News

MADERA - A Chowchilla man has been booked into the Madera County Department of Corrections for the killing of his estranged wife.  On Tuesday around 2:30 PM Madera Police Officers responded to a call of shots fired at the Camarena Health Clinic in the 500 block of East Almond Avenue.

When police arrived at the scene they discovered a female victim who suffered multiple gunshot wounds. The victim was transported to the hospital, where she succumbed to her injuries. According to Madera Police, the suspect followed the victim to the clinic where she was shot multiple times while trying to protect her children.

MADERA - The Madera Police Department continues to ask for help from the public to locate Thaddeus Sran, a two-year-old boy who was reported missing from a residence located on the 800 block of South C street on the morning of July 15, 2020. Anyone with information that may help locate Thaddeus is urged to call 559-675-4220.

Thaddeus stands approximately two feet tall, weighs approximately 30 pounds, and was wearing a red shirt with Spiderman pants over a diaper at the time he was put to bed by his parents on the evening of July 14, 2020. He has special needs and requires medical care to include nutrients provided via a feeding tube.

DUNLAP – A Madera man lost his life early Friday mornings after suffering injuries during a fight with a Squaw Valley man. Thomas Robert Christopher (56) of Madera County was killed shortly after midnight Friday after he attempted to gain entry into a mobile home on the property.

A man dialed 911 to report he had just been involved in a fight with an intruder, later identified as Thomas Christopher. Deputies responded to a home on the 49000 block of Chuckwagon Road in Squaw Valley.

FRESNO  -   On March 12, a federal grand jury brought a five-count indictment against an assistant manager of the Clovis California Walmart, charging her with bank fraud and use of unauthorized credit cards, U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott announced.

According to court documents, Alena Nicole George, 42, obtained the personally identifiable information (PII) of individuals with names similar to her own name and obtained credit cards in those individuals’ names. For one such credit card, George made at least $100,000 in fraudulent purchases and cash advances. She was arrested today and is scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday.

MADERA – Yesterday a little old lady posted on Facebook, “I'm proud to be white” with a photo of the controversial “Confederate Flag” in the background. This is an activity that happens thousands of times every day across the county, but what sets this post off as different is this little old lady is the president of the Madera County Board of Education.

This posted graphic by board president Sara Wilkins, who serves in the Area 2 seat representing portions of Raymond-Knowles, Bass Lake, and Yosemite Unified School Districts was shared by one of Wilkins’s Facebook friends (@SierraMagyar) on Twitter. The Tweet caught the attention of news-upstart GVWire in Fresno and is causing some backlash towards the elderly woman and Madera County Superintendent of Schools Cecilia A. Massetti.

SAN FRANCISCO - The California Court of Appeal ruled that the Department of Motor Vehicles cannot suspend the licenses of drivers who fail to appear in court unless the DMV receives a notification of a willful failure to appear.  The court’s finding that the DMV’s practice was unlawful means that likely thousands of motorists have had their licenses improperly suspended. 

The plaintiffs in this statewide lawsuit—Hernandez v. California Department of Motor Vehicles—are represented by a coalition of legal aid and civil rights groups, including Bay Area Legal Aid, Western Center on Law & Poverty, The ACLU of Northern California, the USC Gould School of Law Access to Justice Practicum, The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCR), and the law firm of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP.