What’s the best parenting style? That’s the main question at the center of the new ABC show The Parent Test.
In the show, host Ali Wentworth and expert Dr. Adolph Brown explore different ways to raise kids.
“There’s helicopter parents, there’s free range, there’s high achievement. And basically these groups of parents are voting on themselves so that we can, at the end of the season, finally show you the most effective parenting style,” Wentworth tells ABC Audio.
According to Brown, a clinical psychologist and parenting expert, the most effective style is any style that “has fun, which is an authentic part of learning…firmness, which is consistency, structure, limits and boundaries…fairness, understanding that…rearing a child today is different from rearing a child in the seventies, eighties and the nineties…The last part is making sure that every single child you believe in them.”
But it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach.
“To say a best style, you would have to say that every child is the same,” says Brown. “It’s important to have the aspects of what makes a great parenting style more so than oftentimes what you use as the umbrella definition or name for the style.”
Wentworth, who’s married to Good Morning America anchor George Stephanopoulos, says the show inspired them to have some “very frank conversations” about parenting.
“I parent through humor and I think it’s something that in the future will become a parenting style. But that’s about avoiding confrontation and having them listen in a different way,” she says. “But I realized, George and I have a lot of traditional parenting in our parenting style that I never realized until we sort of went in depth with that family.”
The Parent Test airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.
(A previous version of this story published on 1/19/23 included a misspelled word in the headline. The text above has been updated to correct the error.)
Courtesy San Bernadino County Sheriff’s Department
Actor Julian Sands, the veteran British actor who’s appeared on shows including Dexter, and films like Warlock, A Room with a View and Ocean’s Thirteen, has been reported missing by his family after he went for a hike last week in California.
The search is reportedly centering on the Baldy Bowl Trail, a popular backpacking and hiking spot in Angeles National Forest.
Sands’ family reported the 65-year-old actor missing last Friday, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. Search and rescue teams have been searching for Sands with helicopters and drones. His silver Volvo was found in a parking area, covered with snow and apparently deserted since his disappearance.
On Thursday, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department issued a warning to the public, calling conditions on Mt. Baldy “adverse and extremely dangerous.”
The authorities added, “Unfortunately, during these past 4 weeks, two hikers did not survive after falling and injuring themselves.”
The Baldy Bowl Trail is considered challenging for experienced hikers even in favorable weather conditions. However, locals sounding off on the website AllTrails.com have warned others about windy, cold and slippery conditions in the past few days.
Authorities say additional searches will resume when weather conditions improve.
British film producer Cassian Elwesposted to Twitter that he was “devastated” to learn about the actor, calling Sands, “A very close family friend who was an adventurer in everything he did.” He added, “I’ve said many prayers,” for the actor.
Titanic actress Frances Fisherreplied with a prayer emoji and the hashtag, “PrayForJulian.”
SEAL Team has been renewed for its seventh season overall and third on Paramount+, the streamer announced on Wednesday. The series, per Paramount+, “follows the professional and personal lives of the most elite unit of Navy SEALs, as they train, plan and execute the most dangerous, high-stakes missions our country can ask of them.” David Boreanaz stars as team leader Jason Hayes, alongside Neil Brown Jr., AJ Buckley, Toni Trucks and Raffi Barsoumian…
Netflix has renewed its freshman unscripted series Selling the O.C. for an additional two seasons, according to Deadline. Season 1 of the Selling Sunset spinoff once again focuses on a group of realtors working at the The Oppenheim Group, a Los Angeles real estate agency run by twin brothers Jason and Brett Oppenheim, as they launch a second office in Orange County. Alex Hall, Alexandra Jarvis, Alexandra Rose, Austin Victoria, Brandi Marshall, Gio Helou, Kayla Cardona, Lauren Shortt, Polly Brindle, Sean Palmieri and Tyler Stanaland also star…
Two-time Academy Award winner Anthony Hopkins has been tapped to star in Independence Day director Roland Emmerich‘s upcoming Roman gladiator series Those About to Die, coming to Peacock, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The show, per the outlet, is described as an epic historical drama set within the “complex and corrupt world of spectacle-driven gladiatorial competition” in ancient Rome featuring “an ensemble of diverse characters across the many layers of Roman society where sports, politics and business intersect and collide.” Hopkins will play Roman Emperor Vespasian, a “battle-tested warrior and head of the Flavian bloodline” whose position is under threat by a group of patricians jockeying for his position and looking to supplant his heirs to the throne…
(SPRINGFIELD, Ill.) — Two Illinois paramedics accused of killing a patient are expected to appear in court on Thursday.
Peter J. Cadigan, 50, and Peggy Jill Finley, 45, are facing first-degree murder charges following the death of a man in their care last month. They are being held in the Sangamon County Jail on $1 million bonds. Both defendants are scheduled for a preliminary hearing before a circuit judge in the Sangamon County Courthouse in Springfield on Thursday at 9 a.m. local time, according to online records.
The paramedics were responding to a call for assistance with a man “suffering from hallucinations due to alcohol withdrawal” at a residence in Springfield on Dec. 18, 2022, just after 2 a.m. local time, according to a press release from the Springfield Police Department. The police officers on scene were wearing body cameras, and video from that night was released last week by the Sangamon County States Attorneys Office.
In the video, Finley can be heard yelling at a Black man on the floor, who identified himself as 35-year-old Earl L. Moore, Jr., to “sit up” and “quit acting stupid.” She is also heard telling Moore: “We ain’t carrying you” and “I am seriously not in the mood for this dumb [stuff],” using an expletive in her remark.
Eventually, as the video shows, the officers on scene help Moore walk outside to where an ambulance and a stretcher awaits him. Finley and Cadigan are then seen strapping the patient onto the stretcher in what police called “a prone position,” or lying facedown.
According to police, the officers attempted to provide Moore care after the paramedics “acted indifferently to the patient’s condition.”
“The officers took steps to assist the patient, to get him the care he needed, even waiting on the scene to ensure the medical personnel loaded the patient into the ambulance,” the Springfield Police Department said in its press release last week. “The officers, who are not emergency medical professionals, are not trained nor equipped to provide the necessary medical treatment or to transport patients in this type of situation.”
Moore died after he was transported to a local hospital, according to police.
ABC News has reached out to the respective attorneys for Cadigan and Finley for comment.
A representative for LifeStar Ambulance Service, Inc., which employs Finley and Cadigan, told ABC News last week “no comment,” in regards to the ongoing investigation into the incident. ABC News has since reached out again for comment.
Teresa Haley, president of the Springfield branch of the NAACP, said watching the bodycam footage reminded her of George Floyd, the unarmed 46-year-old Black man who died in handcuffs while being pinned under the knee of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on May 25, 2020.
“They literally threw his hands behind and strapped him down. He couldn’t move if he wanted to and he’s face down,” Haley said at a press conference last week. “They did not show any compassion whatsoever to this individual. He should be alive today.”
Moore’s family have retained nationally-renowned civil rights and personal injury attorneys Ben Crump and Bob Hilliard. They are expected to announce the filing of a wrongful death lawsuit against Cadigan, Finley and LifeStar during a press conference at the NAACP office in Springfield on Thursday at 12:30 p.m. local time.
(NEW YORK) — Gender-affirming hormone therapy improves the mental health of transgender adolescents and teenagers, a new study released Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine showed.
The study tracked over 300 trans and nonbinary youth across the country for two years as they took testosterone or estradiol to help their physical appearance align more closely with their gender. The participants were in various stages of puberty.
The report found that depression and anxiety symptoms decreased for trans adolescents and teenagers, and life satisfaction increased after starting and continuing gender-affirming hormone therapy.
Many studies over the past few years have reached similar conclusions, but this is one of the larger studies to date.
The findings highlight what activists say are the dangers of denying trans adolescents and teens gender-affirming medical care, which has been under attack in states across the country.
At least 11 states have introduced bills for the 2023 legislative sessions that would ban or restrict the use of hormone therapy for trans people. States like Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama, Arizona, Florida and Texas have implemented policies or laws that restrict gender-affirming care broadly for trans youth.
Some introduced bills no longer affect just minors — some states like Oklahoma introduced prospective bans into adulthood, restricting access to this care until the age of 26.
Top national medical associations such as the American Medical Association, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and American Academy of Pediatrics support gender-affirming care as safe, effective and proven to save young people’s lives.
The team behind this study is also researching the effects of puberty blockers, which have also come under scrutiny by legislators.
Puberty blockers suppress puberty for transgender children so they don’t have to experience the effects of puberty that do not align with their gender, as defined by Planned Parenthood.
That data has not yet been released. However, puberty blockers are considered to be a safe treatment for children, and have also been used for non-transgender related care.
(HONG KONG and BEIJING) — With just days to go until the Lunar New Year, throngs of bundled-up travelers shuffle their way through the freezing temperatures towards Beijing Railway Station, the distinctive mishmash of eastern and western styles built in the 1950s to triumphantly herald Mao’s “New China.”
“We wish Beijing Railway Station all the best for the Year of Rabbit!” shouts a group of youthful security guards, grinning while hoisting up red new year’s scrolls. Their crouching colleague preserving it on his phone for social media.
There is almost a sense of normalcy until a lone traveler in a full head-to-toe white hazmat suit, one that had become so ubiquitous in China’s age of COVID, scurries past, rattling the wheels of his suitcase on the plaza tiles.
They are all rushing towards long-awaited reunions.
This is the first Lunar New Year holiday, also known as the Spring Festival in China, after Beijing dropped nearly all of its zero-COVID measures and the first in over three years without any COVID-related travel restrictions. Chinese officials expect nearly 2.1 billion passenger trips to be made during the 40-day travel period around the holiday, normally regarded as the largest annual human migration in the world, doubling the trips made just a year ago when Beijing dissuaded travel to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Amongst the crowds is a Beijing-based office worker in her early 30s surnamed Liu, who is going back home to the northeastern city of Harbin for first time since the pandemic.
China’s massive wave of infections after its abandonment of zero-COVID measures appears to be ebbing just as the celebrations and reunions this coming weekend threatens to reignite a new wave.
Liu, however, is not worried. She had recovered recently from the coronavirus and her entire family and her friends back in Harbin have already been through a bout with COVID as well.
The true size and scale of China’s “Exit Wave” from nearly three years of restrictions remains unclear, as authorities abandoned the once-ubiquitous mass testing regime almost overnight. Anecdotally, infections seemed to have affected everyone, everywhere all at once.
Scenes of long lines outside Beijing crematoriums and bodies having to be placed on the floor of hospital morgues because of full freezers, repeated themselves in major cities across the country in videos circulated on social media, undercutting China’s official toll of 37 COVID-related deaths for much of December.
Space technology firm Maxar released satellite images of increased traffic outside funeral homes across China. One image of a funeral home in eastern city of Huzhou showed a significantly packed parking lot compared to images from a year earlier. When reached by ABC News, a worker there was dismissive, saying the situation “was not the same as been reported by media” before promptly hanging up.
A study released by Peking University’s National School of Development last week estimated that up to 900 million or some 64% of the entire population had been affected by COVID-19 by Jan. 11. The study used data extrapolated from online search queries across the country because of the lack of official figures. Articles referencing the study were promptly censored.
In the following days, after weeks of calls for transparency domestically and internationally over China’s official numbers, including from World Health Organization, Chinese health officials finally announced that there were nearly 60,000 COVID-19 related deaths at government health facilities in the period since restrictions were relaxed. The majority of deaths were seniors over 65 with underlying diseases, officials said. China had only recorded 5,273 official deaths during most of the pandemic.
Jiao Yahui, director of medical affairs at China’s National Health Commission said, “The number of fever clinic visitors is generally on a downward trend after peaking, both in cities and rural areas.”
According to officials, emergency patients nationwide peaked at 1.526 million on Jan. 2 and then continued to decline. By Jan. 12, they were down 28.4% from the peak.
Two packed hospitals in Central Beijing visited by ABC News during the height of the wave in December were now relatively quiet this week. The inundated fever clinics at Chaoyang Hospital from mid-December now only had less than a handful of waiting patients. At the China-Japan Friendship Hospital, patients lining up at the respiratory medicine clinic had visibly halved. The constant stream of ambulances to the hospital was noticeably absent and the non-emergency medicine clinics of the hospital were bustling again.
Beijing’s Dongjiao crematorium told ABC News that they were still operating around the clock but demand was less than what they were seeing in December when hearses lined for hours outside.
In the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing, a suburban funeral cerement store in the Shapingba district told ABC News their business was back to normal. They saw a spike in sales beginning on Dec. 5, even before the zero-COVID U-turn on Dec. 7. They reached their peak sales just few days later on Dec. 10, meaning the virus was likely spreading widely weeks before authorities abandoned their harsh COVID restrictions. At their peak, the store was selling 20 sets of burial garments a day when they would normally only sell four sets.
ABC News reached a family in Chongqing that lost a relative in recent days. They said that the demand at funeral homes appears to have eased and they were able to secure a memorial hall without waiting, though prices remained elevated.
The abrupt shift away from the government’s signature zero-COVID strategy which was trumpeted as late as October by Chinese President Xi Jinping as an “all-out people’s war” that “protected the people’s health and safety” surprised many around the world and within China.
On Tuesday, figures released China’s National Bureau of Statistics, showed that China’s economy was buckling under the zero-COVID restrictions, missing Beijing’s target of 5.5% annual growth, collapsing to only 3% from 8.4% in 2021, the slowest since the 1970s apart from the first year of the pandemic.
“Data still confirms a depressing end to a challenging year for the Chinese economy,” said Aidan Yao, Senior Economist at AXA Investment Managers.
Yao, however, believes the Chinese economy bottomed out in December and figures even reflected the beginning of a recovery in the later part of the month as the COVID wave moved past its peak.
“December has likely marked the darkest before the dawn for the Chinese economy. As COVID comes and goes at an extremely fast speed, normalcy is being restored in cities that have passed the peak of infections,” said Yao. “Given the current run rate, it is likely that the majority of the country would pass the peak wave by late-January or early-February, paving the way for a sustained and broad-based recovery thereafter.”
However, Yao warned, “the spread of the virus in rural China is of a particular concern, given the limited medical infrastructure in many in-land provinces.”
“If migrant workers cannot return to cities on time after the Lunar New Year as they have to look after the sick” it would present an added challenge for the economy, he said.
Back outside the Beijing Railway Station, a 26-year old migrant construction worker surnamed Wang is making his way slowly to back home to the city of Yinchuan in the northwestern Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. It’s also his first trip home in three years.
Forced to transit in Beijing because all direct trains from Shanghai, where he works, were sold out because of this year’s demand, Wang admits he’s a little apprehensive of a new wave hitting his hometown. He remains one of the few he knows who still hasn’t been infected.
(PHILADELPHIA) — Missing mom Jennifer Brown has been found dead in Royersford, Pennsylvania, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele announced.
Investigators responded to an industrial complex on Wednesday, Philadelphia ABC affiliate WPVI-TV reported. It was unclear what led authorities to the site where they found the body.
Brown, 43, of Limerick Township, was last seen at 2 p.m. on Jan. 3 by a “friend and business associate,” according to the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office. Authorities did not immediately release additional information or her cause of death.
Brown was scheduled to pick up her son from the bus stop the afternoon of Jan. 4 “but did not show up,” the district attorney’s office has said in a statement.
“Her vehicle was parked outside of her home, and her car keys, wallet, purse and work cellphone were found inside,” the district attorney’s office said.
Brown’s personal cellphone, which was not found, has been silent since the morning of Jan. 4, authorities said.
“It’s literally like we’re living in a movie that we watch on TV, it’s so surreal and unbelievable,” Tiffany Barron, a spokesperson for the family, previously told WPVI. “Jennifer would never ever just disappear, she would never abandon her son.”
(ATLANTA) — An officer is in the hospital and the man who shot him has been killed following a confrontation Wednesday in a wooded area near where a police training center is set to be built, police said.
The incident occurred at approximately 9 a.m. in a wooded area just outside of Atlanta, Georgia, at the site of a proposed law enforcement training center.
“As law enforcement was moving through the property, officers located a man inside a tent in the woods,” the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) said in a statement following the incident. “Officers gave verbal commands to the man who did not comply and shot a Georgia State Patrol Trooper.”
Police returned fire on the man — who died on scene — and the injured Georgia State Patrol Trooper who was hit in the shooting was evacuated to a safe area before being taken to hospital where he underwent surgery for injuries suffered during the incident.
Activists who are protesting the 85 acre and $90 million construction project — nicknamed “Cop City” — have been camping out on the site for months in an attempt to cease progress on the development.
In December, five people were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism and other charges following a joint operation at the planned construction site.
Authorities said there are a litany of crimes being committed at the protest site following the five arrests last month.
“Some of the criminal activities include carjacking, various crimes against persons, destruction of property, arson, and attacks against public safety officials,” said the GBI. “Law enforcement continues to address the criminal acts committed by the individuals that continue to occupy the area of the proposed training site.”
The GBI even said that protesters threw rocks at police cars and attacked EMTs outside nearby fire stations with rocks and bottles in December.
A handgun and shell casings were located at the scene of the latest incident on Wednesday and the investigation into what happened is still active and ongoing, said the GBI.
Several other people were arrested and taken to the DeKalb County Jail after Wednesday’s shootout though the GBI did not confirm how many were taken into custody or confirm their identities. Charges against the individuals are now pending and the GBI said updates will be provided at a later time.
Meanwhile, the identity of the protester who was shot and killed by police is currently pending while his next of kin is notified.
A tweet published by the “Defend the Atlanta Forest” movement blamed the police for the shooting, saying “police killed a forest defender today, someone who loved the forest, someone who fought to protect the earth & its inhabitants.”
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp also acknowledged the shooting in a tweet and said that his “thoughts remain with [the injured trooper] and his family, our resolve also remains steadfast and strong to see criminals brought to justice.”
Protesters say that, if constructed as planned, the police training center will only further militarize law enforcement and that the conflict between the protesters and authorities has been escalating in recent months.
“What is taking place is a classic example of tyrannical government overreach,” activists said in a statement published by the Atlanta Community Press Collective. “The public has a right to defend its interests. We are advocates of a free and peaceful society built on cooperation and mutual understanding. The government is escalating this situation pointlessly.”
(WASHINGTON) — Sometime Thursday, the United States is expected to reach its borrowing limit, teeing up a congressional showdown later this year with potentially devastating economic consequences.
The federal government can pay most but not all of its bills with the tax and other revenue it takes in, and it must borrow the rest of the money. But Congress enforces a limit on how much debt the government can incur and when that limit — currently about $31.4 trillion — is reached, lawmakers must increase it before the government can borrow more funds.
Republicans in the House say they will insist on deep spending cuts in exchange for their cooperation in again raising the debt ceiling. But Democrats, led by the Biden administration, want a so-called clean hike without concessions on spending and they are publicly signaling they won’t negotiate on the matter.
Thursday’s deadline isn’t yet an economic calamity. But it does mean that the Treasury is going to begin stretching its funds by implementing what Secretary Janet Yellen last week called “extraordinary measures” to keep the federal government fully funded and to avoid a default on its debts.
A full default has never happened — the Congressional Research Service cited a “mini-default” in 1979 that was linked to delayed payments to some investors — but if one did occur, it would likely downgrade the nation’s credit rating, damage its ability to borrow and cause markets around the globe to roil.
Treasury’s newly enacted measures, like cutting contributions to employees’ retirement plans, are expected to stave off bigger problems through sometime this summer, according to a letter Yellen sent to congressional leaders on Friday, giving Congress just a few months to act.
“The use of extraordinary measures enables the government to meet its obligations for only a limited amount of time,” Yellen wrote in her letter. “It is therefore critical that Congress act in a timely manner to increase or suspend the debt limit. Failure to meet the government’s obligations would cause irreparable harm to the U.S. economy, the livelihoods of all Americans, and the global financial stability.”
With the clock ticking on the divided Congress, political brinkmanship on raising the federal debt limit — a move that has come to be seen as politically poisonous in recent years, after fiscal fights under President Barack Obama — is already reaching an all-time high.
Republicans now hold the gavel in the House, and they have said they’ll look to extract major concessions from Democrats in exchange for their necessary cooperation to raise the federal cap. Newly minted Speaker Kevin McCarthy holds the reins on negotiations in the chamber.
To secure the speakership, McCarthy made major promises to the conservative wing of his conference, including seeking to reduce federal spending to fiscal year 2022 levels. The Republicans who supported McCarthy will expect him to use the debt limit as leverage for these cuts.
McCarthy said he wants to negotiate directly with President Joe Biden.
“I had a very good conversation with the president when he called me, and I told him I’d like to sit down with him early and work through these challenges,” McCarthy said during a press conference last week. “We don’t want to put any fiscal problems on our economy and we won’t. But fiscal problems would be continuing to do business as usual.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has side-stepped questions on whether the two men will meet.
“Congress is going to need to address the debt without conditions. And it’s just that simple. There should be no hostage-taking here. There should be no attempts to exploit the debt ceiling or to leverage it,” she said during a press briefing on Tuesday.
“As you’ve heard us say before, we will not be doing any negotiation over the debt ceiling,” she said last week. “It’s not and should not be a political football. … And that’s how we see this process moving forward.”
On Wednesday, Jean-Pierre told reporters that the White House has been “reaching out to all members from both sides of the aisle” but said again that the administration didn’t want to compromise on the debt ceiling. She said both parties have repeatedly voted to raise the limit in the past, including under President Donald Trump.
“It is essential for Congress to recognize that dealing with the debt ceiling is their constitutional responsibility. This is an easy one. This is something that should be happening without conditions,” she said.
While the debt limit fight will likely be heightened in the House, Senate Republicans have a bargaining chip of their own: They remain the minority party in the chamber but at least 60 votes are needed to enact any legislation raising the ceiling.
The last time the limit had to be raised, in late 2021, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell insisted Democrats increase it on their own. McConnell cut a deal with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer which saw a group of Senate Republicans approve a one-time change to the chamber rules, allowing that debt hike to occur with just 50 votes — all from Democrats.
But that was before Senate Democrats passed Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act a few months later without any Republican support. This time, McConnell might be less inclined to bargain.
Some Senate Democrats wanted to raise the debt limit before House Republicans took control of the lower chamber in January. But they ran out of time to do it during the lame duck session at the end of the last Congress.
Schumer said on CNN last week that he doesn’t regret leaving the debt limit to this term.
“It should be done in a bipartisan way. It always has been,” he said.
He pointed to the 2021 deal he struck with McConnell.
“I think Republicans learned their lesson,” he said. “They suffered, we won the election after that [the 2012 midterms], and they will hopefully come and work with us and get this done in a bipartisan way. That’s what we look to do, no brinkmanship.”
While the Biden administration prepares to go toe-to-toe with Republicans, some members of the House GOP conference are crafting a plan to address what might happen if they and Democrats don’t reach a deal to lift the borrowing limit.
The Republican proposal, if it becomes law, would require the Biden administration to prioritize paying back certain debts over others. News of the deal was first reported by The Washington Post.
Sources familiar with the ongoing talks said McCarthy, R-Calif., committed to conservatives that the House would pass the deal and send it to the Senate in the first quarter of 2023 as part of his larger agreement to secure votes to become speaker.
A spokesperson for McCarthy did not respond to calls and messages seeking comment.
Lauren Fine, a spokesperson for Majority Leader Steve Scalise, told ABC News that discussions around the plan “are ongoing with the conference, and the Leader remains a strong proponent of this legislation.”
Even if this legislation passes the House, it almost certainly will not be taken up by Schumer in the Senate.
The Treasury has previously pushed back on the feasibility that it could prioritize certain bills over others, citing legal and logistical issues.
(BOSTON) — Mohammed Chowdhury’s alleged plan to hire contract killers to murder his wife and her boyfriend was finally coming into place on Tuesday, according to federal prosecutors.
Authorities said that Chowdhury, 46, had shared their work and home locations, photos and work schedules with contract killers, along with clear instructions to kill them and ensure the evidence did not link back to him. His last step was to meet with the contract killers to pay a $500 downpayment, officials said.
However, rather than securing the down payment, the contract killers had been federal agents all along and Chowdhury left their meeting in handcuffs, officials said.
The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts charged Chowdhury with one count of murder-for-hire on Tuesday. The arrest occurred the same day another Massachusetts man, Brian Walshe, was charged with the murder of his wife, Anne Walshe, who had been missing since the start of the new year.
According to a press release from the United States Attorney’s Office, Chowdhury began soliciting someone to murder his wife around November 2022. When the original individual hired to conduct the murder took Chowdhury’s money but did not follow through with the crime, Chowdhury allegedly asked another person to complete the murder.
“…Chowdhury subsequently told the individual that he needed the murder done as soon as possible and that he would get the money to do so, even robbing a store if necessary to obtain the funds,” the press release noted.
That individual provided Chowdhury’s phone number to law enforcement, the release said.
Over the last two months, undercover agents posing as contract killers meet with Chowdhury to plan the murder. The release noted that Chowdhury was explicitly interested in covering up the murder and ensuring the crime did not link to him.
“So how we gonna disappear his, uh, body?” he asked, according to the release. “No evidence. No evidence. No evidence from like, you know, that, uh, I did something, you know?”
Chowdhury allegedly explained to the undercover agents that his wife did not allow him to see their children and left him for her boyfriend, who Chowdhury also wanted to be killed. The release noted that his wife had an “abuse protection order” in place which prevented him from contacting her, which Chowdhury was charged with violating in Oct. 2019.
To facilitate the murder, Chowdhury provided photos of his wife and her boyfriend, their work schedules, and the location of their work and home, prosecutors said.
Chowdhury allegedly agreed to pay $8,000 for both murders, with a down payment of $500, according to the release.
If found guilty, Chowdhury faces up to ten years in prison.
