority of cases clear up within 48 hours, but in rare instances, it can be deadly.

Regina Mullen said her son had been treated for SIPE during training in January. Later that month during “hell week,” NCIS investigators told her he was treated with oxygen twice, including on the day he died.

“My son was telling me that it’s discouraged to say, ‘I need to go to the medical.’ He said..they wouldn’t let him go [to] the medical unless you quit and ring the bell,” Regina Mullen said.

She added that when she flew out to California after her son’s death, a commander told her that he had twice been offered medical treatment but refused it.

“At that point, I said, ‘He doesn’t know what day of the week it is. He hasn’t slept in five days. How can he make that determination?'”

The Naval Special Warfare Command told ABC News in a statement that “all candidates receive head-to-toe medical evaluations, including a full set of core vitals, a minimum of once a day and as required throughout the week, as well as upon conclusion of the assessment event.”

Regina Mullen said she hopes no family has to experience what she has gone through and believes was preventable.

“They need better training. They need better monitoring. And this could never, ever happen again,” she said. “No mother should ever have to feel my pain that I have.”

Family attorney Ryan Andrews agreed that her son didn’t have to die.

“He just needed someone to care about his condition when he came off before he went to go lay down and go to sleep,” he said. “That’s it. A medical professional with a stethoscope could’ve prevented this.”

The last Navy SEAL candidate to die during this training was 21-year-old Seaman James Lovelace, who drowned in a pool during his first week in May 2016. After his drowning, the Navy instituted additional safety protocols to the swimming program.

“SEAL training takes you beyond your personal limits,” said Eric Oehlerich, a retired SEAL and ABC News contributor. “It’s designed to push you beyond your perception of what’s possible, breaking glass ceilings of what you’re capable of both mentally and physically.”

Oehlerich said he believes the difficult training for prospective SEALs is carried out within proven medical boundaries and run by highly trained professional instructors, but he acknowledged that there are risks involved in all types of military training.

“From time to time training fatalities do occur. Although tragic, adhering to the training curriculum keeps SEALs alive in combat,” he said. “It’s necessary; it can’t be diluted.”

But Kevin Uniglicht, a family attorney for the Mullen family, took a different view.

“We’ve heard it many times, ‘No one left behind,'” he said. “And I think, unfortunately, you know, Kyle was left behind in this situation.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. State Department announced on Thursday that starting April 11 people applying for U.S. passports will be able to select “X” to mark their gender in a move designed to accommodate nonbinary, intersex and gender non-conforming individuals.

“The Department of State has reached another milestone in our work to better serve all U.S. citizens, regardless of their gender identity,” Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said in a statement released on Thursday, which marks Transgender Day of Visibility.

Blinken first announced the State Department’s intention to make this change in June and said that the option to select “X” for gender will also become available on other documentation in the coming year.

The White House introduced additional changes to travel-related policies, including replacing the Transportation Security Administration’s “gender-based system” with new and more precise technology aimed at reducing pat-downs and unnecessary additional screenings.

The Department of Homeland Security is also in the process of adding “X” gender markers to the systems to facilitate the check-in process for gender non-conforming travelers, the White House said.

“These updates to passports and TSA policy will make it safer for transgender, nonbinary, and intersex members of our community to travel and to walk through everyday life,” said the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation known as GLAAD in a statement on Thursday. “Everyone deserves the right to have identity documents that reflect who they are, and to go through airport security without harassment and public humiliation.”

The changes to the travel experience are part of a series of new policies and actions announced by the Biden White House on Thursday that address discrimination against transgender individuals and come as Republican lawmakers push a wave of transgender and LGBTQ legislation across the country that many see as discriminatory.

Most recently, Oklahoma and Arizona became the latest states to impose transgender sports bans. Similar legislation has been introduced in more than 30 states. On Monday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the Parental Rights in Education bill into law. The legislation, which is dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by LGBTQ activists, limits what classrooms can teach about sexual orientation and gender identity. Meanwhile, various states have introduced legislation banning and/or criminalizing gender-affirming care for transgender youth.

The White House condemned anti-LGBTQ legislation and vowed to fight against it at the state level.

“The evidence is clear that these types of bills stigmatize and worsen the well-being and mental health of transgender kids, and they put loving and supportive families across the country at risk of discrimination and harassment,” the White House said. “As the President has said, these bills are government overreach at its worst, they are un-American, and they must stop.”

The White House vowed to provide additional mental health resources and investments in education for LGBTQ youth, their families and their support networks, as well as enhance federal services and benefits for the community.

“To everyone celebrating Transgender Day of Visibility, I want you to know that your President sees you. The First Lady, the Vice President, the Second Gentleman, and my entire Administration see you for who you are — made in the image of God and deserving of dignity, respect, and support,” President Joe Biden said in a statement on Thursday.

“We’re committed to advancing transgender equality in the classroom, on the playing field, at work, in our military, and our housing and healthcare systems – everywhere, simply everywhere,” the statement said.

Jeopardy champion Amy Schneider, the first openly transgender individual to compete on the show, visited the White House for the Transgender Day of Visibility to meet with second gentleman Doug Emhoff.

Schneider, who won a historic 40-game streak, told ABC News she hopes that her visit would advance visibility for the transgender community.

“I think just the same thing that I have been accomplishing, which is being a trans person out there that isn’t monstrous, that isn’t threatening, and is just a normal person like we all are. So the more people like me can be seen, the harder it is to sustain the myths that are driving a lot [of] this hate and fear,” she said.

Many civil rights groups advocating for LGBTQ rights welcomed the changes announced by the White House.

“Today’s actions prove that transgender people have an ally in the White House, and come at a much needed time when transgender people – particularly young people – are under attack in statehouses across the country,” the Human Rights Campaign said in a statement on Thursday.

The National Center for Transgender Equality said in a statement that at a time when “transgender people are being attacked and targeted by state and local politicians,” the White House’s new policies show the community “that the president of the United States has their back.”

ABC News’ Molly Nagle, Conor Finnegan, Robert Zepeda and Luke Barr contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(RIVERSIDE COUNTY, Calif.) — Top officials in California’s Riverside County said this week that they continue to be frustrated in their efforts to find out why social services systems have “harmed” some of the 13 Turpin children who were rescued in 2018 from captivity and torture at the hands of their parents.

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors had vowed to fix the system that broke down for some of the 13 Turpin siblings, but said this week that the process has been bogged down by a tangle of court-mandated confidentiality rules and other state laws that prevent information-sharing.

“We’re trying to do what we can do because we all take this very serious,” county Supervisor Karen Spiegel said Tuesday of the ongoing investigation into revelations first reported in 2021 by ABC News that many of the Turpin children were not given access to many of services and resources they were guaranteed by the system. “There are things that our hands are totally tied on.”

The 13 siblings were rescued in January 2018 from their home in Perris, California, where their parents had subjected them to brutal violence and deprived them of food, sleep, hygiene, education, and health care.

In 2021, Jennifer and Jordan Turpin spoke to ABC News’ Diane Sawyer for the first time about the challenges and hardships they and their siblings have faced in the years since sheriff’s deputies rescued them from a life of home imprisonment.

An ABC News investigation found that some of the Turpin children continue to face challenges and hardships since they were rescued, and some of them had even faced danger again.

In the wake of ABC News’ 20/20 report, Riverside County hired an outside firm to conduct an independent investigation into the county’s care of the Turpin children. The firm, headed by retired federal Judge Stephen Larson, was due to deliver its finding this week on March 31. But on Tuesday his team announced the findings would be delayed by two months as investigators continue to press for access to “vital” court and county records that underpin the Turpin cases.

“These records are vital to ensure that … the final report comprehensively addresses each area of inquiry,” Hillary Potashner, a partner at Larson LLP helping lead the investigation, told the board on Tuesday. “The process to require the records nonetheless remains slow moving.”

In the meantime, Potashner reported to the Board that the team has already reviewed more than 2,600 documents and conducted over 85 interviews — including with two of the Turpin siblings and two staffers with the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office. District Attorney Mike Hestrin went public with his concerns that the county had “failed” the Turpin siblings in the ABC broadcast.

Also interviewed by the outside investigators were 11 members of the Riverside County Public Guardian’s Office, which was responsible for helping the seven oldest Turpin children obtain critical medical, educational and life-skill resources after their parents were arrested.

Still, the supervisors expressed frustration that other aspects of state and federal law have blocked them — as well as other county departments — from sharing information with each other, which has led to what Riverside County Supervisor Kevin Jeffries said was a “disconnected — and I’m being generous — a disconnected level of service to our children.”

“It is the most frustrating experience in my time I’ve had on the Board of Supervisors,” Jeffries said, “to be told you’re responsible as an elected official to make sure all these things run smoothly and you have the right people in place, but you can’t ask any questions about how they do their job, or how effective they are, or the problems they face.”

Last week, a separate Board of Supervisors committee that was formed in the wake of the ABC News report found that “more must be done” to improve care and services to the vulnerable for which they are responsible, including the Turpin siblings.

“Although much work is already in process to continue to improve on our delivery of services to children and adults, leaders recognize that more must be done,” according to a five-page report issued Friday.

Among the changes the supervisors are eyeing, according to the report, is a change to the “legislative hurdle that prevents departments from sharing information.” The report said the committee is pushing to change state law to “allow for the disclosing of information between county adult protective agencies and county child welfare agencies.”

Additionally, the report said the county has created a new “multi-department, multi-disciplinary team” to oversee the care of the 13 Turpin children — one of the first reforms since the probe was enacted.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.